Nothing is made in one single country any more. Your shirt might have been stitched in the U.S. from cloth that was woven in Bangladesh out of cotton that was grown in the U.S., carded in Indonesia, dyed in India, and woven in Croatia. Your Chevy might have been assembled in the U.S. from parts imported from 27 different countries. Nothing is made in any one country any more, unless you buy from local artisans who are careful to source their materials locally. I applaud you if you do this. But the volume such artisans produce cannot meet the demand for goods.
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Is Tesla the "Apple" of automobiles?
- Thread starter T34ME
- Start date
Nothing is made in one single country any more. Your shirt might have been stitched in the U.S. from cloth that was woven in Bangladesh out of cotton that was grown in the U.S., carded in Indonesia, dyed in India, and woven in Croatia. Your Chevy might have been assembled in the U.S. from parts imported from 27 different countries. Nothing is made in any one country any more, unless you buy from local artisans who are careful to source their materials locally. I applaud you if you do this. But the volume such artisans produce cannot meet the demand for goods.
Garlan Garner
Banned
Did apple ever file for bankruptcy?
Has anyone looked at Tesla's stock price lately? OMG. What a shame.
ELON....stop spending so much money! Sell cars!
Has anyone looked at Tesla's stock price lately? OMG. What a shame.
ELON....stop spending so much money! Sell cars!
Yeah, TSLA is only about ten times what I paid for it. What a shame! This has been a volatile stock from the very beginning. But you know what's the worst thing? I'm never going to make any money from my TSLA stock because I like what they're doing so much that I never want to sell the stock. I own a piece of a company that's changing the world for the better.
The only thing Tesla can do to legitimately increase the value of the stock is to grow as a company. And that means doing just what they are doing now: Building great cars and planning for more. They're having some quality issues, which is disappointing, but they are learning and fixing them, which all anyone can ask.
Tesla is the new apple?
You mean tesla is going to intentionally cripple our old cars when a new model comes out? And try and integrate tesla products into every part of your life so you're stuck in the tesla ecosystem no matter how bad it becomes?
You mean tesla is going to intentionally cripple our old cars when a new model comes out? And try and integrate tesla products into every part of your life so you're stuck in the tesla ecosystem no matter how bad it becomes?
I wonder if tesla's bad QC is going to cost them more in repairs and lost customers than it would have cost just to build the cars better. I'm sure they had some accountants do the math at some point. They clearly determined it's more profitable to skip QC and do repairs if the customers whine, but did they take into account what that would do to the brand image?
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Where "intentionally cripple" actually is "mitigate post-shipped-identified hardware issues with a software patch" then, um, well........yeah.
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Repairs are always more expensive than building right the first time. I think the issue is that production is so low compared to what was promised that they had to push the units out. I really think Tesla should have had someone with more volume production experience assist in the launch. Jag is using Magna to build the I-pace. The production nightmare of trying to start-up the giga-factory and launch the high volume car must be killing the production engineers. Hopefully it all works out in the end.
Repairs are always more expensive than building right the first time. I think the issue is that production is so low compared to what was promised that they had to push the units out. I really think Tesla should have had someone with more volume production experience assist in the launch. Jag is using Magna to build the I-pace. The production nightmare of trying to start-up the giga-factory and launch the high volume car must be killing the production engineers. Hopefully it all works out in the end.
I categorically reject the accusation that Tesla accountants did the math and determined it was cheaper to cut corners on quality control and do repairs after the fact. I believe this is just a really hard thing to get right. Remember, if you compare to any car maker 30 years ago, Tesla quality is outstanding. The Japanese companies figured it out, and the American companies improved. Tesla is still learning. They have a long way to go but I believe they are trying and will get better with experience.
in one word "No." Tesla was downgraded again. Not sure how they recover from this to be honest. Expect many more downgrades from here. Not sure how long jonas keeps his price target.
Garlan Garner
Banned
10 times what you paid for it?
I'm speaking to the masses.
The stock price is the lowest in over 12 months. Period.
This is a good example where the comparison breaks down. Companies tend to branch out into other markets when the one they are in start to saturate, or they are otherwise hemmed in by competition and can't budge the margins. Another time companies branch out is when they see an unserved market and they go for it. Apple kind of did both. Apple grabbed a small percentage of the personal computer market early on with the Macintosh, but sales of Microsoft OS machines remained the market dominator through the 90s and into the 2000s.
Apple was market locked but saw opportunities to adapt their existing tech into new markets like digital music players and tablet computers and finally cell phones. Now Apple and most of their competitors are all trying to compete for the digital home and be the dominant tech throughout your house.
Tesla did expand into the solar energy business. They started with the PowerWall and then bought Solar City. I think the Solar City buyout was only to keep the company afloat. They were struggling in a very Balkanized market with constantly dropping prices. But the PowerWall is an expansion of Tesla's existing expertise in li-ion battery technology and it supports car charging as well as becomes a part of the home.
