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I think these comparison's to other car companies really miss the mark. Those who are long on TSLA (myself included) aren't looking at them as a car company. Te

by sxates 10y ago

I think these comparison's to other car companies really miss the mark. Those who are long on TSLA (myself included) aren't looking at them as a car company. Tesla is cracking open new markets in the following areas: - Electric Cars (most visible. Also don't undervalue their unique direct sales channel, which is a huge competitive advantage) - Batteries/Energy Storage (not just cars - utility scale energy storage, with capacity coming online that will double global output of lithium batteries) - Solar panels and solar roofs (both residential and commercial, a market with a hockey stick growth curve coming) - Self-driving AI (head to head with Google on one of the most fundamental changes to transportation our society has seen in a century, and they have the hardware driving around us all the time already, rapidly learning and improving) Ford, GM, et al are irrelevant and poor comparisons. This is SpaceX for Terran energy and transportation.

chipperyman573 10y ago
What makes you think solar is a hockey stick? I'm not saying you're wrong it's just the first time I've heard this before.
- kowdermeister 10y ago
  There's an exponential curve: https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1366&bih=638&q=solar+technology+growth&oq=solar+technology+gro&gs_l=img.3.0.0i24k1.1492.7533.0.8529.15.15.0.0.0.0.218.1585.5j5j2.12.0....0...1.1.64.img..3.12.1575.0..0j35i39k1j0i30k1j0i5i30k1j0i8i30k1.sEN4LcRi4bU https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1...
- sxates 10y ago
  The price has been rapidly decreasing in the last 10 years, to the point that it no longer makes sense to not have solar everywhere. It's cheaper than coal, and will soon be cheaper than all the other fossil fuels as well, and will continue to go down, never up. China now employs over 1 million workers making solar panels. And they're ramping that up as fast as they can, and shelving coal power plants. We've reached that critical tipping point for PV solar to go vertical, and Tesla/SolarCity just built their own factory in Buffalo to take advantage.
  - legolas2412 10y ago
    I think solar is the future, but these claims are stupid. > "to the point that it no longer makes sense to not have solar everywhere. It's cheaper than coal, and will soon be cheaper than all the other fossil fuels as well, and will continue to go down, never up." Then the market should automatically have shifted to 100% solar by now. Solar is getting cheaper yes, but it is dependent on hours of sunlight available, which like wind energy, is unreliable and doesn't work at periods (like night). Further, the capacity of a solar power plant isn't its produced electricity, because the capacity is mainly peak capacity, which is only reached a few hours a day. > China now employs over 1 million workers making solar panels Don't know where that figure is from, but I guess china must be covered in solar panels by now. 1 million is large number of people. Unless your figures are deceiving. For example, walmart sells solar panels. So, you will count every walmart employee as a solar panel retail employee.
    - sxates 10y ago
      >Then the market should automatically have shifted to 100% solar by now. 65% of new capacity in the US last year was wind or solar.[1] The world doesn't change overnight, but expect that trend to continue. Renewable energy growth is only being slowed by lack of storage. As battery production and other storage techniques come online, it allows higher and higher % of energy to come from renewable sources. >Don't know where that figure is from, but I guess china must be covered in solar panels by now. Pretty good summary of the situation here: [2] "In 2015, China installed half of the world’s wind power and a third of its solar photovoltaic capacity. Last year, solar capacity jumped 81.6 per cent and wind capacity grew 13.2 per cent. Greenpeace has said that China’s renewable energy growth rate is equivalent to installing one wind turbine and covering one soccer field with solar panels every hour. Five of the world’s top six solar manufacturing companies and five of the 10 biggest wind turbine companies are in China. By 2020, half of the country’s new electric generation will come from solar, wind, hydro and nuclear power." [1]https://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2016/dec-energy-infrastructure.pdf https://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2016/dec-energy-inf... [2]http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2017/03/03/will-china-take-the-green-mantle-from-the-u-s/ http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2017/03/03/will-china-take-the-...
- giarc 10y ago
  Government subsidies probably. My provincial government (Alberta) just introduced $40 million in solar subsidies. I don't think Solar City operates in AB, but I'm sure other states will come up with similar subsidies to replace the federal one that I believe is expiring.
  - syncsynchalt 10y ago
    And when the price undercuts other forms of power generation, you won't even need subsidies anymore. I'm guessing it'll be a while before this is true in latitudes like Alberta, though.
    - cmrdporcupine 10y ago
      Alberta latitude is same as much of the European latitude. City of Edmonton, Alberta is at 53 latitude, Calgary at 51. Berlin is at 52. Amsterdam 52.
      - kilotaras 10y ago
        People tend to underestimate how far north Europe is. Europe's climate is a lot milder than North Americas, due to, mostly, Gulf Stream.
    - giarc 10y ago
