Tesla Was Cash Flow Positive Last Week, CEO Musk Says • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by redler » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 8:08 PM UTC

temphn wrote: post #124

ikono wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think you can evaluate government loans the same way you would as a private investor. The federal government has defacto senior equity in every company that is incorporated and/or operates in the US. As a private investor the only upside you get from a loan is the interest. It's not even entirely fair to use a VC type model here as the government will also reap rewards from companies that indirectly be…

I don't really think you can evaluate government loans the same way you would as a private investor. So, there are different ways to isolate a core philosophical disagreement but I think this may be one of them. In a different context you will hear people say that "the government is not a household" because the USG can print money. OK, so call that one point of view. Another point of view looks at the largest and mos…

I'm almost certain you're not arguing that "dollars generated per person" is the only valid measure of the success of a government as compared to the success of a large corporation. So how do you factor in all the other measures of success in such an evaluation?

Trivially, corporations are amoral entities that have the ability, and sometimes the obligation, to jettison lines of business that lose money or simply don't contribute enough profit, whereas governments often have the legal or moral obligation to maintain or expand "lines of business" whose purpose does not coincide with the generation of cash. Civilization necessitates at least some pursuits that will never make a profit, and governments are the major organizational entities (yes, there are some others) that are often left to such pursuits.

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

#142

Post by muhfuhkuh » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 8:22 PM UTC

el_cuadrado wrote: post #125

calinet6 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying that Sony can make an mp3 player, so the iPod isn't competitive in that market. Or that a 5GB iPod won't hold enough music, so it's just an expensive toy. Within 5-10 years the battery problem will improve, especially if there is demand. This is technology, not automotive development. We're not in Detroit anymore. They're in a different class. Tesla is set up to do it right from the start at a muc…

Main function of a car is to move a group of people from point A to point B. Tesla is getting good at it, provided point A and point B are not too far apart, and pint B has an electric charger available. And that is a pretty critical limitation so far. Jumping on your slightly irrelevant analogies, it is like iPod 5 with a batter that can only hold charge for 30 minutes, and can only charged at Apple store.

No. It would be an iPod 5 that would work on your commute to and from work, quite a few places in between for groceries and errands, then pick up dinner, then back home where you would naturally charge things.

You don't have to charge your Tesla at the Tesla dealership. And, seriously, if you make dozens of unpredictable stops in your day, I'll grant you, an electric car might not be for you. But, I don't think I've ever made impromptu out-of-city trips with my gas combustion car. That's more a planning thing.

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

#143

Post by sterna » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 8:24 PM UTC

sukuriant wrote: post #121

omni wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the very limited areas where there is currently Supercharger coverage. Also, 30 minutes for a charge isn't exactly fast.

It's fast enough for most needs. If you're traveling across country, a 30 minute break every 5 hours might be just what the doctor ordered. If you break apart your eating times just right, you can have it coincide with eating times. If charge time were reduced to 30 minutes in the general case for electric cars, I'd be much, much more likely to consider them a viable alternative to my current car. We just need the in…

This kind of user behavior will be very expensive in terms of capacity requirement at the super chargers. If everybody comes in at lunch time and dinner time there will be at least 30 minutes of queue to get to a charger.

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

#144

Post by sukuriant » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 8:29 PM UTC

sterna wrote: post #143

sukuriant wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fast enough for most needs. If you're traveling across country, a 30 minute break every 5 hours might be just what the doctor ordered. If you break apart your eating times just right, you can have it coincide with eating times. If charge time were reduced to 30 minutes in the general case for electric cars, I'd be much, much more likely to consider them a viable alternative to my current car. We just need the in…

This kind of user behavior will be very expensive in terms of capacity requirement at the super chargers. If everybody comes in at lunch time and dinner time there will be at least 30 minutes of queue to get to a charger.

I figured someone would say this; and you're right, if everyone goes to lunch at the same time, then you've got a problem; but, ideally people will think of this ahead of time, and adapt their eating times by 10 or 15 minutes so people are eating not at noon, but instead between 11 and 2pm.

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

#145

Post by to3m » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 8:29 PM UTC

toddmorey wrote: post #117

el_cuadrado wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is assuming BMW et all stop any innovation. But they won't. They will offer an electric vehicle the moment it becomes feasible (and I am sorry but 200 miles range is still an exciting and expensive toy).

Totally disagree. While not at gasoline car levels, Tesla has certainly passed the 'toy' mark in range. What's the range on a 5 series tank? 500 miles or so? 300 miles is more than enough to cover my daily needs at least. I imagine it is for most people, unless you fill up more than once every two days.

I suspect the issue is as much the comparative inconvenience of refilling as the actual range.

In fact, 300 miles sounds perfectly adequate. Many cars won't go much further before they need more fuel. But if refilling involved more than spending 5 minutes at a petrol station (of which there are plenty, everywhere) it might start to sound a bit less reasonable...

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

#146

Post by dkokelley » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 8:34 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #106

dkokelley wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the CDC is a legitimate example of something that only government can afford to offer. But we can have a government without the CDC. We can have government without welfare or social security. We can take many things away from government and still call it a government. Taking this to its extreme, if we remove the social order provided by police or the sovereign protection provided by military, laws and bo…

You can have minimal governments, and going in that direction often seems like the right choice. Like most people I would be happy to cut 50% of all government spending, the problem is we don't want to cut the same 50%. Take the US government remove the Air-force and you still have a functional government. In fact, we would still have the largest and most powerful Air force due to the Navy. But, that does not mean th…

Agreed. The size of military and police forces are a completely different matter. It seems that many people have strong emotional reactions to military and/or public works spending, and I want to steer clear of that here.

