
Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/business/tesla-earnings-elon-musk.html
======
ProfessorLayton
Tesla's 1.5B reduction of cash on hand was largely due to the 920M convertible
bond payment — but that only happened because TSLA didn't perform to the level
necessary for conversion (~$360 IIRC). I wonder what changes in terms this'll
warrant for future capital raises.

Then they mention that they missed a lot of revenue due to missing _half_
their shipments overseas, and onto Q2 (But also expecting a loss in Q2).

Sales for their higher-margin vehicles seemed to have cratered, explained by
seasonality, lower US tax credits going forward, and inventory/demand
mismatch.

Panasonic has halted their planned battery plant expansion, which implies a
lot about future demand.

I don't want to be a downer, but I'm having a hard time seeing the way forward
for Tesla in a manner that isn't very unfavorable for them.

[https://ir.tesla.com/static-
files/b2218d34-fbee-4f1f-ac95-05...](https://ir.tesla.com/static-
files/b2218d34-fbee-4f1f-ac95-050eb29dd42f)

~~~
hef19898
It still comes down to a race between Tesla figuring out the _complete_
automotive supply chain and competitors figuring out EVs.

Tesla had, and I would assume still has, production hell. Now it's delivery
hell. Both are solved, controlled and executed constantly by other car
companies (VW has an exception with the new Golf 8 that proves the rule).

The competition is still struggling to solve EVs, some like Jaguar and Audi
and BMW and others seem to be ahead of others.

Advantage Tesla: EV brand, EV dedicated basis for their cars, software and
experience with batteries

Advantage competition: scaling production and delivery, economies of scale

I would argue that the window of opportunity for Tesla is closing now. Which
might not be good news for them. And given the ever shorter life cycles in the
automotive sector the window ever was max. one facelift / model replacement.
Which again is something the competition is doing constantly for decades now.
Tesla never did it once.

So I see the advantage on the competition but not by a big margin. Had Tesla
solved their production and supply chain earlier the margin wouldn't be there
at all or Tesla even be a head of others. The biggest risks for Tesla are a)
to miss the window of opportunity they have and be b) to run out of cash
before their issues are solved. Both are related and I suspect Elon is much a
help regarding the cash side as he is a hindrance regarding the rest.

~~~
mtgx
Tesla is wasting time, money and focus by investing too much in self-driving
tech (they're even having their own chip division now! - is Tesla really in
financial a position to compete with Intel/Nvidia now?).

Not to mention they made all of their Model 3's thousands of dollars more
expensive by including the "full self-driving hardware-that-wasn't" in every
unit to the point where it didn't even make sense for Tesla to sell the base
model anymore.

Keep it simple stupid - focus on making great high-value EVs, and keep
dropping their prices in a profitable manner. Stop throwing billions of
dollars on "full self-driving tech" that will never work _well enough_.

~~~
cagenut
there is a line of reasoning, rarely articulated, that EVs will _never_ reach
the price points it would take to fully 100% replace ICE cars in the
private/personal market.

li-ion batteries have done an excellent job walking down the learning/cost
curve, but we can all see the way it bends and how much headroom is left in
the chemistry. we'll likely hit $100/kwh in the next few years, but even just
$80/kwh is likely 5+ years away after that. the model 3 will _never_ start
with a $2.

so if you're going to bottom out at around 3x the price it would take to fully
replace the existing market... then you have to figure out a way to get 3x+
the value out of the asset you're delivering.

that means some combination of lasting 3x longer (~500k miles) and/or being in
use 3x more (~600hrs/year). the former is viably unlocked by the EV
engineering advantages, but w/r/t the latter, _individual_ drivers have no
intention of tripling their car usage. so it simply has to be turned into some
kind of shared asset.

imho self driving makes this a nirvanna, so I'm glad they're pursuing it, but
its not actually required. tesla could add a basic uber/lyft feature set to
their existing app and then when the last 0.01% of self driving winds up
taking years longer than elon said it would he can blame the regulators and
just make it a regular human-driver ride sharing app.

remember the mission is the end of carbon emissions, so any plan for "lets
just get good market share and margins in the luxury segment" is a plan to
fail.