I expect Tesla will continue to innovate in energy storage and collection, which happens to help the supercharger network. But there is a deep vein to be mined in the transportation business that they have only begun to tap. There may come a time when you can't get transportation without entering the Tesla universe, but I don't see them moving into our homes much more than energy sources. I could be wrong, they could end up buying out one of the big players in home automation. But Tesla's "thing" is involved in energy and transportation and doing things nobody else is doing.
And that is where Apple and Tesla are similar. Both have a history of doing things nobody else thought of doing, or weren't doing successfully mostly by applying existing tech in new ways.
One concern I do have with Tesla is they do manufacturing the old school way which does contribute to poor quality. Their products are so much more advanced than anyone elses they can get away with it, but it does hurt their primary goal, which is to make a better car in every way.
Stock analysts have been downgrading Tesla every few weeks since they went public. Anyone who has shorted Tesla up to now has lost money.
But QC isn't some mystery that the japanese figured out and we don't know the secret. It's simply about spending the money to get it right.
I bought TSLA when I got my Roadster. I loved the car so much I decided to buy some stock in the company. TSLA is a volatile stock and has been from the very beginning. I don't care what the stock is worth. I want them to iron out the production issues and start mass-manufacturing the Model 3. I want more EVs on the road.
The stock market is a fickle beast, and there are plenty of nay-sayers. This is a recipe for volatility. One good bit of news, the price shoots up. One bad bit of news, the price plummets. You buy TSLA because you love what the company is doing, or because you believe in its long-term growth, or because you think you can second-guess the market and day-trade on those ups and downs. If you bought it thinking there would be a smooth steady rise, you bought the wrong stock.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Uh, there was a LOT of innovation in Japan automotive industry around QA/QC and manufacturing in general that drove them ahead. It wasn't just "spending the money". In fact money itself is a VERY limited resource and spending more can be considered a failure since price/unit is so key to the point of manufacturing. If "price doesn't matter" you could just make them one-off at whatever price.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Yeah, I bailed at $200. Any upside not already priced in looked a LOT way out, with lots of ways it'd go downside. I just didn't have the stomach for it and my situation is not one where I'm flush enough to take the hit. Currently 1 kid in uni, 2 left to go.
Garlan Garner
Banned
That's not the only reason I buy a stock.
I don't buy stocks because I love the companies. The stock markets are full of wonderful companies at the bottom.
I trusted Tesla's numbers on the timeline they presented......as well as many others did - and have sold off. Elon constantly speaks to the short sellers and understands what they mean as short term investors.
Model 3 was already supposed to produce revenue.....ACCORDING to Tesla's time line...not mine. Investors aren't seeing it and they are selling off. Tesla is burning through cash with nothing to show....as far as returns. The model 3 outsold all EV's on the planet.....however, do investors care? It doesn't appear to be so.
I've waited to comment as many tesla fans told me I didn't know what I was talking about in that Tesla NEEDS to show profit and show it soon. I don't believe Teslas volatility is driven by market swings or anything external to the company itself.
My trailing stop percentage stock sale occurred today......and unfortunately I have nothing attracting me to get back in.
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Yeah, I bailed at $200. Any upside not already priced in looked a LOT way out, with lots of ways it'd go downside. I just didn't have the stomach for it and my situation is not one where I'm flush enough to take the hit. Currently 1 kid in uni, 2 left to go.
Probably the difference is that I don't speculate or day trade. My investments are in low-fee mutual finds and in bonds that I intend to hold to maturity. The only individual-issue stocks I hold are a very few shares in a small number of companies I like enough to want to feel like I'm a part of. I bought 200 shares of TSLA because I loved the Roadster and I loved what Tesla was doing. I bought a few shares of Solar City for the same reason and those turned into a few more shares of TSLA, an odd number that I could not quote offhand, but less than 100. This was not an investment. This was "I want to own a piece of this wonderful company just so I can be a part of the electrification of transportation."
I wish I'd put my entire portfolio in TSLA at $35. I could buy one of those big houses on a cliff overlooking the ocean on Maui today. But at the time Tesla's future was a crapshoot, and I was not willing to take the risk. I don't take risks.
So I don't need to worry about the price of the stock because I don't have enough to care and don't intent to ever sell it.
Barklikeadog
Active Member
Naturally components come from all over. Its not like Barbour has a zipper farm next door and a cotten field out back. Although I wouldnt be surprised if Lucchese has a farm full of ostrich, caimans, and sharks.
The point is that the value added by any one country is small for most of what we buy, including items labeled "Made in U.S.A." I'd be surprised if 15% of the value of your "Made in U.S.A." clothing is due to American labor or materials.
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