Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 778 posts

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

#31

Post by cmer »

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…

I think pretty much every single person who owns a Model S/X would tell you that they're never going back to the old German crew. Tesla enjoys the strongest brand loyalty of any car manufacturer. Apple-like loyalty.

Tesla doesn't feel like a toy, it feels like the future. They're years ahead of everybody else in terms of tech that is usable today.

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

#32

Post by ilamont »

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...

What about another carmaker buying them out?

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

#33

Post by pbreit »

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...

True, it's off-the-charts amazing what Tesla has been able to accomplish. People have been convinced that it would die pretty much since the beginning. But it doesn't. If they can sell 90k cars this quarter I think they make it through this danger zone.

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

#34

Post by Tiktaalik »

ilamont wrote: post #32
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...

What about another carmaker buying them out?

This makes the most sense. Buy the tech and the brand and then build them properly.

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

#35

Post by [deleted] »

cmer wrote: post #31
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…

I think pretty much every single person who owns a Model S/X would tell you that they're never going back to the old German crew. Tesla enjoys the strongest brand loyalty of any car manufacturer. Apple-like loyalty. Tesla doesn't feel like a toy, it feels like the future. They're years ahead of everybody else in terms of tech that is usable today.

[deleted]

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

#36

Post by Causality1 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #23
2bitencryption wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It would be easier if he'd stop making grandiose claims like "self driving is only two years away!"

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

#37

Post by toomuchtodo »

danappelxx wrote: post #30
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.

> economy vehicles produced by Ford/Chevy/Honda/Toyota since they have established production lines and can out-produce and out-price Tesla.

Who do not pay for the lifetime externalities of each of their vehicles burning petroleum for hundreds of thousands of miles.

If you accept climate change is man made, and that combustion vehicles contribute to it, it is insane we don’t make internal combustion vehicles pay for their externalities as part of their cost to level the playing field, and force electric vehicle manufacturers to compete against them without such a handicap in place.

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

#38

Post by mamon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #25
nostrademons wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

We are definitely living in different universes. ICEs do not get any subsidies, quite the opposite: in many countries, e.g. the whole EU gas is so heavily taxed that more than half of the retail price is tax.

Also, Tesla is an easy target to make fun of, because of its narcistic, arrogant CEO that seems to think that he can outsmart everyone, when in fact his business is a total mess.

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

#39

Post by TylerE »

cmer wrote: post #31
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…

I think pretty much every single person who owns a Model S/X would tell you that they're never going back to the old German crew. Tesla enjoys the strongest brand loyalty of any car manufacturer. Apple-like loyalty. Tesla doesn't feel like a toy, it feels like the future. They're years ahead of everybody else in terms of tech that is usable today.

They're saying that NOW. What will they be saying in a year or three?

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

#40

Post by freewilly1040 »

itslennysfault wrote: post #24
haxton wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s news. Smoking weed as a guest on a talk show / podcast is something no CEO of a noteworthy company has done before. I don’t care per se but come on, it’s obviously an attention grabbing thing to do.
Post reply on HN