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

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

#611

Post by _ea1k »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #603
leesec wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a joke right? They make some of the most highly regarded cars of all time. Recently buying one and showing it off almost every single person (30~) was blown away at how much better it was then their car and wanted one in the future. Tesla has many problems but making bad cars isn't one of them, these things are awesome.

No it's not a joke. The Model 3 and Model S have relatively high NVH and a relatively cheap feeling interior compared to vehicles of the same class and price point. You're paying German car money but it goes to the drive-train instead of the "luxury German driving machine" experience. There's nothing wrong with that but to talk up Tesla's vehicles as though they're luxury cars is foolish.

I just can't agree with that on the model 3. The model 3 is basically BM 3 series money, and there is nothing particularly phenomenal about the BMW 3 series from a luxury standpoint.

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

#612

Post by Fricken »

friendzis wrote: post #555
Xcelerate wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need an entrepreneur to do with the city what Elon did with the car. How on earth you would fund something of that scale, I’m not sure. And many country’s attempts at “cities of the future” have ended up as ghost towns. I’d love to see someone develop a new walkable, eco-friendly city from scratch somewhere in the U.S., but all odds are against that kind of thing.

I just don't get the obsession of some people with "walkable cities". What is reasonable walking time at -20 during snowstorm or at +30 at blazing sun? Multiply that with reasonable pedestrian speed and get outer diameter of the mystic "walkable city". The way I would define reasonable values that would be roughly 2-3km. That's a village, not even a town.

Within a 3 km radius you can access 28 square kilometres. Central Paris, a classic walkable city, has a density of 6,500 residents/square kilometre. That's more like a medium sized city you can have access to within 3km if you build for people instead of cars.

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

#613

Post by navigatesol »

loceng wrote: post #560
navigatesol wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just HN, it's everywhere . Anything that comes out of the mouth of Elon is an instant fact, and is repeated as fact until it's proven false. Then it was merely a prediction or plan. He just went on stage and told investors that their non-existent, full self-driving robot taxi fleet will cut the cost of personal transport by 90% over Uber, and will make the car owners $10-$30k+ ("in some cases more!") in annu…

Did you watch the presentation relating to the Tesla chip release - along with watching the fully self-driving vehicle video? They had the lead chip engineer explain their improvements, and they had their AI lead explain why they're at the lead for this - both very experienced and articulate people in their fields. I don't understand how you say it's a pipe dream unless you don't comprehend what they're sharing. If t…

>Did you watch the presentation relating to the Tesla chip release - along with watching the fully self-driving vehicle video?

Yeah, I did. It was very interesting, but it was also Computer Vision 101. Karpathy essentially explained how neural nets work to a non-technical audience. It was nice.

But did you not assume this was exactly what they were doing? I certainly did. Do you think no one at Waymo/Google/Uber/Apple/Lyft/Ford/GM/VW understands this or is trying to do the same or similar? Tesla does have a fleet data advantage, but Elon's "simulated data won't work" is nonsense.

>If they're outright lying about the operations per second speeds (TOPS) they announced then that's one thing, however I doubt they would.

They weren't lying about the specs, but it isn't industry leading, like they claimed. So now they have a second best chip that they have to produce themselves in small volumes.

>Re: Solar City - they've had to redirect battery and other resources to focus on the vehicles. You're making a lot of assumptions.

No, you are making a lot of assumptions. I am looking at the data. Since the solar shingle reveal, solar revenue has decreased every quarter. It is now 25% of what it was then. The reviews on Yelp and other sites are terrible. The Buffalo plant is in trouble, and hasn't fulfilled employment requirements. What does any of that have to do with batteries going to the Model 3 in volume in 2018?

Again, your whole argument revolves around "Tesla says..."

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

#614

Post by bravo22 »

mtw wrote: post #583
bravo22 wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon would be a roadblock to such a merge. Toyota won't be able to function with him in any managerial position. I doubt he'll accept anything less than full control. He won't be content as an "evangelist".

If his dream is really to have the world switch from ICE to EV cars, then he should consider this. That would be an engineering and laudable feat, and he would be in the annals of history. He can then focus on SpaceX and go to Mars. But if his dream is to become ultra-wealthy and be like Stark in Ironman, then I guess he can keep to himself Tesla.

His dream is to go down in history. Everything else is a means to an end.

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

#615

Post by navigatesol »

Isinlor wrote: post #556
navigatesol wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have been predicting failure for Tesla since the beginning. This is such a bizarre argument. Things don't fall apart overnight, until they do. Are you a software engineer? "People have been predicting our app will collapse under the burden of technical debt since the beginning. Hasn't happened yet!"

It is certainly not bizarre. Extrapolating from the past is almost always the best baseline for predicting future. I put emphasis on the word baseline.

Do that and you'll miss predicting every single company that has ever failed. Sounds like a brilliant plan.