~~~
telchar
I think that view neglects the costs of the fossil fuel infrastructure. At
some point gas stations are going to start closing for lack of customers. That
time is a while off yet, but all of the existing stations are not going to be
able to be supported by say, half as many ICE cars. Convenience will go down
and at some point prices may go up as the existing infrastructure is paid for
by fewer stations and less fuel. At the same time electrics will continue
getting better, cheaper and more convenient. This could provide an extra push.

~~~
cagenut
I agree with your points on a longer time horizon, but elon needs to solve for
model3 demand _now_ (this year).

EVs will not drive the kind of oil distribution market retraction you're
describing until they're at least 10% of cars on the road, which would be
years and years after they're 10% of new cars sold.

So while I agree the affect you describe will help, we don't have time to wait
for it.

~~~
WorldMaker
I think the time horizon for a step change in oil distribution is a lot
shorter than people expect, precisely because it will be more likely a severe
step change (ie, a snowball/crash) than an easy transition. Oil distribution
is extremely complex, amazingly baroque, and has only a small number of
players (they use a shell game [Shell Oil pun intended] of a large number of
different "station" brands, but are really only a few companies left). _When_
instability hits, it is likely to hit hard and look almost immediate (look at
70s Oil crises, for example).

I don't yet have a guess what percentage of the car fleet needs to be EV for
that to happen, but that number is also not the only potential disruption that
may happen to cause it (again, we have the 70s Oil crises as examples).

(Not that causing an Oil crisis is necessarily the right way to combat climate
change, but in the question of chicken-and-egg between ICE and EV, people sure
have a short memory for how volatile Oil is.)

------
ckastner
Well, I guess that explains the Autonomy Day [1] event from just two days ago
where they presented themselves as the Pack Leader, when everyone else knows
it's Waymo (by far).

Quoting user RivieraKid [2]:

 _Take a moment and think about why are they doing this event now. Elon is
setting a stage for a capital raise, he 's pitching the autonomy narrative
after the Model 3 cash cow narrative failed. They're trying to convince
investors (and customers) to give them money because money-printing autonomous
taxi service is coming next year._

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19720832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19720832)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19723650](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19723650)

~~~
deepGem
Am just curious, why does everyone believe that Waymo is way ahead. They have
more miles driven, but so does Tesla. Waymo has some incredible guys going
after autonomy but they have nothing to show as of yet at the L4 or L5 level.
Is it because they are playing it super safe. They don't have any urgency to
make money from autonomy unlike Tesla. Are they taking it easy ?

Per my understanding, Tesla is tackling autonomy purely based on supervised
learning. Waymo probably has something else, semi-supervised or unsupervised,
where they collect data from a small geo-fenced area and can extrapolate that
to the real world. I don't know.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Waymo is a technology demo, not a functioning operation that spits out self
driving cars by the tens of thousands per quarter. They are many years away
from having that. That's fine if they pull it off; it's the way big technology
startups are funded. Alphabet is playing the long game here.

However, Tesla is talking about making the tens of thousands cars they are
shipping per quarter right now autonomous. We'll see how far they get with
this. My guess is that the game for the next five years is going to be
convincing regulators that these things are safe enough to allow on the road.
Having a lot of cars on the road already will help their argument. Waymo has
the same problem but all they can point too is some limited areas in the US
where they are driving currently.

Tesla seems to be improving their current products continuously through
software updates as well. This adds to their sales pitch: your car will gain
capabilities and may even become fully autonomous one day. They've been riding
this pitch for years and while they have under-delivered on the end goal, the
in between milestones seem pretty interesting.

Two very different strategies.

