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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

#501

Post by navigatesol »

gonehome wrote: post #228
newsoul2019 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was close to buying a used Tesla from Tesla, but this is making me pause. Am I being unreasonable? I live in the Bay Area where I feel like the only person without a Tesla or two.

People have been predicting failure for Tesla since the beginning. At each stage saying they’d fail and not be able to execute. Every time so far they’ve been wrong. I like my model 3 a lot so I’d recommend one - I don’t think the people speculating on Tesla are particularly good at it.

>People have been predicting failure for Tesla since the beginning.

This is such a bizarre argument. Things don't fall apart overnight, until they do.

Are you a software engineer? "People have been predicting our app will collapse under the burden of technical debt since the beginning. Hasn't happened yet!"

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

#502

Post by sbov »

sliken wrote: post #495
taneq wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least Tesla bundled in autopilot at zero extra cost. For about 15 minutes, before they rolled that back. Honestly that's the biggest red flag, to me - the chaotic mix of announcements, retractions, chops and changes to their pricing and marketing strategy. As an outsider it feels like the company has cool tech but lacks adult supervision.

Er, what? Go to https://www.tesla.com/model3 , click on buy, next, next. You should see: "Autopilot Included". The car costs $39,500.

You have to call in to get the actual base model - they removed the option to order it from the website.

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

#503

Post by navigatesol »

emptyfile wrote: post #419
paganel wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Gotta love HN comments about Tesla.

It's not just HN, it's everywhere.

Anything that comes out of the mouth of Elon is an instant fact, and is repeated as fact until it's proven false. Then it was merely a prediction or plan.

He just went on stage and told investors that their non-existent, full self-driving robot taxi fleet will cut the cost of personal transport by 90% over Uber, and will make the car owners $10-$30k+ ("in some cases more!") in annual income. It's a pipe dream, but now it's talked about like it's already happening.

Remember Solar City and the solar shingles? Their solar deployment is 25% of what it was the quarter he made that announcement. "Synergies!". Meanwhile, they are winding down the company. In a year people will forget it was ever a thing.

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

#504

Post by kmonsen »

hef19898 wrote: post #480
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…

Sure Tesla can make good cars, but not if it has to sell them at a profit. Over the lifetime of Tesla, each car has been subsidized by like 10k from shareholders and 7.5k from government. Both subsidies are going away as we speak.

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

#505

Post by navigatesol »

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…

How do you explain a 30% quarter-over-quarter drop in a company that is rapidly growing?

Pointing at year-over-year for a company like this is deceiving. They just introduced their "mass produced" car with 2 years worth of demand. But, I guess you have until next year to keep telling this particular story.

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

#506

Post by Spooky23 »

YjSe2GMQ wrote: post #224
Spooky23 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would only lease a Tesla. Why be stuck holding the bag if the proverbial shit hits the fan?

What's the potential problem for a consumer? No battery replacements? Someone's gotta be making parts even if Tesla goes bust.

Just like with SaaS, when things go boom, you’re screwed.

With Tesla, i would assume that in car features like autopilot would go poof, along with the proprietary chargers and spare part availability. Also, who knows what over the air maintenance is happening.

With a lease, your liability is capped to the lease payments. With ownership, you can ride it down to zero.

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

#507

Post by audunw »

pbreit wrote: post #331
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure they've done things anyone considered impossible. People have said these things will be wildly unprofitable, sure, and so far those people are mostly right. But nobody has said it would be impossible to build a big expensive electric sedan with high range. Nor did anyone say it would be impossible to build a wide coverage fastcharge network. Surely they are impressive feats, but not "thought to be imposs…

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…

> Better chip than Nvidia.

That's arguably false. Nvidia has a more powerful FSD chip. But performance/watt might be better for Teslas chip.

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

#508

Post by threeseed »

pbreit wrote: post #398
dragonwriter wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

That paper says nothing of the sort. Did you even read it ?

The numbers actually show pseudo-LiDAR being worse in general and significantly worse at longer distances.

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

#509

Post by sliken »

navigatesol wrote: post #497
sliken wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the model 3 the deposit made a huge difference in delivery time. The production ramp was painfully slow (production hell) becuase it was a completely different car than the model S and X that Tesla was producing. Because of the slow ramp the incentive for a deposit was quite large. There was also pretty minimal competition for the model 3, mostly the chevy bolt which most don't really consider in the same class.…

> The production ramp for the Y is expected to be much better than the model 3. There's two announced locations (Reno and China). Tesla also has substantial experience building the model 3, and the Y shared about 75% of the parts. Additionally the model Y is a very conservative design. Same motors, same batteries, same nav, same display, same steering wheel, same seats, same autonomous hardware, same sensors, etc. Th…

Elon's vision is to take over the world automobile market quickly. It's impressively how close he's come. From zero to #1 since 2012 in premium cars is an almost unbelievable achievement. Originally the plan was announced that the model Y would be produced in new assembly lines in Reno, then later the lower end model Ys would be produced in China.

However since then the model 3, S, and X demand had dropped significantly, at least in the USA. They are developing markets in the EU, but delivery logistics, safety certifications, dealer networks, and related have delayed things. Reduced tax incentives in the USA have also hurt demand locally.

My speculation is that Elon wanted all 4 model 3 assembly model 3 lines in Fremont to stay producing the model 3. But now after Q1 they are considering converting a model 3 line in Fremont to the model Y. This will save significant money since with 75% of the same parts, but of course will reduce model 3 production capacity.

How much this makes sense depends on if Panasonic keep up with the battery demand and how much can the new EU model 3 demand make up for the decreasing USA model 3 demand. I suspect there will be related announcements in the next quarter or so.

As for desperation. They made $3.7B with a 20% margin and just paid off $920M in convertible bonds. They have $2.2B on hand and sold 63,000 model 3s this quarter. Where's the desperation? They promised a model Y (mostly a model 3 with a bit more ground clearance and a slightly taller chassis) in late 2020. I don't really see a problem. Given that they have set up 4 model 3 lines so far, at least one model Y line in 1.5 years seems pretty reasonable.

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

#510

Post by sliken »

sbov wrote: post #502
sliken wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er, what? Go to https://www.tesla.com/model3 , click on buy, next, next. You should see: "Autopilot Included". The car costs $39,500.

You have to call in to get the actual base model - they removed the option to order it from the website.

Yes, I ignored that one. The $39,500 model with autopilot is right on the website. It's not the promised $35k model, but it does include autopilot.
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