Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years

#31

Post by pilom » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 9:28 PM UTC

erikb wrote: post #17

It may even be a bad things if they have profits considering the kind of revolution they are attempting on the car industry. I hope though, that it means things went better for them than expected.

Profits do not equal money returned to investors. These profits will be held for future capital purchases or used to pay down debt or used for R&D in the future.

Re: Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years

#32

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 9:28 PM UTC

mitchellh wrote: post #23

Really great news! But something that shouldn't be overlooked is the discounts they gave in Q3 to push deliveries up. First, those that know me know that I am a Tesla FANATIC. My girlfriend once challenged me to not talk about Tesla (motors, energy, something) for a 24 hour period. I dunno if I've ever done that honestly. I'm also an owner (no surprise given my fanaticism, lucky to be able to afford one). And I also…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years

#33

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 9:28 PM UTC

mitchellh wrote: post #23

Really great news! But something that shouldn't be overlooked is the discounts they gave in Q3 to push deliveries up. First, those that know me know that I am a Tesla FANATIC. My girlfriend once challenged me to not talk about Tesla (motors, energy, something) for a 24 hour period. I dunno if I've ever done that honestly. I'm also an owner (no surprise given my fanaticism, lucky to be able to afford one). And I also…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years

#34

Post by usaphp » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 9:29 PM UTC

mitchellh wrote: post #23

Really great news! But something that shouldn't be overlooked is the discounts they gave in Q3 to push deliveries up. First, those that know me know that I am a Tesla FANATIC. My girlfriend once challenged me to not talk about Tesla (motors, energy, something) for a 24 hour period. I dunno if I've ever done that honestly. I'm also an owner (no surprise given my fanaticism, lucky to be able to afford one). And I also…

> "I also happen to know a lot of the people who bought a heavily discounted Tesla in Q3 feel kind of burned that right at the beginning of Q4 Tesla announced the new Autopilot hardware (that isn't retrotfitable on old vehicles). "

Wow I guess this is the best proof of how Tesla is really changing the way auto owners think, this is something that wasn't unthinkable before Tesla and their over the air updates. Can you imagine a BMW owner complaining that his 2015 model does not have stuff that new 2017 models will get??

Re: Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years

#35

Post by enimodas » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 9:29 PM UTC

mitchellh wrote: post #23

Really great news! But something that shouldn't be overlooked is the discounts they gave in Q3 to push deliveries up. First, those that know me know that I am a Tesla FANATIC. My girlfriend once challenged me to not talk about Tesla (motors, energy, something) for a 24 hour period. I dunno if I've ever done that honestly. I'm also an owner (no surprise given my fanaticism, lucky to be able to afford one). And I also…

How do significant discounts create more profitability? Isn't that like "we lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume."?

Re: Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years

#36

Post by revelation » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 9:29 PM UTC

mitchellh wrote: post #23

Really great news! But something that shouldn't be overlooked is the discounts they gave in Q3 to push deliveries up. First, those that know me know that I am a Tesla FANATIC. My girlfriend once challenged me to not talk about Tesla (motors, energy, something) for a 24 hour period. I dunno if I've ever done that honestly. I'm also an owner (no surprise given my fanaticism, lucky to be able to afford one). And I also…

They always do a "end of quarter push" of sorts. It's the terrible reality of being a publicly traded company where a few discrete points in time decide the up and down.

Presumably that is also why Elon doesn't want SpaceX to go public. That kind of push could easily end in a giant fireball there.

Re: Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years

#37

Post by yladiz » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 9:30 PM UTC

I'm impressed and skeptical of the substantial increase in production. A 70% increase in production in one year would likely require substantial changes in the production stages. Hopefully Tesla didn't cut any corners to hit this production number; I'm hopeful that they just scaled back their production initially and now show their "full potential", or added a lot of new machinery in their production line(s). Maybe they will reach the 500,000 target.

Re: Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years

#38

Post by briholt » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

mitchellh wrote: post #23

Really great news! But something that shouldn't be overlooked is the discounts they gave in Q3 to push deliveries up. First, those that know me know that I am a Tesla FANATIC. My girlfriend once challenged me to not talk about Tesla (motors, energy, something) for a 24 hour period. I dunno if I've ever done that honestly. I'm also an owner (no surprise given my fanaticism, lucky to be able to afford one). And I also…

Along with discounts, it's worth mentioning there were also some accounting changes in Q3 and they cashed in all of their ZEV credits for the year. So the profit didn't come easy.

Re: Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years

#39

Post by rascalpenguin » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #20

sova wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent! Thank you for pointing that out. "Profit" is a comical term, how can we measure the net savings for humanity-at-large from such endeavors?

I wouldn't exactly call it comical. It's just that it's a political term rather than a financial one. Deciding to take a profit this year is an important signifier for the investors, who all must have the same question in mind, how long is it going to take for their investment to pay off. As long as Musk decides to roll all revenues back into operations, investors get nothing. Musk has a reputation as someone who doe…

Yeah that's right. Further, it's not that Musk just tells investors to go do one for humanity. They know if they let the business grow more now, they get even larger profits later.

Re: Tesla reports first quarterly profit in more than three years

#40

Post by fweespeech » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

enimodas wrote: post #35

mitchellh wrote: post #23

Really great news! But something that shouldn't be overlooked is the discounts they gave in Q3 to push deliveries up. First, those that know me know that I am a Tesla FANATIC. My girlfriend once challenged me to not talk about Tesla (motors, energy, something) for a 24 hour period. I dunno if I've ever done that honestly. I'm also an owner (no surprise given my fanaticism, lucky to be able to afford one). And I also…

How do significant discounts create more profitability? Isn't that like "we lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume."?

Per-unit margin goes down (but is still profitable per unit) but you make up in volume to create a profit.

Tesla's main costs aren't the cost per unit but the engineer/software costs iirc.