~~~
ckastner
> _Waymo is a technology demo, not a functioning operation that spits out self
> driving cars by the tens of thousands per quarter._

Waymo last year ordered 20.000 cars from Jaguar Land Rover, then 62.000 cars
from Fiat Chrysler, with deliveries apparently starting in 2019 [1].

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/business/waymo-
chrysler-m...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/business/waymo-chrysler-
minivans.html)

~~~
olau
Actually they didn't - they entered into an agreement that would allow them,
over time, to order the number of cars you mention.

------
radium3d
Seasonal 4th to 1st quarter may have been a loss but these numbers stand out
to me as being a bit more important.

Cars sold:

Q1 2019: 63,000

Q1 2018: 29,980

Q1 2017: 25,000

Q1 2016: 14,820

Q1 2015: 10,045

Q1 2014: 6,457

Q1 2013: 4,900

Q1 2012: 0

Revenue

Q1 2019: $4.5 billion

Q1 2018: $3.4 billion

Q1 2017: $2.7 billion

Q1 2016: $1.6 billion

Q1 2015: $1.1 billion

Q1 2014: $713 million

Q1 2013: $562 million

Q1 2012: $30 million

Q1 2011: $49 million

Q1 2010: $21 million

~~~
jillesvangurp
Yep, the numbers that matter continue to trend up. More importantly, at this
point those numbers are becoming a huge problem for essentially all their
competitors.

Most of these are at this point bleeding market share to Tesla that they are
trying to recover from by launching products that clearly are a lot less
competitive and are probably being sold at a loss right now. They are going to
be bleeding cash while they sell prematurely launched EVs at a loss and
struggle to ramp up production for those for the next decade. Shut down
production capacity for ICE vehicles that they can no longer sell because
people buy Teslas instead. Write off hybrid product development for which
demand seems more limited than they hoped. Write off hydrogen product
development that has not been happening either. Etc.

Tesla is of course only part of their problem. There is a lot of stuff coming
out of Asia right now that is low cost and full EV. Buses, trucks, small cars,
etc.

Their next decade is about surviving multiple rounds of downsizing,
consolidation, demand drops for essentially all their existing products, huge
capital investments to catch up with Tesla and other new players in the
market.

Meanwhile, Tesla has several Gigafactories coming online over the next few
years that will improve their production capacity; several new products in the
pipeline that will challenge their competitors even more, and business models
that extend beyond just consumer EVs including solar panels, batteries to
support grid operations, batteries to complement domestic solar installations,
etc. In all of these markets their biggest problem seems to be getting enough
capital to build the production capacity to serve the demand. The big picture
here is rapid growth and dropping cost for the foreseeable future limited only
by the amount of available capital.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
>More importantly, at this point those numbers are becoming a huge problem for
essentially all their competitors.

BMW sold 2.5 million cars in 2018, the eighth year of increased sales.

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
How many EVs did they sell?

------
S_A_P
As someone who does not have any stake in Tesla, I dont see a path forward for
them without a company with the bank account on the scale of
Apple/Google/Amazon funding them. Bootstrapping software is hard, hardware is
harder, cars are 10x harder than those squared...

~~~
nostrademons
The irony is that Tesla was supposed to bankroll SpaceX, but SpaceX is killing
it on profits and Tesla is floundering. If anything it looks like SpaceX will
end up bankrolling Tesla.

Musk should forget about trying to save this planet and focus on getting to
the red one.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It’s a shame people condemn Tesla’s for its troubles when internal combustion
gets a ridiculous amount of subsided despite it causing irreparable harm to
the planet. Musk plays on Boss Mode (along with others) while everyone enjoys
bread and circus and laughs at people trying to accelerate progress with
regards to climate change.

I hope those quarterly profits, trucks, and SUVs are worth it when climate
change hits its stride. Humans can be irrational, ignorant animals.

~~~
mwfunk
Generally when people are down on Tesla or Elon Musk, it's because they want
them to succeed at displacing internal combustion engines.