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

#616

Post by c0vfefe »

mtgx wrote: post #550
hef19898 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still comes down to a race between Tesla figuring out the complete automotive supply chain and competitors figuring out EVs. Tesla had, and I would assume still has, production hell. Now it's delivery hell. Both are solved, controlled and executed constantly by other car companies (VW has an exception with the new Golf 8 that proves the rule). The competition is still struggling to solve EVs, some like Jaguar and…

Tesla is wasting time, money and focus by investing too much in self-driving tech (they're even having their own chip division now! - is Tesla really in financial a position to compete with Intel/Nvidia now?). Not to mention they made all of their Model 3's thousands of dollars more expensive by including the "full self-driving hardware-that-wasn't" in every unit to the point where it didn't even make sense for Tesla…

> Keep it simple stupid - focus on making great high-value EVs, and keep dropping their prices in a profitable manner.

Problem is, self-driving is an essential part of their image of high-tech luxury. Their marketing strategy depends on being the opposote of KISS. Making the best cars they can while also being electric is the only way to get the volume necessary to make electric affordable.

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

#617

Post by c0vfefe »

bravo22 wrote: post #580
mtw wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota and Tesla merging would be great. Toyota masters scaling and world-wide logistics but doesn't have EV technology. Their software is also very basic. Tesla doesn't control logistics but master EV and autopilot. Them merging is not impossible, Toyota once had a stake in Tesla.

Elon would be a roadblock to such a merge. Toyota won't be able to function with him in any managerial position. I doubt he'll accept anything less than full control. He won't be content as an "evangelist".

Elon defines idealism, while Toyota defines pragmatism.

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

#618

Post by navigatesol »

sliken wrote: post #509
navigatesol wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The production ramp for the Y is expected to be much better than the model 3. There's two announced locations (Reno and China). Tesla also has substantial experience building the model 3, and the Y shared about 75% of the parts. Additionally the model Y is a very conservative design. Same motors, same batteries, same nav, same display, same steering wheel, same seats, same autonomous hardware, same sensors, etc. Th…

Elon's vision is to take over the world automobile market quickly. It's impressively how close he's come. From zero to #1 since 2012 in premium cars is an almost unbelievable achievement. Originally the plan was announced that the model Y would be produced in new assembly lines in Reno, then later the lower end model Ys would be produced in China. However since then the model 3, S, and X demand had dropped significan…

>Elon's vision is to take over the world automobile market quickly. It's impressively how close he's come.

What? They are a microscopic fraction of global market share. They are number 1 in a particular, shrinking market segment that all other manufacturers are moving away from, because they produced 2 years worth of demand at once. Their month-over-month share of cars in that price range is decreasing.

>They made $3.7B with a 20% margin and just paid off $920M in convertible bonds. They have $2.2B on hand and sold 63,000 model 3s this quarter. Where's the desperation?

They made $3.7BB in revenue, at 20% GROSS margins, but still LOST $600MM+, after promising profitability every quarter in the future. Revenues declined 30% quarter over quarter. Paying down the debt doesn't show up on the income statement. They have $2.2BB on hand, $700MM+ is restricted deposit money, after burning through $1.6BB last quarter. They also drew down their ABL. Their capital expenditure is barely covering depreciation, yet they have to build out multiple lines and factories. Their AP barely decreased ($100MM), while revenues sunk drastically. They have $9BB+ in debt, and less cash on-hand than their AP. They are slashing prices on cars they claim have "insane demand". There are people all over Twitter and Reddit waiting months for service or parts. Insurance costs are sky-rocketing. There's inventory stuffed in abandoned car lots all over the country. Elon is fighting with the SEC and rumour has it the DOJ and FTC as well.

You don't see a problem because you don't appear to know where to look. No individual metric is an issue, but in aggregate it doesn't look good.

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

#619

Post by supernovae »

nradov wrote: post #270
taneq wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may just be taking a calmer view of EV demand rather than betting the farm at every turn like Tesla. One or two quarters of running at capacity on a brand new factory isn't enough reason to massively upgrade your production capacity, if you think it's just a hump and that demand will settle down again. The Model 3 may be "affordable" compared with the Model S / X, but US$35k is still luxury car territory.

Just to be pedantic, in the US market $35K is technically the low end of premium car territory. Actually luxury car territory starts significant higher.

A Jeep Wrangler will cost you 35k for a base model these days and 40k for a "premium" that well, most people still upgrade and tweak for 10s of thousands of more when they get home.

My volt was super expensive in 2011, but 8 years on it still drives like the day it came from the factory. Unlike my Jeep (which i love) that is only a year old and already has aches and pains and squeeks and of course, drinks gas like its going of style.

BTW, when people shop for cars, the purchase price isn't the TCO. How much fuel will you be using and how much maintenance will you dump into it?

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

#620

Post by maxxxxx »

bobsil1 wrote: post #428
maxxxxx wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car is a thing to get from A to B in a reliable manner. Screens and AI are secondary.

“A phone is for voice calls.”

Current smartphones are an evolution of the PDA idea that started with the Apple Newton, Palm Pilot and others. People always dreamed of a handheld device that would enable them to communicate and get information. What do you expect a car to do other than carting people around? Once it can go autonomously from A to B what else will people use a car for?
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