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Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

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Re: Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

#171

Post by marchenko »

stcredzero wrote: post #77
hwillis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof increases investor confidence, but that's hardly everything. Tesla contributes somewhat to open source, but ITAR and shrewdness means a ton of their tech is classified. If they folded, a great deal of that would be bureaucratically inaccessible, gone, or irrelevant. If we wanted to go to the moon again, we would basically have to start over from scratch. The Saturn V plans exist but the infrastructure, manufact…

Plans are 10% of actually building something, at that level. Materials aren't legos, each product needs to be qualified and have its idiosyncrasies addressed Something often forgotten when companies offshore production.

Andy Grove wrote some great pieces about the loss of engineering muscle memory.

Re: Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

#172

Post by j7ake »

isaacn wrote: post #128
mdasen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shorting seems to often be about the short-term prospects of the stock. Long term, Tesla looks like it will be a reasonable company. But will it justify its stock price? Tesla is a $45B company right now. Toyota is $188B (4.1x more valuable), VW is $78B (1.7x), GM is $58B (1.3x), Ford is $51B (1.1x), Nissan is $42B (0.9x), Fiat Chrysler is $17B (0.4x), Honda is $58B (1.3x), BMW is $56B (1.2x), Daimler is $79B (1.8x),…

I think the strategic direction of Tesla is going to create considerable value in the long term - not just in selling cars, but in the industry dominating direction they seem to be headed. For example, I think of the charger network alone as the future of the gas station, and could be a deciding factor when consumers are considering one brand of electric car vs. another. Self driving technology is another race where…

When self driving cars come, the industry will be as difficult to make money as the airplane industry.

Re: Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

#173

Post by austenallred »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #151
zump wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, how?

If you can earn $150k a year, and your living expenses are $30k and you have no kids, you can squirrel away cash pretty fast. Tesla is certainly a risk, but it's one of the few companies that actually has a plan which would lead to a trillion dollar market cap if successful. It's not insane to put the bulk of your net worth in an investment like that if you only care about potential upside, not the downside.

My salary is less than that, and I'm married with a kid, but I earn about as much from side projects as my salary, so it makes for quick saving (after taxes)

Re: Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

#174

Post by j7ake »

tahoeskibum wrote: post #127
mdasen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shorting seems to often be about the short-term prospects of the stock. Long term, Tesla looks like it will be a reasonable company. But will it justify its stock price? Tesla is a $45B company right now. Toyota is $188B (4.1x more valuable), VW is $78B (1.7x), GM is $58B (1.3x), Ford is $51B (1.1x), Nissan is $42B (0.9x), Fiat Chrysler is $17B (0.4x), Honda is $58B (1.3x), BMW is $56B (1.2x), Daimler is $79B (1.8x),…

Love your detailed and carefully thought out post, I learnt a lot from it (I didn't know that Mazda was just $9 billion). However I think it is wrong to compare Tesla with BMW. I am of the opinion that it is better to compare it with Apple i.e., >10 times what Tesla is valued today.

Yes one can always compare it with another company... But what do you think the chances are that Tesla will become as big as apple ?

Re: Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

#175

Post by kgwgk »

tbabb wrote: post #163
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg to differ - GE is not an energy company, it's a multinational conglomorate heavily involved also in a dozen other fields like oil&gas, aviation, healthcare, home appliances, finance, research and transportation. GE Healthcare alone employs >40 000 people and does >4x the revenue of Tesla today. Maybe if Tesla merged with SpaceX and also with five-six other large companies you'd be about right.

> GE is not an energy company Fair enough (though I'd think the oil & gas you mention would count), but look at any energy company today and you'll see similar numbers. Another poster in this thread compares to Exxon; similarly favorable. You may not think Tesla will make it there, and you might turn out to be right. But those that do are optimistic; not stupid.

Why stop at Exxon? You can also compare Tesla with Saudi Aramco and that would justify a multi-trillion valuation!

Re: Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

#176

Post by arijun »

j7ake wrote: post #164
crabasa wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Toyota's profits are real. GM's profits are real. BMW's profits are real. Tesla's profits might be great in the future - and that risk means the potential profits are worth less than actual profits. You have this exactly backwards. For instance, you could have made the exact same argument about Walmart versus Amazon. What you're missing is that the investments that Tesla is making, which hurt short-term profitabili…

You're still making a bet that Tesla will become a top 3 car company in the world. At the moment people there are people who think the price to risk is worth it. Some do not think it's worth it. I would say there are better ways to make money than a 50 percent chance to make 20 percent more. Also these predictions are 10+ years in the future. How often have people actually predicted that far from the future? Almost n…

Remember though that Tesla will no longer be just a car company. The battery market is huge and will only get bigger as utility scale projects boost demand (like the 80MW one in Southern California Tesla just installed), and if residential solar takes off, solar city stands to make a decent amount of money.

