Tesla with three factories in addition to Fremont will produce about 3% of the world's automobiles. If you think that is "game over" your math teacher probably should have been in a different line of work.
Its is game over because at that point Tesla should have sales at least 50% of the largest car maker in the world, Toyota. At that point Tesla will either be able to startup another 2 giga factories/ year (assuming they can both make cells, packs, cars and energy storage at the same site), while not having to borrow a penny or dilute its stock.
There are also other arguments like trying to sell a Tesla to a conservative customer which doesn't want to purchase cars from companies it doesn't consider financially solid. At that point Tesla should be selling a lot of cars in developing countries (China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, eastern Europe, ...) which helps it diversify its income (very helpful from a basket of currencies perspective).
Its game over because at that point other car makers will start to look like fossils. Those that start seriously investing on EVs TODAY still have a chance. For those that wait another 2 years it might be too late.
There's talk of a new generation of fossil fuel engines which would have 40% efficiency (without regen), add regen to that and you could have near 60% net efficiency for in city driving. That might be the way to give fossil cars another 10 years of good sales before even those die anyway.
Oh, GM paying its 5% dividend, good in the short term, but in the long run its a disaster if GM goes bankrupt again.
Some people insist on treating number of cars sales as the important metric. Thats boloney. What matters is US$ billion in sales / year. If Tesla is selling US$ 50 billion / yr and growing, to me it doesn't matter if its 80% cars, 20% the rest, 50/50, or 40/60. What matters is it has the cash to keep growing.
A US$ 150k Tesla generates at least 20x more positive cash flow than US$ 15k popular cars.
Units / year doesn't matter. Even sales don't matter that much either. Its positive cash flow that matters (before investments and tolling).
I said they were doomed to fail. You said GM wasn't serious about EVs and only cared about profits, suggesting they have to pick one or the other. If that's true, then EVs are impractical and should fail.
EVs are NOT impractical. A Model 3 was impractical 10 years ago. First came the roadster, then the Model S, the X, now the Model 3. The model Y will be even cheaper. The Tesla Semi should hit the road in 18 to 24 months, something that were considered insanity just 2 years ago (a 400 to 1000kWh Lithium pack on a vehicle).
Those that consider EVs impractical pretend the technology and lithium costs are stuck at the numbers from 12-18 months ago and pretend its not evolving.
