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

#471

Post by sliken » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:37 AM UTC

dannyw wrote: post #454

sliken wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Seems like Tesla may have misjudged the model 3 demand and should have increased the number of production lines more slowly. I think in Fremont factory has 6 lines. One for X, one for S, and 4 for the model 3. Seems like they should just move one or two of the lines from model 3 to the model Y, which shares 75% of the same parts instead of committing to building several new lines in Reno and China. While the…

People expected $35k before incentives. That means an out of pocket cost of approx $28k. People did not expect $36k. $28k vs $36k is HUGE.

Agreed, it is huge. Potential market at $36k vs $28k is quite a bit smaller. At least Tesla bundled in autopilot at zero extra cost.

It's not as good as originally promised, but still a pretty good deal in my opinion. Just depends how much people are willing to spend for good acceleration, avoiding trips to gas stations, and avoiding spending $1000-$1200 of gas per year. Of course electricity is not free either. My last fill up in California was $3.99 a gallon and I spent $51. I do that about 4-5 times a month.

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

#472

Post by kharak » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:41 AM UTC

newnewpdro wrote: post #346

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair. But it's hard for me to imagine a future in which Tesla grows at a better rate than SpaceX.

What are you smoking? The market for automobiles is basically the entire world's adult population. Space rockets not so much.

I guess that is an USA centric viewpoint. Here in Europe, if you live in a city, chances are you don't need, have or want a car. People want less cars, less traffic and more public transport and bike lanes.

Personally, I'd never live somewhere where a car is mandatory.

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

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Post by _Microft » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:46 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #418

_Microft wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the real problem that Phoenix, AZ is the spherical cow of self-driving?

The spherical cow is a simplified abstraction that doesn't accurately model anything in the real world. Phoenix, AZ, is in the real world, with real roads and real customers for a real, if limited, self-driving service. Waymo’s self-driving is far less vaporware than Tesla's.

It was meant exactly in this sense, namely that the conditions in Phoenix do not resemble the challenges in the rest of the world.

Phoenix gets about 310 days of sunshine per year, only 200mm of precipitation with no snow, no fog, ...

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

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Post by georgerobinson » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:46 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #441

georgerobinson wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same in Western Europe, the difference is that cheap lease deals and finance have made them affordable for a significant amount of people and so these cars are extremely common. You see more 3 series than Toyota's or Hyundai's.

Are you sure about that? https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46774053 Every sales graph I've ever seen has relatively cheap cars such as the Fiesta, Golf, Corsa, etc. at the top. Not big Mercedes or BMWs.

Yes. I'm not saying that people in the market for a Ford Fiesta are instead going out and buying a 3 series. People who want a hatchback and going out and buying hatchbacks.

But people who want saloons and estate cars are largely buying from the three Germans, and not Japanese or Korean.

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

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Post by tertius » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:49 AM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #120

tertius wrote: post #101

How much would their cars cost if they actually made a profit? And if they were sold at those prices would anyone but them? My point: their customer service, tech and everything else people love about them is being subsidized by debt. They're not the U.S. government, they can't print money forever...

Tesla is in debt largely because of their rapid ramp-up with costly investments in design, development, manufacturing and supply chain. My layperson understanding is Tesla have been in a structurally profitable state for quite some time—but for their investments geared towards scaling up ever further. The question you need to ask is "if you build a factory, across how many units should the cost of that factory be spr…

> Tesla is in debt largely becaus

Yes, massive debt with no income. Ambitious for sure.

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

#476

Post by agumonkey » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:49 AM UTC

kylecordes wrote: post #181

empath75 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give up on self driving cars for one thing.

No need to give up. Just acknowledge that is a hard problem whose success date is notably indeterminate. Then stubbornly refuse to talk about future features and only talk about one's already shipping today. If the future is going to arrive so soon, why bother to break in advance? Let everyone be amazed when it does arrive. I love the autopilot feature, but the cars are still great without it. Tesla can be very succe…

I think that's one of the main problems I have toward Musk. He started with a strong 'hard science' stance on problems and all of a sudden he became just another salesman. If he just stated where they were .. I'd be less annoyed. But maybe it doesn't mesh well with PR

