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Tesla
May 2, 2018 12:19:16 GMT
Post by Big Blue on May 2, 2018 12:19:16 GMT
Can't share whole article as it's paywall and I can't be bothered to copy it all, but the headline kind of sits where my position is on the car company that can't make enough cars. Much as one may admire the stance of Musk being a pioneer in this electric-only offering mass-market, multi-model cars, he is just that: a pioneer. He's got to kill all the incumbent Indians and learn how to deal with the elements before he stops being a pioneer. Don't think the company will last that long.
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Tesla
May 2, 2018 12:30:53 GMT
Post by Tim on May 2, 2018 12:30:53 GMT
There's a lot about it on the BBC Business site as well.
Mind you, the loudest noise about story comes from a hedge fund that has bet on the business failing so nothing like a vested interest there is there?
I do agree though. They've $10B of debt and are burning through $1B every 3 months to bring the Model 3 to market. It must be close to a point where they can only service the debt even if they start making a decent volume of cars.
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Tesla
May 2, 2018 13:28:38 GMT
Post by PetrolEd on May 2, 2018 13:28:38 GMT
The top co will probably go pop and I can't see the car business doing well but Tesla have their fingers in many pies and they'll have a number of decent products off the back of it.
The brand value is huge in the US so that has to count for something.
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Tesla
May 2, 2018 14:15:28 GMT
Post by Tim on May 2, 2018 14:15:28 GMT
I think the brand value is strong with tech types and it has a gloss of the future about it but that isn't going to help them in the financial markets.
Things like SpaceX are separate, those are Musk's personal investments and I'm not sure there's any crossover with Tesla.
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Tesla
May 2, 2018 17:42:45 GMT
Post by Deleted on May 2, 2018 17:42:45 GMT
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Tesla
May 2, 2018 18:27:24 GMT
Post by ChrisM on May 2, 2018 18:27:24 GMT
If Tesla cars goes bang, then what happens to the battery gigafactories? Most of their demand vanishes overnight too as Tesla cars disappears. It's a kind-of catch-22 situation for Musk
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Tesla
May 2, 2018 18:54:51 GMT
Post by Alex on May 2, 2018 18:54:51 GMT
If Tesla cars goes bang, then what happens to the battery gigafactories? Most of their demand vanishes overnight too as Tesla cars disappears. It's a kind-of catch-22 situation for Musk The products are good, it’s the business that’s not. A better business will come in and run with the good bits taking advantage of not having to put in the crippling front end investment. I could almost see it being a brand that would fit into the VAG group to help ease the reputational pain of Dieselgate. But that’s just pure supposition and perhaps it’s not as bad as the headline says. If the hedge fund has bet so much money, they need to make it a self fulfilling prophecy.
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Tesla
May 3, 2018 7:39:36 GMT
Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on May 3, 2018 7:39:36 GMT
The technology i.e the battery tech, the powerwalls, the solar tile business, even the rocket business are fine. However, it's very difficult to make money building cars. In the end they may end up like Blackberry where they don't actually make anything and all their profits come from licensing the technology.
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Tesla
May 3, 2018 9:07:32 GMT
Post by PG on May 3, 2018 9:07:32 GMT
I'd like to see Tesla succeed as they have been a huge kick up the arse to the entrenched OEM's, especially the German trio who have had it all their own way for way too long. Were it not for Tesla we'd be having even more diesel engines forced on us. But what Musk is finding out is that the tech industry and the auto industry are rather different. And I think too many analysts and stock pickers have made the same mistake.
To be a pioneer in the tech industry you can go into your garage and write software that can then be rolled out at pretty minimal cost / unit. Hence the bonkers P/E ratios and valuations v current revenue and companies with huge losses having massive valuations. With auto you can design the plan in your garage - but then you've actually got to build the fuckers. That's hugely capital intensive and a lot harder than shiping software over the web and building a server farm or three.
I understand bb's blackberry analogy. But what killed blackberry was not that people designed a better blackberry or that larger established players copied them, or that they failed to build enough blackberries. What did for them was that apple iOs and Android turned out to be better operating systems for smart phones. Killing off not only blackberry but microsoft mobile, nokia and several others along the way.
