Tesla and Uber Unlikely to Survive...

[Heres Johnny]

Yipper said:

Ah, the old "ignore the post, attack the poster" trick

Tesla are gifting, not selling.

Anyone can take a Merc, bolt some Panasonic batteries on the side, and spank billions of other people's money on it.

Anyone who has been to Silicon Valley in recent months will have heard the phrase...

"Elon can make everything but a profit"...

They’re not gifting. There’s a difference between burning through cash building intellectual property, factories, production lines, filling the supply chain with cars, opening new stores and the like and on a marginal cost basis making something at a loss. Each car is profitable, it’s the stuff related to growth that’s costing cash.

If a poster can’t tell the difference, doesn’t understand that a lack of growth in production is because an existing facility is at capacity, how much every car maker invests in a new model before launch, funded in the case of other makes by the previous model, is basically someone who fails to understand economics, then they deserve to be put straight

Edited by Heres Johnny on Thursday 30th November 08:15

[RobDickinson]

Yipper is clinically insane dont bother.

[Too Drunk to Funk]

Yipper said:

Amazon's online store is still losing money today.

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

I'm not sure why so many on a British website for "Pistonheads" want an American maker of EVs to take over the world.

Nothing against EVs but Tesla stuff does appear stupidly expensive.

[rscott]

Yipper said:

Ah, the old "ignore the post, attack the poster" trick

Tesla are gifting, not selling.

Anyone can take a Merc, bolt some Panasonic batteries on the side, and spank billions of other people's money on it.

Anyone who has been to Silicon Valley in recent months will have heard the phrase...

"Elon can make everything but a profit"...

You've been challenged on the Merc claim before - how much of a Tesla is actually Mercedes?

[RobDickinson]

some of the switch gear, merc use more tesla parts in their cars are now are they tesla instead?

[Heres Johnny]

RobDickinson said:

some of the switch gear, merc use more tesla parts in their cars are now are they tesla instead?

Tesla still use a few components, not as many as Aston Martin do in the DB11 and the new Vantage though.

And Merc built a car based on a Tesla drive train for a while... amazing... car companies sometimes collaborate..!

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/mercedes-benz...

[DapperDanMan]

Yipper said:

Yipper said:

Amazon's online store is still losing money today.

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

Ah, the old "ignore the post, attack the poster" trick

Tesla are gifting, not selling.

Anyone can take a Merc, bolt some Panasonic batteries on the side, and spank billions of other people's money on it.

Anyone who has been to Silicon Valley in recent months will have heard the phrase...

"Elon can make everything but a profit"...

Could this Merc thing come from the fact that an E Class was used as the (very) early mule for the Model S? Now because a little switchgear is used people think that is still happening.

If 'anyone' can do it then why haven't they? Do you have any idea what it takes to setup a company? Let alone a car/battery manufacturer. The investment is huge and the issues are great and varied.

As for other peoples money well the investors do expect a return at some point or am I missing something, do they expect TESLA to put their money in a safe and just pay them a return? Also TESLA paid back the US Government loans didn't they (early as I recall)?

The thing is that Musk tends to get ahead of himself in terms of delivery dates (sometimes) but in the end he always delivers.

As for Silicon Valley, most of that lot consume huge amounts of investment and most of them never survive to make a profit.

[CABC]

capitalism isn't good at this scale of infrastructure change. cost of money, expectations, delays in revenue just don't add with the short-term horizons of investment. history is full of examples. Governments (well, tax payers) sometimes need to take the longer view. that, or private ventures valiantly try but fail. the legacy will remain however.

[Zetec-S]

Too Drunk to Funk said:

I'm not sure why so many on a British website for "Pistonheads" want an American maker of EVs to take over the world.

Nothing against EVs but Tesla stuff does appear stupidly expensive.

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

I don't see Tesla "taking over the world". What they have done is made EV's more interesting and desirable (at least to some), and helped drive the sector forward. Without them, EV's would just be an odd looking sideline to the mainstream manufacturers vehicle range.

[Heres Johnny]

DapperDanMan said:

The thing is that Musk tends to get ahead of himself in terms of delivery dates (sometimes) but in the end he always delivers.

He's only delivered on what he's delivered on, there are plenty of things way way overdue he's still to deliver. When do you determine he's not going to deliver? I think P85D owners are still waiting on their cars performance, the super charger "coming soon" map is forever "coming soon" in plenty of locations, my referral rewards are about a year over due, the "we'll speed up parts availability" hasn't really happened, the "escalate to senior management " option in mytesla that promises a response with 2 day takes 2 weeks..

