Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla • Hacker News Board

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#271

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:09 AM UTC

xedeon wrote: post #269

rsj_hn wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think Tesla is just shooting themselves in the foot here. They should be sponsoring a healthy third party aftermarket, they should be adding easy to use ODB ports, they should be publishing service bulletins. And if indeed Munro and other EV enthusiasts are right that maintenance costs will be 90% lower, Tesla should be offering 20 year warranties on their car to give potential buyers, especially used car buy…

> They should be adding easy to use ODB ports, they should be publishing service bulletins Both of these have been happening for years now. You can even look up parts/diagrams and order directly from Tesla if you provide your VIN here: http://epc.tesla.com/ Maybe these are not obvious to non-owners. But it's silly to assume things where you have incomplete/false information. You can talk to actual owners here: https:…

[deleted]

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#272

Post by rsj_hn » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:24 AM UTC

xedeon wrote: post #270

rsj_hn wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When big companies change the subject from the cost of their products to TCO, that's when you check your wallet. Particularly when you are calculating TCO by assuming the car is under warranty and trying to sell that to a used car buyer who has no warranty and is forced to service their car at predatory dealerships and may be facing a 20K battery replacement cost. TCO needs to be calculated over the entire life of th…

>Rear drive standard range model 3 starts at 40K Even if you round up $39K to 40K. It's still a far cry from your initial $50k assumption. $10K is not even close to being a rounding error and makes it seem like you're reaching. You also made quite a bit of other assumptions here. You should actually fact check some of your claims. You can do the math yourself. Numbers don't lie. If you can somehow show that the artic…

> Even if you round up $39K to 40K. It's still a far cry from your initial $50k assumption.

Tesla 3's ASP was ~60K in 2018 https://cleantechnica.com/2018/08/23/tesla-model-3-average-s...

That was the latest data I could find and I decided to give them a break. You will find in analysts calls a number of 50K is a common estimate.

> Numbers don't lie.

Agreed

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#273

Post by enos_feedler » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:54 AM UTC

rsj_hn wrote: post #229

TeMPOraL wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of right now, the most mature EVs are Teslas. They've established themselves as the gold standard of EVs. If anything, their main hurdle is still convincing consumers to buy EVs instead of ICE cars.

I would say there are three main hurdles: * Convincing the public to spend 50-70K on a car * Convincing the public to buy an EV * Convincing the public that Tesla can be trusted for long term repair costs/reliability Right now Tesla is squarely in the luxury vehicle market, competing against Lexus/BMW/Mercedes, rather than against Mazda/Honda/Kia, and it's a new automaker, so we don't have good long term reliability…

Tesla is not in the luxury vehicle market. They have carved out their own segment with some overlap. They have pulled in some of the Kia and BMW market for those who put a price on technology, EV, etc

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#274

Post by nik_bhintade » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:58 AM UTC

turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

Teslas price is just too high. I think they will be very successful and become a big, dominant car maker. But their price only makes sense if they end up being the only car maker left. That's not realistic. Building an electric car is not that hard, especially if Tesla already did all the hard lifting for you. For a while I was thinking that the battery play - becoming the number 1 battery supplier - will justify the…

Also other companies can buy self driving part from someone like george hotz. So that part is also solved.

But tesla price was never based on actual company financial, they were based on the dream Elon was selling his investors.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#275

Post by xedeon » Tue, May 18, 2021, 4:09 AM UTC

rsj_hn wrote: post #272

xedeon wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Rear drive standard range model 3 starts at 40K Even if you round up $39K to 40K. It's still a far cry from your initial $50k assumption. $10K is not even close to being a rounding error and makes it seem like you're reaching. You also made quite a bit of other assumptions here. You should actually fact check some of your claims. You can do the math yourself. Numbers don't lie. If you can somehow show that the artic…

> Even if you round up $39K to 40K. It's still a far cry from your initial $50k assumption. Tesla 3's ASP was ~60K in 2018 https://cleantechnica.com/2018/08/23/tesla-model-3-average-s... That was the latest data I could find and I decided to give them a break. You will find in analysts calls a number of 50K is a common estimate. > Numbers don't lie. Agreed

From starting price now to ASP. What's next? That's some mental gymnastics going on there. FYI there has been several price cuts since 2018.

> Agreed

So... Do you have that calculation handy where a Camry/Accord cost less to own after 5 years? I would love to see it, so we can compare notes.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#276

Post by xedeon » Tue, May 18, 2021, 4:17 AM UTC

nunez wrote: post #237

anyfoo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the SPEAKERS inside of the Model 3 and Y are designed by Tesla In this particular case, is this really a good thing? Porsche's high end option for example is getting the speakers, amplifiers, tuned filters etc. from Burmester. Since Burmester specializes on this kind of thing, and the sound system (not the head unit and interface) are pretty much entirely distinct from the rest of the car, except that it has t…

Naïvely, I would think that having audio engineers in-house from companies like Harmon and Burmester that specialize in car audio but specifically to Tesla's product line would produce better, cheaper results than paying those companies to white-label audio systems.

