[HN Gopher] Tesla 3Q2021 Earnings Result
___________________________________________________________________
Tesla 3Q2021 Earnings Result
Author : marc__1
Score : 81 points
Date : 2021-10-20 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tesla-cdn.thron.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tesla-cdn.thron.com)
| verdverm wrote:
| Est $1.585 EPS
|
| Act $1.86 EPS
|
| Notably the carbon credits have decreased in contribution
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I wonder if there are any Tesla shorts left at this point.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| I'm still a bear on the valuation as it is. You can believe the
| company will be successful and still think it's grossly
| overvalued.
| adoxyz wrote:
| This is where I'm at. I love my Tesla. I think the company
| makes amazing cars and has a very bright future, but the
| stock price and valuation is too high. If they manage to
| execute flawlessly on everything they want to do then the
| current valuation might make sense, but as it stands, in my
| opinion, I don't think the stock is worth it. On the short
| time horizon (1-3 years) though, I don't see the stock
| dipping though either because $TSLA =/= Tesla company.
| marvin wrote:
| It's funny to keep seeing people post this exact same
| comment regarding Tesla's valuation, on every single
| earnings report since 2012.
|
| I mean, it's _obviously_ going to come true at some point
| following a stock price growth to S &P500-dominating
| levels. It's always been richly valued and that is as true
| today as ever. The laws of physics prevent this from
| continuing forever, and the likelihood is great that there
| will be a correction downwards at some point, perhaps
| dramatic.
|
| But it's a bit farcical to read this almost word-for-word
| identical opinion again and again and again and again,
| starting from a point in time where the stock price was
| 0.5% of what it is today.
| skohan wrote:
| I think Tesla will be successful, but the current valuation
| seems to assume that every IC car on the road will be
| replaced by a Tesla in the next 10 years.
|
| I think Ford and Toyota are going to figure out how to be
| tesla a lot sooner than Tesla is going to figure out how to
| be Ford and Toyota.
| MisterPea wrote:
| Well, unless the new verticals take off as well.
|
| Tesla Solar, Battery, Car Insurance and Car Financing off
| the top of my head.
|
| Musk even said insurance could be 30%-40% of Tesla's auto
| business
| henrikschroder wrote:
| The problem with those insane bull cases is that the
| various "verticals" are mutually exclusive because they
| cannibalize each other.
|
| If they ever deliver on the promises of FSD, cars will
| become safer, which will diminish accidents which will
| diminish insurance payout which will diminish revenue
| which will diminish insurance profits, because it's an
| extremely regulated business where profit margins are
| regulated.
|
| If they deliver on the robotaxi promise, why would anyone
| buy a car themselves when they can just robotaxi
| everywhere? If the cars make money, why would Tesla sell
| the cars to people in the first place?!? And if they own
| all their cars, how would they make money off of
| insurance? The only reasonable future is that making
| money off your robotaxi Tesla is a pipedream, which means
| you can't count on that argument to drive sales.
|
| For insurance to win, FSD has to fail. But for sales to
| soar, FSD has to win.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Liberty Mutual is a $16B business, Panasonic is a $30B
| business and financing profits and revenues are usually
| included in car company valuations - certainly in VW's
| case.
|
| Even a successful entry into both those businesses would
| be 45B, or 5% of Tesla's current market cap.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| The math barely works out even if they were to sell half
| the new cars sold every year. Tesla bulls are insane.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Tesla valuation only makes sense if they become a huge
| player in batteries/other household electronic devices
| and keep their dominant car margins while gaining market
| share.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >if they become a huge player in batteries
|
| They're already number one, worldwide, and by far.
|
| >keep their dominant car margins while gaining market
| share.
|
| They're doing both at the same time.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| It's certainly possible, just seems unlikely now that
| other car makers are releasing electric cars that are
| actually good.
| ac29 wrote:
| > They're already number one, worldwide, and by far.
|
| Source? The only info I can find in a quick search shows
| they have the largest single factory, but other
| manufacturers are larger in aggregate, and Telsa is only
| a small part of the overall market:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1246713/largest-
| lithium-...
|
| edit: here's a better source, showing them not even
| number one for Electric Vehicles
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-top-10-ev-battery-makers
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| lol, CATL's first customer is Tesla. LG is also a major
| Tesla supplier. Idem for Pana and Samsung. Even BYD is
| expected to sell their cells to Tesla (under review as we
| speak).
|
| These players are fighting for Tesla's contracts, and
| Tesla will keep buying all their batteries while adding
| their own production capacity (search for "project
| roadrunner"). What matters is 'who has access to the end
| customers' and to the best tech. Tesla has so much demand
| from grid operator that they can easily buy all the
| supply. They're just limited by their own production /
| assembly / installation capacity.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| A company with 50% of revenue growth, 30% of automotive
| gross margin, almost unlimited demand (99% of global auto
| sales are still non-EV and Tesla's brand is just starting
| to become familiar), still zero ad spending, huge new
| markets like solar generation and stationary storage
| where they continue to have a massive lead in
| technology...
|
| Can you name one company in such a position? Tesla price-
| to-earning ration based on Q3 2021 income is 147, and
| dropping like a stone. Looks cheap to me.
| coliveira wrote:
| I think what stock holders really believe is that Mr EM can
| continue to bullshit his way into higher and higher
| valuations by promising more than what he can do. It has
| worked up to this point, and with a high enough stock
| price, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
| penjelly wrote:
| agreed. musk promises the moon and often doesn't deliver
| and always delivers late if at all. some examples of
| crazy promises: - humanoid robots - profitable
| tunnels/loop - rocket propelled cars - a semi - a truck -
| a network of cars that that can generate income for you
| passively by driving themselves around as a taxi service
| - cars that drive themselves that are safer then human
| drivers ...
|
| im not saying Tesla isn't successful and never delivers
| but it does seem exponential what musk promises and while
| i think it's possible, managing all these massive
| projects is probably too much for the company. the
| humanoid robots thing for me really make me feel like
| he's just feeding investor hysteria. (i was a former musk
| fanboy)
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| > I think Tesla will be successful, but the current
| valuation seems to assume that every IC car on the road
| will be replaced by a Tesla in the next 10 years.
|
| Their P/E at Q3 level of profit is 147. That's quite small
| for a company growing at more than 50% and whose margin
| keep improving. Also, the addressable market for vehicles,
| solar and stationary storage is almost limitless. We're not
| even talking FSD, where their lead continues to increase vs
| competitors (most are stopping their research, cf. BMW and
| Mercedes).
|
| >I think Ford and Toyota are going to figure out how to be
| tesla a lot sooner than Tesla is going to figure out how to
| be Ford and Toyota.
