
Musk says Tesla will be profitable in Q3 and Q4 - prostoalex
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/13/elon-musk-says-tesla-will-be-profitable-in-q3-and-q4/
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osrec
I wished Tesla would focus more on a full ecosystem for self driving, lighter
cars, including better infrastructure, rather than shoehorning their vehicles
into the existing system. I just feel that with their current approach, we've
ended up with an even heavier, expensive lump of metal for moving a 70kg
person from A to B. I do like their product from a "coolness" perspective, but
I'm not sure if it's the long term way to go.

~~~
ethagknight
Beyond Elon's current initiative with the Boring Company, can you be more
specific with examples of what that might look like? Because otherwise, Tesla
doesn't really have a choice but to shoehorn into the current multi-trillion
dollar transportation network.

~~~
osrec
I think they need to focus on infrastructure, more than the car. For example,
how about installing beacons in catseyes to guide vehicles so the complexity
of driving algorithms can be reduced. It just seems like they're trying to
solve the self driving problem in the hardest way possible by making a car
"see". Also, I don't think the boring company will ever offer the same
flexibility in transportation a car will.

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postmeta
Profitable or not is kinda meaningless since they just reinvest it all anyway,
I think revenue growth is more important at this point.
[https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/financials?query=income-s...](https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/financials?query=income-
statement) a la amazon: [http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-revenue-vs-
profit-2016...](http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-revenue-vs-
profit-2016-1)

~~~
bryanlarsen
It's true that revenue and revenue growth is probably more important than
earnings for Tesla's stock price, but Tesla has two challenges that Amazon
doesn't have:

\- access to capital is getting tight

\- Tesla has less ability than Amazon to spin the story that "we can turn down
our reinvestment at any time to turn on profits"

~~~
adventured
It's a fair comparison, although not to the present Amazon. The Amazon of
today is financially entirely different to the one from 15 years ago.

Amazon nearly went bankrupt after the dotcom bubble era. They were drowning in
particularly bad debt and red ink for years. After the dotcom bubble their
financing abilities almost entirely dried up, the stock collapsed by ~93% or
so. It was almost universally expected that they would not survive,
culminating with the infamous Barron's Amazon.bomb story and a parade of
stories thereafter. For the next three or so years after that story,
bankruptcy was the anticipated end by the press and analysts. Tesla today,
when you look at how they're being discussed by the press + analysts, and
their financials, looks similar to Amazon's general condition back then
(Tesla's growth is both faster and its red ink is greater, than Amazon was
back then).

For reference, Amazon had $1.6b in sales for 1999 with a $719m loss, and a
$30b plus market cap at the peak of the dotcom bubble. Tesla will probably hit
around $17-$18 billion in sales for 2018. If the market lets out - the
supportive environment broadly - you'll see Tesla's stock crater unless their
burn rate is very sharply reduced. They'll suffer the same financing concerns
that pushed Amazon's stock down to $5.51 / share in 2001.

~~~
deepGem
Very true but somehow Wall St. is valuing Tesla very differently than they
valued Amazon 15 years ago. Tesla's stock hasn't gone down that much, there's
volatility but not the near 100% crash that struck Amazon. On the flip side,
Tesla has needed a lot more capital than Amazon and they have issued a lot
more shares to raise that capital (close to 12B now). I don't think Tesla's
stock price, despite it's volatility reflects it's debt economics.

~~~
ghaff
Yes. But generally today's valuation lens on a lot of these stocks looks more
like the 1999 one than the 2001 one.

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slivym
It seems strange for Musk to make a stupid for musk to claim that
profitability in Q3/4 is important when they're talking about his debt. The
maturing debt will not be covered by the small profits. If there are profits,
which I suspect there won't.

~~~
adventured
And if you're wrong, what is the cost?

It's interesting how there's no negativity check to discussion forums, because
there is effectively zero cost to endlessly being wrong and endlessly
negative. When confronted with even a 50/50 proposition, the obvious bet is to
go hard negative against it.

The last two dozen, or more, Tesla threads I've read on HN, have been
approximately 95% negative. I've never seen anything like it in the last eight
years I've been reading the site. The Facebook blowback recently perhaps,
although they've harmed the privacy of tens or hundreds of millions of people.

Maybe someone here can help me understand, why the extreme emotional reaction
to Tesla these days? I've found you can't even point out actual positive facts
about Tesla without suffering a wave of downvotes regardless.

They're going bankrupt next month. Or next quarter. They suck. They build shit
cars. The panels don't fit together ever! Electric cars are easy to build.
They have endless competition that will smoke them. Musk is always wrong. He's
committing securities fraud, probably; or at least SpaceX is, or maybe Tesla
is. They'll never get autonomous driving right. They're behind everyone in
autonomous driving. China, or Europe, will eat their lunch. Telsa will never
reach profitability. So what if they've grown sales rapidly, they still suck.
All the other car companies are already out-producing them in electric cars.
They'll never produce the Model 3 at scale; they'll never produce 1,000 per
week; they'll never produce 5,000 per week; and even if they do, they'll still
suck! And so on for another 57 negative concepts.

To give a specific example, a lot of comments I've read, have claimed Tesla
would _never_ mass produce the Model 3. Post after post for months has stated
plainly that they were going to fail at it. It was obvious, supposedly. Now
they're tracking to 100,000 or more in just in the second half of the year. If
you point that out, the response you'll get is either: yeah but they missed
Musk's original target by a mile; or: yeah, well, the quality sucks (ie a
deflection and criticism shift, which points to a broader cynicism).

You'd think we were dealing with a genocidal warlord, not a car company.

