Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4 • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#251

Post by diek » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:13 AM UTC

primrose wrote: post #181

throwaway5752 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM? Bolt is a great car and GM has enormous production capability. Well aware of the difference in sales figures, but having driven both, I prefer it to the Model S. I think battery tech will end up deciding the market, though, and GM would have to pivot harder that I think they are able to in order to beat Tesla. I am very curious about their internal R&D pipeline for the Maxwell technology.

Why do you prefer the Bolt? From my perspective the Bolt is: -Ugly -Less safe -Slower -Doesn't drive itself, or will be capable in the future Worst of all the Bolt's infotainment system is horrible. https://www.chevrolet.com/content/dam/chevrolet/na/us/englis...

I recently bought a 2020 Bolt LT and I really enjoy it - $26k "out the door" price (after taxes, registration, etc) - 260 miles of range (66kWh battery by LG Chem) - DC Fast Charging - upright seating - lots of headroom/legroom in the front and backseat - dedicated LCD for the driver, separate from infotainment system

I compared it to a Tesla (test drove a Model 3), and a Tesla would be about $15k more. I have no use for self-driving. As a software engineer, I feel that full self-driving requires a general AI, which I think is on the order of decades away.

I really just wanted a simple electric car with minimal maintenance and no fossil fuel dependencies. Minimal complexity, no gimmicks (fart generator, Tesla? come on...)

With those requirements, the Bolt is awesome.

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#252

Post by xkjkls » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:13 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?

How often do you really travel cross country?

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#253

Post by m0zg » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

xkjkls wrote: post #238

brianwawok wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many billions were made off of Amazon with a bus factor of 1?

I don’t think anyone who really understands Amazon would have ever claimed that they have a bus factor of 1. In fact, I don’t think much would have changed if Bezos retired a decade ago. There’s a reason there are two other Amazon CEOs.

Not really, no. I hope you don't have a large position in AMZN. It can only have a PE ratio of 82 because investors believe in the myth of Jeff Bezos.

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#254

Post by xkjkls » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

jussij wrote: post #232

xkjkls wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla still lost $800 million this year and has never had a profitable year, on both record car sales and record regulatory credit sales. What about that indicates sustainability?

The financial results from the link don't show a $800 million loss for this year. From that document in the FINANCIAL SUMMARY section there are these quarterly profit/loss number: Income (loss) from operations Q1-2019 Q2-2019 Q3-2019 Q4-2019 -522 -167 261 359 So for the first half of the year Tesla did lose 689 million dollars. But for the whole year that was only a loss of 69 million dollars. I think what the market…

You’re using non-GAAP numbers. By GAAP standards, they lost $800 million

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#255

Post by mrtksn » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

xkjkls wrote: post #234

mrtksn wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of what? Stock? If so, the company performance is irrelevant as people might buy the stock for any reason(some might consider the company performance too, of course).

No? Plenty of people buy stocks based on the financial performance of the company, and given that the majority of capital invested in stocks are large institutional investors, the vast majority of money invested in stocks are from people who care about financial performance

and plenty of people but stocks on their horoscope

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#256

Post by xkjkls » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #253

xkjkls wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone who really understands Amazon would have ever claimed that they have a bus factor of 1. In fact, I don’t think much would have changed if Bezos retired a decade ago. There’s a reason there are two other Amazon CEOs.

Not really, no. I hope you don't have a large position in AMZN. It can only have a PE ratio of 82 because investors believe in the myth of Jeff Bezos.

Jeff Bezos could retire tomorrow and it would barely change the stock. Is it expensive? Sure, but it’s expensive because it has a wide variety of charismatic businesses, not Jeff Bezos.

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#257

Post by grecy » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:31 AM UTC

xkjkls wrote: post #249

grecy wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Good point. Right now it's not much, but I think the valuation is based on the speculation that it could soon be a lot.

Right now revenue from energy storage resembles Tesla's auto business in 2013[1].. so if it grows at the same rate...

[1] https://twitter.com/kerooke/status/1222637828741439488

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#258

Post by nexuist » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:36 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #162

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…

Other car manufacturers are missing what makes Tesla do so well. It's a lot of things, really. Range, performance, the hope of self-driving, the supercharging network (Which is much bigger than people think!), and of course, the fact that they look like normal cars. Most other EVs like the Leaf are either incredibly lacking in range and performance, or they're incredibly ugly like the BMW i3. Then you've got cars lik…

>the fact that they look like normal cars

This was my first thought during the Cybertruck unveil. It no longer looks like a normal truck. Rivian was far out originally, but this blew it out the park.

So the question is really, would people want an electric pickup truck that looks like nothing before it?

I'm leaning towards yes, but we have to wait for the market to make its choice to find out for sure.

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#259

Post by manmal » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

sf_rob wrote: post #84

manmal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that you can only have such high leverage if you bought super meta products that expose risk, meaning you borrow money for that bet and which you‘d have to pay back if the hoped-for increase doesn’t come.

When buying call options the max loss is the purchase price. There's not a symmetric return as there is with owning stocks directly. The reason you can make so much with so little capital is that the probability of the stock price moving above strike price of the call option is low assuming that the strike price is much higher than the current price and the expiration date is soon

Ah, thanks for the explanation!

Re: Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4

#260

Post by manmal » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

xkjkls wrote: post #104

mehrdada wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some evidence: pretty much same platform as 3 should imply roughly the same cost structure for the Y. That+higher price implies higher margin. It would be akin to Performance Model 3 in that sense.

There is still more material in the Y than the 3. That doesn't seem to indicate better margins

But they might have reduced the number of stamped parts by an order of magnitude, improved wiring in a revolutionary way (there’s a patent by Tesla for that), MUCH less R&D and production setup than model 3 (they won’t make all the mistakes twice),... and let’s not forget economies of scale, they will produce more Y than 3.