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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

#731

Post by sliken »

georgerobinson wrote: post #730
sliken wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard one of the more popular cars people moved from to buy a model 3 is the toyota prius... definitely not a luxury car.

Toyota Prius do not exist in Western Europe outside Uber. They are synonymous with Uber driver and rarely ever bought for private use.

Odd. They are extremely common in California. My office mate has one, her second after giving the first to her daughter. A friend has a motorcycle accident and TWO Prius were involved.

So in the USA, or at least in California they are very common. Part of their popularity is their fleet use makes them direct cheap in the used market, and they tend to be pretty reliable despite the complexity of two separate drive trains.

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

#732

Post by robocat »

gonehome wrote: post #323
robocat wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, can we see how Tesla can get yearly earnings of say $5 billion to justify the valuation? Maintaining a high profit per car seems to depend on selling a premium product, or presuming that other car makers cannot compete. When shifting to the mass market (more than say 1 million vehicles per year), surely the profit per vehicle has to decrease sharply - even if Tesla can earn more than the industry $1k…

They’re seeing a future of fully autonomous electric vehicles. To Elon’s point the Model S has been out since 2013 and there’s still nothing as good on the market from any other manufacturer. They have a huge head start to say nothing of their charging network and the issues legacy brands will have fighting with dealers.

> Model S has been out since 2013 and there’s still nothing as good on the market from any other manufacturer.

Sales of the S are flat and the profits hardly make a dent towards my suggested $5 billion earnings.

> They have a huge head start

In some areas.

Hybrid cars have much of the same technology and no charging station limitations - they compete with full electrics. Hybrids sold 4 million in US 2016 compared to Japan's 5 million sold.

> To say nothing of their charging network and the issues legacy brands will have fighting with dealers.

Sure, but it looks like Tesla needs say 10x more sales to get $5 billion earnings. Another competitor only needs to deploy a little faster to catch up.

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

#733

Post by geoelectric »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #692
gibolt wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is currently manufacturered in Fremont California. Nothing in Fremont is cheap, it is no different than manufacturing in Manhattan, since employees need to pay for super high housing costs and deal with high costs of doing business. Manufacturing in China could bring the cost down significantly, with lower wages, taxes, material costs, etc.

i don't know why this comment is being downvoted. He's absolutely right about every word. Fremont is not a place to be building cars. If you're gonna build in the US, Tesla could have chosen almost any other city in the US and gotten labor cost that was 33% cheaper. Software companies can afford the higher labor cost in the bay area because they tend to have really large margin when they win. Car companies have very…

They bought the old NUMMI factory that used to make GM and Toyota cars. It was active right up until they bought it in 2010 (they announced the sale a month after NUMMI closed) so my guess is they were able to accelerate early progress because of that purchase.

In the long run, I'd agree, the expense vs. reward calculation doesn't make sense now. But GM and Toyota successfully used that plant for something like 30-50 years before that and there was a whole community of auto workers living around it, so I'm not sure I'd say that was poor judgment for them at all.

Nobody expected housing prices to go up 100%+ over the last few years. 2010-2015ish was a real estate boom period for Valley workers if anything. You had post-recession housing fire sales; AirBnB wasn't big enough yet to incentivize empty houses; Google, Apple and FB didn't quite own the entire Menlo Park->Sunnyvale corridor yet; etc. Good times.

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

#734

Post by danso »

tokyodude wrote: post #726
danso wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quarterly loss comes directly from Tesla’s own reporting. You don’t think loss is derived only from revenue, do you?

The title of the article is that sales are lagging but sales are provably not lagging

The headline is that Tesla posts "big quarterly loss" and the cause of this is "sales lag". And the article provides information to substantiate that, including a link to Tesla's report:

https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/b2218d34-fbee-4f1f-ac95-05...

