Yeah, the SEC did. After the contempt hearing, they had to renegotiate what constitutes "material" information as a part of their settlement, and that was essentially Musk/Tesla's wake-up call of "Oh, we only just BARELY got out of that mess". So as a result, they've actually been following what the original spirit of the settlement was meant to enforce.
Of course, we're still seeing issues where Musk is getting sued for threatening workers on Twitter for unionizing, but that's a slightly different issue than lying about production predictions.
Actually they aren't doing so great. Everything has changed.
Before last year it was basically just Tesla and a few token cars e.g. Leaf in the electric vehicle space. Now every car company is jumping in and any detractors e.g. BMW CEO are being swiftly moved on.
And so Tesla is now competing against the most highly capitalised, profitable and experienced companies in the world. Porsche Taycan is based on every review the best EV car money can buy. VW has the ID.3/ID.4 coming out shortly which look seriously good and they have plans for 70 models to be released in the coming decade. You have startups like Rivian which are attracting significant outside funding and disrupting segments. And at the cheaper price points you have dozens of Chinese manufacturers entering the fray.
Tesla is about to have the fight of their life and all while they are losing hundreds of millions each quarter.
People have been making that exact argument for years. There have been so many "Tesla killers" that I've lost count. None have panned out.
The Taycan is roughly twice as expensive as the equivalent Model S Tesla and has greatly inferior range and, among people likely to buy electric cars, presumably less brand value. People haven't forgotten VW's emissions scandal. Let's not forget they haven't even shipped a single Taycan yet. BMW has sold a crappy, overpriced electric car/washing-machine-lookalike for years (i3) without it catching on.
Furthermore, there's no real competition on the horizon just yet for the Model 3. Tesla have a 3-6 year head start on making electric cars which will be difficult to overcome.
And where the heck do you charge a Taycan or any other EV that’s not a Tesla? Never mind the fact that the Tesla beats every other EV on the road for a moment. The killer feature is the supercharger network. Are other manufacturers going to build 12000-15000 chargers all over the country that can top off the battery in 10-15 minutes before or after they build a decent car? You can’t take these other cars on anything but local trips if you can’t charge quickly. Most public chargers only charge at about 30 mph.
A road trip where Porsche selected the route with one charge stop isn’t impressive. It’s not a long range car until the typical owner can drive the continental US - or at least most of it. I’ve never seen a fast charger anywhere besides a Tesla supercharger.
There are a number CCS charging networks in the US. Electrify America, EVgo, and ChargePoint have roaming agreements so the one account can be used across all networks:
Tesla should convert their chargers to CCS now rather than sticking with a propriety plug. They've already converted their European chargers to CCS, although they're still not allowing non-Tesla EVs to charge at them:
And you seemed to have completely missed my point.
Car companies have been doing nothing for years. But now for the first time they are all 100% committed to EV. And as we've seen with the Taycan, EQC and the ID.3/4 they can easily compete with Tesla.
I wouldn't say 100% committed. VAG sells 10,000,000+ cars/year worldwide, so if they sell 100,000+ etron/Taycan/egolfs/etc this year, then they're maybe 1% committed. Hopefully the ID.3/4 will improve that, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Back in 2010, Audi said they would produce the etron by the end of 2012, which apparently is German for 2018. ;)
> as we've seen with the Taycan and the ID.3/4 they can easily compete with Tesla.
The Taycan is not really competing with anything but Tesla's highest-end and presumably lowest-volume products, and the ID.3 and 4 don't exist as production cars yet (AFAIK).
Competing with them is obviously possible but these aren't very good examples.
The Taycan is DOA. If I want an electric car then I’m getting a Tesla because it’s the easiest to own, easiest to charge, the most proven and outperforms every other EV. If I want a Porsche then I’m getting a 911 turbo because it’s their most iconic car. I’m not about to spend 150k on their first attempt at an EV, the riskiest model in their catalog and the one that will most likely sell the lowest volume. I don’t understand where the market is for the Taycan. Forget about it being a “Tesla killer”. It’s good that they’re going electric. I hope they stick with it and do well. But Tesla has already established themselves as a premium brand. It’s not like Porsche is coming in and filling a void here. They are going up against the leader in the leader’s strongest segment, and one which is low volume and not much pie to share.
No one can “easily compete” with Tesla until they’ve secured 50GWh+ scale battery production and built out a global high-speed charging network that approaches the supercharger network’s coverage.
