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Tesla, software and disruption

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Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#51

Post by dragontamer »

trisomy21 wrote: post #48
dragontamer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a ton of differences between Apple and Tesla. Most noticeably, Apple actually made a profit selling the iPhone. 6-years after the release of the Model S, Telsa has yet to turn a profit. And instead, is facing bankruptcy within the next two years unless it can roll over its debt or otherwise raise yet a few more billion $$$$. Compare and contrast: the iPhone was released in 2007. The Tesla Model S was releas…

“The political, environmental, and financial headwinds Apple faced during its time to create the iPhone were exponentially more difficult than Tesla's.“ I get that you might not be bullish on Tesla, but do you seriously believe this?

Were you around during the 2008 financial recession?

Major US banks were literally going bankrupt, credit dried up. There was almost no opportunity to borrow money, the stock market was crashing, no opportunity to IPO or perform a secondary offering.

Tesla is operating under one of the greatest, and longest, bull markets the US has ever seen. The great 2011 to 2018 (maybe longer??) boom. Tesla has been able to either secondary-offering, or borrow, roughly billion+ each year, every year, since its IPO.

During recent years, its borrowed or otherwise raised over $2 billion / year.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#52

Post by dragontamer »

seldon999 wrote: post #49
dragontamer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a ton of differences between Apple and Tesla. Most noticeably, Apple actually made a profit selling the iPhone. 6-years after the release of the Model S, Telsa has yet to turn a profit. And instead, is facing bankruptcy within the next two years unless it can roll over its debt or otherwise raise yet a few more billion $$$$. Compare and contrast: the iPhone was released in 2007. The Tesla Model S was releas…

Do you know how to read a financial statement? They have 26% gross margins on the Model S. Model 3 just turned gross margin positive in Q2. Your response is boring and boneheaded. Next.

I'm not talking gross margin. I'm talking raw and simple profits. If I wanted to talk about margins, I would have said "margin" in my post earlier. I said profit.

To be more specific, how about the words "Cash Flow Positive" ?? In any case, Tesla has only had ONE profitable quarter since its IPO, and has never had a profitable year.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#53

Post by dragontamer »

tommymachine wrote: post #50
dragontamer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a ton of differences between Apple and Tesla. Most noticeably, Apple actually made a profit selling the iPhone. 6-years after the release of the Model S, Telsa has yet to turn a profit. And instead, is facing bankruptcy within the next two years unless it can roll over its debt or otherwise raise yet a few more billion $$$$. Compare and contrast: the iPhone was released in 2007. The Tesla Model S was releas…

They are two different companies. Apple had its share of turmoil during the 30 years it was a company prior to the success of iPhone. For instance, having around six months of money left to burn when acquiring NEXT in 1996. Tesla has been around for ~15y. Sure, tech cycles are getting shorter, but still, it's a long slog over many years to scale any vertically involved hardware company.

I mean, if you want to compare the current state of Tesla to the state of Apple in 1996, I think that more or less solidifies my point?

Tesla cannot be compared to the 2000-era Apple company. There are simply too many differences.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#54

Post by dasil003 »

dragontamer wrote: post #44
_7fvc wrote: post #16

I think an important advantage is vertical integration. Similar to Apple and iPhone, Tesla controls most of the stack. They can do a lot more than their competitors.

There are a ton of differences between Apple and Tesla. Most noticeably, Apple actually made a profit selling the iPhone. 6-years after the release of the Model S, Telsa has yet to turn a profit. And instead, is facing bankruptcy within the next two years unless it can roll over its debt or otherwise raise yet a few more billion $$$$. Compare and contrast: the iPhone was released in 2007. The Tesla Model S was releas…

This comparison is flat out ridiculous. Jobs returned to Apple 10 years before the iPhone and launched a series of successful and profitable products: iMac, iPod, and iTunes leveraging an existing rabid fanbase, and putting them in prime position to design and launch a category changer like the iPhone. I'm not particularly impressed with Musk or Tesla, but you can't compare bootstrapping an automobile company to leveraging a decades-old vertically integrated consumer electronics behemoth to disrupt UX in a $1000 hand-held device. The financial crisis was probably the optimal time to launch such a product.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#55

Post by graeme »

frenchie4111 wrote: post #26

Something missing from this article: Tesla doesn't necessarily need to solve the vision only SLAM/Autonomy problem itself. If anyone solves the problem, and is willing to sell it. Tesla can immediately license it and turn their fleet of 200k+ Autopilot 2 cars into self driving cars overnight.

