
The Truth Is Catching Up with Tesla - NN88
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-truth-is-catching-up-with-tesla-1507399374
======
totalZero
Weren't there order cancellations that brought the number to 455,000 in early
August? I may be remembering incorrectly.

I do remember that Musk put it this way: "It's like if you're a restaurant and
you're serving hamburgers, and there's like an hour-and-a-half wait for
hamburgers — do you really want to encourage more people to order more
hamburgers?"

There's a pretty low likelihood that the market will turn on Musk at this
point. And they shouldn't. Poor execution on production issues, for a product
that maintains high demand, doesn't change the fundamental value of the
company, nor its potential for growth and greater market share. All it changes
is the timeframe of the company's trajectory.

~~~
treebeard901
It would be interesting to know if any of the cancellations were from the same
people shorting the stock.

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artemisyna
On one hand, missing stated production timelines is not great.

On the other hand, people ought to be used to Elon Time by now. That'd be a
problem if the other car manufacturers were closer to catching up with Tesla,
but it doesn't seem like that's the case.

~~~
dlp211
You're joking right? Every major car manufacture has, or is about to have a
car that is competitive with the model 3. Multiple larger car makers believe
whole hog that electric is the future.

If you are talking about the self-driving car features, I would first state
that Tesla doesn't have those either, and their marketing is a huge liability
for them. Second, the major car manufacturer's are at least at the same place
as Tesla, are further along, but due aren't as aggressive with bringing the
tech to market until they have substantial confidence in it.

~~~
jseliger
_Every major car manufacture has, or is about to have a car that is
competitive with the model 3_

[Citation needed], as they say on Wikipedia.

Lots of press releases have been issued, but only Chevy has released the Bolt.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a long-term optimist. But the long term may be
distressingly long in getting here.

~~~
fpoling
Just today I read about Nissan Leaf 2018 with its range of 150 miles while
staying below 30K USD and newer eGolf from Volkswagen is also interesting.
Given how much Volkswagen managed to improve the battery pack it seems the
German manufacturer is taking the business of developing powerful car
batteries very seriously.

~~~
hwillis
The new Leaf costs 85% as much as a model 3. It has 68% the range, 10" less
length and 6" less width, no actual trunk or frunk, and 57% as much horsepower
(less than a Honda Civic). It's a way worse value and when you're trying to
sell a cheap car, value is the whole point. Doubly so for an electric car
since if someone can't scrape up another 5 grand they could just buy a
combustion car.

The eGolf is the same deal at the same price, but 52% as much power and 57% as
much range. That's terrible! Compare the differences between the model 3 and
model S: 85% the range, 68% of the horsepower, _56%_ of the cost. The model
3's performance is farther removed from the Leaf and eGolf than it is from the
model S, but the pricing is totally reversed.

~~~
fpoling
Judging by Norway where electrical cars are bought nowdays as a primary car
people are sensitive to the extra 5000 USD that model 3 asks compared with
Leaf. Surely model 3 is nicer, but better price/performance is meaningless if
the price cannot be afforded. As for the range, even on eGolf from 2016 with
its range of 200km I drove 500km through mountains and it took me about 15%
longer due to the need for charging.

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tankenmate
Charley Grant has been writing largely negative stories about Tesla since at
least mid 2015 [0] saying that investors won't make the gains they hope for.
And yet the stock price has improved since then. So, he might in time be
right, but so far he hasn't been. Take with a grain of salt.

[0] [https://www.wsj.com/video/tesla-delivery-numbers-dont-
tell-f...](https://www.wsj.com/video/tesla-delivery-numbers-dont-tell-full-
story/31D34EE8-DD7D-4485-8DC9-672B9C92DD9A.html)

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pavlakoos
All companies have delays. Especially those inventing things nobody did before
them.

And some companies have production capacity issues. Especially those
experiencing superhigh demand on their products.

Tesla got 0.5mln preorders. With approx 2-3 years of waiting time, people had
to pay 1000 USD upfront, out of their pockets. And they did.

Tesla is seeing an extreme demand for their high-priced product. Every
entrepreneur and enterprise would love to be in Musk's shoes. Given all that,
delayed deliveries and shaking liquidity should be considered only "logistics"
issues, not "will he fail?" discussions.

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factsaresacred
> Tesla stock is valued as though the company can execute on its vision
> flawlessly.

Boo-hoo. This is a basically a 10 paragraph horoscope. The market's blend of
greed, hope and fear meets reality.

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SigmundA
Tesla / Musk has bothered me for a while, on one hand I think everything he is
doing is the future and the right thing, the right goals, on the other they
seem to be trying to get there by selling BS.

I was really waiting for the semi since the math didn't seem to work out.

Maybe thats what it take to motivate people, know how to sell the BS and make
them believe. I have wondered if the math will catch up with them though.