|
| Tesla keeps increasing its technology vs Ford in all the
| main areas (battery, power trains, casting, electronics,
| self-driving, but also market that Ford does not even
| pretend to serve such as energy generation and grid
| storage).
|
| Toyota is completely lost. They invest far less in EV than
| Tesla and the gap continues to increase. They only focus on
| PHEV, which people aren't interested in when they have
| become familiar with EV (see Norway, where climate does not
| even favor BEV). They'll try to do something with hydrogen
| only because the Japanese government will subsidize them
| for that.
| skohan wrote:
| Isn't Toyota investing heavily in battery tech? I thought
| they were farther along with solid-state batteries than
| anyone.
| ecpottinger wrote:
| They claim to be further along, but I have not seen the
| batteries tested by an outside organization. There is no
| information on the costs of the batteries, their weight
| or their lifespan. There is more to it than just saying
| they are solid state.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Where do you get a P/E of 147 from?
| arcticbull wrote:
| P/E according to Google Finance is 452.73 vs Toyota at
| 9.6
|
| They would have to see 50% YoY growth for 6 more years to
| reach the same number of deliveries as Toyota alone let
| alone the entire car market.
| [deleted]
| verdverm wrote:
| That's assuming you only count their auto division. They
| are entering into other major industries (utilities,
| insurance, and robotics)
| arcticbull wrote:
| I suppose, but those aren't huge, high-margin businesses.
| Let's grab a few examples.
|
| - Utilities: PGE is worth 22B.
|
| - Insurance: Libery Mutual is 16B.
|
| - Robotics: ABB is 71B.
|
| - Cars: Toyota, the biggest and highest margin is 288B
| (on 700B in revenue).
|
| So let's be very, very generous and assume Tesla is able
| to execute as well as Liberty + PGE + ABB + Toyota. Thats
| $400B. 44% of today's valuation.
|
| I don't see a path to $900B down the line, let alone
| _today_.
| verdverm wrote:
| Cherry picking a single company from each and not
| accounting for market growth will not be as accurate as
| estimating total market and Tesla's share in each.
|
| US electric market is $400B in revenue today, this needs
| to double for the fully electric fleet politicians are
| pushing for. This does not account for hardware sales. We
| could estimate that at 1T in 10 years, if Tesla gets 10%,
| then that is $100B in revenue.
|
| US auto ins market is $300B in revenue today, their
| market share there will likely be close to their share of
| vehicles. Robotics I suspect will be one of the largest
| industries in the future. They could become a supplier of
| batteries, electric motors, and self driving systems to
| other auto companies. Elon has said multiple times he
| will have the conversations.
|
| That's just the US market. You'd then have to extrapolate
| to the rest of the world. At a P/E like Apple or
| Microsoft, they would need to get to $30B earnings per
| year to hit $1T, which seems feasible. They have shown
| that they can build and scale faster than their
| competitors and spend many multiples more on R&D than
| they do as well.
|
| If they can maintain their 50% YoY growth for 10 years,
| then the P/E ratio on a $1T market cap would be under 10.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > If they can maintain their 50% YoY growth for 10 years,
| then the P/E ratio on a $1T market cap would be under 10.
|
| Assuming the present valuation holds. That's kind of the
| thing, I've zero interest in buying in if I think 10
| years of 50% growth from now they might be worth today's
| sticker price.
|
| I like them as a company, but I hate them as an
| investment.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Google's numbers are based on previous quarters, not Q3.
| 147 is based on today's results and stock price.
|
| And Tesla's income is growing fast so P/E is dropping at
| the same speed (the share price has remained stable since
| early 2021).
|
| Compared to Tesla, Toyota is stagnating. Their battery
| technology is outdated and they invest almost nothing in
| BEV. They're still making a full bet on PHEV and hydrogen
| light vehicles. For now, Toyota simply cannot compete in
| BEV. They won't have the batteries and/or the materials
| (lithium / nickel), and every year they do nothing,
| Tesla, VW and others are securing multi year procurement
| deals.
|
| Also, it would take years of great EV sales for Toyota to
| be able to outpace Tesla's battery purchasing power. And
| Tesla is making their own cells so they're not even
| playing the same game.
| skohan wrote:
| > Their battery technology is outdated and they invest
| almost nothing in BEV.
|
| Isn't Toyota investing heavily in solid-state batteries?
| ecpottinger wrote:
| And what information do you have on their progress.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| I don't think it's that bad.
|
| Their current price to sales ratio is ~6x less than a
| mature company like Amazon.
|
| https://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/ps_ratio
| https://ycharts.com/companies/TSLA/ps_ratio
|
| To reach the same price to sales ratio they would need to
| go from ~250,000 vehicles/quarter to ~1,500,000
| vehicles/quarter, which is ~44% of US sales.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/30/us-auto-sales-forecast-to-
| pl...
|
| Realistically, Tesla sells a lot of cars overseas, so this
| price more likely represents them hitting ~20% of US sales.
| The energy side increasing volume with in-house cell
| manufacturing and/or supplying other OEMs could also change
| where they need to be with vehicle deliveries to hit a PS
| ratio in line with established companies.
| gotmedium wrote:
| "The percentage of stock borrowed by traders, a standard
| measure of short interest, has slumped to 1.1% of Tesla's
| shares available for trading, according to IHS Markit Ltd. as
| of last Thursday. That's the lowest since 2010, when the
| carmaker went public."
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-04/tesla-sho...
| arcticbull wrote:
| I am, roughly speaking...
|
| (1) Bearish on Elon, I think he's nuts.
|
| (2) Bullish on Tesla the business - electric cars are clearly
| the future, Tesla builds honestly really great cars. I don't
| have a car, but if I were to buy one it would no question be a
| Tesla. They're going to make and sell a lot more cars, period.
|
| (3) Bearish on the valuation. At this price its still worth
| about as much as every other car company put together, and
| their competitors are growing into electric too. Market
| breakdowns seem to show that where options exist people do not
| pick Tesla 100% of the time. It's more like 12%, equal to VW in
| Norway.
|
| It is however a cult meme stonk, so there's no real rationality
| behind it.
|
| [edit] I've been making good money selling weekly iron condors.
| As much as it's moving, it's still been moving less than
| cultists anticipate haha.
| throw8383833jj wrote:
| Don't forget about the whole energy side of the business:
| most people underestimate the potential of this because they
| can't see all the stuff that's coming. there's enormous
| potential for that to be even bigger than their automotive
| stuff.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| I think seeing Tesla as only a car company is a mistake.
|
| They're a car company, but also a battery company, which
| means they have the potential to be huge in everything that
| requires batteries (e.g. cars manufactured by others, grid
| scale electricity storage) even when they don't make the
| final product.
|
| I'm not even sure that the car business will be their main
| business in the long term.
