Tesla CEO Elon Musk was granted his $878-billion compensation plan on Thursday night, but the headlines don’t really expound on the complexity of that plan. Like I said on Friday, the company won’t just hand Musk all of that money—it’ll come in the form of Tesla stock. More importantly, those stocks will only be granted to Musk if he completes a stringent set of near-impossible tasks, including multiplying the value of the company by eight times.
Considering Tesla’s aging lineup and a downturn in demand for the brand’s EVs in big markets like the U.S., Europe, and China, I really don’t see Elon hitting those goals. Unsurprisingly, the company is doing everything it can to revitalize sales. It just revealed cheaper versions of the Model 3 and the Model Y, and reportedly plans to launch its Cybercab next year. Now, it’s offering rentals for as cheap as $60 a day.
There’s more drama elsewhere in the car universe. CarMax, the nationwide used dealership chain famous for its no-haggle pricing model, is not doing well. The company missed earnings back in September thanks to lower-than-expected sales, leading the CEO to resign. Now, at least one analyst believes the company is “officially broken.”
What else? Not to get too Tesla-heavy, but sales for the company just hit a three-year low in China due to increasing pressure from domestic competition. Then there’s Rivian’s gigantic new pay package for its CEO, RJ Scaringe—a package that models itself after Musk’s awards (but on a much smaller scale).
Rent A Tesla For Three Days, Get A Discount To Buy One
I’m a firm believer that the best way to sell someone on a product is to have them experience that product themselves. There’s only so much that reviews and specs can convey—you can’t truly know how something feels unless you encounter that feeling firsthand.
The marketing team at Tesla seems to understand this, so it’s offering prospective buyers the chance to rent a car from its lineup any time between now and the end of the year. Here are some of the terms, straight from the rental website:
The rental duration is a minimum of three and a maximum of seven days, booked through the official Rental System. Daily rates vary by model and begin at $60 per day. While mileage is unlimited, the vehicle is prohibited from being taken out of state. A purchase incentive of up to $250 may be offered, with the final amount contingent on the rental duration. $30 fee will be applied if the vehicle is returned with less than 50% charge.
To me, this feels more like an extended test drive, since there’s a minimum and maximum timeframe you’re allowed to keep the car. The reason you can’t go out of state is that this rental program is only going on out of two stores right now, both in Southern California.
That $60 rate applies only to the Model 3 and the Model Y, according to InsideEVs. If you want to try out a Cybertruck, it’ll be $75 a day. If you’d rather get some seat time behind the wheel of the ancient Model S or Model X, the price is $90 a day. Sadly, only the more expensive Premium trims are available for rental, which means those new base Standard trims, as well as the sportier Performance or Plaid models, aren’t on the docket.
If you’re among the Autopian readers in the market for a new Tesla, these rentals will give you a chance to experience unlimited free charging through the company’s Supercharger network, along with “Full Self-Driving,” which Tesla points out requires “active driver supervision” and does “not make the vehicle autonomous.”
It’s worth noting Tesla has always offered normal, 30-minute test drives out of its company-owned stores, and earlier this year, began offering 48-hour test drives to potential customers. So to me this feels more less like a revolutionary sales tactic and more like a year-end push to drive up sales volume.
It seems to me that, if you need as cheap a rental as possible in Southern California, you’re probably better off sticking with a rental company. Unlike Tesla’s setup, which seems to require you to go to a Tesla location for pickup and dropoff, places like Hertz and Sixt have airport pickups, and at least the cheapest cars are about $15-$20 cheaper per day for a comparable gas-powered car, according to each company’s respective website.
[Ed Note: I’m a fan of Tesla vehicles/engineering (even if they are a bit dated). But this does seem like a tough sell given restrictions/cost. -DT].
Things Aren’t Looking Great At CarMax
Most people know CarMax from its no-haggle pricing model, but a lot of enthusiasts became familiar with the national dealership chain thanks to a product offered by the brand called MaxCare. This was a sort of bumper-to-bumper warranty you could purchase alongside a car sold by CarMax, which YouTuber and Cars & Bids founder Doug DeMuro famously exploited to get a bunch of expensive stuff fixed cheaply on an old Range Rover.
That saga happened a decade ago, but the CarMax marketing people will be happy to know it still lives rent-free in my head (I should’ve bought a cheap BMW M car from them when I had the chance). What they probably aren’t happy about is the current state of affairs within the company, which isn’t great, per Automotive News.
CarMax’s stock is down a colossal 62% this year, in large part due to an earnings report in September that showed results well below analysts’ expectations and CEO Bill Nash’s resignation. While consumer sentiment isn’t exactly great right now, the company’s closest competitor, Carvana, is doing well, with shares rising 47% over the same period. So what’s going on?
Back when those earnings were released, company leadership blamed tariffs for the sales slip earlier in the year, according to Autonews. But it seems CarMax’s problems are a bit more focused. The latest from Automotive News:
CarMax is contending with company-specific problems, analysts said. CarMax unexpectedly announced that CEO Bill Nash would be stepping down in December.
Truist’s Scot Ciccarelli said the company was “facing multiple strategic challenges,” and that the new management team will need to reassess the relevance of its business model in the current environment.
