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Elon Musk's finances

economist.com

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Re: Elon Musk's finances

#51

Post by kitsunesoba »

__s wrote: post #42
dilemma wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any credible sources that show Teslas as more environmentally friendly? Electric vehicles run on coal and natural gas to varyingly large extents.

Power plants are more efficient than a car's combustion engine, & power plants can change over time without changing the vehicle. Modular design ftw

Yes precisely. The coal plants in a local grid can be swapped out for plants that generate power in any number of other ways. Furthermore, EVs can easily have their batteries replaced with other power storage methods should we figure out something that's safer/higher capacity/less toxic/etc.

But an ICE vehicle will always be an ICE vehicle no matter how technology improves. As long as it exists and continues to be driven it's a constant burden on the environment.

Re: Elon Musk's finances

#52

Post by jondubois »

nabla9 wrote: post #21

I have no problem whatsoever if Elon Musk destroys investor money to build new technological future. In fact, I fully encourage and support his endeavor as long as it's not my money. Here is epic piece from Warren Buffet from November 22, 1999. Just five months before internet bubble collapsed he explained why he didn't invest in internet technology when everyone said that he was being stupid old fool. http://archive…

I'm generally critical of companies which have high valuations yet continuously lose money, but in the case of Musk's ventures, I think what he's doing is so genuinely innovative that I would be more inclined to put the blame on the system than on Musk himself.

Elon uses long-term thinking but unfortunately our economic system tends to favour short-term returns. In my mind there is a huge difference between Tesla losing money versus Twitter losing money - But to an economist, it's the same kind of beast.

Re: Elon Musk's finances

#53

Post by makomk »

anindha wrote: post #8
115100 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the environmental impact of a car is in its manufacturing, so global warming is made worse by Tesla selling more cars instead of people buying older ones.

Tesla aims to make their cars last 10 times longer than the average gasoline car. There are less things that can go wrong with an electric car. They are creating ways to increase utility on each car. Less people will need their own car. Edit: I should clarify. Tesla is aiming to make their drive trains last 1m miles. Most car companies don't offer extended warranty past 100k miles. Normal car companies want you to bu…

From what I can tell, Tesla doesn't offer extended warranty past 100k miles on the non-drivetrain components. The eight-year, infinite-mile warranty only applies to the battery, drive unit and drivetrain; it largely exists to reassure customers who are worried about their rather high drivetrain failure rate and the fact that lithium batteries often have very short lifespans.

Re: Elon Musk's finances

#54

Post by greglindahl »

dilemma wrote: post #35
TeMPOraL wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's made worse in short term this way, yes. But the car production happens and will happen anyway - Musk is only a small fraction of that now. Tesla is aiming to convince everyone to switch to eco-friendly cars, which means that besides adding its own production, it's basically trying to force everyone else's production to switch to making electric cars. So you can't look just at this year's increase in numbers of c…

Are there any credible sources that show Teslas as more environmentally friendly? Electric vehicles run on coal and natural gas to varyingly large extents.

Here you go: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-...

This is a short-sighted question, however. If I buy a new gasoline-powered car, it will pollute the same amount until it is crushed. If I buy a new EV, it gets cleaner over time as more renewables are added to the grid. It's not just a question of how clean the car is today.

Re: Elon Musk's finances

#55

Post by RoboTeddy »

> The proposed SolarCity acquisition illustrates this: by getting Tesla to buy the struggling SolarCity, Mr Musk can keep it alive and maintain control.

Why doesn't the author believe Musk's claim that TeslaSolar City are merging in order to produce a superior product/service?

One company comes and installs both solar cells and batteries. The batteries help you get more value out of your solar cells. You don't have to schedule installations with separate companies, or use separate apps to manage them, or worry about different versions of each product interoperating with the other. If it's not working, there's one number to call, and one responsible party. Sales and marketing can be unified. Looking from the outside, it makes sense...

Am I missing something?

Re: Elon Musk's finances

#56

Post by kuschku »

jondubois wrote: post #52
nabla9 wrote: post #21

I have no problem whatsoever if Elon Musk destroys investor money to build new technological future. In fact, I fully encourage and support his endeavor as long as it's not my money. Here is epic piece from Warren Buffet from November 22, 1999. Just five months before internet bubble collapsed he explained why he didn't invest in internet technology when everyone said that he was being stupid old fool. http://archive…

I'm generally critical of companies which have high valuations yet continuously lose money, but in the case of Musk's ventures, I think what he's doing is so genuinely innovative that I would be more inclined to put the blame on the system than on Musk himself. Elon uses long-term thinking but unfortunately our economic system tends to favour short-term returns. In my mind there is a huge difference between Tesla los…

The issue is that Tesla isn’t doing something really new, and won’t be able to keep any advantage in the market in the long term.