In the EU for example Ionity is a superior charging network to Tesla's. And Tesla gets their batteries from the same place that everyone else does i.e LG.
> There are currently 474 supercharger stations in Europe vs. 150 for Ionity
But the difference is Ionity is CCS and all EVs can charge at its chargers. CCS cars can use any CCS provider like Ionity, FastNed, Allego, etc. which is the correct approach. I can fuel my ICE car at any fuel station and I should be able to charge my EV at any charging station.
You mean two companies that run their businesses on a global, standardized, interoperable computer network aka The Internet?
You're making the case for CCS. I agree with you. A common charging standard is better for everyone, just like common internet protocols allow Facebook and Apple to be successful.
Seems you think Tesla is going to fail due to the legacy car companies producing better EVs.
Though I disagree, I would be ecstatic to see something like this happen. Sadly, as of today, I can't purchase any of those compelling vehicles you've mentioned.
Most of central European i3 sales can be attributed to German power companies making a deal with BMW under the table. Pretty much 100% of i3 sales in Poland in 2019 went to innogygo, a Green car sharing company. Why Green? Because parent company, Innogy, is a subsidiary of RWE. The lets strip mine ancient Hambach forest (https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-hambach-forest/) for Lignite - THE dirtiest coal possible RWE. Sprinkle if with freshly cut Romanian forest (https://www.fern.org/fileadmin/uploads/fern/Documents/Up%20i...) and burn it all in Green coal^^^biomass!!1 fired power plants. Because in Germany co-firing dirtiest coal possible with small wood addition counts as green energy. Everybody wins, for a very specific definition of "everybody".
I don't get why most models of the i3 have asymmetrical tyres front and rear. They couldn't even choose standardtires so you can choose, but they chose limited tires, so you have little choice in what to get.
And they'll have more models out in 2021, more in 2022, etc. Volkswagen means to be the biggest EV maker in a few years. They have both the investment and the scale to achieve it.
The Tesla Model 3 has 409km range WLTP for the Standard Range Plus model and 560km for the Long Range model. The ID.3 will have three battery sizes for 330km, 420km, and 550km WLTP at lower price points. The range argument isn't really there.
It's disappointing they're not even trying with the current Model S. The Plaid drive train is still a year away. Porsche is a year ahead on performance at this point.
So they have competition now, and they're spending more than they're making.
What are they spending it on? Maybe they're spending it on the same aggressive growth without which they'd never have achieved the head start they have now?
I'm not a Tesla owner nor a Tesla fanboy and my original comment was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I have to say that your comment seems to me to be dripping with narrative.
Anyway, we will see, won't we? I've got my popcorn ready.
I do believe that all competitive advantage is temporary and that better offerings are to come from a variety of players...
However, there is simply nothing close to Tesla on the planet today. It will be some time before others can catch up. They will. It is inevitable. Right now, Tesla has something others are unable to produce.
But is the size of the market growing even faster ?
Tesla is making money on each car sold. But you are right, they do invest a lot in R&D and factory expansion (e.g. new factory in China starting this month to produce model 3 cars).
I am still not sure if we can tell now if they are doomed, it might be too early. It is a tricky game, but as long as they make money on each car sold, and keep some technological edge (battery, manufacturing, etc.) they should be fine.
That first line after the chart is the big takeaway in my opinion. The backlog of orders increased this quarter which is both good news, since it shows demand is not a problem, and bad news, since Tesla still can't produce cars fast enough.
Model 3 is cannibalising sales of the S and X models. Which means their ARPU and gross margin has rapidly decreased causing impacts to their revenue and profit.
I'm sorry for being pedantic here - but your final sentence does not necessarily follow from the previous.
Lowering ARPUs and tightening gross margin % are an issue - yes. But the single most important factor here is gross margin in absolute terms. If sales volume increases to offset decreasing ARPUs, this doesn't make 'Tesla's fiscal position simply unsustainable'.
Looking at it, it is revenue, gross profit and net income are all increasing by double digit percentage, every year.
Still Tesla is spending a lot more, but less every year compare to the revenue. They are expanding quite quickly (new factory in China starting to produce this month), maybe too quickly ?
It would be interesting to see during the next 6 months, how the production in China affects Tesla results.
Ask yourself: how much does a $5 Billion factory affect net-income.