CarMax is “officially broken,” said Mizuho Securities analyst David Bellinger. “We see much of what has gone astray for the business as related to the strategic direction of the team.”
The company’s interim chair, Tom Folliard, expounded on the situation in a statement released last week, where board member David McCreight was named interim president and CEO:
“CarMax is the nation’s largest used car retailer because we have built a business that customers trust. We make car buying and selling simple, transparent, and personalized, backed by a beloved brand, unmatched physical and digital infrastructure and an award-winning culture that affirm the potential of this business. However, our recent results do not reflect that potential and change is needed,” said Mr. Folliard. “The Board has decided that more direct involvement from David and me will help strengthen the business in this transitional period. During this time, we are focused on driving sales, enhancing profitability and reducing cost.”
If I know anything about corporate business cycles, CarMax’s troubles are nothing a few hundred layoffs labeled as a “strategic restructuring” won’t fix, surely. But I hope not.
Tesla Is Suffering In China
I feel like I yap about Tesla a lot, but as the most valuable car company on the planet, it’s hard not to. Especially when things aren’t going well at the company. Sales volume is down for the brand across the planet year over year, but things are particularly bad in China, where the brand’s market share is shrinking rapidly. From Reuters:
Sales fell 35.8% from a year earlier, down from September’s figure of 71,525 when Tesla began deliveries of the Model Y L, a longer-wheelbase and six-seat version of its best-selling Model Y SUV until now only available in China.
[…]
Tesla’s share of China’s EV market shrank to just 3.2% in October, down sharply from 8.7% the previous month and its lowest in more than three years.
Tesla’s poor performance in the world’s largest auto market follows dismal sales last month in European countries such as Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and the Nordics, in the latest sign that it continues to struggle on the continent.
Like I mentioned earlier, Tesla’s lineup is old as hell, which isn’t exactly helping the brand’s appeal. But unlike in the U.S., it also faces stiff competition from domestic Chinese brands like Xiaomi and BYD, which offer newer, better products for less money. While Tesla sales are down in the dumps, Xiaomi posted record numbers in October, according to Reuters, despite overall car sales in China falling last month due to disappearing government subsidies.
Another EV Carmaker CEO Gets a Multi-Billion-Dollar Compensation Plan
Rivian, the electric car startup made up of several ex-Tesla employees, has a habit of copying Tesla when it comes to things like launching a self-driving system or its own charging network. Now, it’s playing the mimic game with its CEO’s pay (albeit on a much smaller scale). The company has granted founder and CEO RJ Scaringe a new pay package that could be worth as much as $4.6 billion, though, like Musk’s package, it requires Scaringe to accomplish some pretty big feats.
From Reuters:
The overhaul highlights Rivian’s push to retain its founder and keep him focused on growth and profitability as the automaker, known for its R1S SUVs and R1T pickups, gears up to launch next year its smaller, more affordable R2 SUV that will compete with Tesla’s best-selling Model Y crossover.
The move comes a day after Tesla shareholders approved a record $1 trillion pay package for CEO Elon Musk.
Under the new plan, Scaringe is receiving options to purchase up to 36.5 million shares of Rivian’s Class A stock, about 16 million more than his previous grant, at an exercise price of $15.22 apiece, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The award will vest only if Rivian achieves reduced stock-price milestones ranging from $40 to $140 a share over 10 years, as well as new operating income and cash flow targets over the next seven years.
Rivian’s stock is sitting at $15.08 as of this writing, so Scaringe has a long way to go if he wants all that compensation. Remember, Tesla is currently net profitable, while Rivian is not (and never has been). It’s a tall mountain to climb.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I’m not saying the CEOs of these EV companies—who are already multi-billionaires—are greedy, but these pay scale numbers are unfathomably high. So it has me thinking about this PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake song, “Greedy,” from their album $ome $exy $ongs 4 U. Drake is not singing about money here, to be clear. It’s just the title of the song where I draw the connection.
The Big Question
The Tesla rental rate starts at $60 a day, which is decent for a luxury car, and free Supercharging and no mileage limit are both nice. But if you really have to go out of your way to pick it up from the facility, that’s tough. To me, especially with all the restrictions, it seems like a tough sell, and also like you’re paying for essentially an extended test drive, but tell me what you think. What are your thoughts on this new Tesla rental program?
Top image graphic: Tesla
CarMax has always been a weird deal to me. It seems the entire premise of CarMax is “pay us 3k more than the car is worth and we won’t screw you!” Which like… seems a little brazen to me. Seriously, CarMax has some lightly used Elantras for literally the same price as a brand new one.
You have to really be bringing a seriously impressive level of customer service and non-fuckery to make that pricing worthwhile.
From what I hear about the Hyundai dealer experience…
Haha, fair, but like, in this particular case you’re walking in there asking to pay full-price. If you can manage to avoid the worst of their dealers (the one I took an example from is pretty solid) most would do fine.
I will admit, where CarMax does sell vehicles in some segments where the deals are at least somewhat competitive. I see some reasonable Lexus ES listed for instance. But their pricing for used economy cars seem insane to me.