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

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Post by sliken » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:50 AM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #458

sliken wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it would be a total loss. But rationally it seems like a really unlikely thing to happen. Tesla just made a $920 million payment in March, they have a 20% gross margin, and have $2.2B cash on hand. Sure they may have to slow their growth, or take out another loan, but Tesla is hardly at the brink of bankruptcy. There are some serious competitors targeting the model S and X coming, although none I've heard c…

even those with similar size battery (like the 95kwh audi etron) only manage 56% of the range of the model S (100 kwh). I suspect that's because Tesla have had batteries on the road for much longer than Audi, meaning they've got better data to base the battery-life-vs-discharge-depth trade-off on. After all, everyone's worried about how degraded their batteries will be after 10 years, and there's no better way to get…

Closer. No supercharging network, tiny screen (7" vs 15"), no AWD, slower (0-60 in 7.6 vs 5.5 seconds). At least the range is close (258 vs 300).

Tesla does pretty well on safety (passive and active) as well.

My main concern was did Hyundai skimp on the cooling and battery management system like Nissan did with the leaf. The result with leaf was rapidly degrading batteries that lost more than 25% in the first 3 years. Tesla's in comparison often manage 92% of new range after 150k miles.

With all that said, it does look like the Kona Electric is the closest model Y competitor I've found.

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

#478

Post by sliken » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:52 AM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #470

sliken wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rented a Tesla S (75d I believe) for 3 days. Felt pretty awesome, and stomping on the accelerator put a smile on my face every time. The nav system was a pleasure, actually better than Google Nav on a top of the line phone. The voice recognition for nav and music playing worked really well. I've used similar nav systems from BMW, Subaru, and Toyota and they seemed like lame software running on a 5-10 year old phone…

> I've used similar nav systems from BMW, Subaru, and Toyota and they seemed like lame software running on a 5-10 year old phone. Poor touch screens, smaller screens, poor voice recognition, and poor nav. I'd rather they just have an aux port for music and let me hang my own tablet on the dash somewhere. Thought the same, but the newest Volkswagen generation has improved a lot. Their touch screens and software feel m…

Comparable to google Nav on a new iphone or pixel 3? If so, I'll definitely have to keep an eye on the future VW electric cars.

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

#479

Post by tertius » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:52 AM UTC

sliken wrote: post #180

tertius wrote: post #101

How much would their cars cost if they actually made a profit? And if they were sold at those prices would anyone but them? My point: their customer service, tech and everything else people love about them is being subsidized by debt. They're not the U.S. government, they can't print money forever...

Google "tesla profit over time". You'll see losses from 2011-2013 (12 quarters or so) and a profit, that was the ramp up to the model S. Then a series of losses up to 2016 (13 quarters) where they shipped the model X. Then a series of losses up to 2018 (7 quarters) then 2 quarters of profit for the model 3. So generally Tesla has large costs for expanding battery production and new assembly lines for new models, and…

> If they stopped expanding they would be quite profitable.

That's like saying if I stop eating I'd lose weight. Yes, but pretty soon I'll die.

If they need to invest 1b to make 100m we know where that ends up.

They can't scale back in the long term. Well, they can but they're not doing it right. It's hard to fix manufacturing after you're in the hole as deep as they are.

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

#480

Post by hef19898 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:57 AM UTC

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…

It still comes down to a race between Tesla figuring out the complete automotive supply chain and competitors figuring out EVs.

Tesla had, and I would assume still has, production hell. Now it's delivery hell. Both are solved, controlled and executed constantly by other car companies (VW has an exception with the new Golf 8 that proves the rule).

The competition is still struggling to solve EVs, some like Jaguar and Audi and BMW and others seem to be ahead of others.

Advantage Tesla: EV brand, EV dedicated basis for their cars, software and experience with batteries

Advantage competition: scaling production and delivery, economies of scale

I would argue that the window of opportunity for Tesla is closing now. Which might not be good news for them. And given the ever shorter life cycles in the automotive sector the window ever was max. one facelift / model replacement. Which again is something the competition is doing constantly for decades now. Tesla never did it once.

So I see the advantage on the competition but not by a big margin. Had Tesla solved their production and supply chain earlier the margin wouldn't be there at all or Tesla even be a head of others. The biggest risks for Tesla are a) to miss the window of opportunity they have and be b) to run out of cash before their issues are solved. Both are related and I suspect Elon is much a help regarding the cash side as he is a hindrance regarding the rest.