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

Tesla ending Models S and X production

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#181

Post by asa400 »

nishanseal wrote: post #117
SR2Z wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help that Musk supported a guy who turned around and gutted the incentives that were helping Tesla turn a profit.

It seems counterintuitive, but this helped Tesla which is why Musk championed it. Basically when that tax credit came out, a bunch of Tesla owners had their cars underwater - loans were more than new cars were selling for and depreciation thru the roof. Plus the tax credit helped their competitors. Now that the credit is gone, Tesla owners are closer to being in the black on their cars and it also caused Ford and GM…

> It seems counterintuitive, but this helped Tesla which is why Musk championed it. Basically when that tax credit came out, a bunch of Tesla owners had their cars underwater - loans were more than new cars were selling for and depreciation thru the roof. Plus the tax credit helped their competitors.

This makes sense if your business strategy is to get existing Tesla owners to trade their current Teslas to buy new Teslas, rather than to convert non-Tesla owners to buy new Teslas. The latter market is WAY bigger and the tax credit was a huge carrot enticing them to look at a brand they'd never try otherwise in a market where ICE vehicle prices were skyrocketing.

As it stands, there are a ton of Tesla owners who bought their cars with the tax refund, are underwater on them, bitter about it and/or dislike Elon personally, and will never buy a Tesla again. This is churn and brand destruction without a corresponding top of funnel increase.

In contrast, the supercharger network was significant not just for the convenience factor for Tesla owners, but also for the fact that it was a social signal that Tesla was serious about growing the addressable market of EV owners generally by not just making a decent car but making the "EV lifestyle" seem possible to non-EV owners.

If Tesla actually is happy that the tax credit is going away, that seems like they're acknowledging that they're satisfied taking shrinking share of a shrinking market, which is their prerogative, but it's a bad business.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#182

Post by sixQuarks »

mrcwinn wrote: post #20
harshaw wrote: post #15

I am confused about what Tesla is doing. They have effectively two automobile products now with one failed product (cybertruck). reading various articles about this doesn't make it more clear. Do they not want to be a car company?

You should probably keep reading. Elon for years has said Tesla is not a car company. He’s also said the “factory is the product.” Tesla also has energy divisions and investments, as well as xAI investments now. Logically given that Model S and X are something like less than 5% of deliveries (and have been for years), if they’re right about Optimus, that capacity will generate far greater revenue.

[flagged]

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#183

Post by bdangubic »

jojobas wrote: post #173
al_borland wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be a little extreme. Tesla is making electric cars and robots. These are very much things of the future. GameStop is buying and selling used games, which is becoming impossible as consoles keep pushing for digital games. GameStop requires a major shift in their business model to stay relevant, while Tesla just needs to hope the public doesn’t reject the idea of electrics cars out of stubbornness or politic…

Tesla's valuation is not related to their production of cars or robots.

refrigirators then? some other household appliances? what exactly is “thing de jour” tesla is today?!

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#184

Post by SR2Z »

nishanseal wrote: post #117
SR2Z wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help that Musk supported a guy who turned around and gutted the incentives that were helping Tesla turn a profit.

It seems counterintuitive, but this helped Tesla which is why Musk championed it. Basically when that tax credit came out, a bunch of Tesla owners had their cars underwater - loans were more than new cars were selling for and depreciation thru the roof. Plus the tax credit helped their competitors. Now that the credit is gone, Tesla owners are closer to being in the black on their cars and it also caused Ford and GM…

Of course, it's 4D chess. This was such a genius move that Tesla profits fell 46% last year and they are ending production of their highest-margin vehicles.

GM wrote down $4B when they reduced their EV production. Despite that, last year GM sold half the number of EVs as Tesla did. If THAT was reduced production by 100%, then Tesla would have been truly fucked had Harris won the election.

Tesla is suffering because Elon Musk was a genius at some point in the past. Then, he got into ketamine and fried his brain.

The cars are expensive, have QC issues, and are facing steep competition from the rest of the world. Tesla's attempt to build an F150 competitor was a disaster, Optimus is years away from being useful for anything, and after 15 years of "We'll totally release FSD this year!" the market seems to finally be realizing that it's not going to happen for a little while.

It really sucks to see a perfectly good company get blown to smithereens, but shareholders did choose to bet on the man.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#185

Post by rossjudson »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #124
harshaw wrote: post #15

I am confused about what Tesla is doing. They have effectively two automobile products now with one failed product (cybertruck). reading various articles about this doesn't make it more clear. Do they not want to be a car company?

The X and S were always very low volume niche products unlike the much more mainstream Y and 3. I wouldn’t read much into it.

I would. Someone in the market for a presumably profitable BMW 5 or 7 series isn't going to stay with BMW and drive a 3 series.

Yearly sales of model X have been comparable to the 5 series, at least until last year when musk's political activities took the shine off the brand.

High end cars are more profitable. There are millions of 3 and Y owners with positive experiences who would stay with the brand if it had something to move up to.

My 23 MX is the best car I've ever owned. I wouldn't buy the current iterations of 3 and Y.

Most refresh X owners think it's pretty great (not perfect). There are no alternatives at the moment, mostly because other manufacturers are terrible at software development...and that's not good for software defined vehicles.

It's sad to see Tesla walk away from the luxury segment so they can focus on robots, go karts, and robots pretending to drive go karts.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#187

Post by sergiotapia »

dzonga wrote: post #32

Tesla has no moat - but one thing I will give to Elon is his incredible strategy in building Tesla 1. Build sports car 2. Use that money to build an affordable car 3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car 4. While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options he got distracted by side-missions, his personal shitty side however if you separate the ideas from the person you can…

Is there another car out there in the US that has a way to type in an address, tap a button, and it drives you there? All other car manufacturers software is terrible.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#188

Post by adastra22 »

testing22321 wrote: post #171
phendrenad2 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't buy this announcement. Converting their huge Fremont facility to just making humanoid robots? Do they have some large buyer or something? I'm skeptical.

IF they work (and that is a massive, massive if), every factory on earth will replace every human with them. It’s inevitable, the only question is how many years until it happens: 2, 5, 10, 50? Place your bets!

Do think factories are still mostly humans on assembly lines?

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#189

Post by adastra22 »

al_borland wrote: post #93
bhouston wrote: post #43

Tesla is a meme stock in a similar manner to GME. You cannot bet against them even if they have incredibly unsure future prospectives because there are too many believers who will buy any dips.

That might be a little extreme. Tesla is making electric cars and robots. These are very much things of the future. GameStop is buying and selling used games, which is becoming impossible as consoles keep pushing for digital games. GameStop requires a major shift in their business model to stay relevant, while Tesla just needs to hope the public doesn’t reject the idea of electrics cars out of stubbornness or politic…

Electric cars, maybe. Tesla is valued much larger than the rest of the auto industry combined though.

Humanoid robots? Ain’t nobody made the business case for that. It is pure vibes.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#190

Post by rossjudson »

fmlpp wrote: post #95
harshaw wrote: post #15

I am confused about what Tesla is doing. They have effectively two automobile products now with one failed product (cybertruck). reading various articles about this doesn't make it more clear. Do they not want to be a car company?

Tesla and musk were living off of monstrous subsidies to the tune of 20B or more

Sure. And selling the most popular car on the planet is a failure?

Didn't the US government put ~$80b into rescuing GM etc, years ago?

Subsidies bootstrapped the EV industry. Stupid policies mean walking away from the investment, ceding the market to foreign competitors, and doubling down on legacy ICE crap the rest of the world no longer wants...and Americans will be less and less able to afford.

Post reply on HN