What’s interesting about this is it preceded a capital raise by less than a week. Today we understand they are currently around 25% of that goal, depending whose numbers are most accurate.
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The coming Tesla cash cow and the short burn of the century
- Thread starter DaveT
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Uncle Paul
Well-Known Member
Biggest problem here is that investors are trying to make sense of Elon by comparing his finances to other people.
Perhaps a story migh explain why financial analysis cannot completely flesh out his motivations.
Guy walks down the street and sees a woman with a child hanging out of a burning building. He runs across the street, and buys a ladder tall enough to reach the panicing lady.
Puts the ladder up against the wall. The lady clutches her child and climbs down to safety.
Financial analysis will note the guy did not forcast his intent to borrow the funds to buy the ladder. That he paid full retail plus applicable taxes, did not check out the yelp reviews. Could gotten one much cheaper on Amazon and avoided paying sales taxes by ordering out of state.
They noticed that the guy incurred some significant liability and could have been sued if the ladder was in appropriate for the task at hand. Did not have OSHA sticker, and was not specifically designed for life saving duty.
They will also notice that he go no financial return from the rescue. Would not be financially able to do this on a high volume consistant basis. Goal was to save the endangered lives.
You kinda get the idea.
It is not Elon's main intent to make himself even richer. His intent is to protect the environment of the earth from billions of polluting ICE vehicles and burning polluting fossil fuels like oil and coal. He wants us to protect our planet as much as possible, and his plan B is to also colonize other planets, and eventually other Solar systems to guard against the possibility that the Earth may some day no longer support life.
Judging Elons accomplishments by how much money his companies are making is missing the point. He will spend what he must. Borrow what he can, and get all the governmental support that comes his way. He is on a mission...not grubbing for money.
Our government operates on a similar fashion. They are also on a mission to accomplish, what to them seems to be important. They will stive to reduce hunger and poverty, clean the planet, populate space (with people and satellites).
They will wage war against other countries that they feel does not do the right things. The cost of the war does not always become the most important variable. They will maintain huge standing Military, often with the intent of never using it. They will develop terribly destructive weapons, often only for their deterent effect, also hoping never to deploy their destructive force. They will do illegal, immoral, non financially feasible things in support of their strategies.
Believe that those selling Tesla short, simply to increase their bank balances, might be missing the point...terribley
Perhaps a story migh explain why financial analysis cannot completely flesh out his motivations.
Guy walks down the street and sees a woman with a child hanging out of a burning building. He runs across the street, and buys a ladder tall enough to reach the panicing lady.
Puts the ladder up against the wall. The lady clutches her child and climbs down to safety.
Financial analysis will note the guy did not forcast his intent to borrow the funds to buy the ladder. That he paid full retail plus applicable taxes, did not check out the yelp reviews. Could gotten one much cheaper on Amazon and avoided paying sales taxes by ordering out of state.
They noticed that the guy incurred some significant liability and could have been sued if the ladder was in appropriate for the task at hand. Did not have OSHA sticker, and was not specifically designed for life saving duty.
They will also notice that he go no financial return from the rescue. Would not be financially able to do this on a high volume consistant basis. Goal was to save the endangered lives.
You kinda get the idea.
It is not Elon's main intent to make himself even richer. His intent is to protect the environment of the earth from billions of polluting ICE vehicles and burning polluting fossil fuels like oil and coal. He wants us to protect our planet as much as possible, and his plan B is to also colonize other planets, and eventually other Solar systems to guard against the possibility that the Earth may some day no longer support life.
Judging Elons accomplishments by how much money his companies are making is missing the point. He will spend what he must. Borrow what he can, and get all the governmental support that comes his way. He is on a mission...not grubbing for money.
Our government operates on a similar fashion. They are also on a mission to accomplish, what to them seems to be important. They will stive to reduce hunger and poverty, clean the planet, populate space (with people and satellites).
They will wage war against other countries that they feel does not do the right things. The cost of the war does not always become the most important variable. They will maintain huge standing Military, often with the intent of never using it. They will develop terribly destructive weapons, often only for their deterent effect, also hoping never to deploy their destructive force. They will do illegal, immoral, non financially feasible things in support of their strategies.