| arcticbull wrote:
| If you sum the market cap of any leaders in any of those
| spaces you won't get anywhere close to Tesla's current
| valuation let alone fully realized valuation.
|
| I'll include them as an AI company once their FSD model
| stops trying to kill YouTubers.
|
| - Utilities: PGE is worth 22B.
|
| - Insurance: Libery Mutual is 16B.
|
| - Robotics and AI: ABB is 71B.
|
| - Batteries: Panasonic is 30B.
|
| - Cars: Toyota is 288B.
|
| - Financing: Included in Toyota's valuation.
|
| Ok so, if we sum all of these mature businesses together we
| get $427B, less than half of Tesla's current market cap.
| That's one heck of a bull case when you consider Toyota
| ships literally 10X as many cars as Tesla does, and all
| those other companies, you know, exist.
|
| Anyone else I should huck onto the pile? There's still a
| half trillion dollars in market cap to make up for after
| all.
| trhway wrote:
| You miss that Tesla is better in a given space than any
| of the leaders you mentioned. And not just better. More
| importantly, and this is why it is better, is that Tesla
| is a tech company in each of those spaces - eg. PG&E is
| an utilities company while Tesla is a tech company in the
| electric energy space. That is the half-trillion you're
| looking for.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| agree, they are an AI Company, a car company, an energy
| company (potentially), and a battery company.
| kibwen wrote:
| Ultimately Tesla, like Apple, is a fashion brand. Once
| you've established your brand to the upper class, thereby
| causing the middle class to covet your product in order to
| signal a higher social status, the actual product that you
| make doesn't especially matter. Tesla is happy to forfeit
| the low-end EV market to other automakers just like Apple
| is happy to forfeit the low-end phone market to Android:
| low-end products are forced to compete on scale and become
| commodities with low margins, whereas fashion products can
| command much higher margins, and the existence of low-end
| competitors only serves to further cement your fashion
| brand as upper-class.
| dd36 wrote:
| How does Apple's valuation compare to every other cell phone
| maker?
| arcticbull wrote:
| Apple owns 75% of the entire profit share of the global
| smartphone business while making 13% of the phones. Tesla
| isn't even close to that kind of performance.
|
| [edited, I mistyped 75% as 85% initially]
|
| [1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-handset-
| market-o...
| dd36 wrote:
| At scale at current margins, Tesla will be substantially
| more profitable than traditional car makers.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| What current margins? At what scale? Toyota has a best-
| in-class 6% profit margin, substantially better than its
| competitors sitting at 3%, and earns 20 billion dollars.
| Even at the most optimistic margins Tesla is vastly
| overvalued.
| dd36 wrote:
| Gross margins. Tesla is scaling right now and continuing
| to innovate on the tech side.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Ok, so what margin do you see justifying their valuation?
| 10%? 15%? The margins of a company like Microsoft who
| makes their money on software (30%)? Even if you used
| that last figure, they'd more than 80x over valuation on
| current earnings. This is a car company. There are
| fundamental limits on how much money you can make.
| dd36 wrote:
| Current earnings aren't really relevant when they're
| poised to continue growing fast.
| rio517 wrote:
| Didn't they say their operating margin is 14.7% and
| automotive is indeed close to 30?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| How will Tesla keep current margins once every other car
| company is releasing high quality electric cars?
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > Once every other company is releasing high quality
| electric cars?
|
| Like who exactly? Only the American automakers are taking
| this seriously. Most have them have a target of maybe 50%
| of their offerings to be electric by 2030. Some European
| brands are now starting to play serious VW at the
| forefront of it. And the ones resisting the most are the
| Japanese. Mazda doesn't even commit to a hybrid and
| realizing more efficient ICs coming soon in 2024. Toyota
| and Honda are actively seeking to block incentives to EV
| makers.
|
| And even if startups like Rivian or big players like
| Ford,GM and VW eventually start making cars at a much
| better quality, they still have to match the level of
| vertical integration that Tesla has. The lead they have
| is no joke.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Audi doesn't even have an R&D team for engines at this
| point. They're all in on electric, Mercedes is on a
| similar track. I'm not saying other companies will catch
| up soon, but Tesla needs to sustain their advantage for
| literally decades for this valuation to make sense. 10
| years isn't enough.
|
| I've heard very good things about Fords EVs. Battery tech
| way behind Tesla, but they're already starting to take
| some of Tesla's market.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Audi is a VW subsidiary. And VW's CEO (Herbert Diess) has
| said they don't expect to overtake Tesla, they just hope
| not to die trying to survive the transition.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Diess also invited Elon to speak at an internal meeting,
| specifically to help them understand how to make the
| transition faster. VW wants to survive.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > Like who exactly? Only the American automakers are
| taking this seriously.
|
| Sorry, what now? In Europe, Tesla's market share is below
| 20%, because they're being outcompeted by Volkswagen and
| Renault. But European car makers aren't taking EVs
| seriously?
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| We've been hearing this since 2012. And yet...
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Competing electric cars didn't really start being any
| good until this year. They will continue to catch up over
| the next decade.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Why now? Tesla are also improving and, from what we know,
| they're making bigger better (megacasting, cell to pack,
| FSD computers, etc). What's the competition's plan
| exactly? They'll be hard at work to try not to
| cannibalize their ICE sales in the meantime, too, since
| their resources to invest in BEV comes from ICE sales.
| dd36 wrote:
| Battery costs. It has a substantial lead and should
| continue to as it is far ahead in terms of scaling and
| reducing cost.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| You think Tesla will have cheaper batteries than
| literally everyone else forever? Incredibly hard for me
| to believe that at least one company won't be able to
| create a competing battery. Differentiating on hardware
| has never been a way to create a trillion dollar company.
| It requires lock in via incredibly brand loyalty and
| Tesla doesn't have a big enough customer base atm.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Not yet. But Tesla's P/E is 147 now at this quarters'
| rate of profit.
|
| That's nothing for a company growing revenues at over 50%
| while still increasing its margins.
|
| Also, Tesla is still production limited (i.e they would
| steal their competitors' market share if they have a few
| plants available). The only market where Tesla is not
| growing its share steeply is where they decided not to
| prioritize sales. Just look at the Model Y sales in
| Europe where they finally to make deliveries.
|
| Tesla don't even have a pickup to sell yet, which is
| USA's #1 model.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Totally, and at some point in the future, if they're
| super lucky, they might be worth something around half of
| what they're worth today lol. I don't think they're going
| to _grow_ the car market, which means they 're worth at
| most what the car market is today. Further, I sincerely
| doubt theres a world in which they own 100% of the car
| market, so that means it's overvalued both now and into
| the future.
|
| Toyota's worth 300B and they have excellent industry-
| leading margins. Tesla is priced at 900B while shipping a
| tiny fraction of the cars.
|
| [edit] Tesla shipped 241,000 cars this quarter. Toyota
| shipped 2.2M. Tesla's car deliveries are literally a
| rounding error against Toyota's. It would take 6 years of
| 50% YoY growth to match Toyota's shipments alone this
| year.
|
| [edit2] Toyota's PE is 9.6, so once mature, Tesla should
| also trade right around a 9.6 p/e, if they're really
| lucky.
