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Tesla ending Models S and X production

cnbc.com

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Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#761

Post by jcranmer »

Traster wrote: post #517
sgjohnson wrote: post #485

Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the first-mover advantage. For many people, the very term EV itself is still ubiquitous to Tesla. And somehow Tesla is still worth more than every other non-Chinese automaker combined. $1.5T. GM? $80B. Stellantis? $40B. Toyota? $280B. Mercedes-Benz? $60B. BMW? $55B. Volkswagen Group? Also $55B. I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of others, but I could miss some 18 $5…

I think you're totally wrong on this. Tesla didn't waste the first mover advantage. They benefitted from it whilst it existed, but Electric vehicles turned into a commodity, which was entirely expected and there's no moat. You've explained yourself why it would be untenable for Musk to pursue becoming the biggest car manufacturer in the world - if he succeeded in that goal... he would have succeded in shrinking the v…

Brand value is definitely a moat. Not the deepest of moats, but it is a moat nonetheless.

> It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company isn't that.

Tesla is valued as if it is a tech company with a car business as a side gig. Its balance sheet is a car business, and I'm not even sure it spends enough on tech to have tech qualify as a side gig. And the other tech avenues it has been pursuing (autonomous vehicles, humanoid robots) are areas that other people have been doing for better and longer. Hell, Honda had autonomous (not tele-operated) humanoid robots working 20 years ago.

To be honest, at this point, I mostly consider the other bets that Tesla is pursing are just passion projects to keep the stock price artificially high. Were Tesla more realistically valued, it would lose probably 90% or more of its value, and Musk would be a much poorer man.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#763

Post by ACCount37 »

slfnflctd wrote: post #716
lateforwork wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the best AI can't drive without good sensors. Cameras have to guess distance and they fail when there is insufficient contrast, direct sunlight and so on. LiDARs don't have to guess distance.

Cameras also fail when weather conditions cake your car in snow and/or mud while you're driving. Actually, from what I just looked up, this is an issue with LiDAR as well. So it seems to me like we don't even have the sensors we need to do this properly yet, unless we can somehow make them all self-cleaning. It always goes back to my long standing belief that we need dedicated lanes with roadside RFID tags to really…

Nah. That's a common "thought about it for 15 seconds but not 15 minutes" mistake.

Making a car that drives well on arbitrary roads is freakishly hard. Having to adapt every single road in the world before even a single self-driving car can use them? That's a task that makes the previous one look easy.

Learned sensor fusion policy that can compensate for partial sensor degradation, detect severe dropout, and handle both safely? Very hard. Getting the world that can't fix the low tech potholes on every other road to set up and maintain machine specific infrastructure everywhere? A nonstarter.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#764

Post by asah »

sgjohnson wrote: post #485

Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the first-mover advantage. For many people, the very term EV itself is still ubiquitous to Tesla. And somehow Tesla is still worth more than every other non-Chinese automaker combined. $1.5T. GM? $80B. Stellantis? $40B. Toyota? $280B. Mercedes-Benz? $60B. BMW? $55B. Volkswagen Group? Also $55B. I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of others, but I could miss some 18 $5…

SpaceX will acquire Tesla and save the shareholders, just like Tesla acquired SolarCity.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#765

Post by jordanb »

WarmWash wrote: post #751
jacquesm wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla benefited from tax payer subsidies.

Trust me, I hate Tesla and Elon as much as the next naysayer But just to keep the story straight Tesla received ~$3 billion in subsidies. When Elon exercised his Tesla options in 2021, he paid $11 billion in taxes on it. By all accounts those subsidies were an incredibly good use of taxpayer money, and similar subsidies should keep being handed out, even if the byproduct is another big troll on twitter.

Dunno where that $3 billion comes from; tesla made 11 billion in regulatory credits alone: https://insideevs.com/news/767939/tesla-regulatory-credit-11...

