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Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

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Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#61

Post by rodgerd »

derekp7 wrote: post #47
rdl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scary thing for me with Tesla stock is primarily the risks in going to large scale mass market cars, as well as the risk of another car company, or another startup, emerging to win the mass market EV space.

If another company came up with a dual-powered version of the Tesla, then I would definitely buy that. The current round of plugin hybrids don't offer enough battery-only range for me. I'd like to see about 100 mile battery only (in case I forget to plug it in), plus a small engine and 10-gallon tank. I wouldn't think the gas engine would have to be that large, especially if it were designed to use the battery as a b…

If what you want is a fast luxury hybrid, there are already high-end Lexuses (Lexii?), but I suspect you'd not like the range as much. Porche are also pushing hybrids, but again for performance, they're using the petrol.

The WEC is pushing supercapacitors into the hybrid drivetrains as a superior method of scavenging (but not storing) energy.

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#62

Post by rodgerd »

tokenadult wrote: post #53
eru wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any sale there will be a buy and vice versa.

For any sale there will be a buy and vice versa. Well, yes, of course, and I think everyone here on Hacker News is aware of that. But the transaction may not occur at the price you desire. "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" is still an important idea for investors to keep in mind.

If the market remains irrational longer than you can stay solvent, the market is no longer irrational.

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#64

Post by SwellJoe »

PakG1 wrote: post #60
SwellJoe wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the danger is in the big automakers getting EV right, before Tesla reaches the middle and low end of the market. Nissan has the Leaf, which is by most accounts, a great little car. The Chevy Volt is the best-selling in my neck of the woods, it seems. Tesla makes better electric cars...as far as the reviews indicate. But, they're also much more expensive. But, here's the reason I just placed a limit order for…

They will sell more cars than they can manufacture (and maybe more electric cars than anyone else can manufacture also, due to the current limited battery availability). They will continue to execute well on battery acquisition and development. This battery supply thing reminds me of this story: http://qr.ae/N0Uxr

That takes balls. And, possibly a bit of stupidity.

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#65

Post by triplesec »

SwellJoe wrote: post #51
rdl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scary thing for me with Tesla stock is primarily the risks in going to large scale mass market cars, as well as the risk of another car company, or another startup, emerging to win the mass market EV space.

I think the danger is in the big automakers getting EV right, before Tesla reaches the middle and low end of the market. Nissan has the Leaf, which is by most accounts, a great little car. The Chevy Volt is the best-selling in my neck of the woods, it seems. Tesla makes better electric cars...as far as the reviews indicate. But, they're also much more expensive. But, here's the reason I just placed a limit order for…

I do believe the volt makes Chevrolet a loss for every unit sold. If this is a deliberate loss leader to put Tesla out of business, then it is an issue. They're all looking for market share, but Tesla has less capital backing. OTOH it has less crummy baacklog and infrastructure, so it may be nimble eough to survive

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#66

Post by salemh »

PakG1 wrote: post #60
SwellJoe wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the danger is in the big automakers getting EV right, before Tesla reaches the middle and low end of the market. Nissan has the Leaf, which is by most accounts, a great little car. The Chevy Volt is the best-selling in my neck of the woods, it seems. Tesla makes better electric cars...as far as the reviews indicate. But, they're also much more expensive. But, here's the reason I just placed a limit order for…

They will sell more cars than they can manufacture (and maybe more electric cars than anyone else can manufacture also, due to the current limited battery availability). They will continue to execute well on battery acquisition and development. This battery supply thing reminds me of this story: http://qr.ae/N0Uxr

Non-shortened (HN doesn't like those, people want to know what they are clicking): http://www.quora.com/Business/Whats-the-shrewdest-smartest-m...

Business: What's the shrewdest, smartest maneuver you've ever seen in business?

Cool little blurb hand-soap:

There was only one problem: Nothing he was selling could be patented. The concept of liquid soap wasn't new, and simple pumps had been around since the dawn of civilization. As a result, Taylor knew several huge soap manufacturers were ready to happily steal his idea the very moment it looked like it could succeed on a large scale. Armed with superior resources and the ability to quickly R&D an imitation product, the industry giants were ready to crush tiny Minnetonka.