> Deliveries of Model S and Model X declined to 12,100 vehicles in Q1 compared to our two-year run rate of roughly 25,000 units per quarter. This decline was mainly caused by weaker Q1 demand due to seasonality, pull-forward of sales into Q4 2018 in the U.S. due to the first scheduled reduction of the federal EV tax credit in Q1 and discontinuation of our 75 kWh battery pack. We also had a mismatch between orders and deliverable cars. For example, due to adjustments in pricing mid-quarter, the take rate for the performance versions of Model S and Model X increased faster than we were able to supply

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

#735

Post by georgerobinson »

sliken wrote: post #731
georgerobinson wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota Prius do not exist in Western Europe outside Uber. They are synonymous with Uber driver and rarely ever bought for private use.

Odd. They are extremely common in California. My office mate has one, her second after giving the first to her daughter. A friend has a motorcycle accident and TWO Prius were involved. So in the USA, or at least in California they are very common. Part of their popularity is their fleet use makes them direct cheap in the used market, and they tend to be pretty reliable despite the complexity of two separate drive tra…

I think one of the issues is that the Prius starts from $30,000 here - which is quite a lot - and a lot of cheaper, but still economical cars are available for much less.

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

#736

Post by webXL »

navigatesol wrote: post #639
_ea1k wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

> The part that hasn't been decided is where US production will occur. Point still stands: they ordered machinery when they don't even know what factory it will go in. Anyone with a modicum of sense or experience in manufacturing understands this is nonsensical.

I happen to have a modicum of sense, and realize Tesla has some serious management problems, but why is ordering machinery before having a location finalized nonsensical? It's not like this stuff is in transit or they need to buy any land.

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

#737

Post by sliken »

georgerobinson wrote: post #735
sliken wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd. They are extremely common in California. My office mate has one, her second after giving the first to her daughter. A friend has a motorcycle accident and TWO Prius were involved. So in the USA, or at least in California they are very common. Part of their popularity is their fleet use makes them direct cheap in the used market, and they tend to be pretty reliable despite the complexity of two separate drive tra…

I think one of the issues is that the Prius starts from $30,000 here - which is quite a lot - and a lot of cheaper, but still economical cars are available for much less.

Ah, they start around $23k here, and available used from fleet use for $12-$13k with 50-60k miles.

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

#738

Post by Brakenshire »

sliken wrote: post #722
Brakenshire wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about the E-Tron Q4, which is a different model from the E-Tron.

Ah, interesting, it does look much more competitive. More range, less cost, and better acceleration, looks like a direct Model Y competitor. However it's still called a concept vehicle by Audi, couldn't find any mention on a planned availability date.

This says late next year, although looks like it’s just a briefing rather than a formal announcement:

https://www.whatcar.com/news/2020-audi-q4-e-tron-electric-su...

No formal price yet either so could be significantly more expensive.

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

#739

Post by rak00n »

mtw wrote: post #583
bravo22 wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon would be a roadblock to such a merge. Toyota won't be able to function with him in any managerial position. I doubt he'll accept anything less than full control. He won't be content as an "evangelist".

If his dream is really to have the world switch from ICE to EV cars, then he should consider this. That would be an engineering and laudable feat, and he would be in the annals of history. He can then focus on SpaceX and go to Mars. But if his dream is to become ultra-wealthy and be like Stark in Ironman, then I guess he can keep to himself Tesla.

You never know if Toyota would shut down Tesla after merging. This has happened so many times before.

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

#740

Post by nradov »

lancewiggs wrote: post #349
nradov wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An Audi A4 is really not a luxury vehicle in any meaningful sense.

That’s a statement that’s easy to make from a privileged position. Luxury is in the eyes of the beholder, and that car costs two thirds of the median income (before tax, healthcare, housing, food) in the USA.

Privilege has nothing to do with it. It's a simple matter of market segment definition. It's rather silly to pretend that something like a base model A4 is a luxury vehicle when it contains barely any luxury features beyond the logo on the grill. By comparison a top trim Honda Accord lists for $35K but no one considers that a luxury car.

Personally I drive a cheap car. Average new car prices have gotten crazy high relative to median incomes, enabled by low interest long term financing. A lot of buyers are ending up overextended.

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