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Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

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Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#121

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

joshuamorton wrote: post #100
grecy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are trillions of dollars at stake in the auto industry that Tesla is trying to seriously disrupt. There are trillions of dollars at stake in the launch industry that SpaceX is trying to seriously disrupt. There are trillions of dollars at stake in the ride-share/taxi industry that Tesla/Elon is trying seriously to disrupt. There are a lot of people who are working very hard to paint a very negative picture of E…

Over what timescale? United Launch Alliance, SpaceX's main (only?) competitor pulls in a few billion in revenue a year. Profits are well under $100 million, so we're talking Trillions over a couple thousand years. Arguably, if we're disrupted into a spacefaring species, this could change, but there's physical problems with that. You might be correct about rideshare/taxi industries over a 100 year timespan or somethin…

>EVs aren't going to take over any time soon, and other carmakers are better at logistics than Tesla, and that's the important part.

Ask Norway.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#122

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

GuiA wrote: post #78
Lendal wrote: post #15

I never see stories about Ford's current lawsuits, or GM or Chrysler. I'm curious what goes on behind the scenes to get stories like these published and pushed out onto social media sites across the globe. Must be a pretty expansive operation because I see it every week, same stuff week in and week out. Is it true that other companies don't have disgruntled employees? I find that difficult to believe.

The CEOs of those companies aren’t committing securities fraud or insulting random people on Twitter, for starters.

>aren’t committing securities fraud

Please elaborate.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#123

Post by sjwright »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #95
sjwright wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AP never override's the driver's steering wheel input and it never stops the driver from pushing the brake pedal. AP never takes control away.

The new Emergency Lane Departure Avoidance actually briefly overrides my steering. It is somewhat annoying on a very narrow road, so I turn it off.

It's not accurate to say that it overrides your steering; it combines its decisions with yours—like on an aircraft where the co-pilot has access to the same steering controls as the pilot.

Personally I think lane keeping systems are mostly junk. Unless an automation (e.g. transmissions, adaptive cruise, auto headlights, auto wipers, lane keeping) does the not-wrong thing 99.9%* of the time, it doesn't lower cognitive load on the driver and is therefore pointless. If I still have to concentrate on staying in my lane, I'd much rather be 100% responsible for it instead of 1% responsible.

* Not sure how many nines, but probably more than that.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#124

Post by bryanlarsen »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #75
bryanlarsen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equity value (market cap + debt) the real measure of company valuation, since debt holders are owners too. Ford's EV is 145B (42B market cap + 103B debt). Tesla's EV is 56B (44.5B market cap + 11.5B debt). Ford and Honda are still valued considerably higher than Tesla.

Ford has over 250 billion in assets. Quoting enterprise value without context is highly misleading. Ford's debt and assets are largely from its financing arm. It doesn't make the car making part of Ford worth more.

Investors have valued Ford at $141B. Assets doesn't affect that statement one bit.

It's a piece of evidence that investors might be wrong.

It's an easy double. Buy Ford, sell of the assets, pay off the debt and pocket $110B for a cost of $42B. Since that's not happening, nor anything like it, investors don't think Ford assets are worth $250B.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#125

Post by windexh8er »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #107
kreetx wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon gets a lot of hate unfortunately due to his position in the industry, and also I guess the age we're in. See this tweet from Paul Graham for example https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1122987659079618563 People notice the hate, and although there most probably are issues in the factories, then the reporting of them is way bent to the negative.

Actually the criticism that Musk gets is a result of things like: - Calling someone's boss and threatening a lawsuit to make him take down critical writings on Twitter and Seeking Alpha ( https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/07/27/1532692760000/Je-suis... ) - Threatening to "nuke" a departing employee who had returned to Tesla HQ to collect some personal belongings ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-05/tes…

Other than the last one you've linked it doesn't appear that any of these are actually true or were proven. It seems more evident as time goes on that these sensational troll stories come out yet there's no recourse against Tesla. It's hard to tell but I would guess one of two things are happening: 1) Tesla is paying these people to go away 2) these allegations are targeting Tesla either for financial gain (shorters) or competitive (dealers/manufacturers).

