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

Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 376 posts

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#231

Post by rco8786 »

slg wrote: post #210
Matt3o12_ wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they lost access to $1,000 until they cancel (plus 3-6 weeks, since it can allegedly take Tesla this long to refund the money). I don't think 400,000 have just $1,000 to spare for a really anything they will just cancel. The $1,000 mean that the person who reserved it really wanted the car and is unlikely to just refund it unless they have a very good reason to do so.

I think the commitment of $1000 is overblown. What is the actual opportunity cost here? Maybe $50-$150 depending on the interest rate and time frame you want to use for your estimates. That is nothing in the scale of a car purchase and it buys you the right to receive the car several months quicker. Relatively speaking it is like someone paying $10 to have a new laptop shipped to them overnight instead of by ground e…

I think you vastly underestimate how much demand is represented by 400,000 people willing to part with $1k before a product even exists. Refundable or not.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#232

Post by ghaff »

hacktothefuture wrote: post #161
mikeash wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EVs are unpopular because cheap ones aren't very good yet. You have to choose between almost unusably short range, or a very high price. Something like the LEAF is affordable, but only useful as a city car. A Model S is a great car, but extremely expensive. The cost is coming down. Chevy is now selling the Bolt, which has pretty good range, for under $40,000. Tesla's Model 3 is coming soon. More will follow. The high…

100% agree but they have to be careful with the idea that "It's smart to invest in what sells right now... "! The story is so reminiscent of Kodak. Huge 'titanic' of a ship that saw the writing on the wall, actually released digital cameras but the bulk of their infrastructure, employees and expenditures were in traditional film cameras. Once the industry fully shifted they still couldn't change course and died a slo…

It's a little different though. Kodak was invested in a huge consumables business and neither they (nor really anyone else) figured out a way to translate that sort of pay per use model to the digital world.

GM doesn't get money from gas (though their dealers do get money from maintenance which is hypothetically(?) lower with electric vehicles. Different anyway.)

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#233

Post by gutnor »

spyspy wrote: post #41
laurent123456 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't short the stock but I can understand why someone would. They are expected to generate over 90% of their value after 2020 [0]. There's the expectation that Elon Musk will definitely deliver, that Tesla market share will not be eaten up by other carmakers when they seriously start releasing electric vehicles. The expectation that electric and not another form of energy, such as hydrogen, will dominate, etc. Th…

> when they seriously start releasing electric vehicles They've been "serious" for a long time. Chevy has been selling the Volt since 2010. If they were going to muscle out Tesla they would have done it by now. And it's not just about technology. Tesla has the customer reputation that companies like GM will never have again.

Before automaker were only focusing on the fully urban, second car. The like of Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe, even BMW i3.

Tesla has opened up a slice of the market the traditional maker didn't expect would work: primary car. This has a feel of Apple with iPhone in 2007.

Even if Tesla ramp up tremendously and try getting in every car segment simultaneously, they will not have the capacity to provide all the cars that people are looking for, so the rest of the companies will likely continue to provide the bulk of the car market. Which is not a negative for Tesla, the market is simply enormous: it would take Tesla to produce over 2 million cars per quarter to even get over the single digit market share.

The biggest risk now for Tesla is not being able to reach critical mass fast enough. I can understand their valuation and their need for cash. I can understand the shorters too, unlike the smartphone market, car purchase has at least a 4 years cycle and even in the first world, a car purchase is one of the biggest investment.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#234

Post by greglindahl »

koreyb wrote: post #227
greglindahl wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem McNeill discussed was related to 3rd party body shops. Tesla does not do any body work in its repair centers.

Yep :)

I was responding to smogcutter, not you. Your comment about Ford and Deloran was great, so I didn't need to make that point, and I upvoted you for it.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#236

Post by robbiep »

Arizhel wrote: post #198
olivermarks wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the last 25 years we have seen the explosion of Musk's empire across the solar system. " - you have to admit that is pretty funny...

