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Musk says Tesla will be profitable in Q3 and Q4
- osrec 9y agoI 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 9y agoBeyond 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 9y agoI 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.
- prostoalex 9y agoFor what it's worth, Tesla built a Supercharger network all on their own, instead of shoehorning their way in, like expecting cities and gas stations to add electric charging capability. As far as the weight, the society would probably benefit from narrower lines and narrower single- (or double-, but in a tandem way) occupant cars, as congested city freeways could essentially double the throughput overnight. The benefit would also extend to any internal-combustion vehicle, so this is not Tesla-exclusive. The infrastructure (lane width included) is governed by US DOT and respective agencies around the world https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/geometric/pubs/mitigationstrategies/chapter3/3_lanewidth.cfm https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/geometric/pubs/mitigationstrateg...
- _o_ 9y agoThe 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 9y agoThat 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/2018/2/27/17052488/electricity-demand-utilities https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/energy-and-environment/2018...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- _o_ 9y agoOh, 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.
- noonespecial 9y agoI 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.
- Keyframe 9y agoMusk talks a lot.
- sidcool 9y agoSeems HN went from Musk love to hate pretty fast. I am rooting for the man.
- ksec 9y agoI remember him saying the same thing in 2016 or 2017, or both.
- susanhi 9y agoLink?
- kgwgk 9y agohttp://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/1273872387x0x874449/945B9CF5-86DA-4C35-B03C-4892824F058D/Q4_15_Tesla_Update_Letter.pdf http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/127387238...
- outtaCTRL 9y agoI'm pretty sure I remember him saying that for year 2013.
- SirLJ 9y agoDupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16829159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16829159
- postmeta 9y agoProfitable 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-statement https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/financials?query=income-s... a la amazon: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-revenue-vs-profit-2016-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-revenue-vs-profit-2016...
- bryanlarsen 9y agoIt'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 9y agoIt'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.
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- slivym 9y agoIt 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 9y agoAnd 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.
- dibbsonline 9y agoMusk has said a lot of things that didn't ring true.
- sschueller 9y agoIn Musk years that would be Q3/Q4 2020.