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Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

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461–470 of 604 posts

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ford doesn't have any good ideas for the future, they are too busy with the here and now according to who? your average HN reader who basically hates cars? yeah, sure. the guy who hates cars is bearish on ford, shocking. what about all the people buying raptors and gt350s and fgts and fists and fosts, hand over fist? do you even know what i'm talking about? do these insanely popular cars even register on your radar…

The kind of people who buy raptors and gt350s are a tiny fraction of the market compared to the people who just want to get to work. Tesla isn't interested in car enthusiasts, they want to be the default answer to the question "How do I get from point A to point B for $1?"

Currently, Tesla is a luxury car company. People who want to get from point A to point B buy a used Ford Focus.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#462
post #223

Can anyone long the stock who is bullish about the future growth of production, cars, batteries etc write down some quick napkin math on future expectations that would justify your investment at this valuation? I have yet to hear a bull case with any actual math behind it, but am willing to hear you out. Something like: cars sold by yr, Margins. battery wall, solar sold by year. Margins. multiples assumed on revenue…

The thing is, Wall St. already factored all that stuff into their valuation and determined that the 'fair price' is $290/share (as of today). Tesla's car business is quite profitable and has huge growth...that's what matters http://greyenlightenment.com/another-correct-prediction-tesl... In the late 90' during the tech bubble, companies that had negative cash flow operation were bid to the stratosphere. Tesla and Ama…

lol @ "but there is a method to the market's madness." It is just supply and demand. More buyers than sellers => price goes up. More sellers than buyers => price goes down. Not all buyers need to be smart and informed. I think Elon Musk will do great things with Tesla but I would never buy that stock... it is purely a gamble.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#463
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "mobility" market will be about the size of the taxi, bus, and train market. - A personal, individual vehicle which comes to pick you up where you are and take you to exactly where you want to go is a much MUCH higher value proposition than public transit. - Add self-driving to the mix, and the cost of that service will plummet. - When the car providing that service can drive itself, then there is little to no…

The funny thing, some of this already exists these days. It is called ZipCar, Car2Go, or DriveNow. All of them suffer from the very same problem: service. It does not matter if a car is selfdriving or not. To be recognized as available by someone means a utilization of about 30% by the providing company. But a utilization of about 30% does not drive down costs. You still of costs for producing and servicing the vehic…

The ridesharing systems (like uber pool and lyft line) are meant to alleviate that utilization problem. Zipcar has no experience with the complex logistics automation work for ridesharing that Uber and Lyft are doing, nor do they have a large enough userbase to make that ridesharing system viable and competitive.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#464
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this based on? Ford has had record profits over the past few years and has continually improved their vehicles and manufacturing processes, including remaking two assembly plants to make aluminum body F 150s. They also invested a billion dollars in Arvo AI and are making aggressive moves into self driving technology.

Market perception. Ford's P/E ratio is 9.89. IBM's P/E ratio is 14.02. Facebook's P/E ratio is 40.79. Tesla's P/E ratio is infinity since the E is negative. I'm sure Ford has done many incremental innovations, I didn't say they didn't. IBM does the same thing, and has "record profits" every few years also. Its just the market isn't expecting the next big thing to come from Ford, while they are expecting that from Tes…

> If you think the market is wrong or too irrational, you can make a killing by shorting Tesla and buying cheap Ford stock.

the market can remain irrational for longer than you can remain solvent!

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#465
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "mobility" market will be about the size of the taxi, bus, and train market. - A personal, individual vehicle which comes to pick you up where you are and take you to exactly where you want to go is a much MUCH higher value proposition than public transit. - Add self-driving to the mix, and the cost of that service will plummet. - When the car providing that service can drive itself, then there is little to no…

This is a common pattern to electric and self-driving enthusiasts, but unfortunately it's the automotive equivalent of Wired articles about the internet circa 1996. Problems include: - Cost. All of the (limited) Tesla automation technologies cost more than my last car. - Liability. Who is liable for mishaps? As Uber has demonstrated accidents and traffic violations happen with automated tech. - Utility. The majority…

Thank you, I've wanted to make a point similar to the one you've made but already tied it all together.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#466
post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 'switch from ownership to mobility'-buzz is one of the most overvalued ideas recently. Much like the Kindle was supposed to kill the book. Why must some people see new inventions always as colossal destroyers of products they don't like instead of the more humble 'enriching ones freedom to choose'?

