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

421–430 of 463 posts

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

#421

Post by macspoofing »

FireBeyond wrote: post #394
macspoofing wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Did investors really believe that? They didn't. I don't know what OP is talking about. Uber's self-driving initiatives were always a moonshot.

You say that like Musk didn't say a whole litany of things, including "By 2019, it will be financially irresponsible NOT to own a Tesla, because it will be paying for itself and making you money in your sleep as a Robotaxi."

Yeah - Musk says a lot of idiotic things, but even with that I maintain that these kinds of statements is not what drove Tesla (crazy) valuation.

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

#422

Post by julosflb »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #353
paxys wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Didn’t they do that with cell phones?

Jumping from computer to cell phones appears to me order of magnitude easier than jumping from computer to car buisness.

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

#423

Post by hef19898 »

hef19898 wrote: post #350
politician wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

If you hold a de-facto monopoly on certain taw materials, you are legally obliged to share it with competitors.

Plus: Tesla's battery cells came for a very long time from Panasonic. So much for inferior tech.

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

#424

Post by Scaevolus »

md_ wrote: post #397
Scaevolus wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are retailer unit costs fixed? The larger they become, the better contracts they can negotiate with suppliers, the cheaper they can make their logistics and delivery network with economies of scale, and the less they have to spend on advertising.

I guess that's true. FWIW, because this chart only goes back ten years, it's not like there's some obvious trend with WalMart (as an example) where as revenue increased, margins went up: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/profit... . In fact, as revenue went up, margins went down-ish. The comparison I would still draw is to pure software businesses where they: a) Pay almost nothing per unit b) Incr…

Walmart hit diminishing returns on scale efficiencies a long time before 2012-- their revenue has basically been tracking inflation for the last decade.

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

#425

Post by zaroth »

freejazz wrote: post #371
zaroth wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one absolutely love it. It doesn’t just look cool, it’s maximally functional for all of my use cases.

Yeah, I totally love having to take my eyes off the road in order to press any button in the cockpit. Truly brilliant design!

Why are you pressing buttons in the “cockpit” while you’re supposed to be driving?

The “cockpit” button-obsession on HN is really cute sometimes. As if most drivers with button-filled “cockpits” actually feel around for them while still looking at the road.

Everything timing critical for driving is either fully automated or on the wheel in a Tesla, by the way.

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

#426

Post by mikestew »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #295
lotsofpulp wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not driven many cars, but I feel like there is usually a dial to adjust the brightness of dash lights. At least in Toyotas.

Hah, I had a Camry for 10 years and never knew it had such a dial!

Congrats on being one of the 10,000, but given that my '81 VW Vanagon has adjustable dashlights, I'd not buy a modern car if it didn't have that feature. Rheostats aren't exactly cutting-edge technology (though I'm sure a modern car uses software to run the driver that sends commands down the CANBUS, which then...)

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

#427

Post by hannasanarion »

megaman821 wrote: post #351
hannasanarion wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon didn't "build" any of his businesses, he is and always was the "money guy". He provided startup capital for X.com and SpaceX, but never did any substantial technical work on either. He bought Tesla after they already had several prototypes and started cosplaying as "founder" and fired everybody who called BS.

Any tips for the rest of us on how we can "money guy" our way to one of the richest people on earth?

Step 1: Inherit a fortune from your family of modern day slavers

Step 2: Have those loads of that money available during the first months of a widely anticipated telecom revolution.

Step 3: pour that money into the most obviously practical use case of the brand new technology to quickly capture market share, optimally one where network effects will solidify your monopoly in perpetuity, such as payment processing

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

#428

Post by freejazz »

zaroth wrote: post #425
freejazz wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I totally love having to take my eyes off the road in order to press any button in the cockpit. Truly brilliant design!

Why are you pressing buttons in the “cockpit” while you’re supposed to be driving? The “cockpit” button-obsession on HN is really cute sometimes. As if most drivers with button-filled “cockpits” actually feel around for them while still looking at the road. Everything timing critical for driving is either fully automated or on the wheel in a Tesla, by the way.

I don't think the obsession is "on HN", I think the obsession is made by literally every other car manufacturer in the world.

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

#429

Post by wazoox »

fowkswe wrote: post #137
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…

> * To overtake a slower vehicle, the Megane and i4 are better : simply push the left blinker, then the car switch lanes and accelerates BEFORE having entirely switched lane, like a human driver would do. Teslas do this in FSD mode.

In Europe nobody ever buys FSD because the gimmicks are disabled for security reason (no remote summoning, no automatic parking). If that's the only feature that 7000€ buys...

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

#430

Post by wazoox »

BadOakOx wrote: post #132
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…

..and also the parking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA

Wow that's a hell of a failure from Tesla. And the 3 others (Audi, BMW, Ford) just did fine.
Post reply on HN