They're not rooting for internal combustion engines, they're rooting for
electric cars and annoyed when the company (or Musk) flounders from self-
inflicted damage. At least, that seems like most of the criticism here. No one
is going to respond well to an advocate of a technology they want to succeed
saying and doing stuff that actively harms the cause (prime examples: George
Hotz with autonomous vehicles, RMS with basically everything that RMS has ever
advocated, or Julian Assange allowing Wikileaks to become a tool of corrupt
governments rather than a force against them).

It's great to give credit where credit is due, but even more important to hold
people and companies accountable when they screw up, especially people and
companies that you want to succeed.

~~~
Fricken
EVs are a false peak. So long as everyone is driving around in their own
personal automobile, we're doing nothing to address autocentic development,
with all it's accompanying sprawl, concrete, ashphalt, steel, and general hi-
consumption culture that goes with it.

~~~
Xcelerate
We need an entrepreneur to do with the city what Elon did with the car. How on
earth you would fund something of that scale, I’m not sure. And many country’s
attempts at “cities of the future” have ended up as ghost towns. I’d love to
see someone develop a new walkable, eco-friendly city from scratch somewhere
in the U.S., but all odds are against that kind of thing.

~~~
friendzis
I just don't get the obsession of some people with "walkable cities". What is
reasonable walking time at -20 during snowstorm or at +30 at blazing sun?
Multiply that with reasonable pedestrian speed and get outer diameter of the
mystic "walkable city". The way I would define reasonable values that would be
roughly 2-3km. That's a village, not even a town.

~~~
Fricken
Within a 3 km radius you can access 28 square kilometres. Central Paris, a
classic walkable city, has a density of 6,500 residents/square kilometre.
That's more like a medium sized city you can have access to within 3km if you
build for people instead of cars.

------
cameldrv
It was fairly obvious that this was going to happen when they announced their
"Investor Autonomy Day" a couple of days before earnings. Get people thinking
about the long term rather than this quarter.

~~~
7e
In the long term robotaxis will be a commodity service with razor thin
margins: just like existing taxis, airlines, and shipping.

~~~
m463
Maybe not a big win when selling taxi rides, but a pretty big win if you are
selling taxis :)

------
gutnor
Well, that explains the extravagant claims from 2 days ago.

No point speculating about major breakthrough or major bs or LIDAR vs NO-
LIDAR. They are probably progressing ok, but they are running out of cash, so
they made a little show for investors.

------
DamnYuppie
I see this trend continuing for Tesla. Aside from Musk's leadership, which is
very polarizing, I don't see their cars as being very compelling compared to
the upcoming offerings of Audi and Porsche.

Tesla isn't really competing against Ford/Chevy/Honda/Toyota. Instead they are
competing against BMW/Mercedes/Porsche/Audi. By comparison Teslas seems like a
toy compared to those other brands so I will gladly wait and give either
Audi/BMW/Porsche my money as I know what type of support I will get from each.

~~~
cmer
I think pretty much every single person who owns a Model S/X would tell you
that they're never going back to the old German crew. Tesla enjoys the
strongest brand loyalty of any car manufacturer. Apple-like loyalty.

Tesla doesn't feel like a toy, it feels like the future. They're years ahead
of everybody else in terms of tech that is usable today.

~~~
TylerE
They're saying that NOW. What will they be saying in a year or three?

~~~
moduspol
Model 3 owner here:

Tesla already feels at least three years ahead of other manufacturers, and the
cars other manufacturers are promising in the next few years are aiming to
_possibly_ compete with what Tesla's been selling for at least a year.

The Model S is being sold _today_ with 370 miles of range, Autopilot, and the
Supercharger network. Where will Tesla be in a few years if/when other
manufacturers catch up with _that_?

