Live data from Hacker News

Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan

reuters.com

41–50 of 248 posts

Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan

#41
post #20

Few thoughts 1. Is anyone still buying car? May be it's a huge necessessity in US but most of the cities are fairly packed and have good public transport and improving 2. Idea of self driving car will indeed be a big selling point. Still people will pool those and cost of transport in general will come down because of Uber's fleet. Self ownership will still not go up significantly unless idea is to buy for long dista…

> most of the cities are fairly packed and have good public transport and improving

an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times today noted that the number of riders on the Metropolitan Transit Authority lines has decreased recently. people in LA, despite very severe traffic, are still willing to take private vehicles when they can. as the article notes, one reason is that about 20% of riders (reporting in one survey) said they had been sexually harrassed while riding the MTA.

"Metro is hemorrhaging riders. It needs to stop studying obvious fixes and start acting" - https://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-oe-berker-la...

Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan

#42
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link is to what is represented as the authentic text of the memo. If genuine, to me, this seem like the most important bit: "It is important to bear in mind that we lost $700 million in the first quarter this year, which is over $200 million per month. Investors nonetheless were supportive of our efforts and agreed to give us $2.4 billion (our net proceeds) to show that we can be financially sustainable. That is…

> With relatively low gas prices at the moment, decreasing federal subsidies for electric cars, and more players entering the market, it seems like Tesla is in a pretty tough spot. Nothing you couldn't see coming 5 years ago, however.

Gas prices are highly volatile

Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan

#44

Am I right to assume that if Tesla files for bankruptcy protection, all car deposits basically vanish? I assume there's miles of higher priority creditors lined up than consumers who paid a deposit. Do we have any sense of how many outstanding deposits there are still?

Legally they are liabilities that don’t as much disappear as they become claims. Deposit holders become creditors. It’s seventh in the priority list behind other secured priority creditors. It’s messy.

11 U.S.C. § 507(a)(7) provides the priority for Customer Deposits: “The following expenses and claims have priority in the following order: … (7) Seventh, allowed unsecured claims of individuals, to the extent of $2,600 for each such individual, arising from the deposit, before the commencement of the case, of money in connection with the purchase, lease, or rental of property, or the purchase of services, for the personal, family, or household use of such individuals, that were not delivered or provided.

Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan

#45

"when you are weak, the enemy should think you are strong, when you are strong the enemy should think you are weak" -The Art of War

Who is the enemy in this situation? I don't see how this applies to publicly traded companies.

Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan

#46
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

look up elons promises of battery swaps, 35k m3, 2020 roadster, "full self driving", and the closing of stores but then cancelling that and teslas solarcity/solar shingles shitshow i want to remind everyone.. any mention of "self driving" is a scam, fraud. on a site like hackernews im still surprised the teslemmings are still regurgitating this idea

Irrespective of the technical merits, a significant portion of the HN user base likely invested in $TSLA years ago and are financially incentivized to support all of Musk's claims, even if they wouldn't support the outlandish claims normally.

There is no evidence at all for the assertion that "a significant portion of the HN user" base is invested in anything.

Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan

#48

"when you are weak, the enemy should think you are strong, when you are strong the enemy should think you are weak" -The Art of War

There's an influential rival school of thought that says when you're strong the enemy should know you're strong. If they think you're weak, they're not likely to attack you as a pre-emptive measure. But they're fairly likely to attack you for the normal reasons.

Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan

#49

Am I right to assume that if Tesla files for bankruptcy protection, all car deposits basically vanish? I assume there's miles of higher priority creditors lined up than consumers who paid a deposit. Do we have any sense of how many outstanding deposits there are still?

No. Bankruptcy isn't debt forgiveness. Buyers and the lawyers representing the class action suit would have a seat at the hearing and would be able to get in line for whatever is left.

That said: come on, people, Tesla isn't filing for bankruptcy. There are hundreds to thousands of perfectly normal financing options available to run a company with revenues like this that will stretch a cash shortfall into a decades-long decline. And that's assuming that their revenue won't continue to grow.

This is a story you cite if you want to "prove" that Tesla won't take over the world or is eventually going to be passed by Toyota or whoever. Large corporations just don't die like this.

I still don't understand the community of people who... really, desperately want Tesla to fail. Is this a politics thing about EVs? A reverse cult of personality around Musk? Hipster group think? It's really unsightly.

Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan

#50

Suppose you buy a Tesla and in 10 months they fold. Who then maintains the proprietary software that keeps the vehicle running?

Hopefully they can open source it and start and organisation like Mozilla. Others could use the software to make their own "Tesla" too.
Post reply on HN