Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#561

Post by vectorjohn » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 2:49 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #557

vectorjohn wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driverless cars can take you between train stations and destinations. No magical form of train will come to your house or go to your office. In fact, this is a perfect use case for driverless cars. The problem with trains everywhere is the wasted time not on the train and the million stops along the way.

Ultimately I think driverless technology can revolutionarise high density public transport too: It gives us exactingly detailed information on what journeys people need. The dataset will be immensely valuable in allowing the companies that sit on them to first start doing quasi-bus services: Order a bunch of minibuses. During peak hours, offer an option: Wait for the next dedicated car to be free, or ride share with…

I really want to be in the business of writing the software that plans these things. The possibilities are crazy. Predicting where to have cars based on overall traffic flows, having cars ready for individuals who always leave at the same time. Think, a car is 30 seconds away every time you follow your routine. That's faster than getting into and starting your own car! Especially if you have a parking garage.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#562

Post by bluGill » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

moftz wrote: post #372

bluGill wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I like knowing that there are extra diapers and a change of clothing for each kid in my car should I need them. I carry enough in to cover my current needs, but as anyone with kids known sometimes that isn't enough. I know many people who keep golf clubs in their car because sometimes a salesman is looking to round out a 4-some. I like going to walmart/lowes... over lunch and leaving my treasures in my car.…

The car sharing won't cover everyone's needs and some people will stick to keeping their own car. I'd imagine people living in urban areas are more likely to use a car sharing service since it's uneconomical to own a car in most cities. I'd imagine the suburbs will be a mix of sharing and ownership. I can imagine a family having a car they keep for weekends or whenever the parents and kids need to go somewhere but th…

car sharing works less well for getting to work because everyone else is trying to get to work then. You may as well own your own car for getting to work because you pay for all the costs anyway. All car sharing buys you is fixed maintenance costs on your car.

Car sharing starts to make sense when you want the car outside of rush hour. Want to go to the store for an hour at 2:30, no problem there are plenty of cars free. Want to get to work every day - you are paying peak rates for a car that will probably be used exactly twice that day, once to get you to work and once to get you home.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#563

Post by FilipeRamalho » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 2:58 PM UTC

I think that shows how important e-mobility is for the consumer.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#564

Post by bluGill » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 3:01 PM UTC

Arelius wrote: post #417

bluGill wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I like knowing that there are extra diapers and a change of clothing for each kid in my car should I need them. I carry enough in to cover my current needs, but as anyone with kids known sometimes that isn't enough. I know many people who keep golf clubs in their car because sometimes a salesman is looking to round out a 4-some. I like going to walmart/lowes... over lunch and leaving my treasures in my car.…

"Rush hour" is actually a pretty long distribution of time compared to the average length of a person's commute. I imagine just considering commuting, you could likely get close to half the amount of cars required with car-sharing, since you may get in at 7:30 and I may get in at 9:00. And you could provide good price incentives to convince people to mix up their commute times a bit. I already know people who push th…

That is only true if the costs of the return trip is free: it isn't. When the car for the guy who arrives downtown at 7am goes back to the suburbs to get the guy who wants to arrive at 8am it is burning nearly as much fuel as it did getting in, and putting just as much wear on the car. The effect is shared cars are more expensive than just a car per person. (Note, this does not account for cost of parking which is a significant factor)

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#565

Post by vidarh » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 3:14 PM UTC

vectorjohn wrote: post #561

vidarh wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately I think driverless technology can revolutionarise high density public transport too: It gives us exactingly detailed information on what journeys people need. The dataset will be immensely valuable in allowing the companies that sit on them to first start doing quasi-bus services: Order a bunch of minibuses. During peak hours, offer an option: Wait for the next dedicated car to be free, or ride share with…

I really want to be in the business of writing the software that plans these things. The possibilities are crazy. Predicting where to have cars based on overall traffic flows, having cars ready for individuals who always leave at the same time. Think, a car is 30 seconds away every time you follow your routine. That's faster than getting into and starting your own car! Especially if you have a parking garage.

If you're predictable enough, it might be worth it to simply arrive a minute or two ahead of schedule.

The raving reviews you'd get the first times people order a car and are told instantly "your car is already waiting right outside your door" would be rather interesting.

