cwerdna
Well-known member
Successful business model? They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 500K vehicles. Hasn't had a calendar year with a net profit. If you add up their cumulative profits/losses, it ends up being a cumulative net loss of over $6 billion. If you look at page 66 of https://ir.tesla.com/node/20456/html and add up the net losses, that works out to about $4 billion in those 3 years. And, this is with selling expensive, high margin vehicles.GaleHawkins said:Tesla's successful business model.
(For kicks, page 34 of https://ir.tesla.com/node/17621/html#Item_6 has some of their prior years. You need to multiply those values by 1000. That's another ~$2.3 billion in net loss if you use the attributable to common shareholders values.)
Per page 97, their total debt is also north of $12 billion.
In comparison, the largest automakers do 8 to 10 million vehicles a year (w/a full line of automobiles) and normally make billions of $ in profit/year. This is w/o CEOs sleeping at the factory, complaining about "production hell" and setting up tents outside their factories. And, see what I wrote at https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=463875#p463875.
And, at times, it seems they're just interested in pushing vehicles out the door, defective or not. I've never ever owned or leased a new car that had this many or this sort of paint defects:
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-model-3-delivery-damage-and-paint-quality-issues.182151/#post-4396523
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/red-paint-quality-issues.124897/
I briefly mentioned the assembly defects I'd seen on this on guy's Model 3 at work at https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=539275#p539275.
Whether it actually Tesla's business model becomes "successful" remains to be seen.
Guess you've never heard of companies like BYD: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/12/10/tesla-passes-byd-in-global-ev-sales-the-history-behind-byd-teslas-efforts-at-global-ev-domination/. The Leaf was the world's best selling EV but if the Model 3 hasn't passed it yet, it will real soon. Also see https://insideevs.com/news/396714/world-top-10-plugin-automotive-groups-2019/.GaleHawkins said:Not sure why there is no second or third place competitors to Tesla.
I haven't seen a newer version of https://www.alliance-2022.com/news/alliance-members-achieve-combined-sales-of-10-76-million-units-in-2018/ from Jan 2019:
"In 2018, the Alliance maintained its commitment to zero-emission vehicles. Its leadership in the segment with cumulative sales of 724,905 electric vehicles since 2010 was driven by demand for the Renault ZOE and Nissan LEAF, among other EVs. "
Don't get me wrong. Tesla vehicles do have numerous advantages and things they do well (e.g. OTA updates, straight line performance, range and brand image) besides their excellent (in the US) Supercharger network.