Their reputation has also taken a heavy hit after investigations into their autopilot discovered major issues with it, and it was deemed unsuitable for even testing (For example, it will always stay behind the car ahead of you if it can’t find lane markings – even if the car ahead of you switches lanes, but you can’t switch lanes because the lane besides you is occupied – the car will crash).

Long-term, it looks as if the traditional car makers will win again.

Re: Elon Musk's finances

#57

Post by greglindahl »

jondubois wrote: post #52
nabla9 wrote: post #21

I have no problem whatsoever if Elon Musk destroys investor money to build new technological future. In fact, I fully encourage and support his endeavor as long as it's not my money. Here is epic piece from Warren Buffet from November 22, 1999. Just five months before internet bubble collapsed he explained why he didn't invest in internet technology when everyone said that he was being stupid old fool. http://archive…

I'm generally critical of companies which have high valuations yet continuously lose money, but in the case of Musk's ventures, I think what he's doing is so genuinely innovative that I would be more inclined to put the blame on the system than on Musk himself. Elon uses long-term thinking but unfortunately our economic system tends to favour short-term returns. In my mind there is a huge difference between Tesla los…

Let's see:

Tesla: Growing rapidly, huge customer interest & pre-orders, positive margin on product, easy to see that it may grow big enough to overcome fixed costs.

Twitter: Not growing rapidly, hard to see that they'll become profitable without cutting out a lot of expenses.

Not at all the same kind of beast.

Re: Elon Musk's finances

#58

Post by grizzles »

kryptiskt wrote: post #26

Rescuing SolarCity seems like a waste to me. It's in a commodity business and is performing awfully. Why not just fold that hand and not saddle the stronger company with it?

Solar City is basically a bundle of loans that will pay off over the next 20 years. The company has lost a ton of money loaning out other people's money before govt solar subsidies expired. Now that it's at it's shittiest point, Musk/Tesla is swooping in and buying it at a discounted price, without spending a cent in the purchase. Musk is a genius.

Re: Elon Musk's finances

#59

Post by bkanber »

dilemma wrote: post #35
TeMPOraL wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's made worse in short term this way, yes. But the car production happens and will happen anyway - Musk is only a small fraction of that now. Tesla is aiming to convince everyone to switch to eco-friendly cars, which means that besides adding its own production, it's basically trying to force everyone else's production to switch to making electric cars. So you can't look just at this year's increase in numbers of c…

Are there any credible sources that show Teslas as more environmentally friendly? Electric vehicles run on coal and natural gas to varyingly large extents.

In every country except India, the well-to-wheel CO2 emissions for EVs beat gas ICEs. The problem is coal only, natural gas is pretty good. Even China now has enough non-coal energy sources to make EVs worth it.

Source: I was a hybrid vehicle powertrain engineer.

Re: Elon Musk's finances

#60

Post by nabla9 »

jondubois wrote: post #52
nabla9 wrote: post #21

I have no problem whatsoever if Elon Musk destroys investor money to build new technological future. In fact, I fully encourage and support his endeavor as long as it's not my money. Here is epic piece from Warren Buffet from November 22, 1999. Just five months before internet bubble collapsed he explained why he didn't invest in internet technology when everyone said that he was being stupid old fool. http://archive…

I'm generally critical of companies which have high valuations yet continuously lose money, but in the case of Musk's ventures, I think what he's doing is so genuinely innovative that I would be more inclined to put the blame on the system than on Musk himself. Elon uses long-term thinking but unfortunately our economic system tends to favour short-term returns. In my mind there is a huge difference between Tesla los…

Technological edge Tesla has seems to be relatively thin. The innovation is in good productization, PR, risk taking and bold business strategy. If I understand it correctly, Panasonic is the more tech-heavy partner (patents for example).

Tesla makes good cars with very low reliability and I see it as conscious choice. They add performance features and cool factors at the cost of reliability. Bigger car makers could have done the same but they protect their brand and bottom line. Tesla can't continue like this when production numbers ramp up.

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