      I agree. I don't think we'll see large scale solar power generation in Alberta. The gov subsidies are mostly for residential use. They introduced a revenue neutral carbon tax Jan 1, 2017 and need to return the tax to green projects. This is just one of them. Alberta does have quite a bit of wind generation though. They blow pretty consistently off the mountains and we have a pretty low density population in the south end of the province. Hopefully under the NDP (left wing) government, we can see some expansion of this. Prior to this, oil sands was the only game in town.
skdotdan 10y ago
All of these products can potentially be commoditized. But their brand is strong.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  Commoditization is never instantaneous. You start of highly competitive because the products are all immature. During this period people who can differentiate become market leaders. Companies without R&D staffs can't compete yet because by the time they copy last year's product, next years product is out. After a while, usually decades, commodity producers take over the lions share of the market. The high end is captured by one or two of the market leaders. Being first to market helps you get there, but you still have to fight for that position. Look at iPhone. It was the best and the cheapest smartphone for probably a decade. Now Apple only has what, 20% of the market? But they have all the profits. The other 80% goes to commodity manufacturers but they don't make any money. Tesla hopes to be that for mobility and home energy. Even if they fail, they'll still make a huge amount of money in the ramp up, before the commodity manufacturers eat their lunch. They're the market leader right now, so the prize is theirs to lose.
  - jeffbax 10y ago
    There's a big difference between being the premium product when the range for them is $0-$1200, your margin is massive, and everyone on the planet needs one. It's another when the range is $12,000-$100,000, margins are much more competitive with way more competent adversaries, all the while car ownership is changing drastically to rental/ride sharing for a great many people. At that point, you don't necessarily care the car you hired that day is a Tesla or Ford, because you experience it for 20 minutes and are done. The buyer in this case is the fleet owner not an individual, which does not necessarily favor Tesla. I don't think that you can compare Tesla's product to Apple's (not to mention Apple's software ecosystem permeates so many more aspects of one's life if you are a part of it, Tesla not so much)
bischofs 10y ago
Yeah I think car companies should focus less on making cars... - Your first point is cars - there are a ton of evs for sale from many large companies and direct sale doesn't seem to sell more cars than indirect. - Tesla is partnering with battery companies just as GM does on the bolt and volt. Nothing special here as their battery business is pretty minuscule. - Again a niche market that compares to GMs after market crate motor program in revenue and size. - Self driving tech doesn't belong to Tesla and Google, most luxury car companies had automated cruise systems when Tesla was making the roadster. Gm has a large fleet roaming around Detroit, Chrysler is partnering with Google with their Pacificas, and Ford has a fleet of fusions as well after billions in investment. The larger point is that elon and his 16 companies seem to do no wrong and avoid comparisons to the existing car companies, he should focus on getting market share in the extremely competitive automotive market instead of making a space/AI/brainlink/tunnel/solar/ev company.
- sxates 10y ago
  1. Tesla's EVs are outselling everyone else combined, even with an average sale price that's double everyone else. 2. Tesla is partnered with Panasonic, but they're practically married with communal property. They haven't outsourced this, they've put billions into building a gigafactory. What part of "doubling global output of lithium batteries" is minuscule to you? 3. In 20 years, probably half the world's electricity will come from Solar PV. Was coal a niche market? Because this will be bigger. 4. Most other car makers are licensing systems from others, not building their own, and they don't have the self-driving hardware in any cars yet. Tesla has 10's of thousands of cars on the road right now (25k just in Q1) with their second generation system, while GM and Chrysler are still fiddling with prototypes. If you don't see how all these things connect, then I understand your view. But when you recognize how they're all interconnected it makes complete sense to me to be building all of them at once, otherwise a failure in one dooms them all.
  - bischofs 10y ago
    1. Nope. Are you just pulling numbers from a hat? Nissan sold 14,000 leafs last year, add that to the 24,000 volts and the 8,000 i3s and you get more than the model S. 2. Im saying the current business is minuscule, if we looked at elons promises as gospel (which you apparently do) we would have had a model x three years ago. LGchem and Samsung SDI are more than capable to meet the demand of the current lithium battery market without panasonic. 3. Speculation 4. Tesla has a SAE level 1 system which is the same as my VW golfs adaptive cruise with lane assist. They sell the car with the "hardware" and you think they are done? -> " All we have to do is build the controls and software now!!" By this logic throwing a couple cameras on the car means it has "self-driving hardware".
sceew 10y ago
How is GM irrelevant in self-driving AI? They acquired Cruise Automation: https://www.getcruise.com/ https://www.getcruise.com/ or https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/cru10_c.jpg https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/cru10_c.jp... .
- capkutay 10y ago
  Making acquisitions and executing on a cutting edge market opportunity are two different things. When GM adds something unique to the AI transportation market, then they'll be relevant. As of now they're just an outsider trying to get in.