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

#147

Post by temphn » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 8:36 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #135

temphn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue it is possible to believe both that Tesla is a great company and that Romney was generally right in that many of the green investments have indeed been losers (Solyndra, A123, Beacon Power, Abound Solar, ...). Lest we forget, Romney is/was a pretty great investor and entrepreneur himself, just like Elon Musk. It's unfortunate that Romney included Tesla in his list of green losers - he did start this fig…

I don't think Romney was necessarily giving his honest opinion on Tesla. He was running for president and environmentalists = hippie communists, so of course he's going to publicly hate on Tesla. Comparing strategic DOE loans in energy to Stalin and Mao is going a bit far, btw.

Hmmm. Russian state-owned enterprises did not end with Stalin, and Chinese state-owned enterprises did not end with Mao. Many of them continue through to the present day and are not setting the world on fire.

I should note that I agree that Romney probably did not know much about Tesla besides the name. But most politicians don't know much about technology. Last I looked, I believe we have only one scientist in the entire House of Representatives (Rush Holt, D-NJ?).

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

#148

Post by sukuriant » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 8:37 PM UTC

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #131

sukuriant wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fast enough for most needs. If you're traveling across country, a 30 minute break every 5 hours might be just what the doctor ordered. If you break apart your eating times just right, you can have it coincide with eating times. If charge time were reduced to 30 minutes in the general case for electric cars, I'd be much, much more likely to consider them a viable alternative to my current car. We just need the in…

How about the car that can use the infrastructure that already exists? All this talk about new transportation fuels imho always sidesteps the fact that gasoline will never run out . Petroleum will, but producing gasoline out of other sources is something that we already know how to do, and have done in industrial scale in the past. Fischer-Tropsch is cost-effective from coal at some point below $150 oil price. If you…

From what I understand, alternative gasolines tend to come from plants that we would otherwise be eating. I believe a more sustainable system would be one that doesn't use something we're already using for an area as vital as our food. Hydrogen, as an example, isn't something we ingest; and the output, so they claim, is water. Also, coal is probably the most bad-for-the-environment, dangerous and radioactive thing we as a human population work with on a regular basis; and I personally would rather we reduce our use of coal than encourage it as a fuel source.

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

#149

Post by vidarh » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 8:47 PM UTC

temphn wrote: post #87

stephenhuey wrote: post #5

Great news! Here's hoping they're able to place superchargers across the country within a year as planned. As much as one part of me wants to see Elon Musk succeed just to prove Romney wrong for calling Tesla a loser, it's more important to see Tesla do well for the benefits we may reap from companies like this trying to make better solutions and provide excellent competition to the status quo. That being said, I'm f…

I would argue it is possible to believe both that Tesla is a great company and that Romney was generally right in that many of the green investments have indeed been losers (Solyndra, A123, Beacon Power, Abound Solar, ...). Lest we forget, Romney is/was a pretty great investor and entrepreneur himself, just like Elon Musk. It's unfortunate that Romney included Tesla in his list of green losers - he did start this fig…

If these businesses were "safe" bets, there would be no need for the government to step in - the capital markets would queue up to provide.

Government loans and subsidies like this only make sense exactly when they are for high risk ventures where what they provide may be very unlikely to provide a good direct return on the initial investment itself, but where the potential societal benefits in the long term can be great (e.g. improved environment, or kickstarting an entirely new market).

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

#150

Post by temphn » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 8:48 PM UTC

redler wrote: post #141

temphn wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think you can evaluate government loans the same way you would as a private investor. So, there are different ways to isolate a core philosophical disagreement but I think this may be one of them. In a different context you will hear people say that "the government is not a household" because the USG can print money. OK, so call that one point of view. Another point of view looks at the largest and mos…

I'm almost certain you're not arguing that "dollars generated per person" is the only valid measure of the success of a government as compared to the success of a large corporation. So how do you factor in all the other measures of success in such an evaluation? Trivially, corporations are amoral entities that have the ability, and sometimes the obligation, to jettison lines of business that lose money or simply don'…

  I'm almost certain you're not arguing that "dollars 
  generated per person" is the only valid measure of the 
  success of a government

Sure, it isn't the only measure of success, but if this number is very low then that is (I would argue) a measure of failure. "Dollars generated per person" = tax-revenues per person is very similar to GDP-per-capita. And a high GDP-per-capita means you can spend on healthcare, earthquake proof buildings, and all kinds of standard-of-living improving stuff.

  So how do you factor in all the other measures of success 
  in such an evaluation?

I think that many -- not all -- are downstream of dollars generated per person. The more dollars per person, the more money for science, for public works, for roads and bridges, for charity, for whatever you want. You can't buy love, but you can buy most of the lower level items in Maslow's hierarchy, no?

  Trivially, corporations are amoral entities that have the 
  ability, and sometimes the obligation, to jettison lines of 
  business that lose money or simply don't contribute enough 
  profit, whereas governments often have the legal or moral 
  obligation to maintain or expand "lines of business" whose 
  purpose does not coincide with the generation of cash. 
  Civilization necessitates at least some pursuits that will 
  never make a profit, and governments are the major 
  organizational entities (yes, there are some others) that 
  are often left to such pursuits.

Sure. But I guess my claim is that in order to pursue those other "lines of business", governments must still post a profit (more tax/fees than expenditures). The alternate school of thought (promoted by Cheney and Krugman alike) says that deficits don't matter and that governments cannot go bankrupt.

[I might also quibble with your use of the term "amoral" to describe businesses and "moral" to describe governments, as most of the millions of people dead in the 20th century were killed by governments. You have to kind of go back to the East India Company to find something comparable for businesses (and even that was a public/private hybrid). Anyway, digression, my apologies.]