So I think that Tesla will hang on for now. They probably will need more funding despite the assurances they will not and that may be more difficult to source if there are more delays. What will definitely kill them as a volume car manufacturer is if the major OEM's catch up quicker then Tesla can become established as a volume manufacturer. They've probably got 3-5 years till that time comes. Because then all the hype evaporates and what is left is a low volume car company producing electric cars (just like everyone else). That sustains a value for Tesla way, way less than it has now. Although that is when licencing your charger network, gigafactory and technology may become the biggest revenue source the company has......
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Tesla
May 3, 2018 9:18:58 GMT
Post by Big Blue on May 3, 2018 9:18:58 GMT
I'm having this exact scenario with a stakeholder at present. They are one of the biggest IT companies in the world, the one that isn't the OS I use. They have a product that can be used on the network but getting them to understand the rail network isn't just some user based experiential software but that people pay thousands of pounds a year and that bit is a minor element of the cost but the key customer interface is difficult when it's not their reputation and multi-billion pound investment at risk.
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Tesla
May 3, 2018 15:24:09 GMT
Post by Tim on May 3, 2018 15:24:09 GMT
Tesla shares down another 6% toady on the back of Musk deciding he didn't want to answer boring questions about money and results!
I think this shows a part of the difference in approach between a tech firm and a commodity firm as PG showed above.
I'm sure that the gigafactory and any patents, etc are held within separate companies (albeit with production tie-ins) away from Tesla motors, just in case the latter does go down the pan.
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Tesla
May 3, 2018 15:29:04 GMT
Post by LandieMark on May 3, 2018 15:29:04 GMT
Tesla have form for doing their own thing.
The video someone put up of a guy changing his Tesla battery and making a cock up of it got me looking at his channel. Tesla will not allow anyone to repair their cars other than Tesla in USA. I am sure that goes against various laws, but as I said, they do their own thing. They also try to stop sale of parts to cars that "aren't certified" by them. Certification of a car to allow you to buy parts can cost US$20k. Outrageous in my view.
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Tesla
May 3, 2018 15:38:38 GMT
Post by Tim on May 3, 2018 15:38:38 GMT
Tesla have form for doing their own thing. The video someone put up of a guy changing his Tesla battery and making a cock up of it got me looking at his channel. Tesla will not allow anyone to repair their cars other than Tesla in USA. I am sure that goes against various laws, but as I said, they do their own thing. They also try to stop sale of parts to cars that "aren't certified" by them. Certification of a car to allow you to buy parts can cost US$20k. Outrageous in my view.
Given the new technology (electricity, that is!) Tesla's approach is entirely understandable. For example, car bodyshops in the UK are required to send several people on courses on how to deal with hybrids in the event of them coming in for repair. This is dictated by the car manufacturers (A mate was recently on a 4 day Ford course, having already done it a couple of years ago). Tesla probably have the law on their side for similar reasons.
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Tesla
May 3, 2018 16:03:29 GMT
Post by LandieMark on May 3, 2018 16:03:29 GMT
Tesla have form for doing their own thing. The video someone put up of a guy changing his Tesla battery and making a cock up of it got me looking at his channel. Tesla will not allow anyone to repair their cars other than Tesla in USA. I am sure that goes against various laws, but as I said, they do their own thing. They also try to stop sale of parts to cars that "aren't certified" by them. Certification of a car to allow you to buy parts can cost US$20k. Outrageous in my view.
Given the new technology (electricity, that is!) Tesla's approach is entirely understandable. For example, car bodyshops in the UK are required to send several people on courses on how to deal with hybrids in the event of them coming in for repair. This is dictated by the car manufacturers (A mate was recently on a 4 day Ford course, having already done it a couple of years ago). Tesla probably have the law on their side for similar reasons.
The USA is quite adamant that manufacturers have to allow people access to repair. Tesla get around this by having a direct sales model. Some states have specific laws in this regard, but Tesla just does their own thing. www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/10/tesla-doesnt-want-work-cars/
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Tesla
May 3, 2018 23:44:20 GMT
Post by Deleted on May 3, 2018 23:44:20 GMT
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Tesla
May 4, 2018 7:37:48 GMT
Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on May 4, 2018 7:37:48 GMT
About what I would charge if someone came in for a specialist aluminium repair like that.
