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Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

electrek.co

31–40 of 112 posts

Re: Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

#31
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if you are ecologically minded, thats interesting. This doesn't follow. If you were truly ecologically minded, you'd cheer on all the automakers in their move to EVs, not one in specific with a microscopic market share. BMW has more potential to shift the landscape than Tesla.

Maybe, but Tesla is selling significantly more cars than BMW right now. When another automaker starts selling an all-electric lineup, I'll cheer for them as much as for Tesla.

>Tesla is selling significantly more cars than BMW right now.

By "right now" you mean for a single historical quarter, in one specific, shrinking auto segment (sedans), in one global market right (USA), correct?

Because, again, BMW sells 250k vehicles globally, per month. Torture the data enough and anyone can be a leader.

Re: Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stockholders just believe the no one else will ever be able to make an electric car.

Battery packs for EVs are expensive and heavy. And more complicated than people realise. They're not just big batteries. Making an electric car with decent range at an affordable price* is not easy at all. Tesla is closer than anyone else. * edit: an affordable price that isn't loss-making, I should say

I can go to a dealer today and grab a Chevy Bolt for under $32k with no haggling with 238 mile range. Hyundai hasn't come out with US pricing for their Kona EV yet, but in Norway they're selling it for the equivalent of $40k with 258 mile range.

It certainly isn't trivial and Tesla has invested a good bit in EV technology, but it looks like rivals aren't that far behind.

Re: Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

#33

As a former BMW fanboy, here's my take: 1) Over the past decade, BMW has snuffed the enthusiast/semi-enthusiast crowd to cater to mainstream luxury buyers. 2) Anecdotally, I've noticed that the Tesla buyers of today were the BMW/Audi buyers of yesterday. Who's still interested in new BMWs?

> Who's still interested in new BMWs?

This. Exactly this.

I've overheard potential buyers (not just at BMW, but all car dealerships) asking questions like:

- Can I get this car in an all-electric version? > No

- Can I get this car with AWD (dual motor) > No

- Can I get this car with autopilot > No

- Will this car receive updates over the air? > No

- Does the base model come with 300+ HP? > No

- Can I control this car using an app? > No

- Can I fuel/charge for free? > No

Then why pay 80k for a 5-series, if you can also get a tesla for that price?

Re: Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

#34

As a former BMW fanboy, here's my take: 1) Over the past decade, BMW has snuffed the enthusiast/semi-enthusiast crowd to cater to mainstream luxury buyers. 2) Anecdotally, I've noticed that the Tesla buyers of today were the BMW/Audi buyers of yesterday. Who's still interested in new BMWs?

Tesla is the new status symbol. Tech is in today. If you are an elite business man and don't have the highend flagship phone, either pixel 3 or iphone XR etc... you are not respected. Similarly if you don't have the coolest and most high tech car (Tesla), you are not respected.

Re: Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

#35
Doesn't matter all car companies are toast, car sales are falling, iPhones have eclipsed cars as a status symbol among young people. Many of my friends no longer have cars.

The ones successfully migrating to autopilot Uber style service have a bright future. Mercedes and BMW have the most successful in Germany (they merged their operations), so the real next decade competitor of BMW is Uber/Lyft not Tesla. I guess it depends on how good autopilots will be (and there are rumors Musk really wants to to move into that space and Tesla is the means to do that).

If Google and Apple and Amazon get into that space, I guess consumers would choose their service over a BMW/Mercedes company though - they have the better tech brand and people would rather get into a driverless Apple/Google product than BMW/Mercedes.

Most people in this thread write from a US centric view where people live a long way outside of cities so they can't imagine what's coming.

Re: Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

#36

BMW reported profits of €8.7bn for the year 2017. [1] Tesla stockholders must be very, very optimistic about its future performance when they value Tesla more than an already established, immensely profitable player. [1] https://phys.org/news/2018-03-bmw-net-profit-bn-euros.html

BMW's net profits just tanked 24% in Q3. Meanwhile, TSLA is producing margins that the legacy manufacturers can only dream of. They are making 20% on a Model 3 while the others are squeezing out a few hundred Euros in the non-luxury segment.

