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

nytimes.com

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

#391

Post by pbreit »

kakwa_ wrote: post #366
m3kw9 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon would sell to Apple, and not these old school car manufacturers that has their tails covering their behinds

Elon Musk only controls 20% of Tesla shares, the board can force a sell upon him if the other shareholders agree on one. And I'm not sure why Apple would buy a car company, it's too far of their core business (aka selling computers ranging from phone sized to desktop size). The other car manufacturers are not blind idiots, they are seeing EVs are becoming a thing, but it's also in its early stages. The question for t…

All three of your paragraphs are incorrect.

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

#392

Post by cjhopman »

paganel wrote: post #350
golfer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has about $9B in debt. They are not an attractive takeover candidate. They've never turned an annual profit.

VW Group’s recent Audi e-tron has to 30-40% lower range than a Tesla 3 (~200 miles vs ~325 miles) and as such I would totally see them putting forward the money to buy Tesla in order to bridge this big technological gap.

If you think that's a $10 billion gap, you're delusional.

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

#393

Post by tomp »

canada_dry wrote: post #128
bduerst wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How did it catch up with Jobs? Apple still makes the best phones and the most cash 5 years after his death. Like, Jobs is still so far ahead, no one even tries to catch up.

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

#394

Post by dagw »

whttheuuu wrote: post #381
jaabe wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EV are still too expensive and Tesla ridiculously so. That’s not a problem if you can’t keep up with demand, but competition creeps up. Why would you buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less? We need better leadership though. I live in Denmark where EVs aren’t very widespread because of taxes. In Norway more than half of new vehicles sold are EV. Norway has more money than us, but they didn’t really…

"Why would you buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less?" Lol, is this a serious question?

is this a serious question?

Of course it is. Saving a lot of money on a car means you can spend a lot of money on other things you enjoy. So why would you pay a lot of money to drive a Tesla instead of a Hyundai? Because the Tesla looks better? Drives better? Has better safety features? Is more reliable? Has a higher status value?

I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons to buy a Tesla instead of Hyundai and had they cost the same then sure I'd buy a Tesla as well. But if I was in the market for a new electric car then "Why buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less?" would definitely be a serious question I would be asking myself and I'm not sure I would come up with a good answer (or at least not a better answer than Tesla's are cool).

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

#395

Post by pbreit »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #356
pbreit wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First US car company in 60 years, electric at that. Best crash test ratings. Highest owner satisfaction. First US-owned factory in China. Built in about 6 months. Ability and willingness to use OTA updates. Willingness and ability to put auto-pilot on the road for consumers. Ridiculous performance. Better chip than Nvidia. Top 2 auto battery supplier. Best selling lux car in US (ICE or EV). Dramatically better batter…

Apart from the FSD bit, which is still a far way from realized and might never be, none of those things are in the category "people said this was impossible".

Read the list again.

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

#396

Post by dependsontheq »

I think what is happening is totally to be expected, Tesla launched a cheaper car and the cheaper car is eating it’s margins and a lot of 3 buyers would have gone for an S if there were no 3. And the S is even with updates an old car now, they should have launched a new S last year.

So they are a car company now with a specific target group ( early adopter, affluent) and they will need to to get into new target groups and the will have to update their offerings.

I really hope they can pull this off, otherwise the pressure to electricity for the other OEMs will disappear.

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

#397

Post by natch »

maxxxxx wrote: post #280
FireBeyond wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two years away? Just in mid-February he said "You'll be in FSD, coast to coast, in of our cars, _this year_".

These comments are weird. Everybody is stretching the truth to some degree but these claims are pretty bold.

The claims sound bold because he never made them. The poster is misquoting.

Elon said that Tesla would have a version of the software that could do full self driving by the end of this year. Then he very clearly spelled out that it would not be available to consumers until regulators approve it at some later date (possibly years).

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

#398

Post by pbreit »

dragonwriter wrote: post #364
pbreit wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First US car company in 60 years, electric at that. Best crash test ratings. Highest owner satisfaction. First US-owned factory in China. Built in about 6 months. Ability and willingness to use OTA updates. Willingness and ability to put auto-pilot on the road for consumers. Ridiculous performance. Better chip than Nvidia. Top 2 auto battery supplier. Best selling lux car in US (ICE or EV). Dramatically better batter…

> Plausible FSD story. No. > Camera-based autonomy. That's among the reasons the former isn't true. > $35k price point That PR point has largely been abandoned. I mean, nominally they’ll still sell it to you if you jump through hoops, but they’ve deliberately made it less accessible because, as much as it was an important PR point, it was never really viable.

Continuing to deny something that exists is actually beyond calling it impossible!

If you've got some spare time, go read some third party research on how cameras might actually be better. Lidar superiority is a myth. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.07179.pdf

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

#399

Post by antocv »

double0jimb0 wrote: post #98
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…

Have you shopped for a car lately? What you get for your money: 20k-40k: Plastic 40k-75k: Plastic painted to look like metal and wood veneers 75k+: Maybe metal and real wood This refers to everything you touch and see in and outside the car. US manufactures aren’t in the 75K+ market for sedans, US mfgs only know plastic. For the Germans, you need to be in flagship cars to get away from metalized plastic (A7/A8, S-cla…

Why do materials inside a car matter? What difference does having mahogny or walnut wood on the interior vs plastic make?

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

#400

Post by cjhopman »

goshx wrote: post #288
radium3d wrote: post #252

Seasonal 4th to 1st quarter may have been a loss but these numbers stand out to me as being a bit more important. Cars sold: Q1 2019: 63,000 Q1 2018: 29,980 Q1 2017: 25,000 Q1 2016: 14,820 Q1 2015: 10,045 Q1 2014: 6,457 Q1 2013: 4,900 Q1 2012: 0 Revenue Q1 2019: $4.5 billion Q1 2018: $3.4 billion Q1 2017: $2.7 billion Q1 2016: $1.6 billion Q1 2015: $1.1 billion Q1 2014: $713 million Q1 2013: $562 million Q1 2012: $30…

Also: "Operating cash flow less capex should be positive in every quarter including Q2. As the impact of higher deliveries and cost reduction take full effect, we expect to return to profitability in Q3 and significantly reduce our loss in Q2."

Also: "Not by a lot, but I am optimistic about being profitable in Q1 and all quarters going forward."
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