~~~
hi5eyes
>370 miles of range, Autopilot, and the Supercharger network

>Where will Tesla be in a few years if/when other manufacturers catch up with
that?

wouldnt that be highly dependent on teslas cash burn and desperate cash grabs
to survive the next quarter?

in a few years you should hope to still retain some form of autopilot, maybe
the supercharger network is shared/sold off,

370 miles of range? battery tech isnt improving so much but usually battery
life drops

~~~
DarmokJalad1701
> usually battery life drops

Tests have shown that is not really that big of a factor.

E.g. [https://cleantechnica.com/2019/01/28/350000-miles-in-a-
tesla...](https://cleantechnica.com/2019/01/28/350000-miles-in-a-tesla-model-
x-just-18000-in-maintenance/)

[https://electrek.co/2017/09/04/how-tesla-model-s-holds-up-
ti...](https://electrek.co/2017/09/04/how-tesla-model-s-holds-up-time/)

~~~
hi5eyes
I expected replies to my comment with links to those sites, you do know how
hard they shill tesla right? only recently elons been reeing at the very
author of that elektrik article

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1120820597347377152](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1120820597347377152)
>@FredericLambert Also, how did you manage to get shamed into being de facto
anti-Tesla by social media trolls. Jeez …

but.. im sure the numbers are thoroughly researched...

~~~
Diederich
Well, here is one bit of data then.

The Tesla model S 100D I bought in December 2017 now has over 17,000 miles on
it, with 95% of those miles fast supercharged.

My max range has declined 2 miles. That's well under 1%, which is especially
impressive given that most battery capability loss happens in the beginning of
it's lifespan.

How? Well, I suppose the battery management software and hardware is as
advanced as is claimed.

------
jedberg
This explains why they've been so slow on giving me my reservation money back.

~~~
ericd
Weird, they gave me back mine faster than I thought ACH would normally hit
(this was maybe a month ago).

~~~
jedberg
I've been waiting four years and counting... Model X reservation. Every time I
call, I get a new person (Because the last person I talked to doesn't work
there anymore) and they swear that they will certainly solve this for me! And
then I never hear from them again.

~~~
a13n
What does the legal agreement you signed when you put your reservation money
down say? Does their policy say they'll give it back?

~~~
jedberg
Fully refundable at any time.

------
omgwtfbyobbq
Tesla's biggest threat for the next year or so is themselves.

They took down the S/X lines (layoffs in January and cutting the standard
range versions in March) to update them, and the end result is the S/X can now
manage 370/325 miles for the long range versions.

[https://www.motortrend.com/cars/tesla/model-s/2019/exclusive...](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/tesla/model-s/2019/exclusive-2019-tesla-
model-s-review/)

The etron and ipace are both significantly smaller and/or have significantly
less range than the S/X, and Tesla has the supercharger network to boot, which
doesn't bode well for the competition.

[https://i.redd.it/8c80wcj608u21.png](https://i.redd.it/8c80wcj608u21.png)

They also have ~$2.2 billion in cash and ~$.7 in bonds due over the next
couple years, which leaves them with a ~$1+ billion buffer.

[http://ir.tesla.com/static-
files/6db4f56e-1532-4cd6-b8dc-3ff...](http://ir.tesla.com/static-
files/6db4f56e-1532-4cd6-b8dc-3ffbffe35e26)

They managed a ~20% margin on the 3 even after introducing the SR+.

Last but not least, they may be in a very beneficial position with their
ZEV/GHG/etc credits if they can continue to EV/PHEV pull buyers away from
other manufacturers. Those manufacturers will either have to buy credits from
Tesla to offset their lower EV/PHEV sales, which increases the values of those
credits for Tesla, or reduce the cost of their EVs/PHEVs, which eats into
their margins and their ICE sales.

~~~
BoorishBears
Are you trying to interpret this earnings call as showing positive financials
with that “1 billion dollar buffer” comment?

