SHOCK AND AWE ARE TEMPORARY
It’s the oldest trick in the book: use a surprise announcement to deflect a negative, persistent story. And no one is more familiar recently with a negative, persistent story than Tesla boss Elon Musk. His company’s credibility has been tested lately after he made very bold claims for Model 3 production that, so far, Tesla has failed miserably to achieve.
To repeat a statistic from our main story (left): just 222 Model 3s were delivered in the third quarter of 2017 when Musk had claimed 1500 would be. So what do you do when the world, including the stock market on which your company floats, is seriously questioning your ability to deliver?
You reveal not one but two hugely impressive vehicles. The Tesla Semi lorry alone is noteworthy. It might not have the looks of a roadster, but it does reportedly achieve 0-60mph in a scant 5sec.
The Semi launch had been planned for some time – albeit delayed, with Musk saying last month that he was “diverting resources to fix Model 3 bottlenecks” – but the new Tesla Roadster was a monumental surprise for most of the world.
And, of course, Musk doesn’t do things by halves. The Roadster will have a 200kwh battery, double that of its current line-up’s biggest, meaning a range of 620 miles. It accelerates from 0-60mph in an astounding 1.9sec. And it looks stunning.
So did Musk always plan to reveal the Roadster alongside the Semi, or was it the PR coup of the year to distract from everything that’s going wrong at Tesla? For now, we don’t know. It seems odd to lessen the effect of either vehicle by revealing them both at once. True, they are for different buyers, but there are plenty of outlets (such as Autocar) that cover both. All of which means that both the Semi and the Roadster get slightly less coverage.
Musk doesn’t – and probably shouldn’t – care. In the immediate aftermath of the launch, the internet was flooded with Tesla and the Roadster’s wow factor.
But once the dust settles, Musk’s shareholders will still be watching for this: that Musk can deliver all the Model 3s he promised. It is this feat that will ensure the company longevity far beyond a pretty sports car.