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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

by slivym 9y ago

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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  >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 9y ago
    > 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.
anilshanbhag 9y ago
Before claiming he is stupid, you need to read the balance sheet. They have enough cash in hand to pay the maturing debt. If they are cash flow positive, technically they don't need to raise money. However, Tesla wants to expand to start production of Semi and Model Y. Analysts predict they need to raise money for setting up production (which is technically optional).
- tway901010 9y ago
  >Before claiming he is stupid, you need to read the balance sheet Before you tell someone they need to read the balance sheet, you should read the balance sheet. Tesla has $3.5BB in cash, which they are burning through at the rate of almost $1BB a quarter, and have $4.1BB in accounts payable. Those are "bills", and their cash doesn't cover that amount, let alone the long-term debt payments. They've been accumulating cash by letting their bills pile up; this figure grew over $1BB quarter over quarter.
  - anilshanbhag 9y ago
    Accounts payable is a rotating line i.e. there is turnover. The first X gets paid and a new X comes in. It did not grow $1B qoq. The burn rate of of $1B+ would need to go to 0 to be called profitable + cash flow positive. Profitable => Net income > 0; cash flow positive => including capex net cash flow into business > 0.

by slivym 9y ago

adventured 9y ago

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 9y ago
>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 9y ago
  > 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.

anilshanbhag 9y ago

Before claiming he is stupid, you need to read the balance sheet. They have enough cash in hand to pay the maturing debt. If they are cash flow positive, technically they don't need to raise money. However, Tesla wants to expand to start production of Semi and Model Y. Analysts predict they need to raise money for setting up production (which is technically optional).

tway901010 9y ago
>Before claiming he is stupid, you need to read the balance sheet Before you tell someone they need to read the balance sheet, you should read the balance sheet. Tesla has $3.5BB in cash, which they are burning through at the rate of almost $1BB a quarter, and have $4.1BB in accounts payable. Those are "bills", and their cash doesn't cover that amount, let alone the long-term debt payments. They've been accumulating cash by letting their bills pile up; this figure grew over $1BB quarter over quarter.
- anilshanbhag 9y ago
  Accounts payable is a rotating line i.e. there is turnover. The first X gets paid and a new X comes in. It did not grow $1B qoq. The burn rate of of $1B+ would need to go to 0 to be called profitable + cash flow positive. Profitable => Net income > 0; cash flow positive => including capex net cash flow into business > 0.