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267272/worldwide-
| vehicle...
| random314 wrote:
| Market valuation depends on expected future profit margin
| per car. Not on how many million low margin cars you have
| already shipped. Walmart has the highest revenue, while
| Apple has the highest profit. Shipping a bunch of low
| margin stuff is of little value.
|
| The market expects tesla to beat Toyota by an order if
| magnitude on profit margin per car. As simple as that.
| kenchan wrote:
| I would gladly bet on a company making 241,000 computers
| vs 2.2M typewriters. I get your logic and math but this
| isn't apples to apples.
| dd36 wrote:
| Again, that doesn't make sense. Apple being the obvious
| example. You don't necessarily revert to a market cap
| maximum. EVs can have high margins and scale. Tesla is
| positioned as the Apple of its market.
|
| And its business is more than vehicles - a lot more.
| Stationary batteries also have fat margins.
| grey-area wrote:
| How does Apple's profit compare to every other cell phone
| maker?
|
| And how does Tesla's profit compare to every other car
| manufacturer?
|
| Clearly Tesla is very early in their journey, and their
| valuation and PE is wildly different from Apple, they're
| not even in the same ballpark. The equivalent in Apple's
| trajectory would be Apple being valued in 2008 say after
| the promising iPhone launch at almost 1 trillion, does that
| sound reasonable to you? In fact they were valued in 2008
| at 80 billion, 1/10 of Tesla at present.
|
| I think it's too high, the parent thinks it's too high, and
| even Elon Musk thinks the valuation is too high (as he said
| twice earlier this year).
| dd36 wrote:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/10/08
| /te...
|
| Maybe, maybe not. But they have double the margin of
| everyone but Toyota and Toyota is dragging its feet on
| going EV.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I think this really captures my view on the stock. There is
| one electric car in outer space right now, one premium
| brand. Everyone else is going to be in a race over market
| share and Tesla has a shot to keep high margins and use
| those margins to keep finding its lead.
| dd36 wrote:
| Agreed. Tesla is so far in front tech-wise and continuing
| to push.
|
| They were only talking about 4680 and structural battery
| packs a year ago and it's about to go into mass
| production.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Aren't most Teslas basically using Panasonic manufactured
| batteries?
| ecpottinger wrote:
| Panasonic batteries made to Tesla's specs not the general
| market.
| mhh__ wrote:
| What are Porsche if not a premium brand?
|
| I'll be up front in that I've never sat in either for
| more than in a showroom, but tell me the Taycan is not
| premium and the Tesla is. I have never heard of fit and
| finish issues like I hear Tesla customers complaining
| about, for example.
| ecpottinger wrote:
| Porsche is doing good, they plan to sell over 40,000 BEVs
| this year and 60-80,000 cars next year. Their growth rate
| looks good but that is still a far cry from what Tesla
| already sells and plans to sell next year.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I think premium brands aren't about the materials as much
| as they are about signaling brand values. A Porsche draws
| on foreign luxury ideas for playing a rich man, but a
| Tesla is for role-playing iron man with fancy new tech.
| The taycan is not appealing to people who want a car of
| the future in the way the model s is. This value is
| intrinsic to the Tesla brand and the utility those
| customers get (over the costs of maintaining that brand
| halo) can be captured as margin for a long time to come.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| You mean the most profitable company in the entire world?
| skohan wrote:
| Do you think around 50% of the cars on the road in the US
| will be Teslas?
| henrikschroder wrote:
| For cellphones, there is value in having the same phone
| as your peers, it gives you status.
|
| For cars, there is value in having a _different_ car than
| your peers, it gives you status.
|
| The larger Tesla's market share grows, the more boring it
| will become to own one, and the more exciting the
| competition is going to get in the public mind. With
| comparable competition, Tesla will never ever get a total
| car market share over 30%.
| skohan wrote:
| 30% would be insanely optimistic.
| rsp1984 wrote:
| _Tesla builds honestly really great cars. I don 't have a
| car, but if I were to buy one it would no question be a
| Tesla._
|
| Did you ever drive one? I did a Model 3 test drive the other
| day. Acceleration is out of this world, but everything
| else... meh. Interior looks and feels like it lasts for about
| 2-3 years. Brakes feel like stepping into a pile of mud. Huge
| central screen for everything is more distracting than
| useful. I was happy to get back into my 2007 BMW when the
| test drive was over. Still feels solid after 14 years.
| abc_lisper wrote:
| I own a model 3. The car has no presence. It doesn't feel
| special, like a 50k car should. Having said that,the
| interiors look good as new 2 years later, the autopilot is
| great for commute, the audio system is great, and it feels
| like this is what future would be.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Yeah, I rent them on Turo when I've got a road trip lined
| up. I agree about the fit and finish, but the driving
| dynamics are just so much fun. I suspect they'll be able to
| fix up their fit and finish in time. My favorite interiors
| tend to be Audis fwiw.
| rsp1984 wrote:
| The thing is heavy though. That was also a dealbreaker
| for me. I'm used to ~1.3 tons of my BMW. Just fun to
| throw into corners. The Model 3 I tested had about 1.8 or
| 1.9 and it certainly felt like it. Understeered like
| crazy. Also I was constantly moving left and right on the
| seat.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > but the driving dynamics are just so much fun
|
| Try the other EVs then. Try a Taycan, try a Mach-E, try
| an E-tron GT.
|
| I'm not trying to call out you specifically, but there
| are so many people who are completely unaware of what the
| auto market actually looks like, and then they compare a
| new Tesla with whatever old mid-range ICE they had
| before, and of course the Tesla seems like a magical
| space-age vehicle that is better than anything else
| they've ever driven.
|
| But the competition isn't slouching. The Taycan isn't far
| behind the Plaid in performance, and it beats the Tesla
| in repeating launches. The EQS has longer range and way
| more tech. Super Cruise and Blue Cruise are better than
| Autopilot in the areas they are enabled. There's plenty
| of cheaper EVs than Teslas, like the VW ID.4 or ID.3.
| There will be tons of Rivians and EV Hummers and F150
| Lightnings on the roads before the first Cybertruck is
| delivered, if at all. You can get a EV truck from Volvo,
| today, and other truck makers are following suit, so
| you'll get an electric semi from the competition way
| before the Tesla Semi sees the light of day.