Answer: a $5 Billion factory costs $0 in terms of profit. Its a capital-expenditure, affecting Cash Flow (not profits). Depreciation is how factories "wear out" in the income statement.
Tesla is not selling enough cars to make up for its $5 Billion investment in the Gigafactory. After many years, Tesla will only have made ~$4 Billion from a $5 Billion factory, by the time it has to replace all the equipment and pay $5 Billion again. (Made up numbers to roughly estimate what is going on here).
Tesla needs to make more cars out of the factory it has already built if they want to be able to rebuild the factory by the time all the parts wear out.
The Chinese Gigafactory cost $5B and should eventually produce 500,000 cars (less than 10,000 a week like its counterpart in US). If it takes 5 years to wear out, then Tesla would have to make ~$2k per car produced to pay the factory. I am curious to see how this Chinese factory would perform in the next 6 months. Clearly the plan has been to produce more per factory, and it did not happen yet. But I have faith in automation to eventually improve the factory's output.
> But I have faith in automation to eventually improve the factory's output.
Tesla's CapEx has been disappointingly low. Any kind of improved automation will require new equipment. Unless Tesla can scrape together more cash to improve their CapEx figures, its basically impossible for them to get "Better equipment".
IMO, Musk is spending too much money on unnecessary projects (ex: Cuphead ported to Tesla. Full-self driving custom designed chip. Etc. etc.) and not enough money on simple & boring stuff like better factory equipment.
Yes, I agree Tesla might have spent money on non essential (more video games), or at least non-trivial return (self driving custom designed chip). But Tesla did acquire Grohmann (automation), which is kind of boring stuff like better factory equipment. On a side note, I have been bullish on automation for a couple years, and it did not pan out, both Fanuc and KUKA had a rough past year... so no revolution on the automation/robot so far.
At the end of the previous quarter Tesla had 4 billion in the bank, its highest ever. It also has a new factory in China that is about to go into production, and several new models that will be coming out. And its efficiencies of production keep improving.
People like you have been predicting every quarter for the last 10 years that Tesla was on the verge of going out of business, and yet it keeps going from one success to another.
Honestly, unless they're doing really stupid things, they were announced dead every month during the previous years. Incapable of scaling etc etc.. Now they do. I think they'll do fine. (unless they do stupid things)
S and X models are just the model 3 chassis with a different body & trim. Those are the parts of the car that are easy to change. Effectively they are selling the same product at 3 different price points. That's retail 101.
Well let's see. They use the same range of Tesla batteries. They use the same motors. The same brakes (Brembo), same transmission, similar suspension. Neither have an ic engine, fuel tank or radiator. The difference in the wheelbase between the Model X (116.7) and Model (116.5) is 0.2 inches. As I said a different body. If I'm incorrect tell me how.
Well, none of it is correct. S and X are mostly aluminum, Model 3 is mostly steel. S and X use AC induction motors, Model 3 uses PM motor (yeah, Raven and all, but historically this is true). S and X use 18650 cells, Model 3 uses 21700 cells with a different cooling architecture. Your definition of "the same" covers almost every electric made, not just Tesla. It's a stretch too far.
I said the body was different. Tesla standardizing on Raven is not really a counterexample.
These other differences (eg. a few extra battery cells) are so chickenshit that if a factory level product engineer was making these changes 99% of the time it would be signed off by max one other engineer. I know because I used to be one of those engineers. The gist of what I'm saying is totally true. It's not like they are using different battery chemistries on their different models. All their big stuff has moved or is moving to a common platform.
I would be surprised if gigafactory 3 cars are exported from China.
From what I understand, most domestically produced, internationally branded vehicles are sold within the county. (Audi, VW, Mercedes all manufacturer cars in China for domestic consumption)
They absolutely will not be exported from China. They will sell every single TM3 they can make in GF3 in China locally, taking advantage of all the cost savings, tax savings, and incentives along the way.
But GF3 is what will push them from 8,500/wk ultimately to above 10,000/wk, and depending on exactly how quickly that ramp happens in Q4 will determine whether they end the year with 360k, or 380k cars sold.
They will head into 2020 at or close to an annualized production rate of 500k, which is what Elon predicted back in February. [1]
Assuming no further increases at Fremont, this requires GF3 to be producing at a rate of ~2,250/wk. Tesla has stated they expect to be producing between 1,000 - 2,000 cars per week at GF3 by the end of the year, rising to 3,000/wk in 2020. So more likely there are still some gains to be made in Fremont before the end up the year in order to hit 500k annualized.
