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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

#191
post #97

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),…

The difference is Tesla has a lot of room to grow, and VW and the others do not. Tesla is about to 5x and soon after 10x its annual sales.

And as others have said, this is just about the EV market. But there's also the extremely high growth potential battery storage market as well as the solar market.

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

#192
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),…

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 ex…

He uses numbers, you use things like "not a car company" and "Maverick CEO". That's the difference between fans and investors.

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

#193
post #188
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're still making a bet that Tesla will become a top 3 car company in the world. Or that they will sell/license batteries and technology to the top 3 car companies in the world.

Also highly competitive, low margin business.

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

#194
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),…

> 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…

Do you actually know the scale at which car companies invest? Or do you just pretend to know that they "fail to invest" because that sounds fun in relation to Tesla?

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

#195
post #97

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),…

> Tesla is a $45B company right now. ... BMW is $56B (1.2x) What's the likelihood that Tesla is the next BMW? It's low.

This here. BMW makes more in profit than Tesla is earning in revenue. BMW sells 2.5 million cars a year, 25 times as many as Tesla. And both companies are valued roughly the same? How? Totally overvalued. If Tesla catches up to BMW 25x output (and this is a big If) would it then be worth a trillion dollar? No this is already priced into the stock.

> Musk has said that making electric cars is easier than making internal combustion ones. So, if Musk shows that electric cars can be profitable, won't everyone else add a huge amount of competition?

CWhat is not easy to make is a self-driving car and Teslas battery-Gigafactory also an advantage. Still the statement that an electric car is simple is troubling for a luxury/premium brand. You generally don't want to be in a market where things are easy to make and there is disruption by a race-to-the-bottom. I think the big car makers are more at risk having their lunch eaten by upcoming cheap car makers in China or India than Tesla.

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

#196
I hope Model 3 can beat the Bolt in range. That would be a nice surprise. I wouldn't say it's necessary, but the Bolt has already gotten a lot of press, with some even saying it's what's making EVs "mainstream", even though they're only selling like hundreds of them at a time right now, and that probably won't change anytime soon considering GM loses $9,000 for each unit sold. Plus, I hear all the time how the dealerships try to dissuade people from buying a Bolt and turn them towards buying an ICE car instead.

I also hope Musk reconsiders his strategy of not making much cheaper EVs "because everyone will pay to be driven by an autonomous vehicle soon".

I think he's way overestimating how soon that will happen. I don't think most people, even in the U.S., where a "Tesla Network" may actually be viable, let alone in the rest of the world, will do that by 2025, if not 2030. That leaves a lot of wasted opportunities for Tesla to become a "market leader" in EVs - or rather to maintain its EV leadership in the market.

By 2025, there will definitely be EVs from Renault and others that cost less than $20,000 and have 200-mile ranges. At half the price of a Model 3, those cars are going to gain a lot of market share, fast, even if Tesla's numbers continue to grow as well.

I know Musk has already mentioned that Model Y will be cheaper, but we don't know just how much cheaper. Hopefully, it will be like $25,000. That would be a nice price-point for an EV by 2020. But I think Tesla needs to go down to $15,000 or at least 18,000 by 2025, as well, even if for that price point and by that moment in time, those cars can't be "Level 5" - although if Model 3 will have that hardware, I think so will the $15,000-18,000 car by 2025 (it will probably need to be more like 2023, and announced in 2021, though, as a lot of EVs will start to come out in 2021-2022).

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

#197
post #41
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How were the pyramids built?

I think i get your point, but tech losses seem to be associated with cultural collapse or exhaustion of a special resource. Roman concrete, Greek fire, and vanadium steel might be more illustrative choices. I don't think the Egyptians used magic, perhaps they knew a trick or two we don't know about, i don't think there's any writing left about the construction techniques.

> I don't think the Egyptians used magic, perhaps they knew a trick or two we don't know about, i don't think there's any writing left about the construction techniques.

The Egyptians' "trick" was massive amounts of human labor over a long timespan. Nothing you couldn't do a lot faster today if you were willing to spend the money (and manage to get the permits).

The construction of the pyramids is not impressive from a technological point of view, but perhaps from a logistical point of view.

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is a $45B company right now. Perhaps that sounds like a lot. But consider that Uber is valued at $68B.

Tesla should buy Uber and get that house in order. Also makes sense since the future is "mobility services" and neither alone can deliver on that promise.

Do you actuallly beleive what you are writing? From outside the SV bubble the future is cars. Electric, self driving, rentable and owned as well. Where I live there is reasonable public transport infrastructure. Self driving ridesharing mobility service from my point of view. I do not find it clean enough, I do not like the people I often have to share my ride. I prefer an own car. This won't change by "self driving uber", because people prefer privacy, and an own vechicle can give privacy and intimacy which a rended one will never provide.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ex…

He uses numbers, you use things like "not a car company" and "Maverick CEO". That's the difference between fans and investors.

You might have missed that the poster is completely self-aware, leading with:

> 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.

FWIW, as a "fan" I've made a great return on my investment in the wild ride.

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

#200

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…

The stock is fascinating to watch because of how binary the perception of the company is. After doing some sophisticated psychoanalysis™, the sharpest distinction I've found between the two opposing viewpoints is design. People who don't understand Tesla tend to be the same people who didn't (and still don't) understand the iPhone. For these people, the Model S is just another car, in the same way that the iPhone wou…

I think you're missing a very important point here - Elon Musk is a man on a mission. Some people are totally buying into that mission.
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