Get in, and your favorite radio station or music is playing.

And for colder climates: Your car is already pre-heated. I remember too many winter mornings during winter in Norway when even ensuring our car would actually start in the morning was an annoyance (even with a garage, space heaters in the garage or motor heaters is sometimes necessary).

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#566

Post by vidarh » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #559

vidarh wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A service will be able to keep cars near you, and will have sufficiently higher utilisation of their cars to be willing to pay more for parking spots. Your waiting time to get a taxi service will likely drop substantially at the same time as your waiting time to get picked up by a car you own is likely to go up. As someone who doesn't own a car, the only potential appeal to me of owning a car is shorter waits and pre…

As someone who doesn't own a car I don't think you have that much insight into the mindset of people who own a car.

You're assuming I've lived in a car free household all my life.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#567

Post by peterbonney » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 3:37 PM UTC

robzyb wrote: post #558

peterbonney wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're insisting that debt is another form of investment, and depending on what you're looking at that makes sense, but when talking about 'value' it doesn't always hold true. This sort of intuition is seductive, because we're generally told "debt bad, equity good!" But it's not correct, for the very simple reason that debt and equity are, in many ways, fungible: each type of financing can be utilized to replace th…

> This sort of intuition is seductive, because we're generally told "debt bad, equity good!" But it's not correct, for the very simple reason that debt and equity are, in many ways, fungible: each type of financing can be utilized to replace the other. Debt can be viewed in many ways. I'm not saying that it's wrong to view debt as another form of financing - like you I studied Modigliani-Miller, just that there are o…

> EV, for example, is susceptible to distortion between leasing and buying capital assets.

Yes, this is an excellent point. The next-level thing to do when modeling companies that make extensive use of operating leases for capital assets is to capitalize those operating leases, for exactly this reason.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#568

Post by skybrian » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 4:20 PM UTC

peterbonney wrote: post #543

robzyb wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously both are worth the same amount: each company has an "enterprise value" (the value that all investors in all securities place on the underlying enterprise) of $1,000,000. The only difference is that company A has only one class of investor, while company B has investors that own a riskier asset (the equity) and a less risky asset (the debt). There's an important issue that you aren't taking into considerat…

> You're insisting that debt is another form of investment, and depending on what you're looking at that makes sense, but when talking about 'value' it doesn't always hold true. This sort of intuition is seductive, because we're generally told "debt bad, equity good!" But it's not correct, for the very simple reason that debt and equity are, in many ways, fungible: each type of financing can be utilized to replace th…

It seems strange to ignore the terms agreed to when raising money. A company that raises money via loans typically has more obligations than one that raises money via equity. Doesn't the option value for repayment count for anything?

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#569

Post by scentoni » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

jnicholasp wrote: post #390

bigtimeidiot wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla does the latter, and the market is valuing them accordingly. Suddenly we believe in a rational market when it comes to Tesla? Everytime I ask basic valuation questions in these threads, I get touchy-feely answers about "potential". And HackerNews is supposed to be a data/tech place. Imagine what average Joe thinks?

> The market could be wrong , Tesla could fail to achieve their vision, Ford and other existing big companies could somehow turn themselves into organizations that aggressively pursue ambitious new visions.. but the market is betting not. You're welcome to make an opposing bet. I don't know about 'we', but I don't believe in an irrational market - the market may well be wrong, but it's not usually wrong for unreasona…

Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#570

Post by jnicholasp » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:30 PM UTC

scentoni wrote: post #569

jnicholasp wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The market could be wrong , Tesla could fail to achieve their vision, Ford and other existing big companies could somehow turn themselves into organizations that aggressively pursue ambitious new visions.. but the market is betting not. You're welcome to make an opposing bet. I don't know about 'we', but I don't believe in an irrational market - the market may well be wrong, but it's not usually wrong for unreasona…

Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent.

We could quibble about the meaning of "irrational", but I do agree that markets can be mistaken for longer than most people can financially back their conviction that it's mistaken.

In the case of Tesla vs Ford, there is probably a sense in which the longer the market is 'irrationally' convinced of the value of Tesla, the less irrational it actually is - it's a bet on Tesla's viability and vision, and the longer it seems like a good bet to most people, the more likely it is that it is a rational bet to have made.