Will the Tesla Model 3 turn Elon Musk into the next Henry Ford?

[Ktowntslafan]

Exceptional article today in Globe and Mail, Canada:

Driving through Vancouver 40 years later in an electric-powered Tesla Model S, I could see that this new machine would spell doom for the repair industry – the Tesla had no valves to adjust, no oil to replace, and no spark plugs to clean and gap. A gasoline-powered car is the wheeled equivalent of a Gillette razor handle, locking its owner into an endless series of parts purchases. With the Tesla, all that was gone. It was a driver’s dream, and a car-dealer’s nightmare.

Will the Tesla Model 3 turn Elon Musk into the next Henry Ford?

 

[doctoxics]

Will the Tesla Model 3 turn Elon Musk into the next Henry Ford?

Already has - just have to fill the orders for the confirmation.

 

[djplong]

Henry never launched rockets.
Or invented internet banking.
Or revolutionized solar power companies.

Henry Ford was a racist one-trick pony. I grant you, that was a damn good one-trick.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Interesting article with a good graph:
Tesla On Sales Path Of Ford Model T (Sort of)

If Goldman Sachs is right, and we aggree Tesla will be able to sell 3 million Tesla's in 2025, Tesla's present value is ~ $500 per share with a future value of ~$1800 per share. Even under the "Maytag Repairman Scenario" Tesla's present value per share is $329 with a future value per share of ~$1000.

Thank you GS for leaving plenty of room for you to upgrade once it becomes obvious Tesla can easily sell 3 million vehicles in 2025. ~2020 many of the SUV's and heavy vehicles that were purchased last year as this year due to low interest rates, cheap gasoline, and channel stuffing will be worne down, out of date, and probably won't meet government requirements.

 

[tander]

Henry never launched rockets.
Or invented internet banking.
Or revolutionized solar power companies.

Henry Ford was a racist one-trick pony. I grant you, that was a damn good one-trick.

At this point Musk is more like a combination of Rockefeller, Ford, and Tesla or Edison. Musk certainly has read some history books and has repeated some of Ford's plays almost verbatim. The play I wonder about is whether they will reduce the price of the model 3 each year, just like Ford did for the first ten or so years. And more poignantly, if Rockefeller or Ford were around today, they almost certainly would not be investing in things like oil or gas cars. But with regard to Ford, this is one from several years ago; http://seekingalpha.com/article/439761-is-tesla-the-next-ford.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

At this point Musk is more like a combination of Rockefeller, Ford, and Tesla or Edison. Musk certainly has read some history books and has repeated some of Ford's plays almost verbatim. The play I wonder about is whether they will reduce the price of the model 3 each year, just like Ford did for the first ten or so years. And more poignantly, if Rockefeller or Ford were around today, they almost certainly would not be investing in things like oil or gas cars. But with regard to Ford, this is one from several years ago; http://seekingalpha.com/article/439761-is-tesla-the-next-ford.

I think Tesla will increase the price of the Model X in 6 months - 1 year. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla increases the price for certain features of the Model S in a few months. Those who purchase the early models will be rewarded. Also, this will further distinguish the Model S and Model X from the Model 3.

 

[McRat]

Henry Ford's claim to fame is not the automobile, it's manufacturing a complex product on the cheap. The company he first started, the Henry Ford Company would go on to be the innovator after it changed it's name to Cadillac.

...

Henry Ford was a racist one-trick pony. I grant you, that was a damn good one-trick.

It depends on who you believe. The documented facts, or the revisionist hype. You know the second type as those who print that FDR wasn't wildly racist. Arguably the most racist President of the 20th century.

Henry Ford was noted for doubling the average pay and reducing working hours, hiring blacks, women, and the handicapped, before it popular. The criticism against him was that he was TOO paternal, not that he was anti-labor. He was anti-union because he believed his method helped workers more than the unions were at the time. Which in fact was true. Ford paid more than the UAW shops.

 

[ludicrousspeed]

The play I wonder about is whether they will reduce the price of the model 3 each year, just like Ford did for the first ten or so years.

Tesla will be reducing the price as time passes in a sense. The first year or so, Tesla will likely only deliver the orders with extra options, probably around a $50k-55k average. After a couple of years pass they will run through the backlog and deliver every order they receive, which will be at lower average prices. This allows them to keep decent margins during initial production stages while the battery costs are still rapidly declining as the gigafactory is being built.

 

[S'toon]

Henry Ford's claim to fame is not the automobile, it's manufacturing a complex product on the cheap. The company he first started, the Henry Ford Company would go on to be the innovator after it changed it's name to Cadillac.