|
| And every single one of them has better interior quality,
| better fit-and-finish, and better customer service than
| Tesla.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I'll do that next time! You are right, I haven't actually
| tried competitor pure EVs except the BMW 118i and i3 way
| back in like 2014.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| The BMW i4 should be available next spring in the US.
| Looks like a regular 4-series, and faster and cheaper
| than an M4.
|
| Sure, more expensive than a Model 3, but you get an
| actual luxury vehicle.
|
| Tesla is still unbeaten at performance/dollar or
| range/dollar, so if that's important, go for it. But if
| other things are more important, the competition sure is
| heating up.
| rpmisms wrote:
| > it beats the Tesla in repeating launches
|
| This was true pre-plaid, but no longer. Tesla majorly
| beefed up thermals on the Plaid.
|
| > try a Mach-E
|
| It's crap, don't bother if you enjoy handling. Germany is
| the only option ATM.
|
| > Super Cruise and Blue Cruise are better than Autopilot
| in the areas they are enabled.
|
| Ah yes, Blue Cruise, which can't drive curves on a
| highway by itself. Seriously, what metric are you using
| here?
|
| > There's plenty of cheaper EVs than Teslas, like the VW
| ID.4 or ID.3.
|
| In the US, only the ID.4, and that starts at the same
| price as the Model 3, which is ubiquitously reviewed
| better.
|
| You're making strong points, but the fact remains that
| Tesla is _ahead_. This will change, but not yet.
| DennisP wrote:
| I don't think Tesla is priced as a car company. It's priced
| as a car company, solar company, grid-scale battery company,
| and potential self-driving taxi company. Whether that
| justifies their price I don't know (and suspect not), I just
| think it's misleading to look only at their car sales, even
| though that's the bulk of their business right now.
| ajross wrote:
| > Market breakdowns seem to show that where options exist
| people do not pick Tesla 100% of the time. It's more like 12%
|
| That's an extraordinarily hard analysis to do. Basically
| everyone in the industry is production-limited at this point
| (Tesla by factory bandwidth, everyone else by part
| shortages). Total volume reflects industrial realities far
| more than it does consumer choice.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| True, but it still seems unlikely that the unconstrained
| choice would be 100% Tesla. Do we really think Toyota will
| be incapable of retaining any significant % of EV sales
| once that's where the industry mostly is at?
| random314 wrote:
| VW, Renault- maybe. Toyota has a lot of work to do if it
| has to avoid getting wiped out by the EV revolution.
| ajross wrote:
| The 100% isn't really the right analysis. Market caps for
| auto manufacturers tend to be quite low because it's a
| low-growth industry, and the biggest players are non-US
| securities where low market caps are more routine.
|
| Total world automotive revenue is something like $1.5T (I
| forget the source, that's from my head). At the same
| price/revenue ratio as AAPL (a similarly dominant player
| in a rather different industry), TSLA would only have to
| make up 8% of the world revenue to justify it's current
| share price.
|
| Is that comparing Apples (heh) to oranges? Yeah, it is.
| But the point is there's no magic principle that says
| "auto companies get impoverished share prices relative to
| tech companies" either.
|
| Broadly: the market is betting Tesla gets valued like a
| tech stock and not a heavy industry stock. And the
| valuation is pretty much where you'd expect if that were
| the case.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jfengel wrote:
| Quite a few, but far fewer than there used to be.
|
| https://electrek.co/2021/10/04/people-are-not-betting-agains...
| m0zg wrote:
| It'll be pretty spectacular when stagflation and recession
| finally hits in earnest. They are not immune, even though they,
| as a manufacturer of luxury goods, will fare better than most.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| In recession, companies offering the most innovative products
| tends to speed up and quickly gain market shares. Also, Tesla
| is by far the car makers with the least debt and they can
| easily finance themselves. I wouldn't be in their competitors
| shoes: they aren't profitable with EV and they must keep
| their ICE business afloat (or die).
| m0zg wrote:
| Stagflation will still hammer Tesla pretty bad. Think of
| what it'd do to their sales if Model S was $200K instead of
| $70K. We're headed in that direction. And before you say
| "it can't happen here", I've seen it happen in a country
| which too thought "it can't happen". And then it did.
| That's why Bill Gates is buying farmland and Black Rock is
| buying houses - they know what's coming. Worse yet, unlike
| Russian hyperinflation in the 90s (or Venezuelan today),
| this will be _global_.
| woeirua wrote:
| I'm short Tesla the FSD tech company. Tesla the electric car
| company is crushing for now at least. It'll be interesting to
| see if that holds true as VW, Ford and GM are starting to come
| on strong. But the real competition doesn't start until the
| Japanese manufacturers get into the EV game.
| rpmisms wrote:
| > But the real competition doesn't start until the Japanese
| manufacturers get into the EV game.
|
| This would be true 5 years ago, if they'd started then.
| They're too far behind now.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >But the real competition doesn't start until the Japanese
| manufacturers get into the EV game.
|
| Plural? Which, other than Toyota, could imagine competing
| with Tesla in EV?
| Shacklz wrote:
| Holding on to my put options, but I'm really harsh in the red.
|
| I do believe that Tesla has a bright future in the industry,
| but their current market cap is just straight up ridiculous.
| Unlike any other tech giant, they will never be able to reap
| the kind of margins with their products (cars!) like a "normal"
| tech company can, and at some point the rest of the car
| industry will catch up. Also, Elon Musk is a walking time bomb
| in my opinion, eventually he'll go too far with one of his
| endeavors and possibly drag everything else down with him.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| > Unlike any other tech giant, they will never be able to
| reap the kind of margins with their products (cars!) like a
| "normal" tech company can
|
| Why? Only a minority of customers purchase FSD but the take
| rate keeps increasing. This can easily double the margins.
| Also, the insurance business is nascent and hugely
| profitable. And the new Model S and X production lines were
| almost suspended for 3 quarters due to shortage (most
| profitable products). Also, each new factories are far more
| efficient than the old ones, and they'll open two giant one
| in the coming months.
|
| Me? I'm still holding shares since 2012.
| airstrike wrote:
| As the old adage goes, "the stock market can remain irrational
| longer than you can remain solvent"
| m00dy wrote:
| Can anyone explain this ?
|
| > Bitcoin-related impairment of $51M
| kinghajj wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28936340
|
| > No, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the US are booked
| as indefinitely lived intangibles.
|
| > That means that if the asset falls below their most recently
| booked price at any point in the quarter, they are required to
| book an impairment charge in the amount of the drop. If it goes
| up, they cannot book the profit until they sell.
| matco11 wrote:
| It means that they looked at the price of Bitcoin and saw that,
| if they had sold at that price, they would have lost $51mm.
|
| This does not mean that they sold the Bitcoins, but that they
| had to set aside a reserve of money for a potential future loss
| on their Bitcoins.
|
| This has nothing to do with their propensity to sell their
| Bitcoins or their expectations on the price of Bitcoins.
| Instead, it has to do with the way accounting principles work
| and the need to mark-to-market financial investments.
| m00dy wrote:
| thanks.
| yaacov wrote:
| With almost half their manufacturing in China, I wonder how
| they're thinking about geopolitical risks right now.
| grecy wrote:
| Given they have an enormous factory in Texas and another in
| Berlin both coming online before the end of the year, and they
| are continuing to expand their factory in California.... I'd
| say they're covering their bases quite well.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Is there any kind of insurance/hedging you can do against this?
| rightbyte wrote:
| Build factories outside of China?
