TSLA corporate outlook

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GaleHawkins said:
Tesla's successful business model.
Click to expand...
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.

(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.
GaleHawkins said:
Not sure why there is no second or third place competitors to Tesla.
Click to expand...
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/.

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.
 
Saying Tesla is an "unsuccessful" company because of losses to date is like calling Amazon unsuccessful prior to 2018. It's a little ridiculous. Tesla has followed a pretty predictable script. Take on debt and losses to build out capacity of a popular high margin product. The numbers you mentioned don't sound odd at all for a new company. There are several companies with similar or worse balance sheets and earnings history. Netflix, Roku, Beyond Meat, Uber, Lyft. Those are just a handful in my portfolio. Tesla has a much more secure runway than any of those companies.
 
cwerdna said:
GaleHawkins said:
Tesla's successful business model.
Click to expand...
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.

(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.
GaleHawkins said:
Not sure why there is no second or third place competitors to Tesla.
Click to expand...
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/.

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.
Click to expand...

All I know Tesla is racing to the top and Nissan is winning the race to the bottom or to the exits.
 
cwerdna said:
GaleHawkins said:
Tesla's successful business model.
Click to expand...
Successful business model? They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 500K vehicles.
Click to expand...
That's an odd hurdle to claim. Last year they sold 365K. When was the last time a new auto manufacturer in the U.S. did anything similar?
 
jlv said:
cwerdna said:
GaleHawkins said:
Tesla's successful business model.
Click to expand...
Successful business model? They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 500K vehicles.
Click to expand...
That's an odd hurdle to claim. Last year they sold 365K. When was the last time a new auto manufacturer in the U.S. did anything similar?
Click to expand...

More importantly, their sales are only limited by capacity. AKA - They sell them as fast as they can make them. Any company that can do that profitably is successful.
 
Tesla has a chance to be the monopoly seller of cars.
Tesla could become a boutique brand, with a stock price 1/10 of todays.
Tesla has a larger chance of going broke.

I'm not even close to smart enough to guess which happens. If you think you are, well that's great.

The world might be going into an economic recession/depression triggered by COVID19 and exploded by debt and deficits. If so, demand for high end cars including Tesla's might decline. Tesla might not survive a sales downturn. Oil prices down, new car sales plummeting, used cars selling cheap. Air pollution and traffic problems might get rather better... cold comfort.

Or Tesla might maintain sales better than the big automakers, survive and explode in sales and profitability when the economy recovers.
 
^wow, some common sense in the TSLA thread, who'd thunk it?

I wonder how many of today's TSLA investors lived through 1999 or even 2008 for that matter.
 
cwerdna said:
GaleHawkins said:
Tesla's successful business model.
Click to expand...
Successful business model? They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 500K vehicles.
Click to expand...

Just to point out how absurd that point of view ... lets show how it would have looked over the last 4 years...

Feb 2017: "They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 100K vehicles." (2016 97959)
Feb 2018: "They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 150K vehicles." (2017 135521)
Feb 2019: "They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 250K vehicles." (2018 220036)
Feb 2020: "They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 500K vehicles." (2019 365194)

These are all be true statements.
 
jlv said:
cwerdna said:
GaleHawkins said:
Tesla's successful business model.
Click to expand...
Successful business model? They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 500K vehicles.
Click to expand...
That's an odd hurdle to claim. Last year they sold 365K. When was the last time a new auto manufacturer in the U.S. did anything similar?
Click to expand...
The major automakers produce and sell that 365K in about a month (or a bit less) or two.

My point is that Tesla's market cap makes no sense in light of their loss making ability and limited # vehicles they sell vs. other automakers.
goldbrick said:
I wonder how many of today's TSLA investors lived through 1999 or even 2008 for that matter.
Click to expand...
Yep. I started dabbling in the stock market in 1997 when I had almost no money and didn't know squat about investing. And, it made no sense that the stock more than tripled from Oct 2019 to its recent peak. Did really THAT much actually change with respect to the company itself and what was going on there between those two time periods?
 
WetEV said:
Tesla has a chance to be the monopoly seller of cars.
Tesla could become a boutique brand, with a stock price 1/10 of todays.
Tesla has a larger chance of going broke.

I'm not even close to smart enough to guess which happens. If you think you are, well that's great.

The world might be going into an economic recession/depression triggered by COVID19 and exploded by debt and deficits. If so, demand for high end cars including Tesla's might decline. Tesla might not survive a sales downturn. Oil prices down, new car sales plummeting, used cars selling cheap. Air pollution and traffic problems might get rather better... cold comfort.

Or Tesla might maintain sales better than the big automakers, survive and explode in sales and profitability when the economy recovers.
Click to expand...

