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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

#511

Post by threeseed »

sliken wrote: post #496
threeseed wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ordinary people aren't buying cars today based purely on MPG so why do people think range, battery efficiency etc is going to be a primary reason in future ? It's far more likely to be just one of many factors. And Tesla really isn't great in many of them e.g. interior design, build quality, easy of service, product availability, brand cachet, etc. And now they have to worry if Tesla will even be around in 5-10 years…

Agreed. But Tesla IS doing really well on what consumers care about. Search for "Tesla owners are more satisfied than any other auto brand's, according to Consumer Reports" or similar articles. Especially for first time electric car buyers, they really do seem rather worried about moving from a 488 mile range (like a honda accord) to a 240-370 mile range (Tesla). I suspect mostly because they haven't internalized the…

That report does not measure what consumers care about. It simply measures what Tesla owners think. And those owners tend to come from a very narrow demographic which is unrepresentative of the general public.

And yes people are worried about the difference in range given it's a new technology. But no evidence it significantly influences purchasing decisions especially given that most people aren't driving hundreds of miles in a day.

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

#512

Post by reacharavindh »

neuronic wrote: post #469
_ph_ wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, you basically cannot buy a Hyundai. The production is far below Model 3 levels. Here in Germany, you are looking at 12 months wait time due to demand far exceeding supply. Also, the Model 3 is a very attractive offering. It is the faster car, aims at the typical BMW audience, and most of all, has the supercharger network available.

As another German I can definitely tell you that no one here sees a Model 3 at anywhere near a BMW in production quality. If Tesla intends to market the Model 3 at the "BMW audience" - whatever differentiates them from, say, the "Audi audience" - they are horribly miscalculating at what German people expect from a car. It is not limited to EV range. Also, Volkswagen is ramping up production on their Modular Electric…

Do you have any info about VW's batteries? If they are building up MEB for the next 2-3 years, they should have some idea of what they are going to do about batteries by now right?

So far, it appears that batteries and drive train efficiency are the secret to Tesla's dominance in efficiency. VW would be a dumb competitor if it comes out in 2-3 years with a car that costs as much or more than a Tesla with only 60% of its range.... there is risk for VW as well here..

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

#513

Post by coredog64 »

_Microft wrote: post #473
dragonwriter wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, ...

...shitty drivers from the other 49 states, blue-haired old ladies who haven’t seen the inside of a DMV in 20 years, and massive dust storms. That 200mm of precipitation happens over a couple of days. I’ve driven in every state in the western US, and those rain storms are scary.

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

#514

Post by audunw »

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.

I've been on the fence about Tesla's approach (no Lidar) being the right way. But did you see the recent presentation at all?

At this point I think it's clear that they have a high chance of succeeding.

And I think the core argument is correct: If you don't have a neural net that can estimate depth from cameras as well as a human, you don't have a viable FSD system. The classifications that the system has to do to actually implement all the requirements of true FSD, is way harder than what's needed to make Lidar redundant with cameras and radar. Lidar is a shortcut to get a proof-of-concept running when your vision system is too weak to actually do full FSD.

> as much as it was an important PR point, it was never really viable.

Of course it's viable. It's just a question of time. It's pretty silly to think that sommehow, right this year, batteries will stop falling in price and Tesla will find no other ways to continue to reduce costs.

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

#515

Post by dwighttk »

whttheuuu wrote: post #385
dwighttk wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone with money believed a word of what Elon mumbled on Autonomy Day the stock would have moved up. (It didn’t)

The stock didn't move down at all after the (negative?) earnings call either. Tesla is currently priced correctly.

Sure. Because no one believes that Tesla is going to reach level 5 autonomy and sell people cars that will make the owners $30K profit/yr.

What is odd to me: no one thinks that promising and failing to deliver lvl 5 will hurt Tesla very much.

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

#516

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

ckastner wrote: post #361

Well, I guess that explains the Autonomy Day [1] event from just two days ago where they presented themselves as the Pack Leader, when everyone else knows it's Waymo (by far). Quoting user RivieraKid [2]: Take a moment and think about why are they doing this event now. Elon is setting a stage for a capital raise, he's pitching the autonomy narrative after the Model 3 cash cow narrative failed. They're trying to convi…

> Well, I guess that explains the Autonomy Day [1] event from just two days ago where they presented themselves as the Pack Leader, when everyone else knows it's Waymo (by far).

Awesome! So how do I order one of these Waymo cars?

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

#517

Post by sliken »

threeseed wrote: post #511
sliken wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. But Tesla IS doing really well on what consumers care about. Search for "Tesla owners are more satisfied than any other auto brand's, according to Consumer Reports" or similar articles. Especially for first time electric car buyers, they really do seem rather worried about moving from a 488 mile range (like a honda accord) to a 240-370 mile range (Tesla). I suspect mostly because they haven't internalized the…

That report does not measure what consumers care about. It simply measures what Tesla owners think. And those owners tend to come from a very narrow demographic which is unrepresentative of the general public. And yes people are worried about the difference in range given it's a new technology. But no evidence it significantly influences purchasing decisions especially given that most people aren't driving hundreds o…

I agree, but it's not such a narrow demographic. 63,000 bought them in Q1. The mode similar luxury/premium car I can find is the BMW 3 series. BMW sold 8,225 of them in Q1.

So almost 8x as many people bought a model 3 for similar or higher prices than the BMW 3 series. In fact at various time periods Tesla was outselling the sum of all similar premium cars in the USA from BMW, MB, Audi, and Lexus.

So sure Tesla owners are a self selecting set, but there's apparently quite a few people that want the model 3.

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

#518

Post by lonnyk »

kmonsen wrote: post #504
hef19898 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I read earlier that model 3s had. 20% gross margin. I’m happy to find the source again if you’re interested, but I'd also love to see your source.

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

#519

Post by Dumblydorr »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #516
ckastner wrote: post #361

Well, I guess that explains the Autonomy Day [1] event from just two days ago where they presented themselves as the Pack Leader, when everyone else knows it's Waymo (by far). Quoting user RivieraKid [2]: Take a moment and think about why are they doing this event now. Elon is setting a stage for a capital raise, he's pitching the autonomy narrative after the Model 3 cash cow narrative failed. They're trying to convi…

> Well, I guess that explains the Autonomy Day [1] event from just two days ago where they presented themselves as the Pack Leader, when everyone else knows it's Waymo (by far). Awesome! So how do I order one of these Waymo cars?

You will download an app and order a ride, you'll need to be in Phoenix though

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

#520

Post by tigerlily »

sliken wrote: post #477
michaelt wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That was the 30 kWh Nissan Leaf iirc. Some work was done to investigate this in New Zealand (0), since a lot of ex Japanese stock ends up there.

(0) https://flipthefleet.org/2018/30-kwh-leafs-soh-loss/

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