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

Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

teslamotors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 192 posts

Re: Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

#51

Post by pbreit »

encoderer wrote: post #44
Nrsolis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I take a step back from this, I'd say it's bad strategy to bet against Elon Musk. IMHO, part of what makes his companies appealing is that he has a remarkable track record of keeping his head down and just getting sh!* done. I'm very impressed with his work ethic and vision and I think Tesla is going to go far. Secondly, if he is successful and manages to bootstrap and entire electric car industry from the ground…

Musk had very little to do with PayPal. He built a competing product, X.com, which was acquired by PayPal. Musk then served as CEO and if his interview in "Founders at Work" is any indication, he didn't do much besides piss off Max Levchin before stepping down after a relatively short tenure. I love what Musk has done post PayPal, but no reason to rewrite history here.

> Musk had very little to do with PayPal

That's false.

Re: Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

#52

Post by aj37 »

encoderer wrote: post #44
Nrsolis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I take a step back from this, I'd say it's bad strategy to bet against Elon Musk. IMHO, part of what makes his companies appealing is that he has a remarkable track record of keeping his head down and just getting sh!* done. I'm very impressed with his work ethic and vision and I think Tesla is going to go far. Secondly, if he is successful and manages to bootstrap and entire electric car industry from the ground…

Musk had very little to do with PayPal. He built a competing product, X.com, which was acquired by PayPal. Musk then served as CEO and if his interview in "Founders at Work" is any indication, he didn't do much besides piss off Max Levchin before stepping down after a relatively short tenure. I love what Musk has done post PayPal, but no reason to rewrite history here.

I know that's what the PayPal Wars book implies but Musk has argued against this version of history pretty strongly - http://gawker.com/230076/an-alternate-history-according-to-e.... I imagine the truth is somewhere between the two extremes.

Re: Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

#53

Post by Shivetya »

mncolinlee wrote: post #41
noname123 wrote: post #23

The reason why Tesla is able to pay the Dept of Energy loan early is because of a secondary stock and bonds offering worth about >850+ million. In another words, Tesla is raising funds by generating more debt (from bondholders) and diluting share value (from shareholders), roughly about 3.5 mil out of 40 mil float, and using that money to pay the US govt. TSLA rose on the news despite diluting shareholders is because…

There's something bizarre about griping that they reached profitability from green credits. To clarify, these green credits were voluntarily paid by OTHER CAR COMPANIES like Fiat who did not innovate enough to develop their own green cars. In essence, these credits work similarly to carbon credits or sulfur credits. They are NOT paid by taxpayers or by the government in any way. It was a capitalist regulation in Cali…

they are not free, they are paid by any consumer who directly or indirectly has a relationship with someone who purchases a vehicle from one of the makers who is paying these credits.

Voluntary my ass. If they don't pay what happens? Your fined. Its a tax. It is paid by consumers because they buy cars. If anything its California's way of having people in other states fund their initiatives.

I guess kudos can go to Musk for making sure his company is positioned physically and product wise to make the most from it. It is a disguised transfer from one company to another facilitated by the state. It is not voluntary if a fine results

Re: Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

#54

Post by packetbeats »

encoderer wrote: post #44
Nrsolis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I take a step back from this, I'd say it's bad strategy to bet against Elon Musk. IMHO, part of what makes his companies appealing is that he has a remarkable track record of keeping his head down and just getting sh!* done. I'm very impressed with his work ethic and vision and I think Tesla is going to go far. Secondly, if he is successful and manages to bootstrap and entire electric car industry from the ground…

Musk had very little to do with PayPal. He built a competing product, X.com, which was acquired by PayPal. Musk then served as CEO and if his interview in "Founders at Work" is any indication, he didn't do much besides piss off Max Levchin before stepping down after a relatively short tenure. I love what Musk has done post PayPal, but no reason to rewrite history here.

According to the "PayPal wars" book PayPal didn't acquire X.com, it was a 50-50 merger. It is true (again, according to this book written by a PayPaler) that Musk wasn't as important to the PayPal success as the "funder" title would imply, but he did drive innovation into the space as a competitor and then saved the company from the hands a clueless CEO.

It's very hard to say if PayPal would have succeeded without him. For one, it would have probably been much harder for PayPal to raise 100 Mio without the X.com merger. They got that amount shortly before the dotcom crash, so it was crucial for their survival.

Re: Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

#55

Post by jforman »

noname123 wrote: post #23

The reason why Tesla is able to pay the Dept of Energy loan early is because of a secondary stock and bonds offering worth about >850+ million. In another words, Tesla is raising funds by generating more debt (from bondholders) and diluting share value (from shareholders), roughly about 3.5 mil out of 40 mil float, and using that money to pay the US govt. TSLA rose on the news despite diluting shareholders is because…

"Make no mistake, this is as much a PR ploy by Tesla to pump up their offering."

