4 ms·

You know Elon doesn't actually like turn wrenches and connect wiring harnesses right? Talking on the phone with investors and making sure the company maintains

by CPLX 9y ago

You know Elon doesn't actually like turn wrenches and connect wiring harnesses right? Talking on the phone with investors and making sure the company maintains creditworthiness is his actual core job.

dragontamer 9y ago
Indeed. It is obvious to anybody looking at the balance sheets of the company that TSLA will need to raise capital soon. Either late 2018 or maybe early 2019. A company with $3 Billion cash that's losing $1-billion per quarter will need more money. That's just the facts. Musk is going to be either relying upon institutional investors / the stock market in general for another round of equity offerings, or relying upon banks for a loan. In either case, it seems like Musk just bit the hand that feeds his company money. Another 300,000 reservations at $1000 per is probably not going to happen. There are fewer and fewer ways for TSLA to raise tons of money.
- snovv_crash 9y ago
  Linear approximations aren't really the best way to do time series predictions.
  - dragontamer 9y ago
    Better than Elon's exponential approximations: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 I'm not necessarily saying "TSLA Will definitely run out of money in 3-quarters". I'm saying "TSLA is currently, on a linear-approximation track to run out of money in 3-quarters". Obviously, the Model 3 rampup will improve profitability. But the Model 3 Ramp-up also requires more resources (more humans in the assembly line. More robots in the assembly line. etc. etc.). So that still requires money. A linear approximation is basically a quick-but-shitty-approximation. Its really easy to calculate and full of flaws, but full of flaws in a way that almost everyone can immediately understand. Exponential approximations (ie: Musk's approach) might be more realistic... since production lines can exponentially grow to some degree. But if you are off by even a little bit, then you end up being ... oh I dunno... 8-months to 10 months late with your 5000-cars per-week estimate.
    - collinmanderson 9y ago
      Tesla plans on spending a lot less CapEx in the future compared to last quarter, so they won't burn through as much money.
hndamien 9y ago
Given that he was so cavalier here that has these noses bent out of shape, and that he was tweeting April fools jokes about being bankrupt, could it be that he is actually pretty confident in Tesla's credit worthiness and that capital raising will not be required? Seems like a pretty dumb bluff otherwise - particularly on April fools.

by CPLX 9y ago

dragontamer 9y ago

Indeed. It is obvious to anybody looking at the balance sheets of the company that TSLA will need to raise capital soon. Either late 2018 or maybe early 2019. A company with $3 Billion cash that's losing $1-billion per quarter will need more money. That's just the facts. Musk is going to be either relying upon institutional investors / the stock market in general for another round of equity offerings, or relying upon banks for a loan. In either case, it seems like Musk just bit the hand that feeds his company money. Another 300,000 reservations at $1000 per is probably not going to happen. There are fewer and fewer ways for TSLA to raise tons of money.

snovv_crash 9y ago
Linear approximations aren't really the best way to do time series predictions.
- dragontamer 9y ago
  Better than Elon's exponential approximations: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 I'm not necessarily saying "TSLA Will definitely run out of money in 3-quarters". I'm saying "TSLA is currently, on a linear-approximation track to run out of money in 3-quarters". Obviously, the Model 3 rampup will improve profitability. But the Model 3 Ramp-up also requires more resources (more humans in the assembly line. More robots in the assembly line. etc. etc.). So that still requires money. A linear approximation is basically a quick-but-shitty-approximation. Its really easy to calculate and full of flaws, but full of flaws in a way that almost everyone can immediately understand. Exponential approximations (ie: Musk's approach) might be more realistic... since production lines can exponentially grow to some degree. But if you are off by even a little bit, then you end up being ... oh I dunno... 8-months to 10 months late with your 5000-cars per-week estimate.
  - collinmanderson 9y ago
    Tesla plans on spending a lot less CapEx in the future compared to last quarter, so they won't burn through as much money.

hndamien 9y ago

Given that he was so cavalier here that has these noses bent out of shape, and that he was tweeting April fools jokes about being bankrupt, could it be that he is actually pretty confident in Tesla's credit worthiness and that capital raising will not be required? Seems like a pretty dumb bluff otherwise - particularly on April fools.