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| How? By completing much larger manufacturing plants in Europe
| and Texas for end of year 2021, I guess.
|
| And making their own battery cells in each plant.
|
| And converting the Tilburg assembly line into another
| stationary energy storage factory. And researching locations
| for a few other new plants in 2023 as per Elon. And opening
| negotiations with India (as per Reuters, today).
|
| Sounds solid to me.
| Factorium wrote:
| The chief political risks are from the USA, not China:
|
| https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/19/president-bidens-pick-f...
|
| https://electrek.co/2021/09/29/elon-musk-calls-out-biden-con...
| t0mas88 wrote:
| If you read the article you'll see that Musk made a baseless
| comment about a meeting he had no place at because it was
| about changing petrol car manufacturers to at least 50% EV
| sales. Nothing to do with political risk, just Musk being
| Musk and tweeting/commenting before thinking like he always
| does.
| Factorium wrote:
| https://www.eenews.net/articles/automakers-blast-ev-tax-
| cred...
|
| "the measure also offers union-made EVs assembled in the
| United States an additional $4,500 tax incentive."
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > "Biden held this EV summit. Didn't invite Tesla. Invited
| GM, Ford, Chrysler, and UAW. EV summit at the White House,
| didn't mention Tesla once and praised GM and Ford for leading
| the EV revolution. Doesn't it sound a little bias? It's not
| the friendliest of administrations. Seems to be controlled by
| the unions."
|
| Wow.
| clouddrover wrote:
| Inviting Musk wouldn't be worth it politically.
|
| Musk runs around on Twitter calling people pedophiles. Musk
| flouted California's coronavirus regulations as a media
| stunt. Musk says Americans are complacent and entitled
| whereas he praises the Chinese as smart and hardworking.
| Musk says China rocks:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-china-
| ro...
|
| So why would Biden invite him when Musk brings so much
| baggage?
| phatfish wrote:
| You need an ego the size of the sun to expect everything to
| revolve around you, so it makes sense at least.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| They only invited union companies. It's all politics.
| breakyerself wrote:
| Unions are good. Tesla should unionize.
| simondotau wrote:
| Imagine if someone was doing an analysis of chip
| fabrication in the USA and never once mentioned Intel,
| pretending they didn't exist.
| adoxyz wrote:
| There's plenty of things to shit on Tesla and Elon with,
| but I think this is the wrong take in this particular
| instance. Not inviting Tesla to the EV summit and acting
| like they don't exist is pretty suspect.
| Rygian wrote:
| I don't think Tesla needs any motivation to transition to
| EVs.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Ohh it was a motivational speech?? Now I'm glad Tesla
| didn't go.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Isn't that exactly why you out half the plants in China?
| Chinese plants for Chinese cars, American plants for American
| cars. Europe buys from whoever has surplus. No worries.
| paulpauper wrote:
| I guess it goes to show how Tesla's stock surge in 2020, which
| the media called irrational or a bubble, was not so irrational
| after all.
| anonporridge wrote:
| Na. The current valuation is still pretty irrational.
| paulpauper wrote:
| that is what is expected for growth stocks .amazon has been
| overvalued forever too. Tesla went from losing billions to
| making billions. That is a huge comeback and reflected in the
| share price.
| psKama wrote:
| "bitcoin related impairment of 51M dollars"
|
| Does that mean they sold all of them at a loss of 51M?
| arcticbull wrote:
| No, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the US are booked as
| indefinitely lived intangibles.
|
| That means that if the asset falls below their most recently
| booked price at any point in the quarter, they are required to
| book an impairment charge in the amount of the drop. If it goes
| up, they cannot book the profit until they sell.
| graeme wrote:
| Yup. In my view not super meaningful for the co's holding
| bitcoin.
|
| In, say, Microstrategy's case, the market has entirely
| ignored any impairment announcements. This has been sensible
| I think.
|
| (The market also has Microstrategy well overvalued compared
| to its holdings, but that's another matter)
| qeternity wrote:
| > (The market also has Microstrategy well overvalued
| compared to its holdings, but that's another matter)
|
| That _was_ the case and there was a great spread trade for
| anyone who had the stomach for it.
|
| But currently MSTR is valued _less_ than the value of its
| BTC, which implies a negative value for their legacy
| business.
| graeme wrote:
| You're incorrect. They have about 110,000 btc I think,
| worth a bit over $7 billion. Their marketcap is $7.82
| billion.
|
| But they also have $2.2 billion debt. Legacy co worth
| about $500 million.
|
| Add $1.7 billion to marketcap and you'll see their
| bitcoin are valued at about $9.5 billion, a 30% premium.
| This has narrowed I think, they've been selling stock to
| arbitrage the difference.
| graeme wrote:
| I might be a bit off because the debt isn't valued at par
| and they could presumably buy it back.
| NickM wrote:
| _But currently MSTR is valued less than the value of its
| BTC, which implies a negative value for their legacy
| business_
|
| Or, alternatively it could also imply that the market
| thinks the future value of their BTC holdings will drop.
| It's still difficult and costly to short BTC directly, so
| I do wonder if negative sentiments about it might be
| reflected better in things like MSTR valuation than in
| the actual BTC spot price.
| Traster wrote:
| I also looked into this at one point, and MSTR value was
| so incredibly correlated with the spot price of BTC that
| it makes sense their results didn't imapct value -
| everyone knows their value is entirely BTC and are
| trading it as a bitcoin proxy. They don't need some
| earnings report. Although I wouold guess either a big buy
| or big sell reported in their reports would crash their
| price.
| verdverm wrote:
| impairment means decreased in value on the books
| purple_ferret wrote:
| >Texas: Model Y - Construction
|
| >TBD: Cybertruck - In development
|
| I thought Cybertruck was supposed to be built in Texas?
|
| > We are making progress on the industrialization of Cybertruck,
| which is currently planned for Austin production subsequent to
| Model Y.
|
| What's that mean? Cybertruck coming out in the 2030s?
