6 ms·

The Truth Is Catching Up with Tesla

25 points by NN88 9y ago

bastijn 9y ago
Without wsj paywall: https://outline.com/LHX3V9 https://outline.com/LHX3V9
- dlp211 9y ago
  And then there is this: http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/technology/tesla-semi-delay/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/technology/tesla-semi-delay/... 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 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      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 9y ago
        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 9y ago
        "the subsidies on the car were negligible " $14000 in Ontario.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    > Anyone else would have been ejected by the board The board's on it! They'll replace Musk the second they find anyone else capable of creating both a profitable orbital launch company and a profitable electric supercar company, simultaneously. Of course Musk is a controlling stakeholder on those boards. And while he's really going to get to fire himself any day now, it does appear as if it may take a day or two more than anticipated. But once these last kinks are taken care off, it'll be a revolutionary rethinking of what it means to be fired. Order now!
  - factsaresacred 9y ago
    > Anyone else would have been ejected by the board by now and shareholders would be gnashing their teeth for some accountability Perhaps it's for the best that Elon seems an indispensable part of Tesla's success. Ejecting CEOs and shuffling the boardroom because value will be realized - shock, horror - a few weeks later is akin to corporate dowsing: questionable actions with dubious results. Shares can be sold. The idea that holding stocks of a company make one some kind of philosopher-king who need not deign themselves with concepts of patience and time horizons needs to go away. Investment in shares is risk in hope of return, not a whip.
  - spiorf 9y ago
    So you have a guy with a proven track record of companies that manage to make products that 15 years ago were thought to be impossible to make, that is personally invested in those companies, that does so with a clear intention of bringing some much needed revolutions in the whole transport and rocket industry, and he should be fired... Besides, shareholders bought shares of a company whose stated purpose is "to accelerate the advent of sustainable mobility", not "maximize profit for shareholders".
- woodandsteel 9y ago
  Thank you. I don't understand why people put up wsj links on HN. If you're a wsj subscriber, you've probably read it already. If you're not, you can't, unless someone puts up an alternative link. At the least, someone who puts up a wsj link ought to include an alternative link.
  - jseliger 9y ago
    I don't understand why people put up wsj links on HN Because the WSJ does a lot of reporting that can't be found anywhere else. Furthermore, a lot of people also decry the way advertising has distorted the web and media orgs. There are two major ways to pay for news: ads and subscriptions. People who don't like the former ought to like the latter. Before someone points this out, let me say that I'd love to see micro-payments work out but we have not seen this work yet even after twenty years of prognostication on the topic.
    - woodandsteel 9y ago
      I see I didn't make my point clear enough. I am saying that a wsj link put up on HN has no utility, because the people who could read it likely already have, and the link does no good for the people who can't read it. I agree entirely about the problem with advertising, and the need for something micro-payments.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    I wonder if there's any overlap between the group of people who always complain about ads, those that complain about paywalls, and maybe even those that say journalism is worthless "because they're all just rewriting the AP ticker". Because it appears as if people think the future of journalism is hundreds of high-quality, independent, investigative newspapers. Who each have one subscriber who summarises the articles for their ad-free blog.
artemisyna 9y ago
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.
- kfrzcode 9y ago
  Yeah, my thoughts exactly. It's not a secret (even to himself) that Elon is not the most timely deliverator... even so, given his track record of, y'know, actually producing things, you'd think he'd be better at managing expectations. I'm still invested. :)
  - TheAlchemist 9y ago
    It's because he doesn't care about what other people says (including analysts and investors). I think he just uses it as a tool to motivate and focus people working for him. On the other hand - frankly, who cares ? Being late on announced dates, missing revenues targets etc - it doesn't change the big picture in any meaningful way. And the big picture is, that he is revolutionizing several industries and no one is even coming close.
    - dingaling 9y ago
      Mr Musk may have set the easel but the big picture is being drawn regardless of Tesla. Nissan are aiming to double global Leaf sales to 100,000 plus in 2018. That's just a production-line tweak for them. Then add all the other latecomers piling into the fray. Being better isn't a substitute for being visible. Ask the average Euro driver to name an electric car that they saw in the last week and the majority will say Leaf or Zoe. Certainly not Model 3 which is due for Europe in 2020.
      - hwillis 9y ago
        If having cars on the road was blocking Tesla's success it would have done so already. Tesla was briefly the most valuable automaker; they have all the visibility they need, particularly outside the US.
totalZero 9y ago
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 9y ago
  It would be interesting to know if any of the cancellations were from the same people shorting the stock.
erikb 9y ago
Is there a way to see how many cars per month Tesla is currenlty producing?
- greglindahl 9y ago
  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.
SigmundA 9y ago
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.
- matt4077 9y ago
  I think it's quite unfair to call what they're doing "BS". If you look at Musk's history at both SpaceX and Tesla, the pattern is pretty obvious: the products are always late, but rarely disappoint. And considering that much of what they do is best categorised as research, I can't really see why one would get angry at dates slipping. Maybe if you're one of their commercial space launch customers–but even then you should've extrapolated from the past and doubled their estimates. Maybe they could follow Apple's PR lead more closely and only announce products when they're done. But I guess Musk is just too excited not to talk about whatever idea he has on any given day, and they may also rely on pre-orders for financing. They do seem to make it up by creating products that are far more ambitious than Apple, though.
  - SigmundA 9y ago
    Remember the Musk said his solar roof would cost less than a normal roof before its electricity production is taken into account? Saying your semi is "long haul" but probably has 200-300 mile range and only good for local delivery. Now Tesla 3 production 20% of what Musk said it would be, and still no $35,000 versions, more BS. Tesla still running a loss and behind schedule, Space X maybe breaking even and behind schedule. Habitually over over promising is what I consider BS. I hope it still works out because as I said I do believe it to be the right thing and as I said maybe that how it need to get done. Seems more like how a government program is run than a business though.
    - hwillis 9y ago
apsec112 9y ago
Paywall workaround: http://archive.is/ghsOu http://archive.is/ghsOu
olegkikin 9y ago
Can we not post paywalled garbage? Why give backlinks to something we can't see?
tankenmate 9y ago
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-full-story/31D34EE8-DD7D-4485-8DC9-672B9C92DD9A.html https://www.wsj.com/video/tesla-delivery-numbers-dont-tell-f...
factsaresacred 9y ago
> 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.
spiorf 9y ago
This is starting to look like the bitcoin obituaries situation.
pavlakoos 9y ago
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.
bparsons 9y ago
WSJ really has it out for Tesla.