Funny, but silly. Why would people want to live in other places in the solar system? Earth, the Moon, and Mars are the only places that really make any sense at all. Even Mars is iffy because the gravity is rather low, it's far from Earth, the atmosphere is barely there, it's cold, and there's no radiation protection without going underground. The Moon is even worse, but at least it's close to Earth so it'd be really…

Why leave town? why jump on a ship and sail to unknown horizons? why get out of bed in the morning? Some people like the idea of adventure and the unknown. Practical realities be damned

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#237

Post by btian »

Robotbeat wrote: post #46
spyspy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when they seriously start releasing electric vehicles They've been "serious" for a long time. Chevy has been selling the Volt since 2010. If they were going to muscle out Tesla they would have done it by now. And it's not just about technology. Tesla has the customer reputation that companies like GM will never have again.

I own a Volt. Best car I've ever driven. GM doesn't care much for it. The only advertising they really do for it basically is trying to steal EV customers from Nissan's Leaf. Really dumb. And the dealers don't like it because 1) they don't know how to service them and especially 2) they almost never need servicing. If you run almost exclusively on electric, you only need like 4-5 oil changes in the entire life of the…

When people claim "best X I've used", they should list all models of X that they have used.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#238

Post by Arizhel »

robbiep wrote: post #236
Arizhel wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, but silly. Why would people want to live in other places in the solar system? Earth, the Moon, and Mars are the only places that really make any sense at all. Even Mars is iffy because the gravity is rather low, it's far from Earth, the atmosphere is barely there, it's cold, and there's no radiation protection without going underground. The Moon is even worse, but at least it's close to Earth so it'd be really…

Why leave town? why jump on a ship and sail to unknown horizons? why get out of bed in the morning? Some people like the idea of adventure and the unknown. Practical realities be damned

That's nice, but no one can afford to go establish a colony in orbit around Saturn by themselves; that money has to come from somewhere, and it's a huge amount. That means you need to justify that expenditure of resources, and get other people to fund it. Personally, I'm not willing to work my ass off to spend a bunch of my money funding such a project. An automated probe, sure; a mission to investigate the potential for asteroid mining, sure; a Moon base, maybe. Some silly project with nothing going for it besides a few people who want me to fund their fantasy? And they want me to work hard here so they can have fun with no practical benefit? Hell no.

Even with your "jump on a ship" bit, European exploration of the "New World" was very expensive and required investment from wealthy patrons. It wasn't something a small group of adventurers could just do on their own.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#239

Post by slg »

rco8786 wrote: post #231
slg wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the commitment of $1000 is overblown. What is the actual opportunity cost here? Maybe $50-$150 depending on the interest rate and time frame you want to use for your estimates. That is nothing in the scale of a car purchase and it buys you the right to receive the car several months quicker. Relatively speaking it is like someone paying $10 to have a new laptop shipped to them overnight instead of by ground e…

I think you vastly underestimate how much demand is represented by 400,000 people willing to part with $1k before a product even exists. Refundable or not.

I am not questioning the demand. I am questioning the commitment of people who put down a refundable deposit on a product they had very little information about. I am one of those people who threw down my $1000 before any of the presentations. I am still not sure whether I will purchase one. My interest has actually waned with recent leaks like the complete lack of any dashboard readouts. However I am still perfectly fine with Tesla keeping my deposit until I make a final decision. The opportunity costs of that extra $50-$150 is worth a lot less to me than the chance of securing a Tesla quickly if a do make the purchase (not to mention it increases my odds of a full federal tax rebate). I can't imagine I am the only one of the 400,000 with that mindset.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#240

Post by [deleted] »

flexie wrote: post #191
hueving wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or withdrawals from people. The deposits are non-committal so people can cancel without losing anything.

I can't think of any product I'd rather have than a Tesla. I think Tesla will sell millions of Model 3. Which other car is 400,000 people waiting patiently to buy for two years, even putting down a $1,000 deposit? Tesla is doing to traditional car manufacturers what Apple did to Nokia.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN