Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 360 posts

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#171

Post by sombremesa »

medbrane wrote: post #78
sombremesa wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps it’s still overvalued beyond all of those factors. If you feel strongly about that, why not take out a short position? The issue with that is that GP is arguing that this stock's investors continue to behave irrationally. There is no reason to believe they are going to suddenly behave rationally. Thus, a short position is inadvisable. If you are a value investor, the right thing to do is to just not invest…

So you are saying that the opposite (a long position) is advisable? But that would make the current investors behavior a rational one, right?

> If you are a value investor, the right thing to do is to just not invest in it.

I'm not sure how you got your conclusion out of what I said.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#172

Post by notJim »

bearcobra wrote: post #134
ec109685 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing Tesla doesn’t have is the lock in that Apple has. If you are using iPhoto, iWatch and iMessage, switching to another manufacturer is hugely disruptive. I totally agree that Tesla’s software chops are light years ahead.

SuperCharging seems to be the play to build up some lock in. Not sure how successful it will be, but I can definitely see it encouraging repeat purchases

I think SuperCharger is the biggest lock-in right now, but the future is surely public fast charger networks, so I'm not sure how long this will last.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#173

Post by ctdonath »

ethbro wrote: post #152
Reedx wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, though this may still happen between superchargers and Telsa apps/games - which could leverage your historical driving data.

> Telsa apps/games This is the only thing that remotely justifies their current valuation. If you expect them to crush it in China + monetize their install base via creating an app platform for 3rd party apps + get to self-driving. People forget that EVs are going to likely be on the road a lot longer than ICEVs, due to lower wear-and-tear. Past battery capacity degradation, there isn't much to break.

That's my wife's current objection to buying an EV: after a quarter-million miles, a Tesla will still be running fine with no reason to replace it (vs an ICE trying to self-destruct).

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#174

Post by ethbro »

cdiamand wrote: post #86
nerdkid93 wrote: post #2

I for the life of me cannot figure out what could possibly justify this valuation for Tesla. Sure, their cars are pretty great, they have a ravid fanbase, and they have a pretty entertaining CEO who excels at driving interest in the company. They would need to execute perfectly and deliver more cars to customers than Volkswagen in a few years to justify such a valuation right now, and I just don't see that happening…

You're not alone! I've been tracking /r/wallstreetbets for my new project https://topstonks.com and no one there seems to understand it. A lot of great theories though. Out of the 6434 stock mentions in the last 24 hours ~10% of that is about TSLA and that's up 45% since yesterday. Heres a bubble graph of the most mentioned equities over the last 7 days (as of yesterday) on /r/wallstreetbets. ignore F and C, still wo…

I figured it was another short squeeze. Probably coupled with automated trading.

Observed short interest over total outstanding seems like the kind of thing an algorithm could target, as it makes the stock more sensitive to moves, no?

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#175

Post by notJim »

extrapickles wrote: post #114
ec109685 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing Tesla doesn’t have is the lock in that Apple has. If you are using iPhoto, iWatch and iMessage, switching to another manufacturer is hugely disruptive. I totally agree that Tesla’s software chops are light years ahead.

Their charging infrastructure is pretty good lock in, especially if you install one of their chargers in your house.

Once your house is wired for the charger, how hard/expensive is it really to swap it for a different one?

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#176

Post by fjabre »

xenospn wrote: post #50
fjabre wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is a disrupter and he is disrupting this industry turning it on its head. We've been stuck in the same boring recycled car designs and concepts for decades and here comes Elon with the promise of self driving flying cars on their way to Mars with SpaceX in the background making incredible strides forward everyday. To be honest I think this valuation is too low. Elon continues to eat the competition's lunch on a…

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I've been a Tesla fan for years, and invested back when they first IPOd), but isn't the Porsche Taycan superior to the Model S in every way (except for a slightly shorter range)? If Porsche can "catch up" and leapfrog the Model S in just their first iteration, I'm pretty sure Tesla's growth is going to slow down significantly going forward.

Does Porsche have domain expertise in launching vehicles into orbit? Do you not think that the cross pollination between Musk's ground breaking companies won't give him a competitive edge against incumbents?

I don't think anyone realizes just how significant it is to have Silicon Valley know how in this industry where the visionary is an engineer and not a traditional CEO salesman.