By comparison Fremont was making 2,250/wk roughly 1 year after the first TM3 was produced (July 2017 - July 2018). This goes to show how much faster the production ramp can be the second time around. Unlike the first time when Tesla had never mass produced s vehicle before and was expecting “production hell”.
In the last 4 quarters Tesla has delivered 271,521 model 3s. That would make it about the 12th best selling car in america. That is about as many escapes ford has sold. That is pretty phenomenal.
Ah my mistake, I didn't realize you were including Q4 2018 :) Still think it's a bit of an unfair comparison to compare Tesla's worldwide sales to other car makers' US sales.
If you mean GAAP v non-GAAP, almost all manufactures release both numbers as does Tesla. Yes, 19% and 15% are different numbers - they're also both very non-negative numbers. This is posted ad nauseam and is absolutely untrue.
No, there's a common "short" theory that Tesla somehow reports GAAP gross margins in a way that is radically different from the rest of the industry. I've never seen any evidence that had any merit for this claim.
Wikipedia has a chart of past deliveries, for comparison:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3#Deliveries
Looks like Model 3 is up about 10% from the previous quarter, which is not like 2018Q2-to-Q3 which nearly doubled, but is still a significant bump up.
Gigafactory 3 in China comes online this month. Manufacturing lines are already validated. I’d expect an increased step up in quarterly deliveries going forward. Also, no more Fremont->China ocean shipping delay.
This puts Tesla on track to build and deliver 500k+ vehicles a year next year. This does not include energy storage sales out of GF1 in Nevada.
Tesla's never copied an existing production line either though. The Model S, X, and 3 lines were all novel for Tesla. The Shanghai line should be a copy of the 3 line from Fremont for the most part.
1) I would absolutely not be surprised if they have delays this time as well, but...
2) most organizations find their first production line(s) more difficult to start up than they expected, even in very different fields like brewing beer. But, the more of them they do, the better they tend to get at it. Although...
3) yeah, they'll be late on this one as well. :)
But each time they get faster. This is hold weight if you have a lot of data points but in tesla case they are really young with lots of room of improvement which they've shown
They had a leaked email posted last week that they were pushing for 100K. So 97k is less than was priced into the stock. Not sure why institutional investors don't like the stock and it's so heavily shorted and twitchy.
Tesla could use a COO to manage operational expectations and let Elon focus more on engineering in the future. It'll keep his twitter/email free from setting market expectations.
Institutional investors don’t like the stock because it’s a 16 year old company that’s never made a profit a year in existence. It’s pretty easy to see how that could make any money manager run scared
Let's also note that it's down 30% from peak this year. And that the price is heavily based on hypothesized future performance. And that Musk took a hype-driven strategy that, while getting him low-cost capital and a lot of free marketing, also has downsides. In particular, it creates a population of skeptics, and increases volatility when negative events cause former believers to become skeptics.
Tesla's hypothesized future performance has continuously been pushed out longer and longer. The consensus 2020 EPS was $18 in 2013, and by today it is a negative number. You can't push out future performance for eternity.
Hi! Replies generally go better if you assume people know the basics and then interpret what they said in light of that. Assuming for the moment I did know that, what do you think I might have meant?
Why would I assume you knew that? Not everyone is well versed in stocks so I was replying in case you thought tesla was unique in being priced based on speculated future earnings. I admit I said it in a pretty condescending way though.
The operational problems can't be understated either. Customer service experiences that are all over the map (Ranging from they came out to my driveway and fixed my car to its been in the shop for 3 months with no end in sight), production issues, QC issues, engineering issues... for every way they tend to "surprise and delight" they also tend to find ways to horrify by not nailing the basics.
And you only get to play the startup card so long. Tesla is indeed a 16 year old company whose production struggles look even more troubling considering their growth isn't what anyone would really consider hockey stick, and their competitors have none of their scaling issues.
Add in a leader that has shown some stability issues, and its tough to make a case for it.
Personally, I root hard for Tesla the company, want to see them succeed, and after recently buying a house with a parking spot, may buy a Tesla as my next car, but I am not buying shares anytime soon.