| martythemaniak wrote:
| The best info has it being introduced in small numbers in the
| latter half of next year and ramping up into 2023.
| crancher wrote:
| From page nine:
|
| Services and Other - Insurance
|
| In Q3, we rolled out our "Safety Score" functionality, which will
| also be used for our telematics insurance product. We actively
| monitor braking, turning, tailgating (unsafe following), forward
| collision warnings and forced autopilot disengagements in order
| to predict the probability of a collision. This system will
| continue to be fine- tuned as we receive more data. We also
| launched our telematics insurance product in our first state -
| Texas - in early October. We believe our insurance premiums will
| be able to more accurately reflect chances of a collision than
| any other insurance product on the market. Additionally, we will
| proactively communicate to the user what driving adjustments need
| to be made to decrease probability of a collision.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I'm very curious to see if tracking the actual driving data
| turns up any surprises in terms of safe behavior. What if say
| tailgaters turn out to be safer than average drivers? I don't
| expect that to happen, which is exactly why I'm curious to see
| if it does.
| TheCapn wrote:
| I'd put a good wager that "speeders" may fall to that
| category.
|
| I find that I _generally_ travel above the speed limit and
| feel far safer than I do when I set my cruise to the proper
| speed limit. Why? Because when I 'm passing others I get to
| choose how long another vehicle is in my blind spot, or how
| often someone is trying to park themselves in my back seat.
| When I go the speed limit I always end up in a pack of cars
| all jockeying lanes with someone far too close to my rear
| bumper and a guy in front of me swaying up and down in his
| speed... I feel generally unsafe leaving control of my
| speed/position up to the other cars on the highway.
|
| * Very obviously, these are subjective takes and likely don't
| reflect reality. No vehicle accidents in 17 years makes me
| think I'm doing something right though
| ecpottinger wrote:
| Sorry, watch Canada's Worst Driver. Every time someone
| comes on and says they drive better by going fast they fail
| almost all the driving tests in braking, cornering, dodging
| sudden run-outs into the road and even just the simple
| drive better two cardboard boxes with two feet extra
| distance apart compared to the width of the car.
|
| Don't believe me? Try: https://www.youtube.com/results?sear
| ch_query=Canada+worse+dr...
| jdsully wrote:
| Sure but if they are on that show they're going to be bad
| no matter what their opinions are.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| My brother's motto is: if you're the fastest person on the
| road you don't have to worry about anyone behind you.
|
| Apparently he learned that driving boats in the Navy.
| kevingadd wrote:
| It's interesting that early user feedback indicated that if you
| wanted to max your Safety Score you actually had to drive
| unsafely in specific ways. For example, stopping correctly at
| red lights and stop signs would show up as braking, so gently
| running yellows/hollywood stops would produce a higher safety
| score.
| Rygian wrote:
| Considering that the car also sees the stop signs and traffic
| lights, that would have been an early days bug more than any
| other thing.
| notJim wrote:
| A yellow light is not a stop sign, you are allowed to drive
| through it if you can make it. And it is safer to do so than
| to slam on the brakes, which might cause the car behind you
| to hit you.
| mhandley wrote:
| This could backfire on Tesla. If Tesla have better data than
| every other insurance company, then they'll be cheaper for low-
| risk drivers. But now other insurance companies know the only
| drivers that will not use Tesla insurance are high risk, so
| Teslas become harder to insure with all other insurance
| companies for a large fraction of drivers (and you don't know
| in advance if that's you), which in turn makes them less
| desirable to buy in the first place.
| jliptzin wrote:
| Or maybe people will now have an incentive to drive more
| safely if they know it will save them money
| muzz wrote:
| Yup, this is "adverse selection"
| purple_ferret wrote:
| Seems like the most important thing you can do in regards to
| this is put a little camera on the dash and monitor for sleepy
| behavior.
|
| I would bet this trumps all of that junk wrt crashes by a
| significant margin.
| colordrops wrote:
| There is a camera pointed at the driver, at least in the
| model 3, near the rear view mirror. I believe it was indeed
| installed to monitor the driver.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Both the 3 and the Y, and it actively monitors your
| attention while Autopilot is engaged starting with Tesla
| software rev 2021.36.
|
| Looking down at a phone, for example, causes Autopilot to
| alert, and three alerts in succession reduces your safety
| score and kicks you out of Autopilot [1] until you go
| through a Drive->Park->Drive shift cycle.
|
| [1] https://www.tesla.com/support/safety-score (Control-F
| "Forced autopilot Disengagement")
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Oh goodie. I have a Model Y and it literally always goes
| insane with forward collision warnings in the parking lot
| for my local grocery store. I guess I'll have to pay more
| in insurance eventually because tesla thinks I am going
| to run into a parked car off to the side of me while
| doing 7 mph.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| While Tesla Insurance has potential, I'd don't recommend
| it at this time.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Or "texting while driving" behavior.
| crancher wrote:
| The holy grail of insurance: each person's individual risk
| behavior monitored by AI.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Progressive patented this in 1998
|
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US5797134A/en
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The worst nightmare of consumer privacy: A car that monitors
| your every move.
| crancher wrote:
| We're on the path where each of is monitored by (hopefully
| benevolent) AI from birth to death. Such a scenario is
| really the only way for humanity.com to continue scaling,
| as each of us has the potential to very negatively disrupt
| anything/everything.
| gervwyk wrote:
| My wife activated this on her insurance. Got an email last
| week saying that she is in the top 5% of "worst drivers".
| Which was both scary and funny at the same time. We
| investigated why they deduct so much points for her
| driving, and the majority of the points was conducted for
| her being on het phone while driving. Then we realized that
| we drive around with her car most often and she is on the
| the phone while I drive..
|
| These models has it's problems but they are getting better
| - it's just so easy to make wrong assumptions from ML
| models which only include a subset of variables.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| "Congrats you win worse driver in America award!"
|
| How do you inspire the lowest performers?
| malshe wrote:
| Coming up next, a fingerprint sensor on the steering
| wheel to determine who is driving!
| trhway wrote:
| and a mental state, attentiveness, etc. sensor - "Your
| driving performance in the next hour is estimated to be
| 10% worst than your average, and will incur 20% insurance
| premium increase for that trip. Do you still wish to
| start the car? "
| jandrese wrote:
| If this were accurately reflected in the rates I'd be
| interested, but past experience suggests that it's going to
| be more like "if you drive perfect you might get $5/month
| savings, but if you brake hard that one time your rate will
| shoot up by $50/month".