------
neural_thing
Horrible quarter for them. If they don't resolve their issues with the SEC and
raise capital, they will run out of cash in months.

~~~
martinald
Yeah I think people are underestimating how dire the financials are. I think
the cars are pretty cool (though way too much autopilot hype) and it's awesome
that EVs have came so far so quickly.

If Tesla continues burning cash like this quarter, it will basically be out of
money in Q2, yet they are not raising capital which suggests there is some
major problem.

I think Tesla has had an awful lot of financial near misses so far and they
are lucky to have made it this far, but they can't go on being so close on
financials this poor forever.

~~~
claytoneast
If they have 2.2B in the bank, lost 700 mil this quarter, expect to lose
significantly less in the next quarter, how are they out of money? Even if
they lost 500mil next quarter, they'd still have another 3 quarters of that
left. That's not "basically out of money", in my mind.

~~~
jacques_chester
Cashflow and income (aka profit & loss) are different beasts. You can be very
profitable and run out of cash and it's possible to be flush with cash yet
post a loss.

In the near term, cash is what matters. If you run out of cash, the company is
bankrupt.

For a "normal" big company, which is approximately profitable, it's fine to
have much less cash-on-hand, because you will have established lines of credit
and easy access to the financial markets if you need more. Much more
importantly: you have a lot of cash coming through the door, approximately
enough to cover cash going out the door. This varies by business: some
naturally have very lumpy cashflow (eg mining) and others have very smooth
cashflow (eg breweries).

A lot of what CFOs do is manage this cashflow. For corporate health, it needs
to be smooth, which means at any given time some cash is being received, some
is going out, some is being banked and invested in short-term instruments and
some is being borrowed. Some haggling with suppliers and customers about
payment dates is also normal, because cash delayed or brought forward is cash
made or lost.

On the other hand, if you are not operating profitably, you will need regular
infusions of cash to keep operating. You actually need a _lot_ more cash and
cash-equivalents on hand than the profitable business does, because it takes
you longer to get cash in the first place. A line of credit is more or less
instant, short term cash can be arranged in a day and so on. But selling bonds
takes time, up to months. Selling shares takes time, up to months. You need
cash to cover a cash supply delay that a profitable business doesn't need.

That's Tesla's problem. They have enough cash for a few quarters and it is not
replenishing fast enough from sales income or deposits. They will need to
raise money and the longer they delay, the more punitive the terms will be.

------
natch
Sales are hardly lagging when compared to the 1 year ago quarter. Compared to
the previous quarter, sure, but there is seasonal variability and Q1 is the
worst for car sales.

Deliveries were low because Tesla was ramping up international deliveries for
the first time, adding the extra delivery time required by slow transit on
boats to Europe and Asia.

Sales of Model S and X were lower because potential buyers were waiting for
rumored updates. And some former S/X buyers were opting for Model 3.

------
nikodunk
Q1 2019 Update Letter is here for those who want to read it for themselves:

[http://ir.tesla.com/static-
files/b2218d34-fbee-4f1f-ac95-050...](http://ir.tesla.com/static-
files/b2218d34-fbee-4f1f-ac95-050eb29dd42f)

------
loceng
They are making all of the right moves. Assuming the Tesla chip is as they say
it is - which is more believable because of their presentation and because of
the lead engineer they brought on for it, and if we believe their expected
improvements during the next chip version - along with the fleet of robotaxis
and the Tesla Network taking 30-40% revenue share will on its own bankroll
whatever issues they may have; I can't wait to see what happens to Uber, Lyft,
and so on. I'm also concerned about potential vandalization (or worse attacks
on users) who use these self-driving vehicle services by those who become
disenfranchised, are struggling to survive, who currently try to support their
living as taxi or Uber/Lyft drivers; what Andrew Yang is working towards
solving with UBI for the losses coming from automation.