If you take a look at their quarterly production numbers, things don't look so rosy- they jumped from ~25000/quarter in Q4 2017 to 80k/quarter in 2018, but have not really moved the needle that much since then- this past quarter was 96k (96,155 if you want to get pedantic). Its fine growth for sure, but certainly not in a hockey stick matter- it makes me wonder where the disconnect is- how and when are they booking the revenue, and can this be expected to continue to jump if production isn't growing accordingly.
All the while, they are still losing money. This is not just about cash flow, this is about actual earnings. You have to look into where the disconnect there is as well to make a bull case.
I agree that the growth is likely to slow down somewhat in 2019. On a years view they produced about 253.000 cars in 2018 and will likely land at 360.000 in 2019. Nevertheless it is still 30% Growth YoY.
I would argue that slow down is mainly due to the nature of the production ramp, which goes exponential in the beginning but is now starting to flatten out. As it flattens though margins should continue to get better. If they get additional factories like the one in China it should reinvigorate the growth rate.
For me the bull story goes something like: they sunk a lot of money building out their very first mass producing production line, making a lot of mistakes on the way. Although they have some quality and service and margin issues people still keep buying their cars, which is the most important. Fixing the margin and other secondary issues is just a matter of time and continuous optimization.
So the most important of Musks hypotheses that people like buying electric cars if they are better in every important category is pretty much proven by now.
The second, that they are able to produce them at a profit is still to be proven, but economies of scale play a big role in that and they are first beginning to really leverage those.
It isn't just about cash flow, but both cash flow and earnings matter. Their cashflow has improved to the best state that it has been in since the company was founded.
Their other issues are a combination of scale and fundamental business issues with selling cars. Other manufacturers have profitable dealer networks selling their cars. Tesla has a money losing sales and service network. Some of this is due to their relatively small scale, but some of the problems are deeper than that, unfortunately.
Edit:
Wow, so much hate for a one-line comment. I have five replies and three downvotes as of now.
I stand by my comment. I think Tesla is building long-term value (brand recognition, a reputation for innovation in an stodgy industry, technical know-how in multiple industries) that will allow them to be profitable. I know well how Amazon got here, but I don't care about the technicalities. It is the behemoth that it is because of the compounded value added over 14+ years. I see Tesla equally driven and able to take advantage of the things it puts in place now.
Amazon has been cash flow positive since 2003. Amazon has a unique negative cash flow cycle where they collected revenue significantly prior to paying their accounts payable. As long as they are constantly growing, it is basically like running a business on a credit card.
Tesla is in a completely different situation. Cars require massive upfront investment before their revenue is realized, and given the results just posted, Tesla will most likely post a quarter with declining revenue.
People should stop comparing things to Amazon. Amazon was successful because it was unique.
Amazon made a profit in 2003 and literally every year after that.
Amazon can be forgiven for losing $1.6 Billion in the 2001 recession, but their pathway to profitability was rather short all else considered.
Amazon has famously low margins, but those low margins commanded a mighty profit for decades. They are not the company you want to compare against Tesla. Tesla's strategy is supposed to be luxury vehicles at high margins and relatively (relative to Ford / Toyota / its other competitors) low production.
In contrast: Amazon is low margins while out-producing its competition. A very, very bad comparison.
Amazon was profitable for nearly all years after 2003.
2003: $35 Million profit
2004: $588 Million profit
2005: $359 Million
2006: $190 Million
2007: $476 Million
2008: $645 Million
2009: $902 Million
2010: $1,152 Million
2011: $631 Million
2012: $(39) Million <--- First loss
2013: $274 Million
2014: $(241) Million <--- 2nd loss
2015: $596 Million
2016: $2,371 Million
2017: $3,033 Million
2018: $10,073 Million
----------
Aside from 2012 and 2014, Amazon was both profitable AND cash flow positive. Amazon was Cash flow positive all 15 years in this time period as well. But I'm talking net profit / net loss here.
IMO: there's no valid comparison to Tesla here. Amazon is not the company you want to compare against Tesla's performance.
---------
Anyway, yes, Jeff Bezos sacrificing one year or two years of profits (over 15 years) for greater long-term growth could make sense. That doesn't actually mean its healthy for Tesla to consistently lose money for 10 years straight.
I guess my major point is that Amazon didn’t need to consistently find new capital in order to keep the business afloat. Musk does. That’s partyly the distinction between cash flow and profit
Not every loss making company is an Amazon in the making :)
Tesla is likely coming to the end of the period where they have a relatively unique portfolio of products. We're starting to see the traditional car makers come up with competitive vehicles.
