Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4 • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#241

Post by chemmail » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:02 AM UTC

40acres wrote: post #109

The bull case for Tesla is clear. Aside from Nissan with the Leaf, who recently loss their galvanizing CEO and who's market cap has tanked since, what major automaker has anywhere near the success of Tesla with EV? No doubt execution has been an issue in the past, but recent sales trends, completion of gigafactory, and Chinese expansion show that they are on the right trend. Tesla's were confined to the luxury market…

The problem is that all old car manufacturers are treating EV like the enemy, which it is to their old ways. Same thing happened with Kodak. Imagine your art, your soul, your heritage of combustion engines ripped away. You spend decades, centuries even, perfecting the internal combustion engine. Your pride and joy is now obsolete. You can see why it was so hard for everyone to switch over. Almost all your cumulative knowledge, obsolete. Everything back to the drawing board. It is why Toyota, with their insanely successful Prius, who knew full an well how transformative the EV side is, dragged their heals until to this very day. Most of the Germans have delayed their EVs for mass market in the US from 2021 to 2022. Even Hyundai, who is the closets to Tesla in efficiency, is frought with delays. "We are X* we will have no problem making an EV" they said!

*Daimler, Volkswagon, Audi

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#242

Post by grecy » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:02 AM UTC

hyperbovine wrote: post #226

mrep wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To justify their current valuation, the “bull case” is for them to dominate the entire automative industry (not just the EV segment) Toyota has over twice the market cap that Tesla has (230 billion vs 105 billion) and considering how big the auto industry is outside of just these 2 companies, I don't know how you think an automotive company at 105 billion is vastly overvalued.

The argument is not that no car maker deserves to be valued at $XXX billion. It's that Tesla, which produced around ~1/30th the number of autos as Toyota last year, probably shouldn't have a market cap that's anywhere near Toyota's.

I think your mistake is in assuming that Tesla only makes cars, and the number of them they make is the only factor that goes into their valuation.

They also have the world's biggest charging network, storage solutions, solar solutions and produce more batteries than virtually everyone else combined. Mercedes actually just put out a press release that said they can't build enough electric cars because they can't build enough batteries, because Tesla acquired the company they were going to use in 2016. Evidently Mercedes have done exactly zero about that in the years since.

Of course Tesla also have the whole "self driving car" thing they've been working on for a while. If they crack that one in the next ~24 months, their valuation will easily top Toyota's, because they're worth so much more than just how many cars they can build.

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#243

Post by grecy » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:03 AM UTC

beamatronic wrote: post #224

300bps wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is not just a car manufacturer though right? They are a solar company and battery company too. They could conceivably have astronomical growth in both of those segments.

Other car manufacturers would be smart to source their batteries from Tesla.

I doubt Tesla will sell to them, Elon has said a few times their vehicle output is constrained by how many battery cells they can make. If they sell those cells to other manufacturers, they won't be able to make so many cars themselves.

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#244

Post by DarmokJalad1701 » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:03 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #177

xkjkls wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

R&D isn’t even meeting depreciation though. Either these factories are some how never before seen in accounting history or this company is underinvesting in its futures

Actually there’s a third option which has been discussed on their financial calls. Their capital efficiency has markedly increased. To put it less glamorously, they burned boatloads of money chasing “alien dreadnaught” style fully automated production, and after recognizing that failure (better late than never) they now find they are able to build out new production lines at a fraction of the first line’s cost.

If you look at their letter you can see a comparison between the layouts of their California and Shanghai factories. Massive difference in efficiency. They learned a lot from their initial debacle of Model 3 ramp-up. Cap-ex per unit was announced as being 65% lower in the China factory.

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#245

Post by xkjkls » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:03 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #215

xkjkls wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume they can sell all those cars, when they can’t even sell all their current capacity of cars? They’ve been able to produce 500,000 cars for awhile, yet only delivering 367,000 this year.

In fact, Deliveries exceeded Production in Q4, Q3, and Q2, and fell short of production by 14,000 vehicles in Q1 2019. [1] - https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesl... [2] - https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesl... [3] - https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesl... [4] - https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesl...

