Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#21

Post by ACow_Adonis » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 12:38 AM UTC

hashberry wrote: post #8

> Mr. Musk, who had previously said the company did not need more capital, indicated that he had changed his mind because Tesla was now in a position to use capital more efficiently. This concluding paragraph contradicts a quote in the middle of the article that explained the loss is due to inefficiency ("spiking costs for obvious strategy missteps really drew blood at the bottom line"). NYTimes journalists enjoy mak…

To be fair, with the boring company, smoking a joint live, calling a rescuer a paedophile, getting slapped by the SEC for his tweets, and messages about turning teslas into self-driving cars incredulously soon, all an NYTimes journalist needs to do to make Elon Musk look dumb is report what he actually does...

Even the recently announced closing of retail sales centers (that's a bold strategy cotton, lets see if that pays off for him) and then "woops, can't shut them all after all", if this was anyone else but someone with an internet cult of personality, an objective analyst would be telling you to stay the hell away from this company, because from outside it looks like a mismanaged train-wreck being run by an out of control nutter...

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#22

Post by hashberry » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 12:38 AM UTC

haxton wrote: post #13

hashberry wrote: post #8

> Mr. Musk, who had previously said the company did not need more capital, indicated that he had changed his mind because Tesla was now in a position to use capital more efficiently. This concluding paragraph contradicts a quote in the middle of the article that explained the loss is due to inefficiency ("spiking costs for obvious strategy missteps really drew blood at the bottom line"). NYTimes journalists enjoy mak…

I'm no fan of Musk's, but it's so disingenuous and discrediting to say things like that. Musk very clearly did _not_ get stoned with Joe. Taking a puff off of a joint is akin to taking a drink or two of beer. You're going to have much more of a placebo than anything. There's no reason to lie to make Musk look stupid. He's doing that plenty well himself.

Yeah, bad wording, changed it to "smoked weed" to match the NYTimes narrative: "Elon Musk Smoked Weed On Air" [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/business/dealbook/elon-mu...

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#23

Post by maxxxxx » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 12:41 AM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #17

S_A_P wrote: post #14

As someone who does not have any stake in Tesla, I dont see a path forward for them without a company with the bank account on the scale of Apple/Google/Amazon funding them. Bootstrapping software is hard, hardware is harder, cars are 10x harder than those squared...

I think the smartest thing Musk ever did for Tesla was to start sending rockets into space and landing them over and over. It really makes you think, "Hey, if they can do all that rocket science, they can probably make a sedan." (This is mostly a joke... but it's also not entirely a joke)

Rockets may be easier to develop than a product for the mass market. Car manufacturers have had many decades of optimizations of their processes. It’s very hard to catch up.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#24

Post by itslennysfault » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 12:41 AM UTC

haxton wrote: post #13

hashberry wrote: post #8

> Mr. Musk, who had previously said the company did not need more capital, indicated that he had changed his mind because Tesla was now in a position to use capital more efficiently. This concluding paragraph contradicts a quote in the middle of the article that explained the loss is due to inefficiency ("spiking costs for obvious strategy missteps really drew blood at the bottom line"). NYTimes journalists enjoy mak…

I'm no fan of Musk's, but it's so disingenuous and discrediting to say things like that. Musk very clearly did _not_ get stoned with Joe. Taking a puff off of a joint is akin to taking a drink or two of beer. You're going to have much more of a placebo than anything. There's no reason to lie to make Musk look stupid. He's doing that plenty well himself.

More importantly, who cares if he did get stoned?

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#25

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 12:41 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #18

S_A_P wrote: post #14

As someone who does not have any stake in Tesla, I dont see a path forward for them without a company with the bank account on the scale of Apple/Google/Amazon funding them. Bootstrapping software is hard, hardware is harder, cars are 10x harder than those squared...

The irony is that Tesla was supposed to bankroll SpaceX, but SpaceX is killing it on profits and Tesla is floundering. If anything it looks like SpaceX will end up bankrolling Tesla. Musk should forget about trying to save this planet and focus on getting to the red one.

It’s a shame people condemn Tesla’s for its troubles when internal combustion gets a ridiculous amount of subsided despite it causing irreparable harm to the planet. Musk plays on Boss Mode (along with others) while everyone enjoys bread and circus and laughs at people trying to accelerate progress with regards to climate change.

I hope those quarterly profits, trucks, and SUVs are worth it when climate change hits its stride. Humans can be irrational, ignorant animals.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#26

Post by m0zg » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 12:41 AM UTC

This explains why his head of AI and head of hardware looked so nervous during their presentations the other day. They've likely been pushed to embellish parts of their presentations, too, such as e.g. the forward looking statements that "you only need cameras" to solve FSD, or that it can be sufficiently solved with what they're doing in the first place.

They did present some top notch work, but I'm really having my doubts that even Google can figure this out in the foreseeable future, even though their cars are completely covered with expensive sensors.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#27

Post by arkitaip » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 12:43 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #12

ericd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, they gave me back mine faster than I thought ACH would normally hit (this was maybe a month ago).

I've been waiting four years and counting... Model X reservation. Every time I call, I get a new person (Because the last person I talked to doesn't work there anymore) and they swear that they will certainly solve this for me! And then I never hear from them again.

How is that not theft?

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#28

Post by 7e » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 12:43 AM UTC

cameldrv wrote: post #7

It was fairly obvious that this was going to happen when they announced their "Investor Autonomy Day" a couple of days before earnings. Get people thinking about the long term rather than this quarter.

In the long term robotaxis will be a commodity service with razor thin margins: just like existing taxis, airlines, and shipping.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#29

Post by lowdose » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 12:44 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #18

S_A_P wrote: post #14

As someone who does not have any stake in Tesla, I dont see a path forward for them without a company with the bank account on the scale of Apple/Google/Amazon funding them. Bootstrapping software is hard, hardware is harder, cars are 10x harder than those squared...

The irony is that Tesla was supposed to bankroll SpaceX, but SpaceX is killing it on profits and Tesla is floundering. If anything it looks like SpaceX will end up bankrolling Tesla. Musk should forget about trying to save this planet and focus on getting to the red one.

Wasn't the Mars exploration the ideal smoke and mirror for the actual goal of SpaceX launching Starlink?

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#30

Post by danappelxx » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 12:48 AM UTC

DamnYuppie wrote: post #10

I see this trend continuing for Tesla. Aside from Musk's leadership, which is very polarizing, I don't see their cars as being very compelling compared to the upcoming offerings of Audi and Porsche. Tesla isn't really competing against Ford/Chevy/Honda/Toyota. Instead they are competing against BMW/Mercedes/Porsche/Audi. By comparison Teslas seems like a toy compared to those other brands so I will gladly wait and gi…

The profit margin is a lot thicker in the luxury car market. It's a lot harder for Tesla to compete with economy vehicles produced by Ford/Chevy/Honda/Toyota since they have established production lines and can out-produce and out-price Tesla.