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

Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 463 posts

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#271

Post by paxys »

msoad wrote: post #4

I have a Tesla and I also hold a short position on TSLA. My Tesla is a great car. The best car that I've ever driven but I'm not sure if it has anything that other car manufacturers can't replicate. I think Apple can make an even better car than Tesla if they build the hardware and software like their phones and computers. The idea that Autopilot has some magic sauce that nobody else can replicate is laughable.

What is laughable is thinking that Apple (or anyone else) can just walk into a multi-trillion dollar industry with zero prior experience and displace existing players. Heck they have even tried to build a car/self driving tech for many years now and constantly failed at it.

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#272

Post by d_tr »

usrusr wrote: post #144
wazoox wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually after having tested a couple of other cars, for instance the Renault Megane, the BMW i4 and the Mercedes EQE have better enhanced drive assistance than Tesla. For instance: * when in full-auto on a single lane road, when there's an exit on the right the Tesla 3 almost always slightly swerve towards the exit before coming back in its lane. None of the Megane, the EQE or the BMW i4 do that. * To overtake a slo…

> * when in full-auto on a single lane road, when there's an exit on the right the Tesla 3 almost always slightly swerve towards the exit before coming back in its lane. None of the Megane, the EQE or the BMW i4 do that. A minor nuisance. Unless you happen to be at the ready attentively double-checking whatever the assistance is doing - then it must be infuriatingly annoying! Guess what you're supposed to be doing, a…

I 'd freak out for sure. How can you be cool with your car changing direction when it should not? And how can someone not pay attention? What will you do? Sleep? Read a book?

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#273

Post by qazwse_ »

elisharobinson wrote: post #136
msoad wrote: post #4

I have a Tesla and I also hold a short position on TSLA. My Tesla is a great car. The best car that I've ever driven but I'm not sure if it has anything that other car manufacturers can't replicate. I think Apple can make an even better car than Tesla if they build the hardware and software like their phones and computers. The idea that Autopilot has some magic sauce that nobody else can replicate is laughable.

"carmaker" != "electric carmaker" , all other carmakers DO NOT make profitable EV's and require heavy subsidies to be in parity. Tesla has better margins because it is vertically integrated . Apple will NEVER make a car , cars require a totally different supply chain not as simple as moving a low mass objects like phones and PC's , ie cant move them multiple times across different continents. other car makers will ha…

>how long would it take for any other car maker to ship steam games and have 60 fps gaming on the car.

I'm still young, but hearing about this kind of feature makes me feel like a luddite. I just don't get it. Is it so passengers can play while you're driving, or just to play while the car is charging/you're waiting somewhere?

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#274

Post by michaelt »

davewritescode wrote: post #122
mavhc wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla's only competition is Chinese EV makers, everyone else can't make enough cars, and none of them are profitable. Tesla are 5-10 years ahead on profit, due to adopting cost savings such as no buttons, more miles per kwh, thus smaller batteries, casting most of the body in 2 or 3 pieces. And then there's in house software creation, vs everyone else. Software makes their use of their motors more efficient. That's b…

> And then there's in house software creation, vs everyone else. Software makes their use of their motors more efficient. You think automakers don't know about software? You do realize that what the ECU has to do to keep internal combustion engines running as efficiently as they do today is at least an order of magnitude more complex that electric motor management > That's before you have the problem with how to get…

> You think automakers don't know about software?

Judging from my experience with cars' integrated sat-nav, speech recognition and bluetooth hands-free I would say most automakers do not consider good software to be a priority.

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#275

Post by leesec »

msoad wrote: post #4

I have a Tesla and I also hold a short position on TSLA. My Tesla is a great car. The best car that I've ever driven but I'm not sure if it has anything that other car manufacturers can't replicate. I think Apple can make an even better car than Tesla if they build the hardware and software like their phones and computers. The idea that Autopilot has some magic sauce that nobody else can replicate is laughable.