I think a lot of folks are intimidated by dealerships, with their reputation for tacking on fees and taking advantage of people who aren’t experienced with the process. CarMax sells you the car for what they have it listed for. No surprises, no haggling. I think that’s worth it for a lot of people.
That, and it’s one single location where you can test drive multiple cars from different manufacturers. And they’ll send a car from another store to your location should you find one at another CarMax.
I think the test drive location concept does bring some value. And for someone that is very focused on buying a used ____, it might make sense. And good experiences with a dealer spread by word of mouth; there’s value in building trust like that.
Some of their pricing just seems a little beyond what that sort of trust can be valued at, in my opinion anyway. There’s a threshold where once crossed, you might be getting screw just as hard by the no haggle price as the guy trying to sell you TruCoat.
Exactly this for test drives.
I did this myself. The family wanted a van. My wife and i could spend 2 hours at carmax and drive the Pacifica, Odyssey, Sienna, and whatever the Kia used to be called all in one place and the sales guy dngaf if we actually bought from him or not AND get the guaranteed trade in value on our current familymobile that i could use as leverage anywhere else, or we could drive around all day (probably multiple days because my wife would have been burned out after like 2 stops) going from dealership to dealership having the same song and dance over and over until we had test driven all the things.
Instead i had all the info i needed after 2 hours.
… and then didnt give carmax any of my money…
I am glad carmax exists and is close to me so i could do this, but i still dont want to pay their insane markup.
So as Best Buy’s nickname is “Amazon’s Showroom”, CarMax should be known as “Carvana’s Showroom”.
Agree. I’m a grown person who has purchased maybe two dozen cars over the years, I have excellent credit, and I make an effort to look presentable when I go out to conduct business. I have been treated respectfully at only one dealership and that was nearly thirty years ago. Every other dealership visit, whether Ford, Toyota, Mercedes, BMW, upmarket or mid market, has turned into a stressful quagmire perpetuated ON PURPOSE by the management and personnel. I’ve been told a vehicle my wife was interested in has a $20K added mark-up because it’s the only one available in the country and also Britney Spears wants it and if I don’t buy it now, Britney’s going to get it! I left the dealership, called a car broker, and got the exact car delivered to my house the very next day for $500 over invoice. I mean, it’s such a shitty experience that it’s not a stretch to imagine paying more to avoid it.
What are my thoughts on the Tesla rental?
I’m literally across the country from the available rental locations, and in general dislike supporting people who have contributed to wrecking my country.
I’m more concerned with how many bags I have available for my dog’s twice daily bathroom walks.
You want to stop the bleeding, at least in the US and the EU? Get rid of the guy who appears to have Nazi tendencies. Europe has already been through this. Millions dead.
I really hope that
Steve-OScaringe can pull it off. I like Rivian and I want them to succeed, even if I’m not their target market.I wasn’t either, until I saw the first R3 photos. My fear is that the company will disappear before it is released, or that it will take so long that I will have become bored by the design by then.
Some day Tesla may be referenced in business classes as an example of completely sqaundering the first mover advantage.
So it will replace Blackberry?
Maybe!
But on a soooo much bigger scale!
I haven’t read the details, but I gather there’s text in Elon’s new pay package that he can STILL receive the $$$$$ even if he doesn’t meet all the specified goals (million robots, etc…) IF the board or shareholders (I forgot which, sorry) say that it’s OK.
I gather 75% of voters approved this 878 billion dollar behemoth, and I assume the board is somewhat beholden to him too, so I won’t be surprised if he falls far short of some of the goals and still gets to extract hundreds of billions of dollars from the company for his own personal benefit when the time comes.
Really: WTF does he even need more money for? Aiming for those goals and doing it pro bono might assuage some of his well-earned bad press this past year or two.
He’s a hoarder. A hoarder of money. Hoarding is seen as a mental illness. This should be no different.
I’ve been saying this for years. It’s no different than my 85 year old grandma, who has hoarded her house so badly that she has to sleep in a recliner in her living room. It’s all the same, holding onto way too much stuff despite the fact you’ll never use it, to your detriment. In my grandma’s case it’s a barely livable (her words) house, in his case it’s completely disconnected him from reality and humanity in general.
Money is power especially at that level.
To answer some questions as I understand them, I think Elon is really trying to get back control of Tesla rather than a pure cash injection, since the package is almost entirely stock based rather than cash. However, there is absolutely truth in that many of the tiers to get portions of the pay package automatically approved are much lower hanging than others. The 6, 7, and 8T market caps, million robots, and more are absurd pipedreams that likely won’t happen, but there are some much more modest growth triggers that will result in gargantuan payouts to Elon anyways. The reality is he has massive and extremely disproportionate sway over the board of directors compared to any other CEO of a publicly traded company, so all of this way very intentional.
If I remember correctly it already takes 80% of outstanding shareholders to vote against Musk to overrule him based on his shares more votes per share. (And that included his family members)
EDIT. I looked it up. It takes a 67% vote of shares to overrule Musk. With the extra voting power of his preferred shares it takes a 89.5% of the other shareholders to overrule him. If he can boost his holdings to 25% like he wants he basically has complete control of the company.
