Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 778 posts

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

#431

Post by [deleted] »

pbreit wrote: post #382
jaabe wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EV are still too expensive and Tesla ridiculously so. That’s not a problem if you can’t keep up with demand, but competition creeps up. Why would you buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less? We need better leadership though. I live in Denmark where EVs aren’t very widespread because of taxes. In Norway more than half of new vehicles sold are EV. Norway has more money than us, but they didn’t really…

"Why would you buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less?" Sorry, but this is just a completely dumb question/statement. People buy 5x the number of Teslas than Konas because they Teslas are much, much more delightful.

[deleted]

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

#432

Post by bobsil1 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #276
bobsil1 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing is well-understood, self-driving is research. Dumb cars = flip phones shortly.

Manufacturing is understood and still hard because you have to execute well every day. With software once you are done it’s easy to replicate. Guess why the phone market is donated by hardware manufacturers? Because it’s hard to produce a phone at low cost and good quality. Same is true for cars. The development is relatively easy but producing is hard.

Your idea of what a car is going to be, is wrong. It’s going to be a special-purpose mind on wheels, and no one knows how to develop one yet.

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

#433

Post by sliken »

kylecordes wrote: post #176
S_A_P wrote: post #14

As someone who does not have any stake in Tesla, I dont see a path forward for them without a company with the bank account on the scale of Apple/Google/Amazon funding them. Bootstrapping software is hard, hardware is harder, cars are 10x harder than those squared...

Tesla as a part of Apple (whose cash stuck between mattress cushions far exceeds the market cap of Tesla) would be unstoppable. Also, a Tesla car is an iPhone in a world of flip phones. The Tesla design ethos fits Apple pretty nicely.

Would you bet your life on a company that can't make a reliable keyboard... in it's 3rd generation attempt?

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

#434

Post by georgerobinson »

lancewiggs wrote: post #349
nradov wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An Audi A4 is really not a luxury vehicle in any meaningful sense.

That’s a statement that’s easy to make from a privileged position. Luxury is in the eyes of the beholder, and that car costs two thirds of the median income (before tax, healthcare, housing, food) in the USA.

It's the same in Western Europe, the difference is that cheap lease deals and finance have made them affordable for a significant amount of people and so these cars are extremely common. You see more 3 series than Toyota's or Hyundai's.

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

#436

Post by iddqd »

dblotsky wrote: post #403
dwighttk wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone with money believed a word of what Elon mumbled on Autonomy Day the stock would have moved up. (It didn’t)

What from Autonomy day was unbelievable?

Self driving robo taxi service operational next year.

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

#437

Post by oblio »

whttheuuu wrote: post #381
jaabe wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EV are still too expensive and Tesla ridiculously so. That’s not a problem if you can’t keep up with demand, but competition creeps up. Why would you buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less? We need better leadership though. I live in Denmark where EVs aren’t very widespread because of taxes. In Norway more than half of new vehicles sold are EV. Norway has more money than us, but they didn’t really…

"Why would you buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less?" Lol, is this a serious question?

> Lol, is this a serious question?

A lot of people can't afford expensive cars...

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

#438

Post by sliken »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #25
nostrademons wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that Tesla was supposed to bankroll SpaceX, but SpaceX is killing it on profits and Tesla is floundering. If anything it looks like SpaceX will end up bankrolling Tesla. Musk should forget about trying to save this planet and focus on getting to the red one.

It’s a shame people condemn Tesla’s for its troubles when internal combustion gets a ridiculous amount of subsided despite it causing irreparable harm to the planet. Musk plays on Boss Mode (along with others) while everyone enjoys bread and circus and laughs at people trying to accelerate progress with regards to climate change. I hope those quarterly profits, trucks, and SUVs are worth it when climate change hits i…

I rarely see it broken out, but in various markets (not just the USA) Tesla is making money on selling carbon credits from other car companies that aren't meeting the carbon goals. I've seen mention of $100M CARB credits in 2014, mentions of Fiat Chrysler avoiding $billions in fines by paying Tesla for their credits. The Tesla earnings call mentioned the income, but not the broken out line item totals.

So while it not be completely fair, at least Tesla is getting substantial financial contributions from the carbon producing ICE competitors.

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

#439

Post by sliken »

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.

Sadly it's far from clear is shared autonomous taxis are going to be any better for sprawl, concrete, asphalt, steel, and general high consumption.

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

#440

Post by dagw »

oblio wrote: post #437
whttheuuu wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why would you buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less?" Lol, is this a serious question?

> Lol, is this a serious question? A lot of people can't afford expensive cars...

And a lot of people who can afford expensive cars might still priorities spending their money on other things.
Post reply on HN