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Am I the only one who thinks Tesla is destined to be acquired by a proper Manufacturing company? Can Tesla by itself exist after 5 years ?
by amrrs 8y ago
Am I the only one who thinks Tesla is destined to be acquired by a proper Manufacturing company?
Can Tesla by itself exist after 5 years ?
- thiago_fm 8y agoAs long as the cashflow is positive, from investors, the company will last.
- Analemma_ 8y ago“Cash-flow positive from investors” is a nonsensical concept. Investors invest because they expect a return. If cash flow, the real kind, is negative forever, eventually the investments will stop. Musk has delayed the reckoning for a while with showmanship, but it can’t go on forever.
- thefounder 8y agoAmazon had no profit for many years and here we are. Some could be told about Uber.
- hef19898 8y agoAFAIK Amazon had only a handful of unprofitable quarters in history. Even more important, Amazon was always cash-flow positive. Uber is a different story, so.
- natch 8y agoWith Amazon we're comparing a web site that sells stuff they don't even make to an auto manufacturer, insanely capital intensive. It's quite a different bar. I realize you're just replying to someone who brought this up, but I'm not convinced comparisons make sense.
- hef19898 8y agoI do get your point, you cannot compare the two. Yet, every time Tesla's finances are brought up someone is repeating the false "Amazon lost money the whole time" statement. Which is wrong both on the P&L and cash flow side. And Tesla would be bankrupt already with their cash burn rate if it wasn't for Elon and his investor magic. But maybe they wouldn't have needed his magic without his other attics in the first place.
- Invictus0 8y agoI believe the parent was making a joke.
- Mvandenbergh 8y agoI feel like "cashflow positive from investors" is a great title for a very snarky book about startups and SV culture.
- saalweachter 8y ago"You Can't Run a Con Without Confidence"
- markmm 8y agoThey are growing every year, they should have millions of cars in the fleet by 2020/21. Once FSD is done they will own the space and generate enough cash to make Apple look poor.
- reitzensteinm 8y agoTesla has in excess of $11bn in debt; even if you could get the equity for nothing, an acquisition would still be extremely expensive - more than 25% of Ford's market cap. I can't see a middle of the road outcome for Tesla; it'll either be wildly successful, or Musk will destroy it in the attempt.
- Roritharr 8y agoStill easily doable by Apple, if they only wanted to.
- nkozyra 8y agoDoable by a lot of companies if they wanted to, I think the suggestion was that someone in the domain would make the acquisition, which seems much tougher a prospect.
- morkfromork 8y agoLarry Ellison invested in TSLA. I would not want to see Oracle buy them.
- erichurkman 8y agoModel 3 suddenly cost $1,000 per wheel and come with a mandatory $40k/year support package, but don't worry, your rep got you a sweet 7.5% discount on future services — and he's never heard of a director approving such an incredible discount.
- qaq 8y agoHmm maybe TSLA should leverage Oracle for corp. fleet sales :)
- richardknop 8y agoDoable by companies like Apple/Google, the issue is why would they do it? Their shareholders would not approve such transaction as it's just throwing your money into a furnace.
- decasteve 8y agoI’m hoping they get out of building their own cars altogether. Sell the car manufacturing and focus on the infrastructure and important parts: charging network, drive train, battery packs, solar, and self-driving tech if that’s their goal. /armchair
- Robotbeat 8y agoI don't think they'll stop building their own cars. But I do think that partnering with other carmakers to produce powertrains for them is not a bad idea. They produced powertrains for the Smart EV and the Toyota Rav4 EV back in the day. Musk has hinted at partnering with utility van companies to electrify them.
- moduspol 8y agoYou're not, but you should ask yourself why people with the same views have been predicting failure since 2012.
- nthompson 8y agoThe product lineup is solid; even if they go bankrupt, the debt owners will simply wipe out the shareholders, prune away the less profitable parts of the business, and scale back the expensive R&D ambitions. The Model 3 will still be produced since the fixed costs are already paid. (Not my view that they actually will go bankrupt. But failure due to overspending on fixed costs tends to work out differently than being unable to cover marginal costs.)
- naveen99 8y agoWhat if tesla acquires a traditional car company instead and start adding auto pilot to gasoline powered cars too?