Whilst Tesla may ride this out fine, it's likely to have an impact on things like margins, going forward.
not sure I've seen a good analogue for the Model S (yet)
closest competitor for the Model X at the moment appears to be the Jaguar I-Pace.
For the model three there's things like the Hyundai Kona and Renault Zoe which are becoming competitive.
I don't think it's there yet, but if I was an investor looking at a 2-3 year timeline, you've got to expect increased competition as there's various models coming along from various companies. Not all of them will be successful, but it's a fair likeliness that some will be.
Comparing pre-IPO Tesla to post-IPO Amazon is going to skew some things. I think it's better to compare post-IPO Amazon (1997) to post-IPO Tesla (2010).
For the first ~10 years of existence they were barely a company. That Tesla has almost nothing in common with today's Tesla, not even Elon Musk. Not sure time since incorporation is the best metric.
So 2008 didn't happen I guess. I guess nobody in their right mind would buy and sell loans which aren't guaranteed. And I guess usable mass market EV's existed before 2018 and I guess Tesla is just running a scam .
What does 2008 have to do with anything? A company that hasn’t made a profit for 16 straight years, especially valued at billions of dollars, should be considered a extremely risky investment
Name any investment bank which started after 2008 and has some decent amount of market cap. My point is suggesting investment banks can make rational decisions is not based on facts. They make decisions which make most money or save existing investments. Aside from the level of toxic hatred on the stock what can you fault about the products they are selling nothing. Can you find another company anywhere delivering value/$ as Tesla I'm not sure.
It's because Tesla is still a pretty risky investment. It still remains to be seen what sort of "moat" they really have in the EV space. Most other major manufacturers are preparing to launch EVs over the next 3 years. It may turn out that Tesla really is a few steps ahead technologically or all of the guys that have been building cars for the last 80 years may eat their lunch.
But I do agree that they could definitely use a COO. Musk seems like a bright guy but I'm just not sure how suited he is to handle operations at scale.
It could also be to some degree there are very weird decisions that have been made at Tesla.
Lets just look at Kimbal who has been on the board since the beginning, with a multi-million dollar compensation package even though he has zero relevant experience in the industry and is a huge outlier compared to the rest of the industry. Sure they are making strides in electric cars but as a business its very out of the norm.
Plus, keep in mind that, if TSLA isn't massively more profitable on a per-car basis than other car companies or doesn't essentially take over the automotive market, any upside is already priced in.
There isn't a car company around right now that doesn't have an electric model coming out in the next couple of years. And so Tesla has nowhere to go but down.
Not sure I understand your logic. EV vehicles account for just over 2% of US vehicles sales in 2018. Globally it'd be more but still minuscule compared to ICE ones. The competition is getting fierce, but they compete for a bigger and bigger cake. If anything there are nowhere to go but up.
Tesla is the leader, not a follower in the segment. They have advantage of manufacturing, charging network, battery, software, and last but definitely not least their brand. If anything some laggards will lose out, for example Chrysler or Mazda.
Tesla booked about 110,000 orders this past quarter. That's a very healthy demand. [0]
I'm not trying to say Tesla has no risks at all, but you have to _really squint_ to not seem them as the clear market leader currently. The Model 3 simply has no competitors today - and to invoke the Taycan is about as disingenuous as it can get.
Where’s the charging network? Why do you not mention 100-150 miles less range when comparing the Taycan to the S and X?
“The maximum range for the Taycan is listed as just 450 km (279 miles) on the WLTP test cycle. The Audi is rated at 255 miles on WLTP and 204 on the U.S, EPA cycle. When the Taycan gets its EPA certification, it will likely have a range of around 220 miles.” - Forbes
The street was expecting much higher than 100k. Down 4& after hour.
Currently Tesla's valuation is higher than both BMW and Mercedes. No doubt, they're enjoying rich multiple due to other forward-looking business units, but they're not generating any money. Their car business is what's keeping the light on.
On long term, Tesla's car business is uncertain. The first-mover advantage is eroding quickly as legacy mfrs are stepping up.
It's an extremely competitive business. And with $45k model flooding the market, the novelty factor of the brand is going to wear off very quickly.
Look at the new Porsche Taycan. To me, that's the new Model S.
Can a Tesla compete on brand, design, interior fit, build quality, support, charging speed, repeatability, handing ? AFAIK it loses in all of these categories.
