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

#121

Post by agumonkey » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:31 AM UTC

hi5eyes wrote: post #63

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.

musk does the whole tesla pump before everything, go through his twitter/tesla blog posts

Yeah it kinda feels like a pattern.. he made the Truck announcement at the heart of the ramp up struggles. And obviously the Autonomy Day was well placed. Now their fleet + over the air autonomous implementation ~felt like a solid foundation with potential to grow high and large (unlike previous version of AP). Which makes me believe that Musk still manages to steer progress serious into Tesla and is not just creating a russian doll ponzi scheme in a single company.

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

#122

Post by goshx » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:31 AM UTC

Tiktaalik wrote: post #34

ilamont wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about another carmaker buying them out?

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

Funny to think that a company that has been around for much longer can’t compete with Tesla and they would be the ones to “build them properly”.

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

#123

Post by philwelch » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:32 AM UTC

fooker wrote: post #84

martinald wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think people are underestimating how dire the financials are. I think the cars are pretty cool (though way too much autopilot hype) and it's awesome that EVs have came so far so quickly. If Tesla continues burning cash like this quarter, it will basically be out of money in Q2, yet they are not raising capital which suggests there is some major problem. I think Tesla has had an awful lot of financial near miss…

Billionaires have billionaire friends. It won't be too difficult for Elon Musk to talk to the Google folks and get a few billions in funding, for an appropriate equity.

He already blew one deal, and it was with the Saudis, so I think he’s scraping the barrel for equity partners already.

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

#124

Post by nexuist » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

omarchowdhury wrote: post #96

fooker wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billionaires have billionaire friends. It won't be too difficult for Elon Musk to talk to the Google folks and get a few billions in funding, for an appropriate equity.

Why would the Google folks help a potential Waymo SDC competitor?

Because then they'd have stakes in two high profile L5 attempts rather than only one. That way, regardless of who wins, they'd still have their part in the inception of the self driving industry.

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

#125

Post by kylec » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #116

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #81

Tesla's 1.5B reduction of cash on hand was largely due to the 920M convertible bond payment — but that only happened because TSLA didn't perform to the level necessary for conversion (~$360 IIRC). I wonder what changes in terms this'll warrant for future capital raises. Then they mention that they missed a lot of revenue due to missing half their shipments overseas, and onto Q2 (But also expecting a loss in Q2). Sale…

A few more years of this amd they may be bought out by the likes of BMW. The tesla brand is worth something, even if on the hood of a german car.

BMW doesn't need to pay top dollar for a prestigious brand, they already have one. Tesla will be bought out by the likes of Geely or Tata who don't have strong brands of their own, but have already been going around and scooping up smaller car brands like Volvo and Jaguar.

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

#126

Post by agumonkey » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:34 AM UTC

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.

Conflicting reports about car brands .. I see people saying Tesla lack a lot of quality compared to German cars. Some youtube car guys like scotty kilmer are saying german brands quality has gone to the toilet compared to early 90s. Lots of over engineered electronics, a lot more cheap materials for parts (except for the actual traction subsystem).

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

#127

Post by phkahler » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:34 AM UTC

bobsil1 wrote: post #73

maxxxxx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cars-as-software demand software-centric co's hiring ML people. Legacy won't catch up, startups will.

There is a lot of software in cars, but cars are not software. Making cars is a lot harder from a business perspective than doing AI. In the end software is just a file that gets loaded into a module - one step in a very long chain.

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

#128

Post by canada_dry » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:34 AM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #57

ilamont wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about another carmaker buying them out?

Volkswagen tried but Musk shot specifically shot it down on hubris, despite VW's cash and manufacturing capacity being the solution to Tesla's problems at the time. https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-bravado-private-doubts-h...

> Musk specifically shot it down on hubris

This, of course, will ultimately catch up with Musk, just like it did for Jobs.

Elon success relies on the same 'distortion reality' shield that Jobs relied on. It forces his staff to keep trying to achieve his practically impossible demands.

Continued success requires that it keep working over and over while not burning out critical staff and burning through your investor's deep pockets.

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

#129

Post by danso » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:36 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.

I haven’t seen anything to say that SpaceX is solidly profitable. They’ve said that they’ve had several profitable quarters but no further details. Analysis of their SEC filings suggest that they are not yet profitable (though not in danger either): https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-10-percent-workforce-fired-...

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

#130

Post by braum » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:38 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.

I got mine back without issue shortly after they made them available to order. I wasn't convinced it was for me then but I've changed my mind recently and now i'm looking to buy one again. I had no issue receiving a paper check for the original deposit.