Re: Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

#177

Post by dechov »

agumonkey wrote: post #72
jamornh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of the view that boring a tunnel is part of his bootstrap plan for bringing the same tech to Mars. It's likely that we will have to dig living spaces underground on Mars and bootstrapping better digging tech by finding a good use for it here on earth first is a great bootstrapping strategy.

Quite plausible indeed. Very much Musk to cross pollinate ideas (solar panel, chargers, tiles, batteries, cars)

Tesla's mission is a prerequisite for SpaceX's— it's difficult to establish modern civilization on Mars, but establishing fossil fuel-powered civilization there is a non-starter.

Re: Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

#178

Post by usrusr »

mstachowiak wrote: post #113
mdasen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shorting seems to often be about the short-term prospects of the stock. Long term, Tesla looks like it will be a reasonable company. But will it justify its stock price? Tesla is a $45B company right now. Toyota is $188B (4.1x more valuable), VW is $78B (1.7x), GM is $58B (1.3x), Ford is $51B (1.1x), Nissan is $42B (0.9x), Fiat Chrysler is $17B (0.4x), Honda is $58B (1.3x), BMW is $56B (1.2x), Daimler is $79B (1.8x),…

I would propose viewing Tesla as an energy storage company, not a car company (JB and Elon both think of Tesla this way). The car is a battery on wheels, and the battery is the product. They're not trying to be the next BMW, and attempts to value them through this lense will miss the mark.

How high is their current valuation relative to other energy storage companies? (Honestly, I don't know)

Re: Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

#179

Post by davedx »

brokenmasonjars wrote: post #165
Someone1234 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who lose money shorting Tesla are losing their shirts I don't follow. Tesla is down 1.4%. People who shorted Tesla made money today. Plus a lot of people made money shorting Amazon over Amazon's life. Shorting a stock has less to do with a company's business plan/success and more to do with predicting the market itself and how they'll respond to various quarterly results (and the likelihood of such results).…

Yea I didn't follow the op's comment either. Shorting is not permanent or even a long term position. I mean..you could hold it for a longer term period I guess. In 2008-2009 there wasn't many other options to choose from. Short selling is basically selling a stock you don't own. You borrow against the stock when you think their is opportunity. Tesla was a pretty easy short honestly if done right. Personally I didn't…

Good to get a perspective from a short seller. Thanks for posting.

Personally I'm the opposite -- I only go long for the long term. But that's what I decided my risk tolerance was as a mid 30-year old. So far my long position in TSLA since late 2013 has been a pretty good result.

Re: Tesla Says Model 3 on Track as Quarterly Loss Beats Estimates

#180

Post by deepGem »

mdasen wrote: post #97
paulpauper wrote: post #20

People who lose money shorting Tesla are losing their shirts for the same reason as those who shorted Amazon: cash flow + growth matters more than profitability, PE ratios, or EPS. Tesla's car business is cash flow positive but the quarterly losses are due to infrastructure investments. This is how finance can be more subtle than meets the eye. Tesla's car business is very profitable: Tesla also reported an automotiv…

Shorting seems to often be about the short-term prospects of the stock. Long term, Tesla looks like it will be a reasonable company. But will it justify its stock price? Tesla is a $45B company right now. Toyota is $188B (4.1x more valuable), VW is $78B (1.7x), GM is $58B (1.3x), Ford is $51B (1.1x), Nissan is $42B (0.9x), Fiat Chrysler is $17B (0.4x), Honda is $58B (1.3x), BMW is $56B (1.2x), Daimler is $79B (1.8x),…

Disclaimer: I am a Tesla shareholder and an ardent supporter of Musk. Forgive the hyperbole below, if any.

But will it justify its stock price?

No amount of metrics can or will justify a company like Tesla's current stock price. At this juncture, you are mostly getting into a wild ride. I state this for the following reasons:

1. Tesla is not a car company. Not anymore. It's an energy company. So all comparisons to existing car companies are void. You need to make new comparisons with energy companies. But then, there is no energy company like Tesla. Exxon is probably a good comparison but heck by that measure, Tesla is super cheap.

2. Tesla is run by a Maverick CEO. Admittedly, none of the car or energy company CEOs fit that bill. Tillerson probably came close but he is not with Exxon anymore. What Musk can or will do, is hard to predict. Simply put, there isn't enough data to support such predictions. Tesla's past has been very volatile. So basically it's very hard to model Musk's future plans. He has started digging tunnels now.

One can just go wild imagining the possibilities for Tesla.

They could become a utility company. They could be the storage backbone of many utility companies.

The supercharger network in itself can be highly valuable. Imagine if all cars were to go electric and Musk strikes a deal with all the automakers to make their cars compatible with the supercharger network.

We are just getting started with Tesla and it's super difficult to put a future value on them. Even a 12 month projection is pretty hard.

So analysts are doing the best they can. Draw projections based on tangible raw numbers. Gigafactory growth and Model 3 growth. This growth will not be linear by any measure. So expect dips in the stock price accordingly.

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