Maybe doing anything big is not profitable or efficient, dump money into until
it works.

~~~
hwillis
> I was really waiting for the semi since the math didn't seem to work out.

It actually does- they're going for long range which in the context of
trucking is anywhere from 500-800 miles- surprisingly short compared to the
2500+ mile range of a fully gassed semi. Keep in mind that 500 miles is 8 full
hours of 65 mph driving though! That covers 80%+ of all commercial driving.

With an aerodynamic cab the drag coefficient of a semi can get to ~.4 with a
115 sqft frontal area. That works out to 132 kW at 70 mph. Including rolling
resistance and 90% drivetrain efficiency that comes to 1,200-2,000 kWh for
500-800 miles. That's 5-10 tonnes of batteries at the module level (doesn't
include cooling or armor).

The engine, exhaust, transmission and fuel in a semi truck weighs several
tonnes- at the lower end of range, converting to batteries could even _reduce_
weight. Even 800 miles of range is a pretty insignificant increase to the
weight of the tractor, especially if they can improve on aerodynamics or count
range at a lower speed. The cost of all those batteries is 200-300k, which is
expensive but not unusual for a semi truck.

In short the numbers actually work out quite well for electric semis. Charging
locations and power are an issue that will limit them to set routes for the
near future, and even in the long term it will be hard to replace sleeper cabs
doing 1200+ mile nonstop trips. However routes like that are very rare indeed.

~~~
SigmundA
>Keep in mind that 500 miles is 8 full hours of 65 mph driving though!

Truckers do 700 miles days legally. Your talking 10 hours to recharge on super
charger for 500 miles of battery vs a few minutes at truck stop for diesel.
Might be ok if they can sleep at super charger, going to be a while before
that infrastructure is built out. simply not viable for long haul.

>The engine, exhaust, transmission and fuel in a semi truck weighs several
tonnes- at the lower end of range, converting to batteries could even reduce
weight.

A 15 liter diesel and transmission weighs 2 tons, 300 gallons diesel 1 ton. it
will be heavier, meaning less capacity even with only 200-300 miles of range.

>The cost of all those batteries is 200-300k, which is expensive but not
unusual for a semi truck.

The whole truck cost 200-300k, now you just doubled it.

~~~
hwillis
I did mention that the trucks will be nonviable for any non-corporate use.
I'll also point out that charge time is independent of battery size: as long
as the charger is large enough (as in MW+), Tesla Semis will charge in the
same time as Tesla sedans. So 200 miles in about 20 minutes.

> A 15 liter diesel and transmission weighs 2 tons, 300 gallons diesel 1 ton.
> it will be heavier, meaning less capacity even with only 200-300 miles of
> range.

Even with those numbers, that would only be a 5% increase in weight. It
affects the capacity of fully loaded trucks (very minorly) but it doesn't
affect the range whatsoever.

> The whole truck cost 200-300k, now you just doubled it.

Minus the cost of engine etc. Most nice trucks cost less than $200k so it is
still easily double the average truck, but that's expected given maintenance
and fuel savings. Upfront cost is comparable to some of the really nice
European models.

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erikb
Is there a way to see how many cars per month Tesla is currenlty producing?

~~~
greglindahl
No, because they don't report monthly numbers.

Other manufacturers do, you can see them here: [https://insideevs.com/monthly-
plug-in-sales-scorecard/](https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-
scorecard/)

The numbers for Tesla on that page are monthly estimates which are trued-up
every quarter.

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bparsons
WSJ really has it out for Tesla.

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spiorf
This is starting to look like the bitcoin obituaries situation.

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olegkikin
Can we not post paywalled garbage? Why give backlinks to something we can't
see?

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bastijn
Without wsj paywall:

[https://outline.com/LHX3V9](https://outline.com/LHX3V9)

~~~
dlp211
And then there is this: [http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/technology/tesla-
semi-delay/...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/technology/tesla-semi-
delay/index.html)

When will investors punish Tesla for this constant non-sense. Anyone else
would have been ejected by the board by now and shareholders would be gnashing
their teeth for some accountability, but not the holy Musk.

~~~
adventured
Anyone else that delivered on what Musk actually has delivered, would not have
been ejected by the board or shareholders by now.

Specifically because of Tesla's $59 billion market cap and the extraordinary
return Musk has produced for shareholders. That sweet thousand percent return
over the last five years. Yeah, shareholders are just chomping at the bit to
get rid of Musk.

~~~
quickben
A subsidized car, a government contract limited run space shuttle and some
house tiles and batteries that didn't quite take off.

Objectively, the stock is overhyped, and somebody will retire nicely from
shorting it fairly soon.

~~~
matt4077
Objectively, you haven't understood the efficient market hypothesis.

Subjectively, the house tiles and batteries were never meant to take off,
SpaceX had rockets to orbit before they ever got a NASA contract, the
subsidies on the car were negligible in the scheme of things, and also
available to anybody else.

~~~
quickben
"the subsidies on the car were _negligible_ "

$14000 in Ontario.

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apsec112
Paywall workaround: [http://archive.is/ghsOu](http://archive.is/ghsOu)