25 points by NN88 9y ago

bastijn 9y ago

Without wsj paywall: https://outline.com/LHX3V9 https://outline.com/LHX3V9

dlp211 9y ago
And then there is this: http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/technology/tesla-semi-delay/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/technology/tesla-semi-delay/... 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 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      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 9y ago
        "the subsidies on the car were negligible " $14000 in Ontario.
- matt4077 9y ago
  > Anyone else would have been ejected by the board The board's on it! They'll replace Musk the second they find anyone else capable of creating both a profitable orbital launch company and a profitable electric supercar company, simultaneously. Of course Musk is a controlling stakeholder on those boards. And while he's really going to get to fire himself any day now, it does appear as if it may take a day or two more than anticipated. But once these last kinks are taken care off, it'll be a revolutionary rethinking of what it means to be fired. Order now!
- factsaresacred 9y ago
  > Anyone else would have been ejected by the board by now and shareholders would be gnashing their teeth for some accountability Perhaps it's for the best that Elon seems an indispensable part of Tesla's success. Ejecting CEOs and shuffling the boardroom because value will be realized - shock, horror - a few weeks later is akin to corporate dowsing: questionable actions with dubious results. Shares can be sold. The idea that holding stocks of a company make one some kind of philosopher-king who need not deign themselves with concepts of patience and time horizons needs to go away. Investment in shares is risk in hope of return, not a whip.
- spiorf 9y ago
  So you have a guy with a proven track record of companies that manage to make products that 15 years ago were thought to be impossible to make, that is personally invested in those companies, that does so with a clear intention of bringing some much needed revolutions in the whole transport and rocket industry, and he should be fired... Besides, shareholders bought shares of a company whose stated purpose is "to accelerate the advent of sustainable mobility", not "maximize profit for shareholders".
woodandsteel 9y ago
Thank you. I don't understand why people put up wsj links on HN. If you're a wsj subscriber, you've probably read it already. If you're not, you can't, unless someone puts up an alternative link. At the least, someone who puts up a wsj link ought to include an alternative link.
- jseliger 9y ago
  I don't understand why people put up wsj links on HN Because the WSJ does a lot of reporting that can't be found anywhere else. Furthermore, a lot of people also decry the way advertising has distorted the web and media orgs. There are two major ways to pay for news: ads and subscriptions. People who don't like the former ought to like the latter. Before someone points this out, let me say that I'd love to see micro-payments work out but we have not seen this work yet even after twenty years of prognostication on the topic.
  - woodandsteel 9y ago
    I see I didn't make my point clear enough. I am saying that a wsj link put up on HN has no utility, because the people who could read it likely already have, and the link does no good for the people who can't read it. I agree entirely about the problem with advertising, and the need for something micro-payments.
- matt4077 9y ago
  I wonder if there's any overlap between the group of people who always complain about ads, those that complain about paywalls, and maybe even those that say journalism is worthless "because they're all just rewriting the AP ticker". Because it appears as if people think the future of journalism is hundreds of high-quality, independent, investigative newspapers. Who each have one subscriber who summarises the articles for their ad-free blog.

