Tesla and Uber Unlikely to Survive...

[Welshbeef]

johnnyreggae said:

Welshbeef said:

It is the perfect commuting car IMHO.

Sixty or seventy grand to carry one person a few miles - may I beg to differ on this

You are evidently not someone who buys Rangd rovers 7 series A8 RS6s M5’s 911 (many people commute in these do you hold the same views on these too?

[Zetec-S]

Todd Bonzalez said:

Does anyone know why people give Musk so much credit for stuff? I find it slightly cultish and weird. Seems to only exist in car companies that are stuff to do with the "tech world." Dyson and Jobs are two other notable ones that spring to mind. In reality, they're generally good capitalists who throw other people's money at the right people sometimes and just force through things that are not necessarily brilliant.

I've been working in this industry for the past decade and it's so odd to see it happening. It also seems to be a hugely Western phenomenon and I don't recall it happening with NextEV/Nio, Faraday and Lynk & co etc. Is it just celebrity culture now becoming part of everything and us needing false idols?

Been wondering for a while. Fully expect people to blindly defend the CEOs ITT and find it really interesting.

Up until fairly recently I've been an EV sceptic (still am in many ways, but gradually coming round to them). I also thought Musk was a massive wker, don't really know why. Then earlier this year I watched a couple of programmes about missions to Mars (I think there was a mini-series on National Geographic) which featured some stuff about him, and I gradually came round to liking him. I guess I found it interesting, pushing the boundaries of human achievement.

[hondansx]

DELETED: Comment made by a member who's account has been deleted.

Wow, not sure if you could be more condescending if you tried. Do you count self awareness as a measure of intelligence? Someone found an interesting article and posted it; big deal.

I'm interested to see how Tesla go. Right now, they have an Apple-like cool factor. Generally, familiarity breeds contempt, so it's whether they can repeat Apple's cool-factor and loyalty when Tesla no longer have a USP, a moral high ground, or exclusivity.

As for Uber, I'm sure they've admitted they'll only make money until things are autonomous.

[Welshbeef]

They do have the apple cool factor and add the future of motoring transport. No legacy issues with IcE no vast redundancies for spares eliminating an entire swathe or motor technicians.

They are fast
They are making HGVs
They are making home energy generation.


Are they as good as that company who today are making plastic bottles with 50% from oceans and the other 50% recycled plastic? I’d say no but great none the less

[wack]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It's easy to make money when you don't pay tax , ask any traveler driving a 17 plate range rover

Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/10...

[Welshbeef]

wack said:

It's easy to make money when you don't pay tax , ask any traveler driving a 17 plate range rover

Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/10...

My view always has been to eliminate corporation tax globally then it’s simply a consumption tax instead so the right tax is paid in the right country by the consumer.

Nothing we can do about a race to the bottom re corporation tax rates let’s be ahead of the curve bank those jobs.




Oh you totally overlooked all the Employers NI they pay plus the tax paid directly by the employees who otherwise wouldn’t be employed.

[Welshbeef]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

As a country competitive advantage can be corporation tax rates. How to simply up the margin slash tax on profit with the upside of more work here more money to spend in the economy and also supporting supply chain

[Zetec-S]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I see no reason why a charismatic and outwardly successful CEO isn't admired or applauded. Let's face it, there are plenty of useless fktards in charge of some pretty big organisations.

[Yipper]

Todd Bonzalez said:

Does anyone know why people give Musk so much credit for stuff? I find it slightly cultish and weird. Seems to only exist in car companies that are stuff to do with the "tech world." Dyson and Jobs are two other notable ones that spring to mind. In reality, they're generally good capitalists who throw other people's money at the right people sometimes and just force through things that are not necessarily brilliant.

I've been working in this industry for the past decade and it's so odd to see it happening. It also seems to be a hugely Western phenomenon and I don't recall it happening with NextEV/Nio, Faraday and Lynk & co etc. Is it just celebrity culture now becoming part of everything and us needing false idols?

Been wondering for a while. Fully expect people to blindly defend the CEOs ITT and find it really interesting.

Yes, this is the crux of the Economist article.

Tesla, Uber and similar others are just charismatic salespeople selling a distant vision while burning other people's money.

At the end of the day, Tesla is just a rebadged Merc or Lotus, while racking up billions in debt.

When Apple, Google, VW, Mercedes, Audi, Porsche and others get their electric cars revving, Tesla (and its huge debt / losses) is toast.

Think Blackberry or Palm -- everyone sucked their corporate smartphone wiener... until Google and Apple turned up and wrecked the party...

[ORD]

Not sure that is right. I see the advent of electronic and autonomous cars as largely spelling the end of the car industry as we know it.

Why in the name of blod would anyone spend £100k on a Porsche autobox rather than £20k on a Ford autobox?

Cars will become like fridges - not much room for differentiation (at least for 99% of the market). It is thoroughly depressing if you like cars and/or driving, but the future is blandness and a race to the bottom in terms of engineering cost and a race to the top in terms of interior plastics and fancy gadgets.