|
| You assume extra risk that the company won't screw you over
| for what is likely to be a very modest upside. There are lots
| of case studies of people who got massive unexpected bills
| because they were trying to save a few bucks. Especially
| since they will be able to assign the blame to the customer
| for their high rates. Never trust corporations more than you
| have to.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Hmm. Car insurance is one of the most competitive
| industries in the US. Lots of players, slim margins,
| commodity product, etc... I wonder how long a company could
| charge people $50 more for braking hard and not lose
| customers. I know if I saw a surprise like that, I'd be
| getting quotes immediately.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I don't think they are all that competitive when it comes
| to insuring electric cars.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Teslas at least are very expensive to repair. Despite the
| high premiums, they may be competitively priced.
| zbrozek wrote:
| There's lots of places where tiny upsides come with huge
| downsides. And yet for some reason people still accept
| them! My partner's manager signed up for a summer energy
| program that could cut off her HVAC system in exchange
| for a super-paltry discount on her monthly electricity
| bill. She cursed her decisions a few hours in to the next
| heat wave.
| notJim wrote:
| Traditional insurance companies have been offering a version
| of this for a while now. Apparently the term of art is usage-
| based insurance. https://wallethub.com/edu/ci/usage-based-
| insurance/14118
| gregable wrote:
| The issue with this is that in the limit it just makes the
| insurance premium exactly equal the payout + some margin.
| Some of the point of insurance is cost sharing of extreme
| events.
|
| It's perhaps a little better when we are talking about
| behaviors that are entirely under the driver's control, but
| gets potentially ugly if for example someone has slower
| reaction time due to genetics or health and thus gets priced
| out of insurance.
| svara wrote:
| Curious to hear what the optimistic story to justify the current
| incredible valuation is.
|
| I mean, they seem to be doing very well now, but their market cap
| is now roughly equal to _all_ other car makers combined. [0] That
| 's just confusing to me.
|
| Are people actually betting on them ultimately turning into the
| one modern energy company? The one battery company?
|
| [0] https://companiesmarketcap.com/automakers/largest-
| automakers...
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| It's called speculation.
|
| You're asking for an explanation to the collective market
| forces driving this. If anyone here knew a fully accurate
| reason, they'd be a billionaire investor.
| jliptzin wrote:
| Look up Tesla's debt compared to every other large auto
| company.
|
| They also don't waste any money on advertising. They don't have
| to deal with as many third party parts providers eating away at
| their profits. They're not beholden to unions or dealer
| networks.
|
| All that stuff is a serious drag on profitability and market
| cap. Just because they make cars doesn't mean they have to have
| shitty margins and high debt like the other companies.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Look up Tesla's debt compared to every other large auto
| company.
|
| That's key. Enterprise value is essentially debt + equity,
| and other car makers have _much_ more debt than Tesla.
| paulpauper wrote:
| this times 10x. Tesla saves considerable money by not having
| to advertise. Other brands have to spend billions a year to
| differentiate themselves, to stand out. Tesla is in a class
| of its own.
| RoboTeddy wrote:
| The valuation is easy to justify if you assume e.g.:
|
| (a) that they build robotaxis ~5 years ahead of competitors
|
| (b) they continue to sell ~50% more cars each year (they have a
| stated goal of 20m cars/yr by 2030)
|
| How much is a robotaxi worth? A regular taxi can drive ~100k
| miles/yr @ ~$2/mile. Let's say that Tesla robotaxis undercut on
| price by a factor of two, thus making ~$100k/yr in revenue.
| Let's say 50k goes to the buyer, and 50k goes to Tesla. Five
| years of that would be worth $250,000. Let's divide by two to
| be a tad more conservative. If you're selling 20m cars a year,
| that's $125,000*20m = 5T of value in cars in a single year. If
| Tesla were doing that in a single year, their market cap would
| be in excess of $10T]. If you think Tesla has a 1 in 10 chance
| of pulling off the above, then you'd expect a fair market
| valuation for them today of 1T -- which is roughly what the
| market puts them at.
|
| Plus add Tesla Energy, which could be as big as the car
| business.
|
| Plus add Tesla Bots (labor), which is probably the largest
| market in the world.
| btian wrote:
| It's the same optimistic story when I invested at $8 a share.
| The company will grow.
|
| People will take what the company makes in EPS today and assume
| it will stay there forever.
|
| So in 2012, people created Tesla death watch, bankruptcy
| tracker etc. In 2021 people wonder why others will wait 100
| years to get their money back.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Tesla has been in my portfolio for a long time as well. NO
| plan to sell. The media has been saying to sell since 2013,
| goes to show what they know, which is not much.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| Disclaimer: I work for Toyota's research division, opinions my
| own.
|
| I think Tesla is on track to have significantly lower
| manufacturing costs than the rest of the industry. They've been
| solving some of the really hard production line
| challenges[0][1] and appear to have a lot of industry standard
| optimizations to implement on top of those.
|
| [0]https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/tesla-revolutionary-wiring-
| ar... [1]https://www.designnews.com/automotive-
| engineering/teslas-swi...
| NickM wrote:
| _their market cap is now roughly equal to all other car makers
| combined_
|
| Well, they currently sell far more passenger electric vehicles
| than every other auto maker combined, and demand only seems to
| be increasing even as production continues to increase
| exponentially. Many countries and US states have gasoline car
| bans set to take effect in the coming decades; if the incumbent
| manufacturers continue to lag behind Tesla as badly as they've
| done so far, it would seem Tesla is poised to eat a lot of
| other car companies for lunch.
|
| That alone still might not justify the current valuation, but
| then you add in their solar panels, solar roof tiles,
| stationary storage, and other things in the pipeline like
| insurance, renting out their EV charging network, possible AI
| applications and/or software licensing, etc. etc., and the
| valuation seems at least plausible to me.
| dlp211 wrote:
| You say this as the Ford F-150 Lighting is about to drop and
| there is a waiting list for the Ford Mach-E. I think the
| market is vastly underestimating the large incumbents ability
| to pivot into this sector and lower costs by leveraging their
| supply chain and scale.
|
| I don't think anything you said justifies their current
| market cap.
| Diederich wrote:
| Do you think battery availability is going to hinder the
| large incumbents' ability to scale here?
| martythemaniak wrote:
| They're firing on all cylinders.
| creddit wrote:
| I wonder if Tesla would object to combustion metaphors. Perhaps
| they are powering on all rotors?
| dd36 wrote:
| They're charging at full speed.
| agumonkey wrote:
| They're approaching zero reluctance
| iab wrote:
| I feel there is an impedance joke in there somewhere, but I
| lack the EE background to make it
| agumonkey wrote:
| If there is then it's by luck. EE knowledge stops at
| naive DC circuits.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Spinning on all magnets
| alxtye wrote:
| Full steam ahead.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Page 6 lists rate of supercharger and connector growth. So
| interesting that this is pointed out at a high level.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-10-20 23:01 UTC)