Extraordinarily strange, given that inventories haven’t changed to near the same degree.

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#246

Post by xkjkls » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:04 AM UTC

m463 wrote: post #190

xkjkls wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume they can sell all those cars, when they can’t even sell all their current capacity of cars? They’ve been able to produce 500,000 cars for awhile, yet only delivering 367,000 this year.

They could sell a lot of semis and cybertrucks if they were ready. And just think, they could put a dashboard on the model 3 and sales would probably double.

Neither of those cars exist.

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#247

Post by xkjkls » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:07 AM UTC

natmaka wrote: post #207

xkjkls wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar is generally moving away from decentralized consumer Solar to more industrial levels given the decreased maintenance burden. Why do we believe Tesla is on the right side of this?

In many nations solar power is subsidized, more often than not in an administratively burdening way (paperwork!), and subsidies/regulation were frequently modified, discouraging the average citizen. A prominent case is France. This is IMHO at least partly crony capitalism at work. However it is only temporary and doesn't magically suppress benefits tied to local production.

Industrial solar generally has much less maintenance costs than distributed. There’s some exceptions, Hawaii for instance, but it’s very expensive to have to constantly maintain solar panels in peoples homes in ways that industrial solar isn’t

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#248

Post by clouddrover » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

DarmokJalad1701 wrote: post #237

clouddrover wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you prefer the Bolt? The 2020 Bolt has 259 miles of EPA range and is the best value for money of any EV in the world at the moment. Have a look at these prices: https://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchresults.action/?mdId=362... Here's a real world example of someone who has leased a 2020 Bolt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Egdi0GU9Y He has a 2017 Bolt on lease and he was thinking about getting a different E…

Is it practical to own it as the primary car though? Can you travel cross-country in the Bolt without spending hours charging?

Yes. In the video he talks about the roadtrip he is on right now from Boston to Austin for the Fully Charged Live event. He's posting more videos as he goes.

Here's a 2020 Bolt doing a 1,000 km trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMVRm8UvHjs

Here's a Bolt which did the Cannonball run: https://www.torquenews.com/8861/chevrolet-bolt-ev-set-cannon...

Here's a 2017 Bolt surviving the cold: https://www.torquenews.com/8861/my-chevy-bolt-ev-sat-unplugg...

As ever, you need to plan your trip around charging stops. A Better Route Planner (https://abetterrouteplanner.com/) is a useful tool but it's a bit conservative for the Bolt (although I think it's better to be conservative than stranded). It also doesn't necessarily take into account overnight charging. On a long trip you'd charge overnight and start the next day with a full battery: https://www.torquenews.com/8861/chevrolet-bolt-ev-issues-bet...

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#249

Post by xkjkls » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #242

hyperbovine wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is not that no car maker deserves to be valued at $XXX billion. It's that Tesla, which produced around ~1/30th the number of autos as Toyota last year, probably shouldn't have a market cap that's anywhere near Toyota's.

I think your mistake is in assuming that Tesla only makes cars, and the number of them they make is the only factor that goes into their valuation. They also have the world's biggest charging network, storage solutions, solar solutions and produce more batteries than virtually everyone else combined. Mercedes actually just put out a press release that said they can't build enough electric cars because they can't buil…

How much of their revenue comes from not making cars?

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#250

Post by xkjkls » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

primrose wrote: post #194

throwaway5752 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I preferred the Bolt because it had similar and adequate range, adequate recharge capability, better drive, felt substantially roomier in the interior, and I preferred the higher seating. I have no use for an infotainment system in any vehicle (give me a hotspot and I'll bring my own devices). I disliked the Tesla center mounted tablet console dashboard, though that's subjective. I don't think the Tesla drives itself…

> would be a mild negative at the current level of self-driving tech maturity Tesla's more or less take over on the freeway. They are also on their way to mastering traffic lights. > center mounted tablet console dashboard Yeah, that's a little weird. > the Bolt had some useful driver assist packages for safety, though they are upgrades Tesla's are the safest cars on the road now.

What statistic says that Tesla’s are the safest cars on the road right now? Based on death statistics for vehicles of their age and class they generally are about 2x worse.