Musk learn from his experience at PayPal where he was voted out as CEO before the company was even called PayPal. He was still the largest shareholder and made a killing on the next CEO’s good work taking the company public and then selling it to eBay but getting fired still hurt his ego.
Interesting, thanks for the confirmation. I knew this pay package was to get him to 25%, but I wasn’t clear on why that was the magic number.
You are right, a good chunk of his tranches are for incredibly vague things.
He has to deliver 10 Million “FSD subscriptions”. However, it doesnt say they have to be paid subs. It doesnt say it has to be as good or better than the current FSD either. He could rebrand his whole ADAS platform to “FSD” and that would count.
He has to sell 1 million “bots” which are just defined in the package as “any robot or other physical product with mobility using artificial intelligence.”
He has to get 1 million “robotaxis” in service. But the way it is defined could let even remote contolled or safety-driver-in-the-passenger-seat applications count.
Now, the Earnings and Valuation tranches seem pretty ironclad. Except no. There is a “Covered Events” clause that applies to the whole thing can let the board grant the tranches anyway. The covered events are defined as “natural disasters, wars, pandemics, and changes to “international, federal, state and local law, regulations or other governmental action or inaction,” that could hamper the company’s ability to design, manufacture or sell its products down the line.” Which is a loophole almost big enough to drive a mythical Tesla Roadster through.
The money catches your attention because a trillion dollars is such an absurd amount, but Musk isn’t in it for the money. He (and so many more of the billionaire oligarchs) have realized that amassing more wealth doesn’t make their life any better and now they only care about amassing power. He’s even outright said the reason for this pay package is to make sure if there’s an army of a million robots he’s the one in charge.
This is why our current stage of capitalism is so broken. The idea behind capitalism is that smart people will “follow the market” and innovate in ways that end up being net positive for humanity since doing so (theoretically) will lead to the most dollars in their pockets at the end of the day.
The problem is once the biggest players get big enough that money no longer means anything and they have a monopoly hold on everything, their focus shifts to cementing power regardless of what it does to the bottom line.
He won’t do it pro bono for the same reason he won’t donate all his current stock in the company to charity – if he does that he no longer has an outsize influence and would actually have to convince people he was doing a good job to win their votes in stakeholder elections.
I personally think the “I want total control over the giant robot army” is a little alarming!
I recall reading that Elons new pay package was approved with like an 85% approval rate. I do not own Tesla stock so I did not vote on this matter. But I am curious, does anyone have any idea what percentage of Tesla is owned by large corporate holdings vs. individual investors? I’m curious if he was supported by retail investors as well as corporate large scale investors.
THIS is the best chart I can quickly find, but I don’t think this factors in the ~10% that Elon currently owns. The pay package was approved at 75% of shareholders in favor, with believe all but NORGES bank from that list of 10 voting in favor. There is also a large percentage either controlled or influenced via the board which tends to go lock-step with Elon’s whims.
The whole Tesla stock scenario is a very interesting, if insane situation. It’s really a large long term bet on Tesla as a technology company, and because Elon’s other companies have done very well, the speculation is extreme. I can see the argument for the pay package from the larger investors, even if I fundamentally disagree. “This man has made us billions, if we can get this stock to an 8T+ evaluation, giving him more control is fair since it’s his doing, and an extra 800B to Elon is totally fine since we collectively make 6T+”
Let me be clear I see no reality in which this stock evaluation happens, Tesla is already well over 250 P/E, meaning it’s 4x+ above what a “high growth” company should be valued at based on stock fundamentals. Not only that but their promises for the future, FSD/Robotaxis, Optimus Robotics, and AI are all somewhat fools errands technologically with how the company is treating them, but investor hype does not care.
Downside is unless you have actively divested from Tesla-holding ETFs and Mutual funds (including S&P, NASDAQ, etc) you do own some Tesla stock in retirement accounts via proxy. Not only that but these funds are often heavily weighted in favor of the Mag 7 or at least top 25 of the S&P, meaning it’s a higher percentage than you think. And those funds maintain the voting power of those shares, which means they likely voted in favor of the pay package.
Every Tesla sale from now until the compensation package is paid out is inherently political
Meh. I already have a pre-crazy-Musk Tesla. There are a lot of other good non-Tesla EV’s out there now. This seems desperate. If they got rid of Musk I’d reconsider. If Slate came out with an AWD version, I’d look hard at that. Removable doors and a convertible top combined with AWD for slippery situations and an interior that can be wiped down easily makes for an interesting proposition.
I agree with most of your post, but Musk was known crazy long, long ago.
Yeah, but Colin Chapman was crazy, too. For me it was the Thai Cave debacle that showed he was absolutely the wrong kind of crazy and shouldn’t have any of our money.
So a rental program that reeks of desperation was rolled out, sales are terrible in China, and the leads of both the Model Y and Cybertruck development announce they are leaving the company, the stock price must be taking a hit today.
<TSLA is up 4% currently>
I don’t even know why I bother trying to understand these things
Never try to understand a meme stock. Remember when the value of Hertz stock went up 800% after it declared bankruptcy?
Surly logic and sound reasoning will apply this time, right?
