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

#621

Post by _ea1k » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

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…

> Now we hear Tesla don't even know if they're going to build it in China or California.

I believe you are confused here. The car will be built in China for some markets. The part that hasn't been decided is where US production will occur. The most logical place has been guessed to be GF1 in Sparks, NV, but they have considered California as well (possibly Fremont expansion).

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

#622

Post by serioussecurity » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC

deepGem wrote: post #369

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…

Am just curious, why does everyone believe that Waymo is way ahead. They have more miles driven, but so does Tesla. Waymo has some incredible guys going after autonomy but they have nothing to show as of yet at the L4 or L5 level. Is it because they are playing it super safe. They don't have any urgency to make money from autonomy unlike Tesla. Are they taking it easy ? Per my understanding, Tesla is tackling autonom…

This is one of those "you need to be an expert to evaluate the claim" problems.

Talk to anyone with research experience who are building world scale ML systems that are used by real people, and it's unambiguous that Elon Musk is a con man.

It comes down to small details, like the nature of the training data, the nature of the customizations, the nature of the business problems, the nature of the regulatory problems, the difference between highway driving and city driving. The enormous amount of special casing, the nature of the QA infrastructure, the capital on hand, the routing and mapping problems...

What Tesla has is a decent lane finding system. What Google has is an end to end system. It won't take them long to expand to all the major cities; solving the geofencing problem is easy, they already made street view.

And they were doing L4 successfully years ago. They're keeping drivers in the cars right now mostly because something going wrong is a PR risk, not because they need them. And L5 isn't a particularly important goal.

My guess is I'd have to write up 20 pages of detailed analysis at minimum to convince folks. In general if you don't have 5 to 10 years in depth experience in this space, you probably shouldn't consider qualified to have an opinion.

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

#623

Post by telchar » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

cagenut wrote: post #579

mtgx wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is wasting time, money and focus by investing too much in self-driving tech (they're even having their own chip division now! - is Tesla really in financial a position to compete with Intel/Nvidia now?). Not to mention they made all of their Model 3's thousands of dollars more expensive by including the "full self-driving hardware-that-wasn't" in every unit to the point where it didn't even make sense for Tesla…

there is a line of reasoning, rarely articulated, that EVs will never reach the price points it would take to fully 100% replace ICE cars in the private/personal market. li-ion batteries have done an excellent job walking down the learning/cost curve, but we can all see the way it bends and how much headroom is left in the chemistry. we'll likely hit $100/kwh in the next few years, but even just $80/kwh is likely 5+…

I think that view neglects the costs of the fossil fuel infrastructure. At some point gas stations are going to start closing for lack of customers. That time is a while off yet, but all of the existing stations are not going to be able to be supported by say, half as many ICE cars. Convenience will go down and at some point prices may go up as the existing infrastructure is paid for by fewer stations and less fuel. At the same time electrics will continue getting better, cheaper and more convenient. This could provide an extra push.

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

#624

Post by _ea1k » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

humbleMouse wrote: post #532

dannyw wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything extra that you get with $39.5k is software unlocks (autopilot, navigation, heated seats software). So the extra $4.5k is pure margin.

So to clarify, you dont get heated seats unless you pay 4.5k for a software upgrade?

That was the initial claim. It sounds like they might not actually be turning those off, though.

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

#625

Post by leadingthenet » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

eafkuor wrote: post #453

newnewpdro wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're not entirely wrong, but entire world? I'm not sure. The _vast_ majority of people in the planet can't afford to spend even 10kUSD on a car.

And there's some who simply don't want to.

I could afford to buy a car, but I have an amazing electric bike, and live in a city with fantastic public transport. The 5 days a year I actually NEED a car, I can just rent one. So why buy?

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

#626

Post by _ea1k » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #295

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…

I'm still trying to figure out the root cause. Is it because, production is not keeping up to demand? Or is it because demand is dying? So far it seems former, not later. Some analysts are saying random things like impact of tax credit and competition coming in to EV market. I still don't see anything close to Tesla offering in EV space, at least in US. They really need to focus on offering EV at $18K price point wit…

They are slightly overproducing the SR+ (with fewer battery cells) and slight underproducing the LR (with more cells). What does that tell you about supply constraints?

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

#627

Post by _ea1k » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

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…

> As another German I can definitely tell you that no one here sees a Model 3 at anywhere near a BMW in production quality.

Good!

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

#628

Post by bpyne » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #552

imglorp wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has one more advantage over all the fossils: they're all in. The old guys are still challenged on mission, twisted up and fighting internally, bringing out weak token products designed to not hurt their ICE lines.

I think this is probably more important than people give it credit for. I have an acquaintance who works R&D at a traditional car company (but on self driving features) he says the internal 'fights' between ICE and electric are very real and damaging.

I worked in a small sales and marketing office for IBM in the early 90's. I remember the sales people, who made very good money from mainframe sales, openly discussing how they didn't even want customers to know about RS6000's. I think the margins were pretty low on RS6000's at the time.

Anyway, internal struggles holding back product lines is a very real thing.

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

#629

Post by bluedino » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #563

dagw wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is probably more important than people give it credit for. I have an acquaintance who works R&D at a traditional car company (but on self driving features) he says the internal 'fights' between ICE and electric are very real and damaging.

You can experience it first hand if you go try to test drive a Chevy Bolt - Motor Trend car of the year in 2017. I spoke to dealers who (pretended?) unawareness of the model and didn't want to help me find one. Another tried to talk me out of it. Finally one dealer was well informed about its pros and cons, and had several for sale. Another example: bmw i3. 114 mile range on the 2017 model, really? And that's up from…

It's just a car, to the salesman. If I went in and looked for a Chevrolet Equinox and the dealer didn't have anyt, they'd try to sell me another model.

Just like if you went to Best Buy looking for a certain TV, they'll just try to sell you the one on the shelf

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

#630

Post by leesec » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #260

Reedx wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but people have been saying they won't make it for over a decade now. It's tiresome and unproductive. Meanwhile they've done amazing things that most considered impossible. They went for it despite the difficulty and actually changed an industry. Electric cars were thought of as golf carts! Not so anymore. The idea of covering the country with chargers was a pipe dream. Now it's reality. Here's hoping Telsa con…

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…

>I'm not sure they've done things anyone considered impossible.

Is this also a joke? They've been doing impossible stuff for literally 10 years, there's plenty examples of people claiming so.

Consider this, there isn't a better car than the one they produced in 2012, and GM's best effort at an EV (the Bolt) lost somewhere between 4-8k per unit.