It depends on who you believe. The documented facts, or the revisionist hype. You know the second type as those who print that FDR wasn't wildly racist. Arguably the most racist President of the 20th century.

Henry Ford was noted for doubling the average pay and reducing working hours, hiring blacks, women, and the handicapped, before it popular. The criticism against him was that he was TOO paternal, not that he was anti-labor. He was anti-union because he believed his method helped workers more than the unions were at the time. Which in fact was true. Ford paid more than the UAW shops.

It's not as clean cut as that.
Arbitraging a Discriminatory Labor Market: Black Workers at the Ford Motor Company, 1918–1947

 

[McRat]

It's not as clean cut as that.
Arbitraging a Discriminatory Labor Market: Black Workers at the Ford Motor Company, 1918–1947

To buy into that theory, you need to believe that the "skilled labor" % in the black community was equal to that of other races.

It was a Catch-22. Companies didn't want to hire blacks because they had less experience, so fewer blacks could gain experience, thus justifying their hiring practices and lower wages.

This was not unique to blacks. Immigrants and women had the same problems. Lower experience kept them in the less desirable jobs.

But in any case, this was an era of systematic racism. Keep in mind even the US Government hiring practices were heavily racist in this time period, and they would actually defend it with "blacks are inferior, so we can't use them". The FBI started hiring blacks after 10 years, but only to do undercover work in the black community. Interesting tidbit, one of the first was a body guard for Roosevelt. Theodore of course, not Franklin.

 

[Canuck]

Henry Ford: July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947
Darwin On the Origin of Species: Originally published: November 24, 1859

"Though racism can be found throughout history, Darwin was the first to give it an alleged scientific validity. The subtitle of The Origin of Species was The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Darwin's writings about "the preservation of favored races," and in particular the unscientific claims in his The Descent of Man, lent support to the Nazis' erroneous belief in the superiority of Aryan race, and a similar British belief about the Anglo-Saxons. In addition, Darwin's theory of natural selection spoke of a fight to the death, a "law of the jungle." Applying it to human societies made conflict and war inevitable between races and nations. A great many prominent figures of the time, from warlike statesmen to philosophers, from politicians to scientists [to car makers like Henry Ford?], adopted Darwin's theory.
...
Of course, this claim is totally unfounded. That people have different skin colors or different racial or ethnic origins doesn't make them superior or inferior to anyone else. One main reason why this deception became prevalent in the 19th century was the widespread ignorance of the time, itself due to the primitive scientific conditions."

RACISM AND NATURAL SELECTION

It's so easy to look at history and call people racist. It's much harder to look into your own heart and eliminate any racism that may exist.

 

[dmckinstry]

It's so easy to look at history and call people racist. It's much harder to look into your own heart and eliminate any racism that may exist.

Or even to admit to its existence.

 

[S'toon]

Keep in mind it was Ford who printed The Protocols of Elders of Zion in his company paper, and sponsored the printing of 500,000 copies of it in the 1920s.

 

[tander]

Tesla will be reducing the price as time passes in a sense. The first year or so, Tesla will likely only deliver the orders with extra options, probably around a $50k-55k average. After a couple of years pass they will run through the backlog and deliver every order they receive, which will be at lower average prices. This allows them to keep decent margins during initial production stages while the battery costs are still rapidly declining as the gigafactory is being built.

Yeah I don't know. On the one hand Musk is as much or more of a capitalist as Ford and it wouldn't be maximizing margins in the short-run to lower prices. But then again if you really want to "accelerate the advent of sustainable transport" a great way to accelerate is make it cheaper every year for both the seller and the consumer like Ford did, and he would be undercutting the competitors gaining market share. Although Ford was kind of building the car market at that time, and now it's pretty much saturated so it might not make sense for this century.

 

[Skotty]

Henry Ford's claim to fame is not the automobile, it's manufacturing a complex product on the cheap.

Gigafactory. I suspect there is a high probability that the Gigafactory will pay off big time and give Tesla a huge advantage for many years. LG will be able to catch up so long as they have an ambitious automotive partner; LG is a darn good company IMO; but it will still take a number of years.

 

[deonb]

Keep in mind it was Ford who printed The Protocols of Elders of Zion in his company paper, and sponsored the printing of 500,000 copies of it in the 1920s.

That was the original Russian forgery, which was included, but he added an American perspective and published: "The International Jew - The World's Foremost Problem", which was then later picked up in German, and used by Hitler to get popular support for his policies.

I believe it was the Dearborn Independent publications that were used as the textbook in German schools until 1933. (Not just the original forgery).

Ford later said it was an underling who wrote it, and that he never read it. I somewhat doubt that...