“Maybe the first model is still a collectible for the Jay Leno wannabe set, and maybe the sellers don’t get what they are asking, but compared to the Nissan Leafs, the Teslas are holding their value. “
Rarity. They aren’t mass market cars. They were something special in their day. They are also much more attractive than the mass market version. You could think back to the Packard 120, a mass market version of the custom made Packards that preceded it. The 120 was a high volume seller, but destroyed Packard’s Rolls Royce image. It took Packard about 20 years to die from that point. I suspect it will take Tesla a lot less time as the cycles for everything today are compressed by devalued currency, regulations and a much more competitive marketplace. In the fifties the resale value of the “senior” Packards stayed comparatively high. The mass market cars, not so much.
Tesla’s market has, thus far, been liberals who have the money to be several steps above the Volt liberal. To make a success of the new venture Tesla is diluting its brand image to attract those who would have bought a Volt. GM has already announced it will discontinue the Volt. At times, they had months of unsold inventory. Here is an article from USA today on unsold inventory.
The article points out that Tesla is the exception. We are going into probably one of the largest year-end vehicle gluts in history. (From an article last month, unsold inventory was; GM 200 days, Chrysler 150 days and Ford 100 days. These were smaller cars, like the new Tesla. Trucks and SUV’s are doing great.) The same thing happened in the 1958 recession where Ford had introduced the new marque; Edsel. Three years later Edsel was out of business. But, who did benefit from the 1958 recession? The sales of AMC’s Rambler went up substantially. It was a temporary success. The article points out the Tesla’s orders have gone up. But they are entering the market at an exceptionally difficult time for a new manufacturer to crank out a new model. Let there be just a few negative articles, say vehicle fires or people who bought the car and can’t find a place to charge it, and they will be in serious trouble.
Electric cars do not yet make sense for most drivers. People tend to figure out what is best for them and I suspect there are not enough Volt liberals to make Tesla a long term success. As an aside, I don know a conservative who owns a Volt. He said, “they practically gave it to me.”
I know one liberal with an electric car who parks there, but surprisingly he only charges at home. He's somewhat of a rarity, a non-hypocrite. The rest are in it for the subsidies and the virtue of ignoring the environment-destroying lithium and rare earth mining practices. Tesla in particular is very damaging to the environment preferring zero to 60 in 2.3 seconds than practical functionality.