Tesla races past $100B in market valuation • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#231

Post by ctdonath » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #104

donogh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is the Apple of the auto industry. They are getting stellar customer satisfaction ratings, which is translating into brand loyalty[1]. They've built an ecosystem between their above-average EV hardware, industry-leading software (with frequent improvements), and a top-notch charging network. I can see some automakers matching them on hardware, but they have a huge lead in software. Traditional car manufacturers…

> no one else has even come close to matching the 2012 Model S Model S will always be a tiny market. How close are competitors to Model 3? What happens when Tesla employees burn out on Tesla corp and go working for competitors?

Closest thing I see at a glance is the not-yet-available Ford Mustang-E. At bottom end, comparable to a Tesla 3 but $3885 more without autopilot, and ~1s slower (0-60) acceleration. For about same price, can get 72 miles more range, or majority of extra price for full self-drive.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#232

Post by jfengel » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

xenospn wrote: post #50

fjabre wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is a disrupter and he is disrupting this industry turning it on its head. We've been stuck in the same boring recycled car designs and concepts for decades and here comes Elon with the promise of self driving flying cars on their way to Mars with SpaceX in the background making incredible strides forward everyday. To be honest I think this valuation is too low. Elon continues to eat the competition's lunch on a…

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I've been a Tesla fan for years, and invested back when they first IPOd), but isn't the Porsche Taycan superior to the Model S in every way (except for a slightly shorter range)? If Porsche can "catch up" and leapfrog the Model S in just their first iteration, I'm pretty sure Tesla's growth is going to slow down significantly going forward.

The two are pretty much comparable. Published numbers give the Tesla a slight edge[1], but they'll both sell well to the limited set of people who want to spend well-into-six-figures on a car boasting speeds they can't actually do legally.

That's not really Tesla's market, though. Tesla began there because it was a way to get large profits from a small number of vehicles. Porsche wants to stay in that market, but Tesla wants to sell larger numbers of mid-range cars at more modest profits -- partly because that's where the money is, and partly because Musk has bigger plans for electric infrastructure. They'll also continue to play in the performance range, because they can and because it makes good marketing -- even their low end models produce insane torque.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/porsche-taycan-turbo-4s-t...

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#233

Post by cptskippy » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

ecommerceguy wrote: post #137

donogh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is the Apple of the auto industry. They are getting stellar customer satisfaction ratings, which is translating into brand loyalty[1]. They've built an ecosystem between their above-average EV hardware, industry-leading software (with frequent improvements), and a top-notch charging network. I can see some automakers matching them on hardware, but they have a huge lead in software. Traditional car manufacturers…

I've read somewhere that Cadillac's Super Cruise is vastly superior compared to Tesla's autopilot. I'm not sure the software gap is as wide as you think.

Cadillac's Super Cruise and Tesla's autopilot are very different systems. Super Cruise relies on detailed Lidar maps, cameras, and radar to function and will only function on scanned limited access highways. It's like operating a slot car on a closed track.

From a software and sophistication perspective, Autopilot is a more advanced system that improves over time. It uses Machine Learning and other advanced techniques to read the road and comprehend it in a way that Super Cruise does not. It does not have the operational limitations that Super Cruise does.

Functionally Super Cruise works well, it's debatable if it performs better. Most reviews I've read of the two systems, from 2 years ago, found them to be functionally comparable at the time. The primary difference is that it Super Cruise is more akin to a flip phone with fixed functionality that won't grow over time, AutoPilot is more like a smartphone that is updated overtime to expand it's capability.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#234

Post by xedeon » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

_ea1k wrote: post #183

xedeon wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the $451.8M Department of Energy loan they used to buy the old NUMMI Toyata plant? Yeah.... They paid that off nine years early with interest. Try again. https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-repays-department-energy-lo... Meanwhile, why don't we talk about the GM bailout money? If you can cite a source for the "billions" you mentioned, that would be great to read, since I must've missed that one.

I'm pretty sure that Tesla managed to get at least 400,000 cars sold in the US before fully phasing out of the tax credit. That's between 1.5 billion and 2.5 billion, depending upon how you estimate it. EDIT: Also, this amounts to fewer than 50,000 cars in revenue. Sales restrictions in various states have probably cost them more in sales than they gained in tax benefits.