I don't get your negativity here. The fact that a major green tech company working with government support is able to shift financing over to the private market is, indeed, a remarkable feat and is absolutely something they have a right to crow about. The government, too — it's an example of a progressive system working as designed.

As for PR's impact to stock price...TSLA is 70% institutional owned. Anybody with a material stake in the company is savvy enough to know that they're not suddenly self-sustainably cash-flow positive.

Re: Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

#56

Post by [deleted] »

mncolinlee wrote: post #41
noname123 wrote: post #23

The reason why Tesla is able to pay the Dept of Energy loan early is because of a secondary stock and bonds offering worth about >850+ million. In another words, Tesla is raising funds by generating more debt (from bondholders) and diluting share value (from shareholders), roughly about 3.5 mil out of 40 mil float, and using that money to pay the US govt. TSLA rose on the news despite diluting shareholders is because…

There's something bizarre about griping that they reached profitability from green credits. To clarify, these green credits were voluntarily paid by OTHER CAR COMPANIES like Fiat who did not innovate enough to develop their own green cars. In essence, these credits work similarly to carbon credits or sulfur credits. They are NOT paid by taxpayers or by the government in any way. It was a capitalist regulation in Cali…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

#57

Post by MarkMc »

Mitt Romney must hate Tesla - it is a textbook example of why governments should sometimes mess with free markets.

If the government had not provided this loan Tesla would have gone bankrupt and the US would have lost a significant high-tech asset. 99% of the time the market is more efficient than government, but that other 1% counts for a lot.

Re: Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

#58

Post by damoncali »

mncolinlee wrote: post #41
noname123 wrote: post #23

The reason why Tesla is able to pay the Dept of Energy loan early is because of a secondary stock and bonds offering worth about >850+ million. In another words, Tesla is raising funds by generating more debt (from bondholders) and diluting share value (from shareholders), roughly about 3.5 mil out of 40 mil float, and using that money to pay the US govt. TSLA rose on the news despite diluting shareholders is because…

There's something bizarre about griping that they reached profitability from green credits. To clarify, these green credits were voluntarily paid by OTHER CAR COMPANIES like Fiat who did not innovate enough to develop their own green cars. In essence, these credits work similarly to carbon credits or sulfur credits. They are NOT paid by taxpayers or by the government in any way. It was a capitalist regulation in Cali…

People don't like that those credits are temporary, subject to the whim of the government, and the entire source of Tesla's current profitability. It's a pretty big asterisk - you can't blame people for pointing it out.

Re: Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

#59

Post by andrewtbham »

mncolinlee wrote: post #41
noname123 wrote: post #23

The reason why Tesla is able to pay the Dept of Energy loan early is because of a secondary stock and bonds offering worth about >850+ million. In another words, Tesla is raising funds by generating more debt (from bondholders) and diluting share value (from shareholders), roughly about 3.5 mil out of 40 mil float, and using that money to pay the US govt. TSLA rose on the news despite diluting shareholders is because…

There's something bizarre about griping that they reached profitability from green credits. To clarify, these green credits were voluntarily paid by OTHER CAR COMPANIES like Fiat who did not innovate enough to develop their own green cars. In essence, these credits work similarly to carbon credits or sulfur credits. They are NOT paid by taxpayers or by the government in any way. It was a capitalist regulation in Cali…

The concern is that as they sell more cars outside of the US and California where there are no credits, it will decrease their margin.

Re: Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

#60

Post by rtpg »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #46
dragonwriter wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, guaranteed loans for automakers might be excellent compared to other government policy, but given that Ford didn't take a loan, and there are many foreign companies which didn't need loans, the existence of any benefit from subsidizing more poorly-run automakers is questionable. FWIW, Ford's CEO disagreed, which is both why he went to Congress in 2008 to argue for the bailout, and defended the bailout in 2012…

Well yeah. The bailout terms were heavily slanted towards the unions. Of course Ford preferred the bailout to competing against some company which might buy all the assets at bankruptcy prices and then hire workers on much more favorable terms.

>some company which might buy all the assets at bankruptcy prices and then hire workers on much more favorable terms.

You do realise that care companies are one of the most asset-heavy companies in the world right? Nobody would have been able to pick up the pieces in a credit-crunch recession. Independently of that, there would still have been a long period between the shutdown of the company and it being picked up, and in the meantime tier-N companies would all suffer greatly as well.

Post reply on HN