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Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says

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Re: Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says

#51

Post by Shivetya »

j2bax wrote: post #6
tjic wrote: post #2

While I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk, and I even think Tesla is pretty cool, I'm a little underwhelmed. Every one of my ventures could be cash flow positive if I got a half BILLION dollar loan from the taxpayers and then was able to sell my product with a $8k tax credit stapled to the side of each unit. http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/23/the-government-comes-throug...

Considering what he's up against in the industry, I'd say what he's done is fairly remarkable. My concern would be that if at any point one of the big three see Tesla as a threat they will put efforts into creating an electric car that undercuts Tesla's offerings and catapults Tesla into a high end niche oblivion. That said, if it comes to that, I will see that as a different means to the same end of reducing our gas…

Many in the industry are still headed down the fuel cell route. It is quite possible that route will eclipse the Tesla route. The benefits available to the fuel cell route include truly quick refueling and a lack of range anxiety. Fuel cell stacks how come a long way, they just aren't sexy.

Re: Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says

#52

Post by stfu »

thematt wrote: post #40
brandall10 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any idea whatsoever how hard it is to have a successful venture in the automotive industry? You really should watch the Bloomberg Risk Takers documentary on Elon. I'm against handouts as much as anyone (it's a loan though), but try making a comment like this afterward. The difficulties he went thru to keep Tesla afloat were outrageous. By this time he been dumping his fortune into both this and SpaceX and…

How about a third option? The government doesn't bet on anybody and let's the market sort out the winners.

I am okay with governments betting on winners as long as these were similar to the Ansari X Prize. Any government interventions should be there to stimulate and reward competition and not to decide winners and losers.

Re: Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says

#53

Post by twoodfin »

nicholassmith wrote: post #50
twoodfin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the "long term view" on Tesla? What's the benefit of them selling electric cars vs. Toyota or GM? The latter have clearly shown their capability to do so. Tesla just thinks a different approach to the market is superior. They'll be proven right or wrong in the next few years. That's well within the time horizon for an investor to make a reasonable decision: Who's more likely to make a profit with their electri…

I'd say partially it's new and sexy, but I imagine the suggested long term is it could help show America as a leader in green tech which should help attract outside investment into other green tech ventures, helping to kickstart a new economic driver. What Tesla is doing is creating an entire new venture from scratch from nothing, for them to hit profitability and make any solid return is likely to take a decade. VCs…

So the difference in "sexy" between Ford making a few hundred thousand electric cars and Tesla making a few hundred thousand electric cars is worth risking half a billion dollars of the taxpayers' money?

Re: Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says

#54

Post by TeMPOraL »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39
jervisfm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the difference between the two ? Don't you need to have a net positive flow in order to be profitable ?

Being operationally cash flow positive means that on a day to day basis your bank balance is increasing. Being profitable means that all of the money comes in in greater than your total costs. So for example, if you look at HP's write down, they were operationally cash flow positive for the quarter but are 'writing off' 8+ billion dollars. So they "lost" over $8B this quarter. Aka not profitable during the quarter. S…

So to put it simply, cash flow is like a differential of profit? So you can have a profit of -1M$, but as long as the next month you get more (like -0.8M$), you're cash flow positive (+0.2M$), right?

I'm having trouble parsing the examples given in this thread; the above sounds like what I more-less understood from them.

Re: Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says

#55

Post by jug6ernaut »

j2bax wrote: post #19
perry5000 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$500M taxpayer-backed loans are available to anyone, now?

Sure... Anyone that has the skill and know how to build a company that can build a game changing product like Tesla has...

Gotta love opinions.

Re: Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says

#56

Post by jbooth »

twoodfin wrote: post #31
pm90 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they are not the same thing but: the govt. did invest in creating the ARPANET, and the DOE still counts as one of the largest customers of supercomputers. If the Govt. invests in new tech. areas that the private sector is unwilling/unsure of investing for the purpose of pushing the industry ahead, I don't really see anything wrong with that.

That's not the same thing, and just my point. The government didn't give Intel, Microsoft or Netscape $200M (or whatever the inflation-adjusted figure would be).

The market's an optimization system, it's not some religious object with holy precepts.

Sometimes you need to give optimization systems a hint.

Re: Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says

#57

Post by tjic »

rohansingh wrote: post #4
tjic wrote: post #2

While I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk, and I even think Tesla is pretty cool, I'm a little underwhelmed. Every one of my ventures could be cash flow positive if I got a half BILLION dollar loan from the taxpayers and then was able to sell my product with a $8k tax credit stapled to the side of each unit. http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/23/the-government-comes-throug...

Nothing stopping you from doing a venture that takes advantage of federal grants and tax incentives.

Nothing except my own ethics. I don't like to take money from people who haven't consented to hand it over. Smells too much like theft. #dont_be_evil

Re: Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says

#59

Post by aidenn0 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #54
ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being operationally cash flow positive means that on a day to day basis your bank balance is increasing. Being profitable means that all of the money comes in in greater than your total costs. So for example, if you look at HP's write down, they were operationally cash flow positive for the quarter but are 'writing off' 8+ billion dollars. So they "lost" over $8B this quarter. Aka not profitable during the quarter. S…

So to put it simply, cash flow is like a differential of profit? So you can have a profit of -1M$, but as long as the next month you get more (like -0.8M$), you're cash flow positive (+0.2M$), right? I'm having trouble parsing the examples given in this thread; the above sounds like what I more-less understood from them.

Let's say one month the only business you do is when I write you an IOU for $40k and your expenses are $30k. You have made $10k in profit (since the IOU is worth $40k), but you are cash-flow negative, since you have $30k less cash in the bank.

Re: Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says

#60

Post by lmm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #54
ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being operationally cash flow positive means that on a day to day basis your bank balance is increasing. Being profitable means that all of the money comes in in greater than your total costs. So for example, if you look at HP's write down, they were operationally cash flow positive for the quarter but are 'writing off' 8+ billion dollars. So they "lost" over $8B this quarter. Aka not profitable during the quarter. S…

So to put it simply, cash flow is like a differential of profit? So you can have a profit of -1M$, but as long as the next month you get more (like -0.8M$), you're cash flow positive (+0.2M$), right? I'm having trouble parsing the examples given in this thread; the above sounds like what I more-less understood from them.

Nope, no differential. It's more like profit = cash flow (i.e. profit on day-to-day things) + profit/loss on investments/loans (e.g. taking out a loan, paying off a loan, but also cases where you own the same thing as before, but value it higher or lower now for some reason).

So e.g. during the housing bubble, some companies were cash flow negative (i.e. losing money on their day-to-day business), but they recorded a profit for the quarter because the buildings they owned were worth more at the end of it than they had been at the start.

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