by sxates 10y ago

chipperyman573 10y ago

What makes you think solar is a hockey stick? I'm not saying you're wrong it's just the first time I've heard this before.

kowdermeister 10y ago
There's an exponential curve: https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1366&bih=638&q=solar+technology+growth&oq=solar+technology+gro&gs_l=img.3.0.0i24k1.1492.7533.0.8529.15.15.0.0.0.0.218.1585.5j5j2.12.0....0...1.1.64.img..3.12.1575.0..0j35i39k1j0i30k1j0i5i30k1j0i8i30k1.sEN4LcRi4bU https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1...
sxates 10y ago
The price has been rapidly decreasing in the last 10 years, to the point that it no longer makes sense to not have solar everywhere. It's cheaper than coal, and will soon be cheaper than all the other fossil fuels as well, and will continue to go down, never up. China now employs over 1 million workers making solar panels. And they're ramping that up as fast as they can, and shelving coal power plants. We've reached that critical tipping point for PV solar to go vertical, and Tesla/SolarCity just built their own factory in Buffalo to take advantage.
- legolas2412 10y ago
  I think solar is the future, but these claims are stupid. > "to the point that it no longer makes sense to not have solar everywhere. It's cheaper than coal, and will soon be cheaper than all the other fossil fuels as well, and will continue to go down, never up." Then the market should automatically have shifted to 100% solar by now. Solar is getting cheaper yes, but it is dependent on hours of sunlight available, which like wind energy, is unreliable and doesn't work at periods (like night). Further, the capacity of a solar power plant isn't its produced electricity, because the capacity is mainly peak capacity, which is only reached a few hours a day. > China now employs over 1 million workers making solar panels Don't know where that figure is from, but I guess china must be covered in solar panels by now. 1 million is large number of people. Unless your figures are deceiving. For example, walmart sells solar panels. So, you will count every walmart employee as a solar panel retail employee.
  - sxates 10y ago
    >Then the market should automatically have shifted to 100% solar by now. 65% of new capacity in the US last year was wind or solar.[1] The world doesn't change overnight, but expect that trend to continue. Renewable energy growth is only being slowed by lack of storage. As battery production and other storage techniques come online, it allows higher and higher % of energy to come from renewable sources. >Don't know where that figure is from, but I guess china must be covered in solar panels by now. Pretty good summary of the situation here: [2] "In 2015, China installed half of the world’s wind power and a third of its solar photovoltaic capacity. Last year, solar capacity jumped 81.6 per cent and wind capacity grew 13.2 per cent. Greenpeace has said that China’s renewable energy growth rate is equivalent to installing one wind turbine and covering one soccer field with solar panels every hour. Five of the world’s top six solar manufacturing companies and five of the 10 biggest wind turbine companies are in China. By 2020, half of the country’s new electric generation will come from solar, wind, hydro and nuclear power." [1]https://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2016/dec-energy-infrastructure.pdf https://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2016/dec-energy-inf... [2]http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2017/03/03/will-china-take-the-green-mantle-from-the-u-s/ http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2017/03/03/will-china-take-the-...
giarc 10y ago
Government subsidies probably. My provincial government (Alberta) just introduced $40 million in solar subsidies. I don't think Solar City operates in AB, but I'm sure other states will come up with similar subsidies to replace the federal one that I believe is expiring.
- syncsynchalt 10y ago
  And when the price undercuts other forms of power generation, you won't even need subsidies anymore. I'm guessing it'll be a while before this is true in latitudes like Alberta, though.
  - cmrdporcupine 10y ago
    Alberta latitude is same as much of the European latitude. City of Edmonton, Alberta is at 53 latitude, Calgary at 51. Berlin is at 52. Amsterdam 52.
    - kilotaras 10y ago
      People tend to underestimate how far north Europe is. Europe's climate is a lot milder than North Americas, due to, mostly, Gulf Stream.
  - giarc 10y ago
    I agree. I don't think we'll see large scale solar power generation in Alberta. The gov subsidies are mostly for residential use. They introduced a revenue neutral carbon tax Jan 1, 2017 and need to return the tax to green projects. This is just one of them. Alberta does have quite a bit of wind generation though. They blow pretty consistently off the mountains and we have a pretty low density population in the south end of the province. Hopefully under the NDP (left wing) government, we can see some expansion of this. Prior to this, oil sands was the only game in town.