Believe that those selling Tesla short, simply to increase their bank balances, might be missing the point...terribley
arcus
Active Member
25-40%, most likely.
Anyway, it's fair criticism that the 10k goal has slipped into 2019. In my model I have only 300-400k Model 3 in 2019, which means I accept there's a significant risk 10k won't be reached until the second half. That's almost a full year delay.
The thing about Tesla is that they don't always reach their goals in a timely fashion. But they always reach their goals.
Yet sometimes he does things that make people LESS likely to switch to electric cars, like the phone key. Making his products narrowly aimed at tech addicts SHRINKS his potential customer base, which keeps more people in ICE cars, and puts more C02 into the air.
Simplifying production allows them to produce as many cars as possible, which allows them to displace ICE vehicles to the greatest extent possible. There is no shortage of demand, so the divisive design choices don't matter.
Every person who is turned off by something like the phone key is one car less sold. Are you saying sales don't matter?
And a fob is not like adding a gullwing doors. It's material costs are tiny. It's something they've done hundreds of thousands of times before.
If your turned off by technology ride in a rickshaw.
dhrivnak
Active Member
Another alternative is to bring back the Ranger program as a guy in a truck (or ideally a Model X) can fix most things on the car without the need for an expensive building.
How many additional Model 3 do you think they would have sold thus far if they had included a fob?
I think zero, because they are limited by supply, not demand. Most likely, Tesla won't have to worry about demand at all until 2020 at the earliest. If in 2020, they see that people really want a fob, a hud, etc, they can add them to boost demand.
Sure. I think Tesla could have offered a fob if they had wanted to. But every additional dollar spent is a dollar less in gross margin.
Every unemployed, food stamp collecting, on Medicaid patient I have ever seen at my office has a giant smart phone. I really don't think using a smart phone as the car key for a Tesla is going to be a problem.
I don't think the non-fob is that much of a risk because the S and X fobs also use BlueTooth LE, which would allow Tesla to backtrack as necessary, while also allowing people to use their phones as keys if they wish. In fact they're going to add the phone-as-fob option to the S and X.
Reciprocity
Active Member
Riddle be this.. what happens when Tesla can double their margins on S75D level car by replacing it in the line up with the P3LRD with twice the gross margins? Smaller battery alone is worth $4,000 in gross margins just because of the size much less the savings from 2170 cells. Plus another 20% savings in raw materials from the smaller car and then the labor which is much less with the automation. Double the margins maybe be an understatement. GMs for the Model 3 $75k car might be as much as 40% while the margins for the S75D could be as low as 10-15% for the base model with no options.
Will Tesla be sad to not sell any S75Ds? Probably not considering the margins. The only ones they would sell would be loaded with options like EAP and FSD. Eventually they will phase it out when the S120D comes out and model S moves up market.
Will Tesla be sad to not sell any S75Ds? Probably not considering the margins. The only ones they would sell would be loaded with options like EAP and FSD. Eventually they will phase it out when the S120D comes out and model S moves up market.
You're obviously educated enough to know better than to write something like that.
Compound adjectives should be hyphenated.
I certainly don't see access to a smartphone as a problem. It's getting it to work right that's a problem. Especially with Bluetooth, which is notoriously problematic. But maybe Bluetooth needs something like this to eliminate shitty implementations.
For a lot of disadvantaged people, their only access to the Interwebs is through a smartphone. Not that they would generally be buying a Model 3 either, but I agree. The Real Reasons Smartphones and Poverty Go Together
Anything in the local news about whether Autopilot was engaged?
Police investigate Tesla Model S crash on Bangerter Highway
Wow, 60mph into the back of a stopped fire truck and she gets away with a broken ankle. I wonder if she was traveling 60mph but braked and slowed some or whether she really hit the stopped fire truck at 60mph? Judging by the mangled front end of her car, I wouldn't be surprised if she was going 60mph at impact. But then, what about Automatic Emergency Braking?
Chickenlittle
Banned
Thought you had your own thread dedicated to your thoughts
jelloslug
Active Member
Like I said before, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of where the financial numbers come from.
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