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Tesla ending Models S and X production

cnbc.com

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Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#391

Post by defrost »

thesmtsolver2 wrote: post #350
defrost wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Chinese EV's are flying out of their factories, well, a few are - most are self driving out to the shipping yards. This despite the 2025 support by the Chinese state for the Chines EV industry now being almost nothing. By contrast, defenders of China could point out that the data show that subsidies as a percentage of total sales have declined substantially, from over 40% in the early years to only 11.5% in 2…

You should also factor in lax human rights enforcement in China (which acts like a subsidy essentially in effect and is not factored in these calculations): https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/10/human-rights-... BYD is at the bottom of the list (worst for human rights). Tesla is second at the top (better for human rights).

> You should also factor in ...

Thank you for the suggestion.

I should point out that is not my work, and dates from 2023. If you follow the link to the work quoted you might be able to contact the authors and pass them your thoughts.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#392

Post by notahacker »

bob1029 wrote: post #353

I think Tesla would make way more sense if they got out of the car part of the business. Serving the consumer market directly is very expensive. Their electronics, batteries, motors, etc., are world class. Packaging this up into something a partner can use to build actual cars could have less risk. An electric motor or battery can propel many kinds of automobile. They tend to keep their value better when stored in th…

That would be lower margin and narrower moat even if they had the partners lined up and didn't have a valuation based on the assumption one day the car everyone would use would be a Tesla.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#393

Post by haspok »

SR2Z wrote: post #184
nishanseal wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems counterintuitive, but this helped Tesla which is why Musk championed it. Basically when that tax credit came out, a bunch of Tesla owners had their cars underwater - loans were more than new cars were selling for and depreciation thru the roof. Plus the tax credit helped their competitors. Now that the credit is gone, Tesla owners are closer to being in the black on their cars and it also caused Ford and GM…

Of course, it's 4D chess. This was such a genius move that Tesla profits fell 46% last year and they are ending production of their highest-margin vehicles. GM wrote down $4B when they reduced their EV production. Despite that, last year GM sold half the number of EVs as Tesla did. If THAT was reduced production by 100%, then Tesla would have been truly fucked had Harris won the election. Tesla is suffering because E…

> Elon Musk was a genius at some point in the past

When he wrote the Hyperloop white paper? When he backdated himself as the founder of Tesla, then pushed the real founders out?...

He is a genius snake oil salesman, I give you that.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#394

Post by Mawr »

sixQuarks wrote: post #179
mosdl wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their autonomous taxi program is a joke right now, especially compared to Waymo. Way fewer cities/rides, and they haven't even deployed their cybertaxi thing.

[flagged]

If you think it is, take your hands of the wheel and close your eyes. Fall asleep at the wheel. Not willing to do so? I guess your car isn't really driving you everywhere.

Your view on how stocks work is interesting as well — you realize most of the investors are regular, uninformed non-techies who invest based on vibes, right? Vibes like "my car is driving me everywhere, this is the future!" — the exact same thoughtless, surface-level analysis you're going off of.

Therefore, you're trying to beat the market by using the exact same reasoning 99% of its investors have used. Good luck.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#395

Post by uejfiweun »

bayindirh wrote: post #341
uejfiweun wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get this take... not when Tesla is by a wide mile the world's most valuable automaker. How does Tesla ending production of the S and X equate to the old auto establishment "stomping over them"?

Worth related statistics doesn't mean anything in the realm of hard engineering. I completely look from the point of "what the companies are doing tech-wise". When Tesla came about, they were distinctively different. A different chassis, a different weight distribution, completely different dynamics. Since they started with a blank slate, their cars were greenfield projects, and they correctly took note of the pitfal…

Thank you for the explanation. I guess the thing I don't understand is what exactly the problems are that you are seeing. We've all heard the stories of wooden parts in initial production runs of Tesla models, sure. But it does seem like they iron out these kinks over time. Maybe I'm biased because I'm in the bay area, but it seems like every 3rd car you see on the highway is a Tesla, and lots of my coworkers speak very highly of theirs that they own. It just doesn't seem to me like there is actually a quality issue here?

If anything, ending production of SX and giving more focus to 3Y would probably increase the quality of those models, I'd imagine.

If you're pointing to Autopilot / camera-only as the main transgression here, yeah I'll agree that they have definitely overpromised, but it doesn't really seem to me like the lack of a L5 system is actually a deal-breaker for anyone, because from what I hear they are just damn good cars anyway.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#396

Post by haspok »

annexrichmond wrote: post #219
harshaw wrote: post #15

I am confused about what Tesla is doing. They have effectively two automobile products now with one failed product (cybertruck). reading various articles about this doesn't make it more clear. Do they not want to be a car company?

How do you suppose Cybertruck is a failure? I see just as many of them as Rivians, while releasing over 5 years later.

They are so proud of the Cybertruck sales that they don't eevn dare to disclose sales figures. That's the sign of a market success.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#397

Post by itzprime »

parineum wrote: post #236
adastra22 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars, maybe. Tesla is valued much larger than the rest of the auto industry combined though. Humanoid robots? Ain’t nobody made the business case for that. It is pure vibes.

Tesla is valued at more than the auto industry because they are doing more than the entire auto industry. Honda is going to come out with a new Civic next year. It's going to look like the old Civic. Tesla is trying to create self driving taxis to make the rest of the auto industry obsolete. If you think that can happen, they should be worth more than the rest of the industry.

They are actually behind in a lot of their self driving to other car companies

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#398

Post by dgxyz »

FL33TW00D wrote: post #388
rswail wrote: post #334

So he milked Tesla for another $2B to subsidize xAI, has dropped the models to 2 (3 and Y), revenue is down, growth is negative, BYD is eating Tesla for lunch, followed by the other CN and KR vehicle companies. He doesn't have FSD, camera only navigation without sensor fusion with LIDAR will fail, the only thing keeping Tesla where it is is the bullshit dispersal field that surrounds Musk.

How can you say camera only navigation won’t work with such finality when humans manage just fine every day! You literally have an existence proof of it working.

I fall on my butt all the time.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#399

Post by fooker »

kleton wrote: post #390
FL33TW00D wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say camera only navigation won’t work with such finality when humans manage just fine every day! You literally have an existence proof of it working.

It would be possible to build an ornithopter, evidenced by the existence of avians, but it turned out the easiest ways to make flying machines were otherwise.

> easiest

This is the keyword here, just because the other approach is harder does not mean it is impossible.

It's a decent gamble to try and do things the hard way if it is possible to be deployed on cheaper/smaller hardware (eg: no lidars, just cameras).

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#400

Post by ben_w »

laughing_man wrote: post #362
littlestymaar wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He wants to sell millions of cheaper cars, not thousands of cars for wealthy people. Why hasn't the cheap car been designed yet then?

The Model 3 is pretty cheap for an EV. The average car in the US is over $50k now, so it's competitive on price.

If $50k is competitive for you, that should be a sign something's gone wrong.

In Europe we can get new cars for less than half that price, both for domestic production and also post-tariffs on Chinese imports.

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