I thought Tesla superchargers have faster charging speed? They have 150kW charging, is Porsche doing something better?
OP said Taycan is the new Model S, I think that your comment vs. mine highlights that this isn't true -- Taycan customers are not the same as Tesla customers. Tesla customers get a good bang for their buck -- speed, range, charging network at a cheap price. Porsche customers get brand, design, & build quality.
Someone who values what Porsche has to offer probably was never interested in a Tesla.
Meanwhile a Model 3 Performance -- the same speed as the Taycan -- costs $90,000 less.
Young people have been, and will continue to be buying 10-year old junkers, not brand-new Teslas. Outside of the tech bubble, money doesn't grow on trees.
I much rather have the interior of a Tesla. I car much more about the cool features then complaining about a slight overlap of two plastic panals that are under the seat, or whatever car german fetishits obsess about.
> charging speed
They have a small advantage on a tiny number of actual charging stations but the majority of the time your gone charge much slower.
Spiegel is remarkably and consistently wrong about everything related to TSLA, yet always full of sound and fury about it. From the aspect of a relatively neutral observer (me, although I like Tesla) he's a remarkable character study. I often read his Twitter in a state of bemused horror.
He runs his "long-shirt macro hedge fund" out of his 1 bedroom upper east side apartment but probably manages (significantly) less than 10MM USD, although he stopped releasing figures. I'm fascinated by how someone ends up like him. The absolute insistence in his own ability despite all reasonable evidence to the contrary is something to behold.
I have to acknowledge the possibility that his public personality is at least to some extent a performance, perhaps designed to raise his profile among potential investors. But he's so consistently and thoroughly repulsive (see his pinned Twitter non-apology for a since-deleted "joke" involving Epstein, Greta Thunberg, and child rape) among others that I don't think it's all performative.
Am I the only one who thinks the Wall Street is playing dirty? Right before the report they increase the expectations so tesla miss, if they wouldn't increase it that should be a beat, same with eps last quarter. It feels like they force the news headlines to be 'tsla miss'. Or maybe I'm a bit fanatic, please correct me if I'm wrong.
What's the incentive for Wall Street "to play dirty"? Analysts at investment banks need to retain good relationships with the CEOs of the companies (they are not allowed to disclose any market relevant non public information but it still helps tremendously with their work) as well as the investors (by making good forecasts and retaining them as clients).
> Right before the report they increase the expectations
Wasn’t the source of the 100k number Elon himself?
Wall Street analysts were estimating below Elon (and the actual numbers). It looks more like investors ignored Wall Street and took Elon at face value again.
The way this would work is that people work out a target price based on that estimate, and the price should rise accordingly. In any case, they are only a few percent off, the fact that its a "miss" or a "beat" needs to be taken in accordance with magnitude. You are onto something though that a "beat" or a "miss," ever so slight, is generally followed by an increase or drop that tends to be excessive, but this tends to revert within a few days. Some stock pickers like to zero in on stocks that "beat by a penny" (per share) because that is often evidence of some kind of accounting shenanigans to just get over the line.
I don't follow Tesla stock much, but it looks like there was a significant bump in mid September, perhaps on some of these earnings forecasts being updated, and now the price is just falling back in line with reality.
TSLAQ is actually quite happy with this number, with the stock down 5% AH.
The multiple on this stock has it pegged to be an extreme growth company, but 5% annualized delivery growth with shrinking ASPs is decidedly not a "growth" number.
TSLAQ is wrong that it's a fraud and/or insolvent. But they're absolutely right that its valuation is absurd and needs to eventually come down to meet reality.
I think the promises around FSD are fraud, especially since they took a lot of money for it on basically just an over-optimistic hunch of being able to deliver it.
That annualized delivery growth figure does not take into account that the Fremont factory is pegged, they have another factory coming online this quarter, and have 4 unreleased vehicles in the pipeline—-more than doubling their lineup—-one of which (Model Y crossover) is in the hottest segment.
In February this year Elon predicted they would reach 500k annualized production rate by the end of this year. This includes output from GF3. I think they will reach (or very nearly reach) this target.
97,000 was above what several prominent forecasts had.
The meet expectations game is de facto Wall Street financial fraud. They very aggressively, very openly use it either direction to manipulate the market as they see fit. It's one of the few direct levers of fraud they have that won't get them thrown into prison.