While I've yet to actually see the latter I'm not so sure what to think, quite honestly. However it seems odd of the timing of this - right before earnings. I'll be curious to see how CNBC drums this up today.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#126

Post by windexh8er »

xiphias2 wrote: post #117
kreetx wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be serious? It's not like Tesla is a bakery where on the 6th month the bread sales pay off the one-time asset purchases (e.g oven and other equipment) and then it's all profit down the line. It takes time, especially on the scale Elon appears to be doing it.

It doesn’t take time to get profitable, all it would take is to stop putting billions of dollars into building new factories. The problem is that stopping growth would never bring humanity closer to sustainable transport (nor would it make sensible investors happy)

> It doesn’t take time to get profitable, all it would take is to stop putting billions of dollars into building new factories.

Are you serious? I can throw a rock at any newly minted tech IPO in the last year and almost guarantee that it's not even remotely close to being in the black without even hearing the name.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#127

Post by reitzensteinm »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #124
reitzensteinm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ford has over 250 billion in assets. Quoting enterprise value without context is highly misleading. Ford's debt and assets are largely from its financing arm. It doesn't make the car making part of Ford worth more.

Investors have valued Ford at $141B. Assets doesn't affect that statement one bit. It's a piece of evidence that investors might be wrong. It's an easy double. Buy Ford, sell of the assets, pay off the debt and pocket $110B for a cost of $42B. Since that's not happening, nor anything like it, investors don't think Ford assets are worth $250B.

Sure, the statement is correct, but misleading.

An apples to apples comparison between Ford and Tesla to compare valuation means teasing out the part of Ford that actually makes cars. Lumping in the financial services arm makes no sense if intellectual honesty is the goal.

And in any case, EV isn't at all the final word you're making it out to be. If Ford takes on $100bn of debt to finance $100bn of cars with zero margin in order to move metal, now Ford has a $241bn EV. Is Tesla now suddenly even-more-undervalued compared to Ford? Nope.

You're right that Ford probably can't be broken up and liquidated at book value, but my argument doesn't hinge on that.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#128

Post by unityByFreedom »

kreetx wrote: post #116
unityByFreedom wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Maybe they are making a profit even now? Sorry, don't know, I'm just a random developer...) SpaceX is private, so its books are closed and there is no publicly reviewable valuation. Tesla is public and has had < 5 profitable quarters in its existence. None of Elon's existing companies have been able to turn a profit. Paypal does not count as "his" since he joined there on an acquisition and he was only CEO there f…

You can't be serious? It's not like Tesla is a bakery where on the 6th month the bread sales pay off the one-time asset purchases (e.g oven and other equipment) and then it's all profit down the line. It takes time, especially on the scale Elon appears to be doing it.

I'm serious. Before Elon took over, they were profitable selling high performance vehicles [1],

They didn't need to become huge right away, that was his gamble, and it remains to be seen if that will pay off.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/TxDbHX7.jpg

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#129

Post by unityByFreedom »

windexh8er wrote: post #126
xiphias2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t take time to get profitable, all it would take is to stop putting billions of dollars into building new factories. The problem is that stopping growth would never bring humanity closer to sustainable transport (nor would it make sensible investors happy)

> It doesn’t take time to get profitable, all it would take is to stop putting billions of dollars into building new factories. Are you serious? I can throw a rock at any newly minted tech IPO in the last year and almost guarantee that it's not even remotely close to being in the black without even hearing the name.

Tesla isn't a newly minted tech IPO. They're just riding the wave of an economy with good lending rates.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#130

Post by kreetx »

xiphias2 wrote: post #117
kreetx wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be serious? It's not like Tesla is a bakery where on the 6th month the bread sales pay off the one-time asset purchases (e.g oven and other equipment) and then it's all profit down the line. It takes time, especially on the scale Elon appears to be doing it.

It doesn’t take time to get profitable, all it would take is to stop putting billions of dollars into building new factories. The problem is that stopping growth would never bring humanity closer to sustainable transport (nor would it make sensible investors happy)

Yeah.. My argument perhaps wasn't put in the best way, and yes, Tesla is growth-heavy, and probably could have been profitable already if they would have wanted to.

With what I said was more aimed at the argument that building electric vehicles isn't a straightforward business where there is nothing to innovate and the purpose is just to get profitable as quickly as possible. But yes, as you say, they invest it all back.

I wonder if the negative side in the whole argument would just like the profits and stock go up as fast as possible, and that is the reason for unhappynes?

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