Live data from Hacker News

Tesla to raise $1B

ir.tesla.com

71–80 of 334 posts

Re: Tesla to raise $1B

#71

My big question is, why? It seems they are selling vehicles. Are they in trouble or is this just to expand business?

Well, they plan to sell 500k vehicles a year soon which takes a huge ramp up form current production.

Sure, they could increase production with current profits form sales but it would slow them down.

Re: Tesla to raise $1B

#72
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That return can only be realized if OP sells. It sounds like OP's intent was to buy shares in a long-term business/vision, not in a stock. In the long term, markets are a weighing machine, but in the short term, they are a popularity contest. In August 1998, YHOO traded under $10/share. In December 1999, YHOO traded at > $100/share, a > 1000% return over 16 months. From February 2001 to February 2003, YHOO traded und…

That is because Yahoo got overtaken by Google's superior ad platform and search. Tesla has no obvious viable competitors. It is a premium product that caters to a specific demographic, much like the iPhone in 2007.

The growth plan for the automotive business is specifically to expand beyond the premium market and escape the limited demographic, though.

And to achieve that plan, they have to deal with lots of competition.

Re: Tesla to raise $1B

#73

As an investor of Tesla who bought into Elon's vision I've been getting more and more nervous about how the company is actually run at this point. A modern car company is as much of a production and supply chain company as it's a product and tech company. I get the feeling that due to Tesla being cutting edge in the tech department it led to all the supply chain/production problems being treated as if they are speed…

AP2 is truly dangerous. It's incomprehensible they would release something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1XLqc5IUg I guess it's a good reality check for autonomous cars when you take away the LIDAR toys. One rather important point is that the car often doesn't realize it is screwing up, because quelle surprise, realizing you don't have a correctly detected lane can be just as difficult as detecting one…

I was under the impression that AP* was for keeping the car in a lane on the interstate. Is it suppose to be capable of navigating rural roads like the video shows?

Re: Tesla to raise $1B

#74
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That return can only be realized if OP sells. It sounds like OP's intent was to buy shares in a long-term business/vision, not in a stock. In the long term, markets are a weighing machine, but in the short term, they are a popularity contest. In August 1998, YHOO traded under $10/share. In December 1999, YHOO traded at > $100/share, a > 1000% return over 16 months. From February 2001 to February 2003, YHOO traded und…

That is because Yahoo got overtaken by Google's superior ad platform and search. Tesla has no obvious viable competitors. It is a premium product that caters to a specific demographic, much like the iPhone in 2007.

Have you heard about this car company called Chevrolet ? They have this car called the Bolt. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Bolt

Re: Tesla to raise $1B

#75

As an investor of Tesla who bought into Elon's vision I've been getting more and more nervous about how the company is actually run at this point. A modern car company is as much of a production and supply chain company as it's a product and tech company. I get the feeling that due to Tesla being cutting edge in the tech department it led to all the supply chain/production problems being treated as if they are speed…

Although I applaud your skepticism, I think it's misplaced. My first job out of University was working for Daimler-Benz when they owned Chrysler. I was a front line eng supervisor at the plant level focusing on In System Damage, Federal Torque and a host of other quality issues that were plaguing the company at the time. I dealt directly with it so I can tell you, Supply Chain is not that big a deal to fix. They will…

I'm very curious how you were able to save the company millions of dollars.

Re: Tesla to raise $1B

#76
post #62
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make humanity an interplanetary species. http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/27/13079472/elon-musk-mars-sp...

You can't really believe that; certainly Musk doesn't. Edit: Just for one challenge with no current solution: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep34774 There are others.

Why not? And what makes you think Elon doesn't?

Re: Tesla to raise $1B

#77

As an investor of Tesla who bought into Elon's vision I've been getting more and more nervous about how the company is actually run at this point. A modern car company is as much of a production and supply chain company as it's a product and tech company. I get the feeling that due to Tesla being cutting edge in the tech department it led to all the supply chain/production problems being treated as if they are speed…

Although I applaud your skepticism, I think it's misplaced. My first job out of University was working for Daimler-Benz when they owned Chrysler. I was a front line eng supervisor at the plant level focusing on In System Damage, Federal Torque and a host of other quality issues that were plaguing the company at the time. I dealt directly with it so I can tell you, Supply Chain is not that big a deal to fix. They will…

>Supply Chain is not that big a deal to fix. They will sort out there problems there, they just imo need a few vets from a traditional car company.

Tesla have been trying to and they are still running into many problems, many industry veteran hires and tens of thousands of cars sold later.

I have talked to many people who have worked/work in production as well, and unfortunately they don't share with you the same optimism on how easy it is to scale up supply chain for a large scale luxury auto company. Daimler-Benz has had major reliability problems with both Chrysler and Mercedes and it took Mercedes over a decade to get back to industry average, while Chrysler is still in the gutters.

Re: Tesla to raise $1B

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is because Yahoo got overtaken by Google's superior ad platform and search. Tesla has no obvious viable competitors. It is a premium product that caters to a specific demographic, much like the iPhone in 2007.

Have you heard about this car company called Chevrolet ? They have this car called the Bolt. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Bolt

Did you hear about sarcasm? It's not a premium product. does not have the cachet as Tesla .

Re: Tesla to raise $1B

#79
If I were to make a computer analogy, I would probably say that Tesla in having to deliver the Model 3, is right at the point IBM was when they were finishing up the IBM 360 series: it will be a make or break product release for them.

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/system3...

quote from Thomas J Watson Jr.:

“The expense of the project was indeed staggering. We spent three quarters of a billion dollars just on engineering. Then we invested another $4.5 billion on factories, equipment and the rental machines themselves. It was the biggest privately financed commercial project ever undertaken.”"

(note $5 Billion number was in 1964, inflation-adjusted, that is many billions more)

Re: Tesla to raise $1B

#80
post #66
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyday I'm holding onto the shares is the same as if I made the decision to buy that many shares on that day This is a great way to think about holding investments. I remember using this argument to try and convince a family member that they should sell what I considered to be a bad investment. I phrased it as 'If you were forced to sell your shares right now would you use the money from the sale to immediately b…

Ignoring tax implications is a much, much bigger problem for your argument than ignoring brokerage fees.

Indeed. Even execution slippage is greater than brokerage fees for a reasonable sized round-trip trade at a discount broker.
Post reply on HN