Logic and sound reasoning has never applied to Tesla stock prices
The bigger thing I got from the CarMax earnings call was that they were expecting revenue for the current quarter to decline by 8-12% YoY.
Why? Increasingly less consumer spending.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll put on my OSHA-compliant earphones. The canaries in the coal mine I’m working with are so loud that it’s difficult for me to concentrate.
In the last month, I’ve seen a couple unrelated articles- one that said that FOMO was driving the stock market to record highs, and another that said that consumer spending in the lower 90% was falling, but the economy (in the US) was still driven by the upper 10% and especially upper 2%, spending money because their stocks were doing so well. Put the two together, and the logical conclusion seems to be that the US economy is currently powered by stock market FOMO…
Let’s not forget the forced push in AI investments, mostly infrastructure costs that were planned/spent years ago, that will be drying up in the not too distant future. We’re riding the AI bubble. The top 10% you mention are smart people that know this, and are doing everything they can to extract every last dollar they can before it goes tits up. They’ll still have plenty of money left after the pop to live comfortably and buy up any businesses and real estate they want at deeply discounted rates.
The AI bubble is similar to the fiber bubble in the Dot Com boom / bust. Massive overspending on over capacity where only a few strong companies survive and buy up the rest. Then that capacity gets used over time.
Anyone that sticks to their plan and dollar cost averages into something like a S&P500 or Total Stock fund will do fine.
Canary’s were used as gas detectors in coal mines because they died much faster than a human. A singing canary means all is well. A dead one means better head for the surface.
Apparently many miners were quite fond of their canaries, and had a way to provide their enclosure with oxygen when they started acting funny.
As per Jason H’s comment, I am gonna go put on some music since all our canaries have stopped singing for some reason.
When hertz started sending the emails after you rented a ev it seemed desperate. Now with Tesla starting a rental program with the same idea seems extra desperate. Hertz cleared a lot of inventory but I’m not sure those emails really did anything. They also have a rent for extended test drive discount on purchase and rent to own. It really seems someone at Tesla looked at hertz and thought it worked for them. Next will probably be rent to own.
Maybe they want to try to drive sales by offering demos at a discount like other automakers do. Alot of their loaner cars are lemon law buybacks. The last time I looked they list demo vehicles with a few thousand miles as new with a discount.
It just seems like Tesla is doing everything it possibly can to raise cash outside of making cars, which is an odd choice for an automaker.
They’re not an automaker, they’re an autonomy/robotics company.
Yeah, I don’t understand that either; I read it somewhere.
Don’t forget solar. Musk had Tesla buy out his and his brother’s failed company – Solar City for top dollar.
To be fair, US airlines just about break even doing the business of flying people. Their profits come from selling billions of points/miles to credit card companies.
Does this make sense? No.
Can Tesla somehow still make money by opening crappy pop up diners and whatever else they’re doing that isn’t making cars? Undoubtedly (unfortunately).
Still won’t get me in a Tesla. I don’t even like accepting them as Ubers.
I’m getting REALLY tempted by sub-10K CAD used Teslas. I feel like it’s far enough removed from the profit ecosystem to justify for a shitbox commuter.
If they’re getting that cheap, and still useful, I’d say yeah go for it. I still hate how they feel to ride in so I can’t see myself doing that.
I get that logic. I’d still be hesitant to APPEAR to be someone who gave money to Elon.
Tesla Rental: $60/day seems expensive but one look at turo shows it’s reasonable based on going market rate. I have no desire to rent one, but there are a shocking number of people that want one for a day/event. A majority of people consider Teslas to be “cool” cars, regardless of Elmo’s political leanings, we enthusiasts, especially those on the left side of the aisle, forget the normies.
Carmax: Their prices have always been high, but man do they not only ask the most, but now offer the least for trade in. Carvana offered us $3,800 more for our CX9. That was a 20% higher trade value. On top of that Carmax wanted only $5k off of MSRP for a 2.5-year-old Pilot with 21k miles.
Having driven a Cybertruck at a local EV drive event, this seems like a bad rental option. I actually enjoyed driving it, but probably because it’s so much different to drive than any other car I’ve ever driven. The steering alone is probably going to cause accidents. It’s so responsive. I describe it as how you drive when towing a trailer. You have you take every corner as a wide turn, because the 4 wheel steering is really aggressive, and the yoke means that a 30 degree turn of the wheel is like a 2.5-3 turn full lock on anything else. You can hit the car that is parked next to you when pulling out of a parking spot. That’s how quick the steering is. You can get used to it, but it seems like a bad rental car choice.
Except these ones come with FSD which, any idiot will tell you, drives the car for you. It’s in the name.
It’s gonna go great.
That was my experience with my Cybertruck rental coming from terrible 80s Ford worm gear steering. I’m used to 75 degrees of deadband and cranking the wheel 3 times to get anything done.
Hit every curb on my way out of the rental place’s lot and getting on the 5.
When I got to drive one, I found the steering ratio that changes based on vehicle speed to be DEEPLY unsettling and weird. It felt like a video game. You know, those racing games where you think you’re going into a corner at a reasonable speed, but there’s no sensory feedback, you’re actually doing 175MPH, and you slam into the wall looking like you didn’t even try to steer.
