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

Tesla reports steep drop in profits despite US rush to buy electric vehicles

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 81 posts

Re: Tesla reports steep drop in profits despite US rush to buy electric vehicles

#51

Post by scarab92 »

jonway wrote: post #48
DanOpcode wrote: post #30

Just guessing, but wouldn't surprise me if most luxury brands are struggling at the moment. I don't think this is the right time to buy a brand new, luxury car for most people. Considering the inflation, unemployment and uncertainty.

They also haven’t released a vehicle that is particularly relevant in like 6 years. Yes, the Cybertruck that nobody really wants, and a Model Y with an extended wheelbase. Yay.

The Model Y has been iteratively improved since its introduction like any other product, and remains the best selling car in its class in most western markets.

This argument makes about as much sense as saying Apple hasn’t released a new phone since 2007.

Re: Tesla reports steep drop in profits despite US rush to buy electric vehicles

#54

Post by ahaferburg »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #6
bpodgursky wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The articles are stupid. It's up to $1T IF he raises the stock price ~7x. It's basically the board saying "uh, sure, if you earn us 8.5 trillion dollars, we'll give you a trillion of it". It's an absurdly high bar, and the board had no real incentive to not throw it out there. Honestly every board should do this. Why not.

From an outside perspective, it feels wrong that the goal isn't higher earnings but a higher stock price. They don't care about actually creating value, just keep inflating the bubble and you're golden.

Welcome to the West? It's been like this for a while now here.

Re: Tesla reports steep drop in profits despite US rush to buy electric vehicles

#55

Post by plqbfbv »

jonway wrote: post #48
DanOpcode wrote: post #30

Just guessing, but wouldn't surprise me if most luxury brands are struggling at the moment. I don't think this is the right time to buy a brand new, luxury car for most people. Considering the inflation, unemployment and uncertainty.

They also haven’t released a vehicle that is particularly relevant in like 6 years. Yes, the Cybertruck that nobody really wants, and a Model Y with an extended wheelbase. Yay.

What does particularly relevant mean?

[lets set aside the CT, agree)

They lost a lot of the advantage they had on hardware, but if you want a non-chinese EV with really good software and well-thought and working UX they're still a perfectly valid all-rounder with a very good charging network, and they also refine their hardware over time.

They refreshed the M3 and MY looks recently and changed the shapes a bit, but I always understood their looks to be function over form for efficiency reasons, and they don't look bad at all if you ask me. Simple, effective, efficient and timeless designs.

I agree with the other comments here that changing shapes for the sake of changing shapes it's just marketing.

EDIT: to be honest, the only thing that really annoys me is they didn't release an EU A/B/C segment ~4m car with all the features of a standard Model 3/Y. Instead they took the existing models and made them cheaper.

Re: Tesla reports steep drop in profits despite US rush to buy electric vehicles

#56

Post by electric_mayhem »

dboreham wrote: post #15
geoffpado wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might have posted this to the wrong comments thread.

Perhaps we just missed a tweet where Elon announced 4.3 BSD for ARM64.

Indeed- comment was intended to be on the openbsd release announcement. No idea how it ended up on this one.

Re: Tesla reports steep drop in profits despite US rush to buy electric vehicles

#57

Post by Zigurd »

LanceH wrote: post #13
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an outside perspective, it feels wrong that the goal isn't higher earnings but a higher stock price. They don't care about actually creating value, just keep inflating the bubble and you're golden.

If a trillion dollars is on the line, could the stock be manipulated to be higher than that for less than a trillion?

Could TSLA be manipulated? With a priced earnings ratio of 300, the question is: how much more manipulated? How about all of the other fashy tech bros with ridiculous valuations in public and private companies?

Re: Tesla reports steep drop in profits despite US rush to buy electric vehicles

#58

Post by Simulacra »

But is this still more because of Musk, the car, or the subsidy? Many seemed to adore Tesla the vehicle (AOC famously had trouble giving hers up) and then turned against because of Musk. Other's turned away from EVs because of the removal of subsidies etc.

So which is it really, or is it a mix? Political, Personal, or Financial?

Re: Tesla reports steep drop in profits despite US rush to buy electric vehicles

#60

Post by ageitgey »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #49
jonway wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also haven’t released a vehicle that is particularly relevant in like 6 years. Yes, the Cybertruck that nobody really wants, and a Model Y with an extended wheelbase. Yay.

Why do things have to change constantly? Like the Model Y was insanely different to any other car I’d ever driven not long ago, and Tesla was first to market on actually good electric cars. Why do they have to operate using the same strategy as legacy auto makers? Like a design refresh every 3 years to drive excitement feels manipulative to me, not like something that is absolutely necessary. Are you saying that comp…

Cars (especially in the US) are an emotional and personal purchase. They are an extension and representation of your personality. It's fashion.

The entire history of the US car business has shown that the path to success is to produce different variants for different customer bases and refresh those variants to drive continual sales.

Some manufacturers take this to Nike-level extremes with rare variants, 1-of-1 models, etc (looking at you, Porsche). Other manufactures take it to the other extreme with base one platform being repurposed for 5+ different customer segments with wildly different body designs - for example the Toyota Tundra, Tacoma, Lexus LX, 4Runner, and Land Cruiser are all the same car with a different shell.

So the conventional wisdom in the industry is that Tesla is committing suicide by producing generic, stale cars without model variants. Tesla seems to have bet that the conventional wisdom is wrong and producing cheap, repeatable cars with less variation is a better business strategy. Time will tell.

Post reply on HN