Also, TSLA's battery tech is years ahead while especially the German manufacturers have been putting their eggs mostly in the Diesel basket. But those have become increasingly hard to sell to the point where Porsche has abandoned that technology altogether, and others are likely to follow. These companies are the Palm, Blackberry and Nokia of the auto industry: They don't understand that the paradigm has shifted, and when they finally do, it will already be too late.

Re: Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

#37
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stockholders just believe the no one else will ever be able to make an electric car.

They are able, but they don't do it. The only full electric car BMW currently produces is the wacky i3, which doesn't appeal to the average BMW buyer. For some reason all car manufacturers (except tsla) build really lame, goofy, small electric cars, why can't we just have a traditional luxury saloon? The current 5 and 3-series are not offered in an full electric version. Which means that maybe, if we are lucky, there…

Just bought a new Model S 100D. Sat in other cars just for giggles (BMW 5 series, Mercedes E Class, Audi RS 3). Where else am I getting an electric car that holds two large Clek Fllo car seats, two adults, a full trunk of luggage, has 330 miles of range, does 0-60 in 3.6 seconds, and I can travel cross country effortlessly in? It doesn't exist besides a Tesla.

Tesla is valued appropriately based on the market.

Re: Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

#38
I think BMWs failures are the most significant part about it. They are still tainted by their emissions cheating scandal and accordingly viewed as shifty people who will sell you a car that isn't really accredited.

I would be overjoyed to see others entering the electric market at a broad scale but right now I haven't seen anything to give me confidence. They are trying luxury with a tarnished brand and even say stuff like electric cars will always be more expensive which is a clear lack of long term vision. Always is a very long time.

Even an absolute pessimist should say "probably not in our lifetime" because in the long run stored energy sources will either be best off unused for whatever reason or used up already there will come down two choices for storing energy from our actual power sources - fixing our own novel hydrocarbons or batteries. The one has a far higher storage efficiency and less overhead if we are stick even if we assume absolute stagnation in battery tech and thermodynamic limits in fuel efficiency.

Re: Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

#39
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chevvy bolt is sold at an $8000 loss. The Hyundai Kona Electric looks cool but is only going to be sold in small numbers and won't be available in much of the USA https://insideevs.com/hyundai-kona-electric-limited-u-s-avai... I wonder why.

Not only are they losing money, it also starts at $36,620 which is more than the Tesla 3 base model and it’s tiny. Bolt: 164″ L x 70″ W Model 3: 185″ L x 73″ W Which is not nessisarily a bad thing for a city car.

And when you add in the $8k loss, they are the same price as the profitable Model 3 you can buy today (not even the base model).

Re: Tesla (TSLA) surpasses BMW's valuation as one soars and the other slips

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing in TFA seems suspicious to me. I don't know about "suspicious", but what exactly is the point? Tesla, whom many consider overvalued, has a higher market cap than BMW. So what? BMW makes more money, has higher revenues, produces more cars and has been in business way longer. Their sales have been growing for years. They deliver almost as many cars in a month as Tesla has in its entire existence. So what is t…

> Their sales have been growing for years. Looks like they just posted a solid ~5% YoY growth for the last quarter, while TSLA posted ~125%. It's clearly an interesting difference. Valuation is the metric that summarizes all of the other metrics. https://www.zacks.com/stock/chart/bamxf/fundamental/revenue-... https://www.zacks.com/stock/chart/TSLA/fundamental/revenue-q...

>Looks like they just posted a solid ~5% YoY growth for the last quarter, while TSLA posted ~125%. It's clearly an interesting difference.

Do you really expect a 100+ year old company that sells 3 million vehicles annually to be growing 125% annually? Where would the cars go?

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