~~~
Aromasin
Unfortunately I think the people that will suffer most from mass-automation
still don't believe that their job can be automated. Speaking to taxi drivers,
to them it's a foreign concept sometimes spoke about briefly in the news that
may or may not come around in 20 years when they're retired, so they don't
need to worry. Yang's "Freedom dividend" won't be appealing to them until the
day they're passed on the road by a car without a driver in the seat. The sad
reality is, until that point the dividend is only "more free money to the lazy
unemployed". Out of all the current candidates, if I were to pick one it would
be Yang. Sadly I think as soon as the political flame train gets started,
he'll be shot down very quickly.

~~~
loceng
It's definitely a concern.

------
dayaz36
Wow this community is incredibly toxic. I feel sorry for anyone that believes
these anti-tesla smears that are constantly on hn. hn is the last place I go
for peoples(bots?) opinions...

------
warent
If Tesla runs out of money, does it just mean they will be acquired by another
car company, or something else?

~~~
golfer
I think it's unlikely they'll be acquired. Tesla has about $9B in debt, had
never been profitable on an annual basis, and most other automakers are
plowing forward with their own EVs.

I don't see much upside in acquiring Tesla. I expect chapter 7 bankruptcy
(liquidation), or chapter 11 if Elon can pull the ripcord soon to have some
money available to weather the restructuring.

~~~
jacques_chester
There's a lot of P&E on the balance sheet. If they liquidate I expect the
creditors will look to flog that to the major carmakers.

------
twblalock
BMW, Audi, GM, Jaguar, and other automakers I forgot to mention are surely
grateful to Tesla for proving the concept that a market exists for electric
cars.

These established brands are going to bring a significant amount of
competition for Tesla over the next few years. They know how to make cars at
massive scale, and they know how to make money doing it.

Tesla is a very impressive success story, but all of its troubles so far have
occurred in the absence of strong competition. The next few years will be far
more difficult. I hope Tesla succeeds, but I'm glad I'm not a shareholder
right now.

------
Allvitende
Just want to say that the amount of hate Elon gets on HN is really
interesting.

~~~
goshx
Yes, you would expect that someone from tech revolutionizing an entire
industry at global scale would get a little bit more respect and appreciation
here.

~~~
krapp
I respect the engineers and workers _actually_ doing the revolutionizing, not
the man taking all the credit and the money.

~~~
goshx
I definitely respect them too, but they would not do anything of this
magnitude if it wasn’t for Elon’s vision and leadership. Isn’t that obvious?

~~~
krapp
>but they would not do anything of this magnitude if it wasn’t for Elon’s
vision and leadership. Isn’t that obvious?

It would be just as correct to say that Elon Musk's vision wouldn't go
anywhere without his employees' vision and talents, many of which likely
exceed his own in terms of technical or intellectual skill.

Obviously, he has his place, and credit where credit is due, but I think we've
gotten a bit too obsessed with the cult of personality and "great man" model
of thinking that creeps into history, business and science.

~~~
goshx
But he made it happen (commented before you edited yours).

People are hating on Tesla because they don’t like Elon. A company that will
literally benefit everyone, directly or indirectly.

It’s a human flaw, it seems.

~~~
krapp
No, he paid people to make it happen, who made it happen. He doesn't deserve
more credit than his employees.

~~~
goshx
Nobody is saying he deserves more than the employees. You brought them to the
conversation. He deserves a lot of credit, that’s all.

------
dependsontheq
I think what is happening is totally to be expected, Tesla launched a cheaper
car and the cheaper car is eating it’s margins and a lot of 3 buyers would
have gone for an S if there were no 3. And the S is even with updates an old
car now, they should have launched a new S last year.

So they are a car company now with a specific target group ( early adopter,
affluent) and they will need to to get into new target groups and the will
have to update their offerings.

I really hope they can pull this off, otherwise the pressure to electricity
for the other OEMs will disappear.

------
hashberry
> Mr. Musk, who had previously said the company did not need more capital,
> indicated that he had changed his mind because Tesla was now in a position
> to use capital more efficiently.