$90 a day for a $100,000 car seems reasonable, even if it is a 13 year old design.
The price is reasonable, but not competitive in my mind mainly because of the limitations. I regularly get $55k-$75k cars for $45/day without any of those restrictions. Double the price for not double the car doesn’t sound all that good to me. Wagoneer Ls, Tahoes, Yukons, Ram 1500s, Expeditions are pretty much baseline rentals these days assuming you get status. Then add on that you can sometimes get really lucky with something like a Defender, RR Sport, or X7 for the same price…. yeah, I’ll stick with National.
Yeah, but this one comes with free fuel?
if you’re planning to pile miles from SoCal while staying in Cal, this could be a winner. I’m not there so it’s free for me to have an opinion.
Seems…. very niche. Realistically, who is doing enough mileage within a single state for 3-7 days to make sense. I only see rideshare drivers as the big use case, but I’d have to assume that is against the TOS or something?
I used to live in California. You can rack big miles driving N-S. SF to LA is 400 ish miles (details regarding specific city / neighborhood in each metro area add or subtract). Redding to San Diego? Who does that? it’s over 650 miles each way. but saving $$ on fuel and tires for some courier could be a pretty sweet $180 deal for three days.
National park trip.
LA – Joshua Tree NP – Sequoia NP – Yosemite NP- Lassen Volcano NP – Redwoods NP – Pinnacles NP – LA
That is 27 hours / 1,600 miles of driving.
Lassen (Bumpass Hell) is my white whale. It seems like its only open like 6 weeks a year. I’m always a week to early or a week to late.
We visited in May 2015 on the shake-out trip for my gen 1 campervan conversion project. Went down 101 to Redwoods, over to Lassen, then back up to Crater Lake in a 9 day loop. (That trip lead to gen 2 with a fixed bed)
It was our first volcanic park so the mud pots and hot springs were cool.
Good way to clean up driving Uber for 3-7 days…
The restriction seems to only be that you can’t return it with less than 50% charge and can’t take it out of state? Am I missing something? The first one is no different than any rental car, and the second wouldn’t be an issue on any trip I’d take to CA.
The only locations are two Tesla stores in Costa Mesa and San Diego. I was about to complain about Ubering from LAX to Costa Mesa, but didn’t realize the Tesla store there is basically next door to JWA (at least from what I quickly googled). I guess I could see this working out in pretty specific use cases then. I do prefer flying into Orange County after all….
Just bc that’s what they’re charging doesn’t mean that’s what they’re worth.
That is hardly a Tesla-specific criticism.
Absolutely. I still think this is an extreme outlier when you compare what else you can get for 100K.
For a second there I thought you wrote “13 year old’s design” and were talking about the truck.
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What, the Autopian is pro-fascist David? Hence the deletion of my post?
Tesla luxury? More like premium-ish, in that case Mazda is premium with better interior quality.
Tesla Rental Plan: I get what they are going for, but the cost is too high given the restrictions, especially if their goal is to truly sell more cars. Cybertruck especially, used prices have cratered and new inventory has piled up, make em $40/day and some people will get suckered into buying them I bet.
Carmax: Their foibles are a direct consequence of two things. One is their own Hubris, their pricing is so deeply raised, and carvana and the like are at least competitive, and with online shopping tools being so easy, more people than ever are doing the bare minimum in price comparisons to see that CarMax is an awful value. The second reason is the economy in general, more people are being squeezed financially while new and used prices skyrocket, and interest rates on new and used cars are still relatively high.
Throw these together and Carmax used cars are a harder and harder sell to people who want a reasonably priced used car because new is too expensive. When their used inventory thats a year old with 12k miles is within 5% the pricing of brand new equal models MSRP BEFORE incentives and cheaper financing, it makes absolutely zero sense because lets be honest, nearly nobody in a Carmax dealership is paying in cash, it’s either private or Carmax financing.
Not to mention their physical locations are awfully bloated, and the large lot sizes and big offices are not free to upkeep. Carmax coasted on being the only nationwide late-model used car dealer around for a long time, but has gotten complacent, and this is what happens. Sounds and awful lot like Tesla’s current lineup, and look at their sales and desperation.
I was originally going to shop used for my wife’s Pilot but even 3 year old ones were only 10% off of the new ones in price. With the new car rate being 3 points better two it was a no brainer.
That was the case when I got my CX-30 Turbo in 2022, since the turbo was still newish and the Covid supply chain issues were still going, used ones were at MSRP or higher, and I was able to get my ideal spec at 3.5% APR with a $500 current Mazda owner discount because I had my rough NA Miata at the time. I get the general argument of going used over new, but at this point you either have to go private party or go at least a generation back for the used value to exist.
Same thing happened with that CX9 we were replacing. We got it at the tail end of the Covid surplus so $5k off MSRP discount + mazda owner loyalty for the Cx5 we were trading in. Went into the dealer planning on buying a CPO 2019, ended up in a 2021 for less money.
Carmax is selling 2019 Toyota Yaris’ for the exact same price as they were when brand new. Maybe start there.
Not defending Carmax at all, but between inflation and the lack of any new equivalents to the Yaris, that’s just kinda where the cheap car market is at these days. The used and the new market is rough for anyone shopping on the cheaper end.