I'm not sure you understand how the BEV tax credit works. First of all, it's the customer that gets the refund NOT Tesla.

Second, the buyer has to owe enough in liabilities to be even be eligible for it.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#235

Post by anotherman554 » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

nouveaux wrote: post #130

shakopeeant wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This isn't as unlikely as it seems" In what fantasy world do you live in?

Parent cited a graph that demonstrates a lot of potential. Do you care to make an argument and cite any sources?

Nothing in the graph implied other car companies are going to go out of business.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#236

Post by SergeAx » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

If you check out some of the automotive AI companies, you will see half a dozen names like Nuro, Aurora, Momenta, TuSimple, Pony, Zoox. There are more in the neigbourhood with tech like lidars, computer vision and so on.

Those companies has literally NOTHING beyond software and early prototypes, but they still are valued at billions of dollars each. So, compared to them, what should be a valuation of a profitable company with large scale production, foothold in China, massive and ever growing real life datasets and so on and so on?

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#237

Post by notJim » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

extrapickles wrote: post #205

notJim wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once your house is wired for the charger, how hard/expensive is it really to swap it for a different one?

If you can do basic electrical wiring, you may still need to get a permit and have the change inspected. What exactly is needed is highly jurisdiction dependent. If you are not handy, it requires hiring an electrician to make the change (~$100-500)

Spending $500 on an electrician for a $50–80k car doesn't sound like lock-in to me…

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#238

Post by cdiamand » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #174

cdiamand wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not alone! I've been tracking /r/wallstreetbets for my new project https://topstonks.com and no one there seems to understand it. A lot of great theories though. Out of the 6434 stock mentions in the last 24 hours ~10% of that is about TSLA and that's up 45% since yesterday. Heres a bubble graph of the most mentioned equities over the last 7 days (as of yesterday) on /r/wallstreetbets. ignore F and C, still wo…

I figured it was another short squeeze. Probably coupled with automated trading. Observed short interest over total outstanding seems like the kind of thing an algorithm could target, as it makes the stock more sensitive to moves, no?

I'm sure algos key off metrics like the amount shorted as a percentage of float. I can't know their algo but I'd imagine they like to see the specs jumping in before they start buying.

Tesla is a battle of narratives and WSB are the specs looking to start or jump on a stock meme.

~10% of the chatter around TSLA in last 24 hours has the word "short" in it :)

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#239

Post by riantogo » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

hnarn wrote: post #150

Beyond the expected comments about Tesla being the iPod of the auto industry, I personally feel like these types of valuations during the beginning of an economical slowdown can be judged by the duck test. If it looks like a bubble, and sounds like a bubble, it will probably pop like a bubble. Unfortunately, most of the time this opinion will be grouped together with "Tesla haters", of which I'm definitely not one. I…

What makes you think it is runaway valuation? And could that same reasoning be applied to Google, Amazon, Apple if we go back in time when they were just finding their footing?

As someone who drives a model 3 on autopilot everyday I would say the stock is rather underpriced.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#240

Post by ssheth » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #101

jrbuhl wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla payed a lot of money (billions) to build the super charger network. Money no government or other company seems to want to spend. Legislating away vendor lock-in would just cause companies to be even more averse to capital investment in recharging infrastructure.

I'm pretty sure gas station networks weren't built with public money. And other companies are investing in charger networks: https://ionity.eu/ or https://www.electrifyamerica.com/index At least in the EU I'm 99% sure that the EU will mandate (if it hasn't already) a standard charging interface. Don't know about the US, it's a bit like the Wild West in this regard...

Ionity just came out with a _500%_ increase in cost of charging starting in February.

https://electrek.co/2020/01/17/ionity-increases-electric-veh...

Tesla charges about €0.33/kWh at most in Europe whereas Ionity will be charging €0.79/kWh .. which will make EV charging even more expensive than gas at that point.

This type of crazy price structures are why none of the EV charging networks can get enough traction / users to actually be profitable and build even more stations.