This concluding paragraph contradicts a quote in the middle of the article
that explained the loss is due to inefficiency ("spiking costs for obvious
strategy missteps really drew blood at the bottom line"). NYTimes journalists
enjoy making Elon Musk look dumb, like when he smoked weed with Joe Rogan.

~~~
haxton
I'm no fan of Musk's, but it's so disingenuous and discrediting to say things
like that.

Musk very clearly did _not_ get stoned with Joe. Taking a puff off of a joint
is akin to taking a drink or two of beer. You're going to have much more of a
placebo than anything.

There's no reason to lie to make Musk look stupid. He's doing that plenty well
himself.

~~~
itslennysfault
More importantly, who cares if he did get stoned?

~~~
stonogo
The people who issued him a United States Department of Defense security
clearance, to start with.

At least they should. I guess Musk plays by different rules than us plebians.

~~~
Reedx
Why should they? It's much less problematic than alcohol.

~~~
kosievdmerwe
Because a clearance requires you to have discretion and control of yourself to
maintain the secrets you learn due to it.

If you lack the self-control to not use a federally illegal drug on camera,
then do you have the self-control to not leak secrets to score points in an
argument or if you're drinking with a friend and they apply some social
pressure, for instance? Maybe, maybe not, but it raises red flags about how
trust worthy you are.

------
impostervt
Short sellers must be gleeful.

[https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-
short-...](https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-short-
sellers-musk-20190408-story.html)

~~~
LeoPanthera
After hours trading is mostly flat. So probably not.

~~~
bduerst
The price is already at a 12 month low, hard to speculate just how much lower
it will go.

------
naveen99
What if tesla just buys an ice company and just adds autopilot. I don’t see a
reason for them to bundle battery and self driving... or even just licenses
the self driving tech to others...

------
tertius
How much would their cars cost if they actually made a profit?

And if they were sold at those prices would anyone but them?

My point: their customer service, tech and everything else people love about
them is being subsidized by debt. They're not the U.S. government, they can't
print money forever...

~~~
sjwright
Tesla is in debt largely because of their rapid ramp-up with costly
investments in design, development, manufacturing and supply chain.

My layperson understanding is Tesla have been in a structurally profitable
state for quite some time—but for their investments geared towards scaling up
ever further.

The question you need to ask is "if you build a factory, across how many units
should the cost of that factory be spread?"

~~~
tertius
> Tesla is in debt largely becaus

Yes, massive debt with no income. Ambitious for sure.

~~~
nwah1
4.5 billion in income this quarter, and has been rising consistently. They
have a cash flow problem, not a revenue problem.

------
caprese
Tesla stock trades like a leveraged Credit Default Swap

------
AltmousGadfly
The electronics, drive train, Electric motors, and battery system all work
together in a Tesla to make it more efficient and powerful than the
competition “Right Now”. Tomorrow is another day. The custom components that
make up these systems require R&D that the other car makers are still
struggling to duplicate, that’s where they are at. Tesla still has a chance
because of “time”. They are there already, where the others want and need to
be, and Tesla will probably (because it can’t sit still to survive) continue
to advance its technologies.

------
olivermarks
[https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-24/tesla-reports-
dism...](https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-24/tesla-reports-dismal-
quarter-missing-across-board-while-burning-10mm-cash-every-day)

------
m0zg
This explains why his head of AI and head of hardware looked so nervous during
their presentations the other day. They've likely been pushed to embellish
parts of their presentations, too, such as e.g. the forward looking statements
that "you only need cameras" to solve FSD, or that it can be sufficiently
solved with what they're doing in the first place.

They did present some top notch work, but I'm really having my doubts that
even Google can figure this out in the foreseeable future, even though their
cars are completely covered with expensive sensors.

~~~
XorNot
Or they're not really used to doing publicity presentations. What you say
might be true, but your source of evidence doesn't stack up.