It defies common sense that people question this so much. It's so obvious that Musk is disrupting all of these industries at once and breaking new ground daily.

I think, judging by the downvotes of my above comment that people are jealous or envious of Musk and they will always have a negative reaction to his success.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#177

Post by _ea1k »

Spivak wrote: post #121
xedeon wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has consistently said the Supercharger Network is open for any manufacturer to adapt. " "Tesla is aware of these problems. CEO Elon Musk first floated the idea of sharing its Supercharger network in 2015, but with only a few hundred Superchargers operating at the time, the proposals did not gain any momentum." "Tesla’s chief technology officer JB Straubel has strongly suggested that plans are now underway. He s…

I feel like you're painting the second option as bad when it's exactly the same flow as buying gas. Nothing about paying for electricity needs an account and more than buying gas does. I agree that Tesla's system is pretty slick but the alternative isn't bad.

When your stops are 15-20 minutes instead of 5, every small reduction is even more critical.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#178

Post by xedeon »

gowld wrote: post #131
xedeon wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has consistently said the Supercharger Network is open for any manufacturer to adapt. " "Tesla is aware of these problems. CEO Elon Musk first floated the idea of sharing its Supercharger network in 2015, but with only a few hundred Superchargers operating at the time, the proposals did not gain any momentum." "Tesla’s chief technology officer JB Straubel has strongly suggested that plans are now underway. He s…

"The difficulty of submitting payment for fuel" isn't something that customers have been too concerned about in the century-long history of gas stations.

Whenever a customer experience a new paradigm that makes sense, the old habit seems so outdated and inconvenient.

Just imagine yourself not having to go to a gas station to fuel for a year, because you can charge at home every night. You wouldn't want to go back.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#179

Post by jfengel »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #64
nerdkid93 wrote: post #2

I for the life of me cannot figure out what could possibly justify this valuation for Tesla. Sure, their cars are pretty great, they have a ravid fanbase, and they have a pretty entertaining CEO who excels at driving interest in the company. They would need to execute perfectly and deliver more cars to customers than Volkswagen in a few years to justify such a valuation right now, and I just don't see that happening…

IMO, the best metric for comparison of the two companies is the ratio of Enterprise Value to Sales. (P/S doesn't work as well because of the massive debt loads of car companies). For VWAGY, the ratio is about 1: $240B of sales and $260B EV. For Tesla, the ratio is about 4.5: $24B of sales and $108B EV. 4.5 is not a massive number for this ratio. It indicates the market expects growth, but not hit-it-out-of-the-park g…

Sales seems an odd metric, since there's a big difference between high and low margin industries. But I suppose it's somewhat reasonable within an industry, especially when one is trying to compare an established company with one that is so busy growing that nobody expects its profit and loss this quarter to tell you much about the long term. Interesting, thanks.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#180

Post by ksec »

donogh wrote: post #53
nerdkid93 wrote: post #2

I for the life of me cannot figure out what could possibly justify this valuation for Tesla. Sure, their cars are pretty great, they have a ravid fanbase, and they have a pretty entertaining CEO who excels at driving interest in the company. They would need to execute perfectly and deliver more cars to customers than Volkswagen in a few years to justify such a valuation right now, and I just don't see that happening…

Tesla is the Apple of the auto industry. They are getting stellar customer satisfaction ratings, which is translating into brand loyalty[1]. They've built an ecosystem between their above-average EV hardware, industry-leading software (with frequent improvements), and a top-notch charging network. I can see some automakers matching them on hardware, but they have a huge lead in software. Traditional car manufacturers…

>Tesla is the Apple of the auto industry.

As far as I am aware, none of the Tesla, even in perfect form, are as well built as any of the state of the art luxury cars. Compared to Apple, despite all its criticism and flaws, still has some of the best built Smartphones, Laptops, Desktops and Tablet in the industry.

Not entirely sure about Software, If it is internal uses, I would argue the biggest competitor to the Software system isn't from car manufacturers, but from either Google or Apple's CarPlay.

For something like Autopilot? Other Cars manufacturers have had similar system that is on par with Tesla if not better.

So apart from Charging station, which so far no government nor its competitors has managed to built any decent alternative. Tesla doesn't seems anything Apple like, it doesn't have a moat around it.

Post reply on HN