[Justin Case]

Apple haven't been rumbled yet, so I see no reason why Tesla shouldn't not only survive but thrive, provided they can get the finance to tide them over until they become profitable, which no doubt they will bebefore too long. Uber is less likely to, the model is easily replicated, especially at a local level, and there is plenty of established competition. For example we always use a local taxi firm who give excellent service at a reasonable cost, why go elsewhere?

In the long term, though it is GM who are less likely to survive, well as a US company. Their business model is obviously unsustainable, so why continue to bail them out and delay the inevitable?

[andy_s]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Maybe it's the least worst solution though, put CT up and drive away business, decrease amount of jobs, lose the tax revenue, start sacking the public sector we can't afford etc.

If there was an ideal solution, we'd have found it by now don't you think?

[Wait Here Until Green Light Shows]

parabolica said:

Stats don’t lie, but I’d be surprised if Musk would ever allow Tesla to fail. If a guy can launch rockets into space and build hyper-fast train infrastructure, you’d think he’d be able to bail out his car company if the time came.

Hyperloop is a pipe dream (see what I did there) - never going to happen.
Space-X - dunno but it seems too good to be true at the moment. Just wait till one goes pop and it's game over.
Tesla - people are slowly waking up to the fact that when they break, you can forget taking it to Bob in the friendly local garage. You're tied in to Tesla for the life of the vehicle. I certainly wouldn't buy one. Once the other manufacturers catch up with leccy vehicles I think Tesla will struggle.

[J4CKO]

Sometimes I get the impression, the anti EV bandwagon grabs any negative article, or makes some up like that picture of a vast open cast Copper mine that was allegedly a Lithium mine.

A lot of what I read has a subtext of "But I love Engines"

Its like when Jim Jefferies sums up all the various and tenuous arguments from the US gun lobby as "But I love guns".

[mcbook]

The Economist is good for politics and macro-economics but analysis of the auto industry is not their forte.

I'd be more inclined to look at the opinions of sector-specific equity analysts which, on balance, recommend buying Tesla.

[London424]

Wait Here Until Green Light Shows said:

parabolica said:

Stats don’t lie, but I’d be surprised if Musk would ever allow Tesla to fail. If a guy can launch rockets into space and build hyper-fast train infrastructure, you’d think he’d be able to bail out his car company if the time came.

Hyperloop is a pipe dream (see what I did there) - never going to happen.
Space-X - dunno but it seems too good to be true at the moment. Just wait till one goes pop and it's game over.
Tesla - people are slowly waking up to the fact that when they break, you can forget taking it to Bob in the friendly local garage. You're tied in to Tesla for the life of the vehicle. I certainly wouldn't buy one. Once the other manufacturers catch up with leccy vehicles I think Tesla will struggle.

I'll certainly agree that you 'dunno' about Space X.

[Yipper]

J4CKO said:

Sometimes I get the impression, the anti EV bandwagon grabs any negative article, or makes some up like that picture of a vast open cast Copper mine that was allegedly a Lithium mine.

A lot of what I read has a subtext of "But I love Engines"

Its like when Jim Jefferies sums up all the various and tenuous arguments from the US gun lobby as "But I love guns".

The article is about business. Not about tech, or some distant pipedream.

And the business case for Tesla is shaky. History shows that companies with big debt and big losses over many years (like Tesla and Uber) rarely survive in the long run.

In business terms, they are a mess.

[CS Garth]

Todd Bonzalez said:

Does anyone know why people give Musk so much credit for stuff? I find it slightly cultish and weird. Seems to only exist in car companies that are stuff to do with the "tech world." Dyson and Jobs are two other notable ones that spring to mind. In reality, they're generally good capitalists who throw other people's money at the right people sometimes and just force through things that are not necessarily brilliant.

I've been working in this industry for the past decade and it's so odd to see it happening. It also seems to be a hugely Western phenomenon and I don't recall it happening with NextEV/Nio, Faraday and Lynk & co etc. Is it just celebrity culture now becoming part of everything and us needing false idols?

Been wondering for a while. Fully expect people to blindly defend the CEOs ITT and find it really interesting.

I think a lot of people think Musk set up Tesla and don't understand the history behind it

[havoc]

gangzoom said:

If you get excited about news stories predicting Teslas imminent demise you must have been living under a rock for most of the last decade

https://jalopnik.com/5887265/tesla-motors-devastat...

I've heard that petrol and diesel engines require owners to do this radical thing on a regular basis called "checking the oil level", as if the car runs too low on oil the engine needs to be replaced at a cost of several thousand pounds (or more...).

Not exactly sure how that article is different...does look to be owners fundamentally midunderstanding how some batteries work.

[SonicShadow]

Wait Here Until Green Light Shows said:

Space-X - dunno but it seems too good to be true at the moment. Just wait till one goes pop and it's game over.

Already happened over a year ago with someone elses satellite onboard: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/01/sp...

They've still got a waiting list on launches.