I had to check to see what the deal was, and there is zero justifying these prices. Just look at THIS Yaris. It’s almost 6 tears old with 68k miles, and they’re demanding 18k before fees and taxes. Meanwhile it took me all of 20 seconds on AutoTempest to find a 2021 Corolla Sedan with an equivalent 68k miles for 1500 less. And 2020 MY hatchbacks can be found for marginally more, and that’s getting a larger and more featured vehicle.
Yes overall the cheaper end of the newer MY cars is rough, but Carmax exploits that to Nth degree because they know the lower priced used shoppers tend to be the least experienced, so they rip them off something fierce. I really do believe Carmax (and Carvana, etc) pricing is getting extreme, so I have zero sympathy for their sales to slip.
I have to believe the market will do its thing here. Carmax could get away with their prices when they were a novelty: nationwide brand with simple and (relatively) pleasant buying experience.
But now that’s there’s Carvana and drivetime and all the others that pop up when you google “carmax,” even the least sophisticated shopper can easily see the price difference.
Cars are irrational and buyers will pay a premium for a brand they like. I just don’t see anyone having any loyalty to carmax vs the other ones. Carvana gave us a stupid high price when we sold them a car during Covid. It was a great experience and could not have been easier. And….next time I need to sell a car it’s going to be whoever offers the highest price.
Absolutely. The bottom end of the market is so anemic that rarity is driving up prices, but as Alexk98 points out you can get more car for less money so clearly the Yaris market has reached it’s peak. And with the efficiency of Toyota’s slightly larger cars you aren’t losing out on MPGs either.
I am not in finance so I am asking, is there a way people at tesla can torpedo their stock value to lance that festering pustule Musk?
It seems like Elon himself is trying to torpedo it.
Various people have shorted the stock in the past. In generally when a whole bunch of people short a stock that drops the value as the market sees that as an indication of market trends.
However Tesla has been the most shorted stock several times in it’s history due to sky high valuations compared to those boring financial fundamentals. Every time Musk and fans have been able to rally the price and cause those people shorting the stock to lose a LOT of money.
At the core Tesla is a meme stock. It was when it entered the S&P 500 and is today. Eventually someone will get caught holding the bag when it crashes but it hasn’t happened yet.
Are they?
I call editorial-bull, here. They’ve, instead, extended a trillion middle fingers to their traditional buyer base.
They worked very hard to keep the guy that has become a co-lightning rod for revenge politics gone wrong outside of America and has been one of the direct reasons for the slide in sales.
I own several red baseball caps bearing logos of various organizations. I no longer wear them in public lest someone confuse me for a member of the “red hat gang”.
This is the same reason I would not rent a Tesla.
I had a red cap that I used to wear in the summer and on holiday. Just a plain red cap that kept the sun off my head when I went to the beach.
It was, long ago, replaced with a grey one.
It’s just too bad, I really like red.
My trusty red Polo cap was retired in 2016. I miss that hat…
Let’s try to minimize these kinds of comments. They’re not really additive, and what’s more, this is a car website that, to many, acts as refuge from all the political nonsense.
The Autopian is a car website for everyone, regardless of cap-color.
I’m not the ones you are replying to, and I agree with the Autopian’s anti-politics policies. It’s difficult sometimes, but I really try.
However, the initial comment related back to the article, “This is the same reason I would not rent a Tesla.” Musk has made himself a prominent and polarizing political figure, while also holding on to the ONLY PR position for the entire Tesla company.
So, for many people, he has made politics inseparable from the Tesla brand, and politics almost have to be a factor when discussing the performance of the Tesla company, and how people will respond, for the foreseeable future.
I respect the attempt to keep these things separate, but it is intrinsically political. When a CEO was a little more conservative, than mainstream, it was easy and fair enough to say “look, of course he [it is almost always he] wants lower taxes, but this isn’t relevant to the discourse.”
When a CEO exercises power from an unelected position through the federal government, upending thousands of lives, throwing actual, real-life Nazi salutes on stage, and then gets granted an (admittedly unlikely but symbolically horrifying as people starve in the United States) unprecedented pay package that dwarfs the gross domestic product of entire nations?
That’s political, and as long as Elon Musk is associated with Tesla, then Tesla will be rightly associated with Elon Musk and the negative discourse that surrounds him. To buy a Tesla now is to announce that your morals and ethics are at least flexible for a price, if not plainly allied with a racist, a fascist, a transphobe, an insecure and friendless Nazi whose following consists of cultists that try to scoop money from the eddy currents of his movements than challenge him in a meaningful way to do and to be better.
If we as a site, or as a society, aren’t comfortable discussing Tesla as a proxy for Elon Musk – remember that to support Tesla is to support him – then Tesla needs to cut ties with Elon, or we need to stop talking about Tesla.
We have never avoided political topics, because the auto industry is shaped — perhaps more than anything — by politics. As someone who’s covered car culture around the globe, I’ve found that politics shapes car culture in some fascinating ways (it’s why cars in Europe are tiny hatchbacks, why Japan has little Kei cars, it’s why the Subaru Brat has jumpseats (BTW we have a great video on that coming soon!) etc etc.). We could not function as a car site without covering political topics.