>I think Apple can make an even better car than Tesla if they build the hardware and software like their phones and computers.

OK but we don't even officially know if Apple is trying to make a car?

>The idea that Autopilot has some magic sauce that nobody else can replicate is laughable.

The idea that a very difficult, innovative software problem can't be just replicated by legacy auto manufacturers who lack software engineering expertise is not laughable at all. The legacy auto manufacturers will really have to prove themselves here and so far they have not.

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#276

Post by gitfan86 »

md_ wrote: post #14

This is true for so many "tech" darlings: Should Uber be priced like a tech company, or a cab company? Is Amazon a tech company or a retailer? Are ecommerce outlets like Warby Parker and Away tech companies, or just retailers with good CSS? It continues to amaze me how investors seem bamboozled by the appearance of "tech company-ness", by businesses which are obviously in markets that don't support the high price to…

As someone who has beat the market (S&P500) for the past 17 years, I agree that there is a problem with people not understanding markets/technologies. But a bigger issue is that A LOT of people are looking for short term gains. Just look at crypto, even the most serious/nonscammy people in the space believe it will take many years to reach it's true potential, but if you look that the message boards and twitter, they are full of people talking about daily/monthly or even hourly gains.

These people don't actually care if PLTR hits 500B in revenue in 2035, they just want their stock price to go up 10x this year.

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#277

Post by Zigurd »

shmatt wrote: post #10

They're definitely still a tech firm, just one that consistently misses promised release/delivery dates by 2-3 years Any other company that would miss release dates as much as Tesla does would have crashed by 90% by now

FSD has missed, and will continue to miss delivery by much longer. Cybertruck is a child's drawing of a cool truck. Frito-Lay doesn't seem to believe the full load range for the Semi. Roadster. Teslabot? Any recent sightings?

Elon's "genius" is that he pushes companies to take bigger than normal risks. But then he gets lost in survivorship bias. Not an uncommon trajectory in business.

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#278

Post by politician »

hef19898 wrote: post #128
politician wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can competitors source the raw metals required in sufficient quantities to put bigger batteries in their cars?

Yes. And if Tesla would move to block them from doing so, they would set themselves up for an anti-competition suite of epic proportions in all markets, from the US over the EU all the way to China.

The problem of procurement is about access to Lithium and Nickel ores. Telsa has a joint partnership with a Nickel mine in New Caledonia and rights on mining Lithium in Nevada. GM, Ford don't and there is a global shortage, so I don't see them succeeding in battery production long term. If they source batteries from Panasonic, they're buying an inferior battery. If they source from Tesla, that's obviously positive for Tesla.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56288781

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#279

Post by twoWhlsGud »

ellieh wrote: post #231
usrusr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * when in full-auto on a single lane road, when there's an exit on the right the Tesla 3 almost always slightly swerve towards the exit before coming back in its lane. None of the Megane, the EQE or the BMW i4 do that. A minor nuisance. Unless you happen to be at the ready attentively double-checking whatever the assistance is doing - then it must be infuriatingly annoying! Guess what you're supposed to be doing, a…

Any car behaving differently to a human driver is outright dangerous. For example, motorcyclists depend on inferring behaviour more than the average driver. Someone swerving towards an exit is far more reliable an indicator of them taking it than a signal - many drivers don't bother using them. Many bikers I know avoid Teslas like the plague, as they're deeply difficult to read at best, and lethal at worst.

Yowsa! Thanks for pointing this new hazard out! As someone who spends a fair amount of time on a bike in the city, I too depend on reading the body language of cars/drivers. You've given me something new and disturbing to think about...

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#280

Post by blindriver »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #8

Why are Rivian and Lucid stocks also getting hammered? All 3 seem to move together. Feels more like EV stocks being dumped.

Lucid sold 6000 cars last year. They are going to go bankrupt in 2023 or at the very least, common shareholders are going to get wiped out by debtholders.
Post reply on HN