Your point about getting ahead of himself is bang on. I've commented for some time that what they need is a CEO, the Tim Cook of Apple to quell and make good the barking mad creative in the company like Cook did for Jobs. There's been an article about it recently suggesting the same, Musk sleeping on the shop floor is about the least productive thing he could do. I doubt the workers felt any solidarity with him doing that and just felt threatened. He's a Donald Trump character in the sense he runs his media campaign by twitter and is a loose cannon - only their politics seem to differ.

The big investors will step in when the time is right, that if there is a sufficient small core of big investors. They know this game better than he does and they'll force his hand. If he's only at the helm because of his personal holding and a massive fragmented shareholder community of Musk fanatics then thats a bit of a worry.

You can like the car, like the employees, like the ethos of changing the world, I just wish they got someone in to do a proper job with some of the basics.

[mybrainhurts]

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

Fantastic to have you on board, you must be very important.

[Too Drunk to Funk]

Too Drunk to Funk said:

I'm not sure why so many on a British website for "Pistonheads" want an American maker of EVs to take over the world.

Nothing against EVs but Tesla stuff does appear stupidly expensive.

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

Tesla seem to doing what they can to put up prices.

Did you not understand my post? I don't know why Tesla have so many fanbois on an English motoring website.

PH - Range Matters!

[Zetec-S]

Too Drunk to Funk said:

Tesla seem to doing what they can to put up prices.

Did you not understand my post? I don't know why Tesla have so many fanbois on an English motoring website.

PH - Range Matters!

35,000 US Dollars for a "compact exec" Model 3 is not exactly pushing up prices.

I'm not a Tesla "fanboi" but I do find them interesting and look forward to seeing what they do. On paper a Model 3 would suit me well as a commuter vehicle, so am curious to see whether it delivers.

[DapperDanMan]

Too Drunk to Funk said:

Too Drunk to Funk said:

I'm not sure why so many on a British website for "Pistonheads" want an American maker of EVs to take over the world.

Nothing against EVs but Tesla stuff does appear stupidly expensive.

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

Tesla seem to doing what they can to put up prices.

Did you not understand my post? I don't know why Tesla have so many fanbois on an English motoring website.

PH - Range Matters!

The two are not mutely exclusive though are they.

It is possible to enjoy ICE cars and be excited about the latest developments with electric vehicles. I am a sample of one but I am sure I am not unique. The combination of both is also exciting in that you can improve performance and improve MPG, what is not to like.

As for prices did you notice the exchange rate change due to BREXIT? TESLA deal in US Dollars which our pound dropped against hence prices go up. Also ICE manufacturers are always hiking prices do you mention that in other posts?

The thing is Musk is an entrepreneur, rich and a visionary all of which he started from no particular advantage in life and I think that niggles some people who just don't like the fact that it isn't them.

[RobDickinson]

Too Drunk to Funk said:

Tesla seem to doing what they can to put up prices.

Have you read teslas secret master plan?
Build proof of concept roadster to fund exec car
High priced exec car funds a mass produced cheaper every day car

Model s an x are expensive. Theres no avoiding it, they were never intended to be cheap.

The model 3 is intended to be cheap(er) equivalent in overall running/owning costs to a honda accord or so.

By 2022 or so EVs will be cheaper to manufacture than ICE equivalents. but we cant get there overnight.

[lost in espace]

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

I thought Ikea would only refund the Ecotricity charge for store purchase not food?

[JoBlack]

RobDickinson said:

Have you read teslas secret master plan?
Build proof of concept roadster to fund exec car
High priced exec car funds a mass produced cheaper every day car

Model s an x are expensive. Theres no avoiding it, they were never intended to be cheap.

The model 3 is intended to be cheap(er) equivalent in overall running/owning costs to a honda accord or so.

By 2022 or so EVs will be cheaper to manufacture than ICE equivalents. but we cant get there overnight.

Wasn't very secret then was it.

Do you want to know what the secret plan is for bankrupting tesla so everyone will carry on driving VW soot chuckers?

[tr3a]

AstonZagato said:

I don't think anyone has wanted them to fail.

You don't? Investors speculators have made TSLA the most shorted stock in history.

[Toaster]

Have to say it’s a reason to be cautious about Tesla being a huge success particularly as every other car brand will also be hybrid or electric, and people tend to be loyal to a brand they like so Tesla do not hold all the cards.

Yipper said:

Great article in The Economist this week, showing how Tesla has a 75% to 99.9% chance of failure, due to its gigantic debt load.

History suggests companies with big debt and big losses, over multiple years, like Tesla and Uber, rarely thrive or survive.

Such firms have charismatic leaders just winging it on debt.

Tesla and Uber are statistically doomed...

https://jalopnik.com/it-d-be-a-business-miracle-if...

https://www.economist.com/news/business/21730446-f...

[RobDickinson]

Teslas gross margin is 24% on the model s so $20k ish per vehicle?