skdotdan 10y ago

All of these products can potentially be commoditized. But their brand is strong.

erikpukinskis 10y ago
Commoditization is never instantaneous. You start of highly competitive because the products are all immature. During this period people who can differentiate become market leaders. Companies without R&D staffs can't compete yet because by the time they copy last year's product, next years product is out. After a while, usually decades, commodity producers take over the lions share of the market. The high end is captured by one or two of the market leaders. Being first to market helps you get there, but you still have to fight for that position. Look at iPhone. It was the best and the cheapest smartphone for probably a decade. Now Apple only has what, 20% of the market? But they have all the profits. The other 80% goes to commodity manufacturers but they don't make any money. Tesla hopes to be that for mobility and home energy. Even if they fail, they'll still make a huge amount of money in the ramp up, before the commodity manufacturers eat their lunch. They're the market leader right now, so the prize is theirs to lose.
- jeffbax 10y ago
  There's a big difference between being the premium product when the range for them is $0-$1200, your margin is massive, and everyone on the planet needs one. It's another when the range is $12,000-$100,000, margins are much more competitive with way more competent adversaries, all the while car ownership is changing drastically to rental/ride sharing for a great many people. At that point, you don't necessarily care the car you hired that day is a Tesla or Ford, because you experience it for 20 minutes and are done. The buyer in this case is the fleet owner not an individual, which does not necessarily favor Tesla. I don't think that you can compare Tesla's product to Apple's (not to mention Apple's software ecosystem permeates so many more aspects of one's life if you are a part of it, Tesla not so much)

bischofs 10y ago

Yeah I think car companies should focus less on making cars... - Your first point is cars - there are a ton of evs for sale from many large companies and direct sale doesn't seem to sell more cars than indirect. - Tesla is partnering with battery companies just as GM does on the bolt and volt. Nothing special here as their battery business is pretty minuscule. - Again a niche market that compares to GMs after market crate motor program in revenue and size. - Self driving tech doesn't belong to Tesla and Google, most luxury car companies had automated cruise systems when Tesla was making the roadster. Gm has a large fleet roaming around Detroit, Chrysler is partnering with Google with their Pacificas, and Ford has a fleet of fusions as well after billions in investment. The larger point is that elon and his 16 companies seem to do no wrong and avoid comparisons to the existing car companies, he should focus on getting market share in the extremely competitive automotive market instead of making a space/AI/brainlink/tunnel/solar/ev company.

sxates 10y ago
1. Tesla's EVs are outselling everyone else combined, even with an average sale price that's double everyone else. 2. Tesla is partnered with Panasonic, but they're practically married with communal property. They haven't outsourced this, they've put billions into building a gigafactory. What part of "doubling global output of lithium batteries" is minuscule to you? 3. In 20 years, probably half the world's electricity will come from Solar PV. Was coal a niche market? Because this will be bigger. 4. Most other car makers are licensing systems from others, not building their own, and they don't have the self-driving hardware in any cars yet. Tesla has 10's of thousands of cars on the road right now (25k just in Q1) with their second generation system, while GM and Chrysler are still fiddling with prototypes. If you don't see how all these things connect, then I understand your view. But when you recognize how they're all interconnected it makes complete sense to me to be building all of them at once, otherwise a failure in one dooms them all.
- bischofs 10y ago
  1. Nope. Are you just pulling numbers from a hat? Nissan sold 14,000 leafs last year, add that to the 24,000 volts and the 8,000 i3s and you get more than the model S. 2. Im saying the current business is minuscule, if we looked at elons promises as gospel (which you apparently do) we would have had a model x three years ago. LGchem and Samsung SDI are more than capable to meet the demand of the current lithium battery market without panasonic. 3. Speculation 4. Tesla has a SAE level 1 system which is the same as my VW golfs adaptive cruise with lane assist. They sell the car with the "hardware" and you think they are done? -> " All we have to do is build the controls and software now!!" By this logic throwing a couple cameras on the car means it has "self-driving hardware".

sceew 10y ago

How is GM irrelevant in self-driving AI? They acquired Cruise Automation: https://www.getcruise.com/ https://www.getcruise.com/ or https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/cru10_c.jpg https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/cru10_c.jp... .

capkutay 10y ago
Making acquisitions and executing on a cutting edge market opportunity are two different things. When GM adds something unique to the AI transportation market, then they'll be relevant. As of now they're just an outsider trying to get in.