How is that a moat?

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#56

Post by tommymachine »

dragontamer wrote: post #53
tommymachine wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are two different companies. Apple had its share of turmoil during the 30 years it was a company prior to the success of iPhone. For instance, having around six months of money left to burn when acquiring NEXT in 1996. Tesla has been around for ~15y. Sure, tech cycles are getting shorter, but still, it's a long slog over many years to scale any vertically involved hardware company.

I mean, if you want to compare the current state of Tesla to the state of Apple in 1996, I think that more or less solidifies my point? Tesla cannot be compared to the 2000-era Apple company. There are simply too many differences.

Then we agree.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#57

Post by trisomy21 »

dragontamer wrote: post #51
trisomy21 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The political, environmental, and financial headwinds Apple faced during its time to create the iPhone were exponentially more difficult than Tesla's.“ I get that you might not be bullish on Tesla, but do you seriously believe this?

Were you around during the 2008 financial recession? Major US banks were literally going bankrupt, credit dried up. There was almost no opportunity to borrow money, the stock market was crashing, no opportunity to IPO or perform a secondary offering. Tesla is operating under one of the greatest, and longest, bull markets the US has ever seen. The great 2011 to 2018 (maybe longer??) boom. Tesla has been able to either…

I was. And all that might even be relevant if you weren't comparing Tesla to Apple.

The iPhone actually launched in 2007, the same year in which Apple generated over $24B in revenue and was sitting on $15B in cash at the end of the fiscal year. In 2008, they did $37B in revenue and ended the fiscal year sitting on about $25B in cash.

The claim that Apple's financial challenges with launching a smartphone were "exponentially" greater than Tesla's, is laughable.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#58

Post by agumonkey »

gizmo wrote: post #45
mariushn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much profit do those projects bring?

Tesla lost money on the Australia project. They bought the battery cells from Samsung and put them in a Tesla branded unit. Samsung also could have installed the battery themselves (always cheaper to cut out a middle man), but Tesla was willing to buy their cells and then sell them at a loss to Australia. Tesla got a ton of publicity out of it, though, so it was probably a win for all parties involved.

Apparently they made the life of people in the region (administration, utility and consumers) a lot better with their system. I'm not very knowledgeable on this topic but it seems that it was a superb demo for Tesla.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#59

Post by repsilat »

gizmo wrote: post #8
MarkMc wrote: post #2

Excellent article with well-reasoned analysis of the range of future possibilities for Tesla. But one disappointing omission is any mention of ride-hailing - surely it will have enormous consequences for the entire auto industry because people will for the most part stop buying cars and switch to autonomous taxis. This will (a) reduce the demand for number of new cars produced; (b) reduce the profit from each car (no…

If Tesla is the first to crack autonomy they will win, regardless of ride-hailing. If Tesla doesn't crack autonomy they're likely to go under, regardless of ride-hailing.

> If Tesla is the first to crack autonomy they will win, regardless of ride-hailing.

I think that's a bit strong. People don't replace their cars all that often, and no massive increase in demand for Tesla's cars is going to cause their production numbers to jump.

If they get full autonomy out five years ahead of Waymo and Cruise (good luck), they still probably won't win a dominant share of the market longer-term.

> If Tesla doesn't crack autonomy they're likely to go under

Shrugs, I think autonomy could seriously hurt them, whoever invents it. Tesla builds "a better car" -- nice acceleration, clean interface, more reliable -- and autonomous ride-hailing in cities essentially leads to the cars themselves not being an important point of differentiation.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#60

Post by qaq »

Animats wrote: post #42
IBM wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's even less of a moat for Tesla in selling batteries to utilities than there is for their cars. And SolarCity was heading to zero. It was acquired by Tesla because Elon had to bail himself out or the myth of Elon Musk as Tony Stark would have been undone. But also because he along with his cousins would have lost a lot of money. That's compounded by the fact that Elon is significantly personally leveraged and a…

Especially since Tesla doesn't make cells. They buy from Panasonic. Panasonic competes directly with Tesla in home and bulk energy storage.[1] [1] https://na.panasonic.com/us/energy-solutions/battery-storage...

So gigafactory is not making cells?
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