And on the other side, you have companies like Cisco that for a decade had a notorious reputation for beating estimates perfectly, by a penny. Every single time, like magic. Obvious financial gaming.
The FactSet sell-side consensus was 99,000. That’s normally what people look at when they quote “expectations”.
And for the most part analysts, I don’t know if you’ve ever met one, are honest people. There can be perverse incentives at times, but calling stock analysts fraudsters isn’t accurate
Good old zerohedge never misses an opportunity to shit on Tesla [0]. Question for Tesla owners: how is the reliability? I'd love to get unto an electric if only to never have to change my oil again but im curious as to what kind of maintenance requirements these cars have.
Amazing, truly, but ... don't get the early version of a new model. I got one of the very early (RWD, 2012) Model S. It was awesome, but it had a far amount of birthing problems and thankfully I live close enough to the service center. However, I really wanted AWD so I swapped it out in 2014 and I haven't had almost no problems with it since.
Compared to the (notoriously reliable) Subaru Impreza WRX I drove for 10 years prior to that, there are no regular oil changes, etc.
No problems with mine so far. No maintainence of any sort so far (12k miles) and the car is unquestionably better (faster, more features, better handling) then when I bought it a year ago.
That’s what the anti-Tesla crowd fails to understand.
Tesla fan here but I have to point out that this headline seems very favorable. Other headlines indicate that despite the new record, the expected deliveries count was 99k.
That market "expectation" was increased to 99K just this week, after the email from Musk was leaked with a mention of 100K deliveries.
Don't trust these market "targets": these are mostly published and (silently) changed to pleased some analyst's clients and make the SP price to move in a preferred direction.
One day I saw 3 Tesla car carriers parked at the truck stop right next to each other (so about 26 or so Teslas - all model 3s). That was a bit unusual, there is typically one Tesla car carrier per day. This was off the 5 in CA (and at a Casino - lol)
Elon claimed they had a chance at 100,000 a few days ago. Based on that this isn't meeting expectations.
Also, the revenue is what matters and the breakdown of 3 vs S vs X indicates they will have significantly lower ASPs and probably will post a YoY revenue decline. That's not great.
Are people really unable to tell the difference between when something is possible versus when it's likely? Maybe it's just my perspective as a physicist, but the gulf between those two things can be immense.
Considering the factory coming online very soon, I think the situation is looking pretty good, actually.
Why do we think they are production limited instead of demand limited? They’ve had to lower ASPs for close to 5 consecutive quarters. That’s not indicative of production constrained.
Having to ship cars to the other side of the planet to the largest electric car market on the planet and pay super high import duties while not having access to local labor (etc) seems like a pretty thorough ball-and-chain on prices compared to what GF3 will enable.
Additionally, they have a significant update to the high end Model S & X coming (three motors), the 2020 Roadster, the Model Y, the Semi, and the Pickup all announced, some of which likely has suppressed demand for their current offerings, which they've been too busy ramping up Model 3 production for to ship. So I think demand is not a problem. And considering they're doing this at a time when their EV credit is nearly completely gone and gas prices are at a near-all-time-low, I think they're doing remarkably well.
...especially considering they don't have a moderately-priced SUV/truck/crossover available yet. None of the top 6 best-selling cars/trucks in the US are actual cars. Model 3 is doing remarkably well considering it's not an SUV, crossover, or a truck.
This really isn’t answering the question. If a company is supply constrained, why would they be reducing prices? That’s literally the exact opposite of what should happen.
The decrease in list price is to offset the decreasing tax credit.
E.g. A $60k Model 3 in 2018 with a $10k credit in MA (State + Federal) is now a $50,500 car with a $1,875 credit. (Federal and no State)
Economically speaking the tax credit was always effectively a payment from the government to Tesla. The real consumer price is basically unchanged over the last year.
Most of the move was after hours when this report was released. Tesla was only down .6% during the day, despite the higher alpha and the market being down 2%.
No, then it’s “more than expected”. Wall Street has been a bull market for 10 straight years. If anything analysts are considerably charitable to companies
… and not entirely unreasonably so, given that Elon Musk teased that number as late as last week: “We have a shot at achieving our first 100,000 vehicle delivery quarter,”
German Carmakers Hate This Trick: Electric Vehicles That Work. Hopefully the eu wakes up and removes barriers for us good, so more europeans can buy teslas.