Wait. But Kindle killed the book. I stopped buying paper books long time ago.

I've never bought a Kindle, and the only e-books I own are ones that came free with the purchase of a printed copy.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#467
post #454

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I mean capture of CO2 from the air and conversion into a fuel that can be used. Something along the lines of algal farms that soak up sunlight and CO2 from the air and excrete alcohol. Combining solar and the CO2 that has already been released into a liquid fuel suitable for a variety of uses. We could cease raw material extraction entirely.

Seems inefficient. Fossil Fuels work today because you just suck them out of the ground and ta-da! free energy when you burn it. If you have to pump enormous energy into harvesting the carbon so you can burn it and re-harvest it, why not just put that energy straight into the car and cut out the carbon entirely? The battery is the thing that makes an electric car "expensive" today, but it's following a consistent dow…

Not if the EV can't go more than 200 miles and takes half a day to refuel.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#468
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehhhh. I work with batteries and have worked with electric engines in the past. When an ICE vehicle breaks down, or doesn't work, or goes fast, or goes slow, we know why. With batteries and electric engines, when stuff doesn't work... nobody really knows why. Copied from another comment I made on HN: Nobody really understands lithium-ion batteries. One production run might have substantially higher or lower capacity.…

The reasons you mentioned are precisely the reason why an ICE based car selling company can't suddenly wake up one day and build electric cars. Engineering takes time, Tesla has spent a lot of time building and testing battery tech that works. And they are using it across multiple applications. If you get reliable electronics in, then without frequent oil changes, and tubeless tire. A electric quite literally is a ze…

Hmm. The battery stuff is hard, yes, but only one company has to figure it out. Battery companies sell to everyone. All the battery breakthroughs so far have benefited every EV player. The actual meat-and-potatoes of Tesla's battery tech is actually from Panasonic, who has no problems selling cells to whoever wants to buy.

And EVs are absolutely not zero maintenance, that's just a fantasy. Even in dream-world where we have tires that never need to be replaced and no oil changes, batteries are always going to be a large part of the car's cost and only last a few hundred charge cycles.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ford: "We have no idea how to invest this money. I guess let's just put it in the bank." > Tesla: "We have so many idea for investments, we're only constrained by cash. Let's go back to the capital markets!" I think becoming as big as Ford already is, is one of Tesla's most positive possible futures if all of their many ideas play out. But they are already valued higher than that. How can this possibly work? There…

> There are so many car makers, there is no monopole they could get. Same for solar and batteries. The automobile industry will contract as we move from individual ownership to mobility. But along with that transition some manufacturers will keep up and others will not. Tesla is hoping to be one of the winners, taking perhaps 25% of the mobility market as the car buying market dries up. Tesla's valuation is also base…

I'm far from convinced that the people buying 40,000 Ford F150s every 3 weeks are doing it for mobility and they're just dying to take a "taxi" everywhere instead.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CO2 capture is an area of active research and it's entirely possible that advances there will make Tesla and Solar City moot. I don't know how likely that is. Even if carbon capture comes through, the low hanging fruit of fossil fuels are gone so now we have to get more invasive in harvesting the hard-to-get ones (strip mining, fracking, etc). It's likely that even with C02 emissions taken care of that we'll want e…

I mean capture of CO2 from the air and conversion into a fuel that can be used. Something along the lines of algal farms that soak up sunlight and CO2 from the air and excrete alcohol. Combining solar and the CO2 that has already been released into a liquid fuel suitable for a variety of uses. We could cease raw material extraction entirely.

Ah I see, I thought you were just talking about carbon sequestration
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