In KY we say 'mites' grow on chickens. :)

Have you read the book below by Ashlee Vance? If not consider it so your posts on this subject are factual based.

https://bookvideoclub.com/elon-musk-by-ashlee-vance-book-summary/

More about the chickens. Chicken Little falsely said the sky is falling. If you are Tesla it may seem that the sky is rising. If you are Nissan it may seem like the sky is actually falling.
 
cwerdna said:
jlv said:
cwerdna said:
Successful business model? They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 500K vehicles.
Click to expand...
That's an odd hurdle to claim. Last year they sold 365K. When was the last time a new auto manufacturer in the U.S. did anything similar?
Click to expand...
The major automakers produce and sell that 365K in about a month (or a bit less) or two.

My point is that Tesla's market cap makes no sense in light of their loss making ability and limited # vehicles they sell vs. other automakers.
goldbrick said:
I wonder how many of today's TSLA investors lived through 1999 or even 2008 for that matter.
Click to expand...
Yep. I started dabbling in the stock market in 1997 when I had almost no money and didn't know squat about investing. And, it made no sense that the stock more than tripled from Oct 2019 to its recent peak. Did really THAT much actually change with respect to the company itself and what was going on there between those two time periods?
Click to expand...

Very little changed other than the minds of the investors.
 
cwerdna said:
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....
Click to expand...

Honestly though, what would you expect the trajectory to look like for a brand-new automobile company focusing on EV technology, for you to be impressed?
 
jlv said:
cwerdna said:
GaleHawkins said:
Tesla's successful business model.
Click to expand...
Successful business model? They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 500K vehicles.
Click to expand...

Just to point out how absurd that point of view ... lets show how it would have looked over the last 4 years...

Feb 2017: "They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 100K vehicles." (2016 97959)
Feb 2018: "They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 150K vehicles." (2017 135521)
Feb 2019: "They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 250K vehicles." (2018 220036)
Feb 2020: "They haven't had a year where they've sold nor produced 500K vehicles." (2019 365194)

These are all be true statements.
Click to expand...

The goalposts keep moving but they won't forever. I've seen this with folks I talk to about EVs. The price/performance people insist is required before theyd "ever think of an electric car" has risen dramatically over the years as each successive demand has been met. There's only so much you can ask for, before seeing it delivered convinces you. The crossover point has an air of inevitability.
 
Reddit’s Profane, Greedy Traders Are Shaking Up the Stock Market
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-26/reddit-s-profane-greedy-traders-are-shaking-up-the-stock-market
"Chatter on message boards is reshaping the options market and sparking wild rallies."

I figured this is a good place since Tesla's mentioned and obviously has been subject to some wild moves recently.
 
GCR:
Will cheaper gas slow Tesla's Surge?
Click to expand...
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1127438_will-cheaper-gas-slow-tesla-s-surge


One good reason to buy an electric car is to save money on fuel, so will low gas prices slow down Tesla sales?

Wall Street, it seems, says "no."

In a recent Barron's article, two Wall Street analysts said they believe electric-car adoption is now largely decoupled from gas prices.

While some customers may be turned away by cheap gas, "the overall environmental movement" as well as technological improvements will likely "neutralize" any drop in gas prices, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Barron's.

The cost differential between gasoline and electricity is "nonmaterial" in EV purchase decisions, New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu told Barron's, while noting that many buyers use potential gas savings to "comfort themselves" about their purchases.

This prediction is very different from what actually happened to hybrids and other fuel-efficient cars with a gas tank when gas prices rose in the wake of the 2008 economic recession. . . .

Not everyone agrees that electric cars are immune to oil-price fluctuations.

Tesla won't achieve "mass-market volume" for another decade, Morningstar analyst David Whiston said in an interview with The Street.

Other analyses have linked electric-car adoption to oil prices, claiming sales would increase as oil prices rose.

One certainty is that automakers now face more regulatory pressure to sell electric cars—in Europe and China, at least.
Click to expand...


Summary- some say yes, some say no :roll: My take is that high-end BEVs will be more immune to gas price drops than (closer to) mass-market-priced ones.

In other news, via ABG:
Tesla chief Elon Musk's trial postponed due to coronavirus
Shareholders complained SolarCity deal benefitted Musk at their expense
Click to expand...
https://www.autoblog.com/2020/03/13/elon-musk-tesla-solarcity-trial-postponed-coronavirus/
 
[/url] https://electrek.co/2020/03/13/tesla-model-y-has-a-heat-pump-for-consistent-range-in-cold-climates/ [/url]

Tesla Model Y has a heat pump for consistent range in cold climates

No heat pump was the main Tesla negative in my view since getting the Leaf with the heat pump feature. Since the Model Y now has it as well as a factory tow package per the manual that makes me more excited about owning a Tesla. Now if they were the price of a Leaf I would be cooking with gas. :)
 
As is mentioned in the comments section (and not at al by the idiot author) there are many different heat pumps, with effective heating temp ranges that can end as high as right at Freezing, to -25F, so until Tesla publishes actual specs and/or drivers do tests in cold temps, it won't be known how much of an advantage this particular heat pump gives the Model Y.
 

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