artemisyna 9y ago

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.

kfrzcode 9y ago
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. It's not a secret (even to himself) that Elon is not the most timely deliverator... even so, given his track record of, y'know, actually producing things, you'd think he'd be better at managing expectations. I'm still invested. :)
- TheAlchemist 9y ago
  It's because he doesn't care about what other people says (including analysts and investors). I think he just uses it as a tool to motivate and focus people working for him. On the other hand - frankly, who cares ? Being late on announced dates, missing revenues targets etc - it doesn't change the big picture in any meaningful way. And the big picture is, that he is revolutionizing several industries and no one is even coming close.
  - dingaling 9y ago
    Mr Musk may have set the easel but the big picture is being drawn regardless of Tesla. Nissan are aiming to double global Leaf sales to 100,000 plus in 2018. That's just a production-line tweak for them. Then add all the other latecomers piling into the fray. Being better isn't a substitute for being visible. Ask the average Euro driver to name an electric car that they saw in the last week and the majority will say Leaf or Zoe. Certainly not Model 3 which is due for Europe in 2020.
    - hwillis 9y ago
      If having cars on the road was blocking Tesla's success it would have done so already. Tesla was briefly the most valuable automaker; they have all the visibility they need, particularly outside the US.

totalZero 9y ago

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 9y ago
It would be interesting to know if any of the cancellations were from the same people shorting the stock.

erikb 9y ago

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

greglindahl 9y ago
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.

SigmundA 9y ago

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.

matt4077 9y ago
I think it's quite unfair to call what they're doing "BS". If you look at Musk's history at both SpaceX and Tesla, the pattern is pretty obvious: the products are always late, but rarely disappoint. And considering that much of what they do is best categorised as research, I can't really see why one would get angry at dates slipping. Maybe if you're one of their commercial space launch customers–but even then you should've extrapolated from the past and doubled their estimates. Maybe they could follow Apple's PR lead more closely and only announce products when they're done. But I guess Musk is just too excited not to talk about whatever idea he has on any given day, and they may also rely on pre-orders for financing. They do seem to make it up by creating products that are far more ambitious than Apple, though.
- SigmundA 9y ago
  Remember the Musk said his solar roof would cost less than a normal roof before its electricity production is taken into account? Saying your semi is "long haul" but probably has 200-300 mile range and only good for local delivery. Now Tesla 3 production 20% of what Musk said it would be, and still no $35,000 versions, more BS. Tesla still running a loss and behind schedule, Space X maybe breaking even and behind schedule. Habitually over over promising is what I consider BS. I hope it still works out because as I said I do believe it to be the right thing and as I said maybe that how it need to get done. Seems more like how a government program is run than a business though.
  - hwillis 9y ago

apsec112 9y ago

Paywall workaround: http://archive.is/ghsOu http://archive.is/ghsOu

olegkikin 9y ago

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

tankenmate 9y ago

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

factsaresacred 9y ago

> 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.

spiorf 9y ago

This is starting to look like the bitcoin obituaries situation.

pavlakoos 9y ago

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.

bparsons 9y ago

WSJ really has it out for Tesla.