The key is to be thoughtful about how we cover it, and to avoid alienating groups. And maintaining a welcoming comments section is important to us, too. “I don’t wear my red cap anymore because I don’t want people associating me with that gang” is something that perhaps isn’t very additive, and could have been worded more thoughtfully. (I also think many are throwing around the term “Nazi” too liberally; while I know many have good intentions and use the term to try to raise a red flag in a world that has become desensitized to red flags, the Nazis murdered 6 million+ Jewish people and possibly 3x as many people in total — nobody should want to downplay that by using that term towards anyone/anything that isn’t on a similar scale. There are other terms that I think are more appropriate).
Us setting these standards is the key to keeping The Autopian an welcoming place for all enthusiasts. But it’s definitely a tricky line to walk. Just know that we’re doing our very best.
I was puzzled by my inexplicable inability to figure out if your comment was in reply to the Spikedlemon comment calling editorial-bull or the red hat one. Yeah, the red hat stuff is just anti-tribal tribalism and doesn’t really support the discourse. The one above this chain is more on point as I feel it’s strange to note Tesla’s market slide without mentioning the most likely significant cause, Elon’s politics.
05LGT, it’s a totally valid point!
David, perhaps I could have tied my comment’s analogy more directly the the Tesla rental question from your team – the perspective, I have, is that the CEO of Tesla has positioned the brand as the very visible lightning rod of strong opinions.
And it’s a totally valid perspective. Thank you, Spikedlemon.
I understand the discomfiture around the assignation of the label of Nazi. It does get thrown around overmuch and has absolutely been subject to semantic bleaching over time.
I used it specifically and intentionally to describe Elon Musk because he threw a Heil Hitler salute twice, on stage, and has a documented history of hatred against traditionally Othered groups -women, people of color, transgender people. His politics, behavior, actions, and policies align so closely that I don’t feel the need to wait for a red armband and swastika to show up to make that call. There were plenty of Nazis walking around 1930’s and 40’s Germany in blazers and raincoats and t-shirts and all manner of other things that didn’t literally put their affiliation on their sleeves. Nazis were and are far more pervasive than the troops and SS officers we picture when we discuss Nazism, or imply or accuse someone of being a Nazi.
I know I’m just another person out there on the Internet, but I take the meanings of words and labels – both denotatively and connotatively – very seriously, and I very seriously consider Elon Musk to either be a Nazi or to hold the values of Nazism so close as to be realistically indistinguishable from an open and self-professed Nazi.
I apologize for the deep digression, but it means a lot to me to defend the fact that this isn’t just schoolyard name-calling, but a belief that I hold based on ample evidence.
I don’t think the term is helpful. It’s used the same was fascist/communist is used to describe political opinions one does not care for.
Nazis were of a specific time and place. Folks today who self-identify as Nazis? Real Nazis would have hated them. Like, measured the distance between their eyes to explain why they’re economically useless and candidates for sterilization.
There are more accurate and helpful terms we can use. Bigot, narcissist, anti-democratic, social Darwinist, and oligarch all come to mind.
David, I appreciate your stance, and that of Autopianism on a whole. Your last line is so true, “definitely a tricky line to walk” and I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to comment, and re-comment to the replies.
We are all trying to balance on that tricky line every day. I appreciate comments that I agree with, but also those I don’t. We are fortunate to have that allowed to us. We are also fortunate that you and the rest of the Autopian crew does somewhat patrol this and comments to keep us in-check when we push a little beyond topic or into unhelpful rhetoric. This site isn’t a free-for-all, but a curated place for car nerds of all types to have a community.
THANK YOU!
Tesla turned me off in 2012-2013 when I was seriously considering a purchase but their pricing model was deceptive at best. Since then, Musk has over-promised and failed to deliver so many times it is hard to see the stock price (and his compensation packages) as anything but unrealistic and untied to the actual company performance.
Musk’s recent, very blatant and visible ties to the extreme right-wing of American politics has turned off a huge potential and lucrative clientele, the one that actually made the company hip. I for one don’t understand how the BoD continues to support and promote this tainted hype-man if they intend to actually increase sales and consumer base.
I will not rent, purchase, or promote a Tesla vehicle because I don’t wish to support a company that is willing to keep such a personality with ties to political extremism at the top. The car company has become a symbol of that extremism now. I have also stopped wearing my favorite red baseball cap since 2015-16 when the color alone was intentionally tied to political extremism I disagree with.
This is indeed a site for everyone.
Eggsalad is just clarifying that baseball caps and EVs mix like oil & coolant. Which is probably one of the explanations as to why Tesla sales have dropped after becoming a “Lids” retailer.
I feel like there’s some ebb & flow to be had. Hardibro has cracked wise at my nation’s sovereignty more than once in the past, and that seemed fine by Autopian standards. I’m still here and still reading despite that.
I miss the red Phrygian cap.
I have both a red and a blue cap, and I am also an independent voter. I think you are on to something here. However, my favorite cap is grey, which must signify my abject, ashen disgust with both parties and their professional politicians.
TBQ – they could offer me a free week with a Tesla and I would still say no.