Taylor, however, was ready for this. Before any other company had the chance, Taylor decided to go shopping one day and bought a few plastic pumps. And by a few we mean FUCKING ALL OF THEM. There were only two companies nationwide manufacturing those little pumps, and Taylor ponied up $12 million -- more than the total net worth of his company at the time -- and ordered 100 million of them, effectively buying every single pump these two companies would be able to manufacture for the next year or two.

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#67

Post by ChuckMcM »

tvladeck wrote: post #44
cs702 wrote: post #31

Tesla's stock price at present reflects and is driven primarily by the exuberant optimism of its shareholders, not by mundane financial details like how many millions the company lost or how many cars were sold last quarter. Consider that despite today's drop, the stock price has gone up 4.6x this year (from $33.87 at year-end 2012 to around $155 right now), but over the same period the company's quarterly revenues h…

If your first sentence were true, then the stock shouldn't have been affected much by today's news. Instead, it fell significantly. The price of the stock has to do with how much money it might make in the future, and where they are on their growth trajectory. The news today signifies that the trajectory might be lower overall, or they might be further behind than investors thought.

[I don't currently own any stock or options in TSLA]

Sort of and sorta not. There is a tremendous amount of speculation in Tesla stock. That came about from a number of people making very large bets against and for the company (option trading is quite active for such a 'young' company).

The stock is "priced for perfection" which is to say it is priced at a value that only makes sense if Tesla meets every objective, has no missteps, and doesn't run into any technical or legal issues. Consequently there are lots of people who have various hedges in place to sell stock if it goes down, or buy covering options, etc. Thus any news tends to be magnified on this stock.

Had it not been priced so tightly the effect would have been more inline with other companies when they announce results. (a 3 - 5% change on "news")

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#68

Post by r00fus »

bsdetector wrote: post #56
rdl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scary thing for me with Tesla stock is primarily the risks in going to large scale mass market cars, as well as the risk of another car company, or another startup, emerging to win the mass market EV space.

Toyota is supposedly coming out in 2015 with production cars with fuel cells costing a bit more than what a Tesla battery does, but the more they produce the less costly they are. In contrast, the more batteries Tesla produces the more the cost of lithium increases. It seems like an incredible proposition that Tesla will expand fast enough to shut out fuel cells before they get established.

Toyota (and others) have been touting fuel cells for well over a decade.

I'm not holding my breath - fuel cells are as sustainable and non-oil as flex-fuel (read: vaporware).

Musk makes some very unrefutable points here deriding fuel cells, and Ive had that opinion long before people were listening to Musk: http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/25/elon-musk-munchen-fuel-c...

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#69

Post by Tuna-Fish »

bsdetector wrote: post #56
rdl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scary thing for me with Tesla stock is primarily the risks in going to large scale mass market cars, as well as the risk of another car company, or another startup, emerging to win the mass market EV space.

Toyota is supposedly coming out in 2015 with production cars with fuel cells costing a bit more than what a Tesla battery does, but the more they produce the less costly they are. In contrast, the more batteries Tesla produces the more the cost of lithium increases. It seems like an incredible proposition that Tesla will expand fast enough to shut out fuel cells before they get established.

> In contrast, the more batteries Tesla produces the more the cost of lithium increases.

This is true, but misleading. The cost of lithium is a vanishingly small component of the price of the battery, a typical quote is between 1% and 0.1% of the production cost. Lithium is one of the most common elements in the earth's crust, and is plentiful enough in seawater that it cannot run out -- before it's cost is high enough to have any real effect in battery prices, it will be well worth extracting it from the seas. (In which there is enough supply for millions of years.)

The rapid increase in demand caused by proliferation of lithium-ion batteries has spiked the price over the past decade, but that is simply because mining operations take years to spin up, so large changes in demand always lead to large-scale price action. This has not yet had anything but a negligible effect on battery prices, and it will not have one in the future.

I do not understand the current meme of trying to paint all economic issues as resource-limited. That's just not how the world works.

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#70

Post by eru »

rodgerd wrote: post #62
tokenadult wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any sale there will be a buy and vice versa. Well, yes, of course, and I think everyone here on Hacker News is aware of that. But the transaction may not occur at the price you desire. "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" is still an important idea for investors to keep in mind.

If the market remains irrational longer than you can stay solvent, the market is no longer irrational.

Why? Why should the time my money lasts have any bearing on whether we judge markets rational or not?
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