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Tesla
May 10, 2018 8:04:12 GMT
Post by alf on May 10, 2018 8:04:12 GMT
I've said before that I don't begin to get Tesla (the company/financials, not the cars, which I like, ugly gargantuan SUV aside). I always thought he was like one of the Google founders, or Bill Gates, or the Amazon guy, and had made untold billions in other industries (PayPal mostly) and was effectively spending his own money living his dreams of electric cars and space rockets. But the truth is that he made a fair few million from PayPal, but nothing like enough to impact Tesla - he has raised capital in the traditional way and he is not immune to market forces, not one bit. Electric cars are the future, and if his self driving tech has any ground breaking stuff in it then there is money in that, but becoming a major motor manufacturer is a massive task.
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Tesla
May 10, 2018 8:20:48 GMT
Post by johnc on May 10, 2018 8:20:48 GMT
I've said before that I don't begin to get Tesla (the company/financials, not the cars, which I like, ugly gargantuan SUV aside). I always thought he was like one of the Google founders, or Bill Gates, or the Amazon guy, and had made untold billions in other industries (PayPal mostly) and was effectively spending his own money living his dreams of electric cars and space rockets. But the truth is that he made a fair few million from PayPal, but nothing like enough to impact Tesla - he has raised capital in the traditional way and he is not immune to market forces, not one bit. Electric cars are the future, and if his self driving tech has any ground breaking stuff in it then there is money in that, but becoming a major motor manufacturer is a massive task. That's pretty much my take on it as well. I had wondered if Tesla might partner up with someone like Ford so that Tesla could learn how to make cars and Ford could get easy access to electric power. Ultimately I can't see Tesla cars being able to survive completely on their own but the electric car momentum is really building so if they can shift the units, success may be possible. I just wouldn't bet more than I could lose on that one.
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Tesla
May 24, 2018 3:26:45 GMT
via mobile
Post by rodge on May 24, 2018 3:26:45 GMT
I’ve been working with Tesla for about 6 months on and off now. I’ve been in their main manufacturing facility and it’s not a nice place to be. Their suppliers don’t like working with them because they burn them and the suppliers don’t come back. This in turn means that the next company down the line is called and they do a poorer job than the originals and so it continues. Their tech is good but here in the US, they are starting to get bad reviews and are rated poorly by the customers who don’t appreciate the lack of reliability.
The real problem is Musk. The guy’s both a genius and an idiot at the same time. He wants to do too much in house and that’s why they are failing.
That said, they are working on some interesting tech which is why people keep buying into it. Their R&D facility is fascinating and those working there are very smart people. One of the other issues is that there’s a disconnect between the R&D and manufacturing. Both are trying to solve the same problems but are not talking to each other.
I was interested to see that the bloke who started Tesla with Musk has gone off and started his own car company, and he was the brains behind the tech at Tesla... its an interesting few months ahead for them.
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Tesla
May 24, 2018 9:17:01 GMT
Post by Big Blue on May 24, 2018 9:17:01 GMT
All of this points to Bob's assertion that the tech will be the company's business model and the sooner they stop burning money making cars the better. Interesting dinner with Derek Bell last night: he's driven a few of the $million cars like Koenigsegg and he says that yes, it costs a million quid but it's unbelievably well sorted considering the size of the organisation, so basically the small independent builders need a completely different commercial model to the giants. I reckon Tesla have bitten off a bit more than they can chew with trying to jump into mass production of middle-cost vehicles so need to use their engineering skills to make ends meet and just make fewer insanely expensive well developed cars.
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Tesla
Jul 24, 2018 17:02:20 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2018 17:02:20 GMT
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Tesla
Jul 31, 2018 21:44:57 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2018 21:44:57 GMT
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Tesla
Aug 1, 2018 8:29:58 GMT
Post by Tim on Aug 1, 2018 8:29:58 GMT
He won't be wealthy (relatively) for much longer unless Tesla really starts to make money pronto.
They've got $2.7B in cash, have been making losses each quarter ($750M last qtr) and because they've not met targets will probably have $1B of loans to repay later in the year thus leaving them close to having no money. It also means he won't get his performance bonuses.
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