Tesla hired former Bang & Olufsen audio engineers to design their in-house audio systems.

Source: https://twitter.com/PaulMaric/status/1160777733825150976

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#277

Post by thomaskcr » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

nunez wrote: post #194

bryanlarsen wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement "Tesla market value is the same as everybody else put together" means either Tesla is expensive or everybody else is cheap or the statement is inaccurate. It's a little bit of all three. All other car companies are primarily debt financed rather than equity financed. Ford's market cap is $45B, but because it has $120B in debt which means it is worth $120B to it's bondholders and $45B to stockholders for…

There are other things to consider too: - Tesla is achieving vertical integration to a degree no other mainstream auto OEM has achieved. The only other example of vertical integration to the extreme that I can think of is Koeneigsegg, and they are _very_ niche. This only helps Tesla make cheaper cars faster while collecting more margin per car. - Tesla's FSD marketing is highly contentious, but they are the only auto…

> Tesla is achieving vertical integration to a degree no other mainstream auto OEM has achieved.

Tesla has made a lot of claims - volumetric efficiency, worrying about air resistance, when Musk toured the Toyota factory there was talk of them moving at granny pace. After the worlds most dramatic production ramp they still have yet to reach the capacity at Freemont of their predecessors (GM/Toyota).

Vertical integration represents the biggest issues with Tesla, a lack of focus. During the ramp of their mass production car, they went and bought Musk's cousin's company for a product that didn't even actually get released until basically this year. I don't see how that is a competitive advantage.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#278

Post by marticode » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

nunez wrote: post #194

bryanlarsen wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement "Tesla market value is the same as everybody else put together" means either Tesla is expensive or everybody else is cheap or the statement is inaccurate. It's a little bit of all three. All other car companies are primarily debt financed rather than equity financed. Ford's market cap is $45B, but because it has $120B in debt which means it is worth $120B to it's bondholders and $45B to stockholders for…

There are other things to consider too: - Tesla is achieving vertical integration to a degree no other mainstream auto OEM has achieved. The only other example of vertical integration to the extreme that I can think of is Koeneigsegg, and they are _very_ niche. This only helps Tesla make cheaper cars faster while collecting more margin per car. - Tesla's FSD marketing is highly contentious, but they are the only auto…

> Tesla is achieving vertical integration to a degree no other mainstream auto OEM has achieved.

That's because other OEM have worked hard NOT to be vertically integrated. There are benefits to splitting the value chain and letting each supplier concentrate on what they are best at, and get economies of scale from selling to multiple clients.

It seems to me that Tesla lack of focus is actually one of their biggest problem. You can't the best at making cars, batteries, solar panels, etc. all at the same time.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#279

Post by karolist » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:58 AM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #185

karolist wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should watch this video, more so people who refer to other car companies as "legacy automakers". Another good channel to remove the veil is Thunderf00t.

Thunderf00t’s criticisms ring pretty hollow, TBH. Criticism of Musk is one thing. The whole “remove the veil” sorta “red-pill” type language, criticism that Musk has never done anything useful or noteworthy other than scamming falls apart for anyone who has been paying attention for more than a couple years. Electric cars pre-Tesla were a joke. Tesla had enormous influence. And SpaceX (which was founded by Musk, who…

I agree with your main point, and not all of Thunderf00t's criticism and math is valid, some feels a bit forced, like in the SpaceX debunked video. I think he unintentionally built his channel around Musk skeptics and now has to follow the track he laid for himself.

However, there's plenty of stuff to be skeptical about and I do not get the rebuttals that Musk created jobs, or helped put electric cars on the map therefore he's beyond criticism. I was his fan right till Thailand cave story developed.

I think the hate Musk gets is fuelled by such shenanigans and more so by his fanboys online.

I'm not informed enough to dig into your SpaceX claim but my first instinct would be to check if SpaceX lifted so much cargo just because they have that largest client (the US), that had no alternative options (Shuttle program discontinued). That is, no one else had clients with so much cargo lifting needs so no one lifted as much, but not because of technical ability. Because Musk likes to play with numbers like that. For example his claims about Boring company's price per mile looks impressive because he compares the boring price with the price of a complete metro project price (Thunderf00t's SpaceX debunked video has more details).

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#280

Post by batmenace » Tue, May 18, 2021, 9:17 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #48

turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

Teslas price is just too high. I think they will be very successful and become a big, dominant car maker. But their price only makes sense if they end up being the only car maker left. That's not realistic. Building an electric car is not that hard, especially if Tesla already did all the hard lifting for you. For a while I was thinking that the battery play - becoming the number 1 battery supplier - will justify the…

There's also solar, in addition to storage. All three technologies are really key parts of the future, and controlling that aspect of the suburban home energy profile have absolutely huge synergies. As we get to higher penetration of renewables, our grid will change from the current model of supplying whatever power is demanded, to a far more two way mode where excess supply will drive time-shifted demand. Right now…

That may be true for car makers, but in the energy world, other than some battery storage projects, Tesla is really not a major player at all, and there is an endlessly long list of companies that are more meaningful for this market and better able to take advantage of the increased renewables rollout around the world.