~~~
tway901010
> _The last two dozen, or more, Tesla threads I 've read on HN, have been
> approximately 95% negative._

Maybe people are tired of the endless claims from the Tesla fans that
"everything everyone else has ever done before is wrong".

Maybe the rest of the manufacturers _aren 't_ that stupid? Why do so many
people here root against Ford and GM?

> _have claimed Tesla would never mass produce the Model 3_

Yet to be seen. Right now they are hand-building cars for huge losses. There's
no "mass" production (on an automotive scale), and there's no $35k Model 3 in
the foreseeable future. Have you given thought to why people might make such a
claim? Or are you of the mind that Musk is infallible? Maybe people tire of
being called dumb because they don't believe "air friction" is holding back
the assembly line?

> _Now they 're tracking to 100,000_

According to whom? Tesla won't release the numbers, and the Model 3 tracker
from Blomberg shows 2,300 per week. Maybe it's exaggerated claims like yours
that spur negative sentiment?

~~~
aerovistae
> Maybe people are tired of the endless claims from the Tesla fans that
> "everything everyone else has ever done before is wrong".

Of course everything everyone else has ever done before _isn 't_ wrong. Lots
of it is right. But if challenging all of it is what's needed to innovate in
the places where they _were_ wrong, then by all means I support Tesla and
Musk. Why would I not support someone trying to innovate, and succeeding?
Unless of course you want to try to tell me Tesla hasn't innovated the auto
industry in any way-- in that case we can end our discussion here because we
won't ever see eye to eye.

> Why do so many people here root against Ford and GM?

I root against Ford and GM and the others because with all their resources and
might, they haven't done what Tesla's done....instead they've done the bare
minimum. Tesla started in 2004 from scratch. If GM or Ford had committed the
resources they could have to electric vehicles and autonomy and so in 2004,
God knows what they would have for us now. But they didn't. They sat still,
incrementally improving mileage and adding bluetooth and so on. Why would I
root for that? Why are you rooting for that? What's exciting about that?

> Yet to be seen. Right now they are hand-building cars for huge losses.
> There's no "mass" production

"Yet to be seen"? Geez. Yeah, clearly Tesla's not scaling at all. Selling
about the same number of cars as two years ago, or five years ago. No evidence
of progress at Tesla.

> Or are you of the mind that Musk is infallible?

Of course Musk is fallible. Does a person have to be infallible to innovate
and succeed? Do they have to be infallible to be admired?

> According to whom? Tesla won't release the numbers, and the Model 3 tracker
> from Blomberg shows 2,300 per week

Yep, no doubt the 2300 will decline back towards 1000, then they'll go
bankrupt. No reason to believe that things are picking up. Just because it's
2300 now and was 150 three months ago, that's not evidence of any progress.
Easier to believe they're going to fall apart.

So hard for me to understand your way of thinking.

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sschueller
In Musk years that would be Q3/Q4 2020.

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ksec
I remember him saying the same thing in 2016 or 2017, or both.

~~~
susanhi
Link?

~~~
kgwgk
[http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/127387238...](http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/1273872387x0x874449/945B9CF5-86DA-4C35-B03C-4892824F058D/Q4_15_Tesla_Update_Letter.pdf)

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dibbsonline
Musk has said a lot of things that didn't ring true.

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Keyframe
Musk talks a lot.

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sidcool
Seems HN went from Musk love to hate pretty fast. I am rooting for the man.

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noonespecial
I could make a single car in my garage and be profitable. Delivering the 3's
is the all and only right now. Everything else is a distraction.

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SirLJ
Dupe

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16829159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16829159)

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_o_
The electric cars have problems that have nothing to do with actually
manufacturing and it has less exciting name, it is called power grid. If we
would switch to el. cars, the first effect would be light polution due to
electrical wires glowing in the night. Then the complete collapse of system.
To be able to power all the cars, we have to double the amount of high voltage
transport wires between the power plants and consumers (cities) + additional
transformators, and this is something where billions need to be spent, it will
make electricity expensier (actually the other part of the bill - the power
grid costs) for everyone and el. cars economicaly useless.

Electrical cars? Yeah, I want one. Does it make sense on large scale? Not
really.

As far as I have noticed, there is a pattern, bad Q results, then Musk comes
with a new revolutionary idea, just pumping the hype. I am eager to see what
will be next, maybe electrical cargo ship or electrical magic carpet (I would
have one if those :) )

~~~
Robotbeat
That is ridiculous. The electric grid is actually facing precipitous demand
growth drop[0] due (in part) to efficiency improvements. Long range electric
vehicles are able to charge when demand is lowest most of the time, and for
long trips, they charge at Superchargers which are buffered with stationary
batteries. Far from destroying the electric grid, electric cars are critical
to making utilities profitable.

[0][https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/energy-and-
environment/2018...](https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/energy-and-
environment/2018/2/27/17052488/electricity-demand-utilities)

~~~
_o_
Oh, sorry, I understand now. Looks like studying energetics 20 years back is
something that is useful for anything else regarding electricity except
electrical cars (and solar panels). My bad. I should understand that saying
that king is naked will just bring downvotes from all the _real experts_ who
are learning from marketing and press (that is writing articles based on
material given to them by marketing).

I will just stop posting in this thread, as usualy on those two topics every
average John Doe is smarter. Just go and buy more Tesla stocks.

