Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#291

Post by goshx » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:23 AM UTC

rifung wrote: post #273

goshx wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you would expect that someone from tech revolutionizing an entire industry at global scale would get a little bit more respect and appreciation here.

> you would expect that someone from tech revolutionizing an entire industry at global scale would get a little bit more respect and appreciation here. I'm not one of the people negatively commenting but I personally think one's character is significantly more important than ones accomplishments and he doesn't really seem like a good person. I admire that he is trying to do something about global warming. Nevertheles…

Why he doesn't seem like a good person to you?

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

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Post by dd36 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:23 AM UTC

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #222

bufferoverflow wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither did Amazon for many years. They are scaling up.

Tesla has no network effects as a marketplace and doesn't drive competitors out of the market. Both things Amazon traded their profits in for.

It has both those things. It’s literally devouring market share from similar class vehicles of competitors. The network effect is also happening slowly.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#293

Post by dd36 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:25 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #283

gonehome wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been predicting failure for Tesla since the beginning. At each stage saying they’d fail and not be able to execute. Every time so far they’ve been wrong. I like my model 3 a lot so I’d recommend one - I don’t think the people speculating on Tesla are particularly good at it.

The question is, can we see how Tesla can get yearly earnings of say $5 billion to justify the valuation? Maintaining a high profit per car seems to depend on selling a premium product, or presuming that other car makers cannot compete. When shifting to the mass market (more than say 1 million vehicles per year), surely the profit per vehicle has to decrease sharply - even if Tesla can earn more than the industry $1k…

TSLA is the exact same position as AMZN a decade ago. They don’t need to make profits. They need to invest in assets and scale, which is exactly what they’re doing.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

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Post by sliken » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:27 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #255

sliken wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the Panasonic thing very weird. Tesla claims to be battery limited, and also mentioned that their popular and in demand power walls are being throttled by lack of batteries. Does make me wonder. Is Panasonic blackmailing Tesla with limited supply to influence Tesla's battery supply in China? Is Panasonic and/or Tesla lying about the situation?

They may just be taking a calmer view of EV demand rather than betting the farm at every turn like Tesla. One or two quarters of running at capacity on a brand new factory isn't enough reason to massively upgrade your production capacity, if you think it's just a hump and that demand will settle down again. The Model 3 may be "affordable" compared with the Model S / X, but US$35k is still luxury car territory.

Agreed. Seems like Tesla may have misjudged the model 3 demand and should have increased the number of production lines more slowly. I think in Fremont factory has 6 lines. One for X, one for S, and 4 for the model 3. Seems like they should just move one or two of the lines from model 3 to the model Y, which shares 75% of the same parts instead of committing to building several new lines in Reno and China.

While the model 3 may be luxury, it looks crazy cheap compared to the electric Audi, Volvo, BMW, and Porsche competitors... doubly so if you consider range. The model 3 even looks pretty good on a cost to own basis compared to non-luxury cars like the Toyota Camry or Honda accord.

The cheapest Tesla (around $40k these days), isn't too far off the average cost of a new car ($34,000) and most will save easily $6k in maintenance and gas over the life of the car. I suspect most would consider the model 3 interior too spartan and plasticy to be consider luxury.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

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Post by sytelus » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:27 AM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #81

Tesla's 1.5B reduction of cash on hand was largely due to the 920M convertible bond payment — but that only happened because TSLA didn't perform to the level necessary for conversion (~$360 IIRC). I wonder what changes in terms this'll warrant for future capital raises. Then they mention that they missed a lot of revenue due to missing half their shipments overseas, and onto Q2 (But also expecting a loss in Q2). Sale…

I'm still trying to figure out the root cause. Is it because, production is not keeping up to demand? Or is it because demand is dying? So far it seems former, not later. Some analysts are saying random things like impact of tax credit and competition coming in to EV market. I still don't see anything close to Tesla offering in EV space, at least in US.

They really need to focus on offering EV at $18K price point with 300 mile range. Keep self-driving stuff for later. I love Tesla and hope they would come through this.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#296

Post by mikeklaas » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:27 AM UTC

kylecordes wrote: post #184

philwelch wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is one way to reduce carbon emissions from automobiles. It is not the only way. There is also: * Battery-electric vehicles manufactured by other companies * Plugin hybrid-electric vehicles manufactured by other companies * Reducing automobile usage in general * Developing energy-efficient processes to synthesize carbon-neutral liquid fuels using carbon-neutral energy sources * Developing new and more efficient…

Tesla is actually working against the "reduce" in the short term. Facebook groups of Tesla owners frequently include words along the lines of: I like this car so much that I drive much more than I used to. Oops.

Jevon's paradox, somewhat.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

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Post by cheeyoonlee » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #289

dogsgobork wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pool of people that put down $1000 thinking they were going to buy a $35k car, has to be much larger than the people willing to plunk down $2500 for a $48k car (the cheapest pre-order currently available). The multi year wait for the $35k version to be available (and quickly abandoned) can't help.

I was surprised by your claim so I checked... the Tesla website currently allows me to configure a Model 3 that is $39,500 before discounts for estimated delivery in two weeks. Not $35k but far less than $48k too.

The $35k configuration is still available but by phone/in person order, not online

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

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Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #289

dogsgobork wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pool of people that put down $1000 thinking they were going to buy a $35k car, has to be much larger than the people willing to plunk down $2500 for a $48k car (the cheapest pre-order currently available). The multi year wait for the $35k version to be available (and quickly abandoned) can't help.

I was surprised by your claim so I checked... the Tesla website currently allows me to configure a Model 3 that is $39,500 before discounts for estimated delivery in two weeks. Not $35k but far less than $48k too.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#299

Post by wil421 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #270

taneq wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may just be taking a calmer view of EV demand rather than betting the farm at every turn like Tesla. One or two quarters of running at capacity on a brand new factory isn't enough reason to massively upgrade your production capacity, if you think it's just a hump and that demand will settle down again. The Model 3 may be "affordable" compared with the Model S / X, but US$35k is still luxury car territory.

Just to be pedantic, in the US market $35K is technically the low end of premium car territory. Actually luxury car territory starts significant higher.

Significantly higher? A brand new 3 series is 40k, an Audi A4 is 39k, and a C Class is 41k. I’m not even looking at the smaller 4 door models from Audi and Benz which are even less than the Model 3. Maybe Europe gets a smaller 4 door BMW.

I didn’t even count the offerings from Japan which are even less.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#300

Post by chewz » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:34 AM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #137

mwfunk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally when people are down on Tesla or Elon Musk, it's because they want them to succeed at displacing internal combustion engines. They're not rooting for internal combustion engines, they're rooting for electric cars and annoyed when the company (or Musk) flounders from self-inflicted damage. At least, that seems like most of the criticism here. No one is going to respond well to an advocate of a technology the…

EVs are a false peak. So long as everyone is driving around in their own personal automobile, we're doing nothing to address autocentic development, with all it's accompanying sprawl, concrete, ashphalt, steel, and general hi-consumption culture that goes with it.

That!