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#766

Post by karel-3d »

themafia wrote: post #433
al_borland wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be a little extreme. Tesla is making electric cars and robots. These are very much things of the future. GameStop is buying and selling used games, which is becoming impossible as consoles keep pushing for digital games. GameStop requires a major shift in their business model to stay relevant, while Tesla just needs to hope the public doesn’t reject the idea of electrics cars out of stubbornness or politic…

> These are very much things of the future. I thought it was hyperloop. I thought it was suboribital taxis. I thought it was underground taxis. I thought it was self-driving semi trucks. Or was it solar roofs? Or powerwall? Wait weren't we supposed to be on the moon again right now? He's a bullshitter. Yea, he picks good targets, but he is entirely full of shit. The market just does not reflect this. He should have b…

To his credit he also delivers, sometimes.

X kind of works. XAi kind of works. You can say it is all kind of broken but it works. People predicted X will collapse just a few months ago!

StarLink is really popular now, and it didn't exist few months ago.

He can still do things. People are betting on that.

Now if you ask me, Tesla is still his biggest moneymaker and collapse of Tesla sales will be catastrophic for his empire.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#767

Post by karel-3d »

sixQuarks wrote: post #175
bhouston wrote: post #43

Tesla is a meme stock in a similar manner to GME. You cannot bet against them even if they have incredibly unsure future prospectives because there are too many believers who will buy any dips.

The Elon hate is really creating a blind spot for many people here. You can’t just compare Tesla to a meme stock when the founder’s side gig is launching and landing orbital rockets - a feat that even the most technologically advanced nation states have failed to accomplish. Come on people, use a little critical thinking skills.

But Tesla and SpaceX are different companies

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#768

Post by outside1234 »

sgjohnson wrote: post #485

Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the first-mover advantage. For many people, the very term EV itself is still ubiquitous to Tesla. And somehow Tesla is still worth more than every other non-Chinese automaker combined. $1.5T. GM? $80B. Stellantis? $40B. Toyota? $280B. Mercedes-Benz? $60B. BMW? $55B. Volkswagen Group? Also $55B. I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of others, but I could miss some 18 $5…

We are in a time when people are in cults. Trump is a cult. Elon is a cult. Tesla is a cult.

Cults do not operate on logic, but almost always result in a mass casualty event of some sort.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#769

Post by jlongr »

alex1138 wrote: post #695
sgjohnson wrote: post #485

Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the first-mover advantage. For many people, the very term EV itself is still ubiquitous to Tesla. And somehow Tesla is still worth more than every other non-Chinese automaker combined. $1.5T. GM? $80B. Stellantis? $40B. Toyota? $280B. Mercedes-Benz? $60B. BMW? $55B. Volkswagen Group? Also $55B. I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of others, but I could miss some 18 $5…

That valuation is sure interesting considering the people killed in crashes from Tesla's self-driving thing Edit: I love making legitimate points and instantly accruing downvotes from 'Valley VC types. Look yourself in the mirror.

Oh their self-driving thing...Full* "Self" Driving (supervised)(see notes)(not liable for anything)

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#770

Post by outside1234 »

Traster wrote: post #517
sgjohnson wrote: post #485

Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the first-mover advantage. For many people, the very term EV itself is still ubiquitous to Tesla. And somehow Tesla is still worth more than every other non-Chinese automaker combined. $1.5T. GM? $80B. Stellantis? $40B. Toyota? $280B. Mercedes-Benz? $60B. BMW? $55B. Volkswagen Group? Also $55B. I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of others, but I could miss some 18 $5…

I think you're totally wrong on this. Tesla didn't waste the first mover advantage. They benefitted from it whilst it existed, but Electric vehicles turned into a commodity, which was entirely expected and there's no moat. You've explained yourself why it would be untenable for Musk to pursue becoming the biggest car manufacturer in the world - if he succeeded in that goal... he would have succeded in shrinking the v…

Tesla's moat is constantly moving to the next thing and claiming it has a moat before moving on to the next thing.

Elon's business model is moving from one government subsidized thing to the next (see SpaceX now bribing for tax dollars to go to Mars).

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