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This Is What Investors Should Wish to Hear from Tesla During 'Tesla Investor Day'

It is impossible to escape the hype around Tesla Investor Day. Despite all other days with promises that did not materialize, people still have the strange habit of expecting more pledges from the company and its celebrity CEO. They even know what to expect: a third-generation platform and a $25,000 Tesla are things that will disappoint if they fail to appear, but investors should wish for other things. Here’s a list.
What promises will Elon Musk make in this new Tesla Investor Day? These are the ones investors should demand 35 photos
Photo: Tesla/edited by autoevolution
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The first thing people that buy Tesla shares should crave is to learn when they will receive dividends from the EV maker. After all, Tesla claims to be the most profitable car company in the world, earning more than $9,000 per car it sells on average. With that load of cash, part of it could have gone to shareholders long ago. Yet, the company has never paid them a dime: all it did was increase share prices by pledging to have 1 million robotaxis on the streets by 2020.

Speaking of robotaxis, the second news investors should get from Tesla is how it will turn its older vehicles into autonomous cars when it is migrating to HW4.0. This new computer will not fit EVs that were not conceived to use it in the first place, which buries the robotaxi promise once and for all – as if missing the deadline was not enough to reach that point.

Tesla Service Centers
Photo: Tesla
If I had money on Tesla, I’d also want to learn when Navigate on Autopilot and Full Self-Driving will cease to use the beta software excuse to offer production versions. All these folks have nowadays is a recall that they refuse to consider as such because Tesla promised an over-the-air (OTA) update would solve it – as if a software problem, especially one that involves safety, could be solved in any other way.

The fourth promise investors should demand from Tesla is a quality control plan that stops its customers from having to follow a delivery inspection so that they can refuse the defective vehicles the company frequently delivers them. If that was just an aesthetical problem, some could argue that this is not so urgent, but it often involves safety matters. The cars losing their steering wheels are the most recent example, but you also have glass roofs that fly off, missing bolts in the suspension, computers that control all functions in the vehicles failing… Tesla has enough on its plate to fix.

Tesla Model Y lost its steering wheel a while after delivery
Photo: prerak/Twitter
Add to this list a clear plan to expand its lineup to more than the four vehicles it currently sells. An affordable EV would be welcome, but it does not solve the problem. In fact, it makes some of Tesla’s worst problems even more concerning – I’ll get there in a bit. What about the Roadster and the people that have paid for it in full? What about the Cybertruck and the thousands of clients with reservations for it? Even if they were sold tomorrow, that would not protect Tesla from the competitors that are occupying all market segments before the EV maker is able to make a single move. Any investor should fear the company’s indolence in that regard.

The main problem the hypothetical affordable Tesla might cause is hurting service quality even more than it currently is. The EV maker launched the Model 3 without considering the impact the less expensive vehicle would have on its Service Centers. Most of them are crowded, and the waiting lines for an appointment are absurd. Some owners are waiting weeks or even months for a solution. Sometimes, the lack of components is to blame, but it does not exclude how busy Tesla Service Centers are now. Just imagine what a genuinely affordable car – delivered in much higher volumes than any other Tesla product – should provoke.

Tesla Service Centers
Photo: Tesla
The seventh issue Tesla should address in this new event is how it plans to deal with its employees. There are several accusations of racism, sexual harassment, illegal blocking of unionizing efforts, forcing employees to go to arbitration, and other complaints. Anyone worried about “the mission” should worry about how the humans carrying it out are being treated before these shiny EVs are irrevocably linked to the nasty situations I described above.

Is it enough? Not even close. Apart from the people, a company that wants to save the world one EV at a time should also protect the environment. And it doesn’t. Tesla factories are frequently involved with environmental problems, such as the leak of poisonous substances and several emission violations due to its paint shops in Fremont. Above all, the company makes vehicles that are difficult or so expensive to repair that they turn into junkyard material without much effort. Impeccable repairability helps save resources and keeps a clean car working for more time. How is Tesla planning to solve this? If I were a stockholder, I would want to know.

I’ve written this text in a rush – writing down only what came from the top of my head – in order to publish it before we learn what Tesla prepared for its new event. Whatever promises it holds, whatever vision it presents, it’s time investors had a clearer perspective of how the company is planning for the future and how it is solving all the problems it currently has. Anyone apprehensive about its long-term viability and not only with quickly becoming a millionaire by buying shares that will keep appreciating without clear causes should seize these occasions to ask serious questions. They should have asked them long ago.
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About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
Gustavo Henrique Ruffo profile photo

Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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