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As a sidenote, it's easy to get lost among the "how many hundreds of thousands of model 3s can tesla produce in a year", but I just saw an overall production st

by rconti 7y ago

As a sidenote, it's easy to get lost among the "how many hundreds of thousands of model 3s can tesla produce in a year", but I just saw an overall production stat and noticed they're over 900,000 cars lifetime, and hadn't heard it mentioned elsewhere. 1 million vehicles sold will be a real milestone. I stumbled upon a comment online, recently, from a guy who went on and on about peak oil for years. In 2008, he made a joke about "Tesla will have surpassed the US car industry". I don't remember the time horizon, but the first Roadster was delivered to Elon in February 2008. It just made me reflect on what we'd think of that prediction/joke and how it turned out, if we were to go back in time.

latortuga 7y ago
Musk tweeted about how they reached 1M just yesterday.
rtsil 7y ago
> 1 million vehicles sold will be a real milestone. They've just passed 1 million vehicles manufactured so that shouldn't take long.
tardo99 7y ago
Tesla's 10-K shows an accumulated shareholder deficit of $6B. That's over and above money spent to buy factories which are still operating. That's $6k a car at 1M cars sold. Add to that the $7500 rebate the US was providing until recently. That's $13.5k, on average, they lost per car they sold through the end of 2019. Saying nothing about Tesla cars versus other companies, that's a huge financial advantage against other car companies. This is particularly true given that most of those car sales happened post-Q1-2018, when Tesla had already established a strong brand. I'm not sure any established player could, at that point, compete with a company that gets to lose $13.5k per car they sell. That would be like if Nissan started building base-model Sentras and selling them for $4500. Yes, they would sell a lot of them. As markets normalize and Tesla has to compete on a level playing field, my guess is their product is viewed more and more as what it is: a luxury car. Nothing wrong with that, but it's hard to see them owning more than a few percent of the market, especially considering established companies have gone all in on electric at this point. And, nothing can justify a price-sales multiplier of 20 for the company. Nothing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- TotempaaltJ 7y ago
  How does Tesla lose money on the rebate?
  - sfblah 7y ago
    They don’t. It’s that they get to charge less for their cars than would a competitor.
    - mrep 7y ago
      Those competitors can sell cars with the same rebate as Tesla though.
      - sfblah 7y ago
        Yes, assuming Tesla doesn’t successfully lobby to change the law, which I expect them to do.
    - rootusrootus 7y ago
      They get to charge more, you mean. They have had to steadily lower their prices as the rebate phased out.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Fiat Chrysler and GM used to build compliance cars. Fiat's CEO was famous for saying not to buy theirs [1] because they lost money on it, but were required to build them to meet emissions mandates so they could sell their polluting combustion cars (fun fact: Fiat has to pay Tesla $2 billion now to continue selling non-EVs in Europe, they are effectively funding Gigafactory 4 in Berlin [2]). These companies have enormous existing manufacturing capacity, and capital market resources. If they didn't have spineless management, or short term shareholders, they could've been the ones to capture the gains from the transition to electrified transportation. Instead, Tesla came along, doing the hard work for a decade performing R&D, building their own manufacturing capacity (GF1, 2, 3, and now 4) and Supercharger network, and most importantly, a desirable and sexy brand. TLDR Tesla spends crazy money on capex but everyone funding Tesla is onboard with it, legacy automakers cannot do so. Polluting and emissions have a very real cost (climate change, particulate pollution). I am astounded when someone complains that this cost must be paid for, and that it was in some way wrong or economic fraud for Tesla to take advantage of intelligent public policy (ZEV credits, tax credits, etc). Disclaimer (bigger one in profile): I am a TSLA shareholder, and willing to wait until the heat death of the universe for any return on capital. My investment is in fixing climate change. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs/fiat-chrysler-ceo-please-dont-buy-fiat-500e-electric-car-idUSL1N0O71MS20140521 https://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs/fiat-chrysl... (“I hope you don’t buy it because every time I sell one it costs me $14,000,” he said to the audience at the Brookings Institution about the 500e. “I’m honest enough to tell you that.” -- Sergio Marchionne) [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/fiat-will-effectively-fund-tesla-s-german-factory-baird-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/fiat-will... (Fiat Will Effectively Fund Tesla’s German Factory, Baird Says)

by rconti 7y ago

latortuga 7y ago

Musk tweeted about how they reached 1M just yesterday.

rtsil 7y ago

> 1 million vehicles sold will be a real milestone. They've just passed 1 million vehicles manufactured so that shouldn't take long.

tardo99 7y ago

Tesla's 10-K shows an accumulated shareholder deficit of $6B. That's over and above money spent to buy factories which are still operating. That's $6k a car at 1M cars sold. Add to that the $7500 rebate the US was providing until recently. That's $13.5k, on average, they lost per car they sold through the end of 2019. Saying nothing about Tesla cars versus other companies, that's a huge financial advantage against other car companies. This is particularly true given that most of those car sales happened post-Q1-2018, when Tesla had already established a strong brand. I'm not sure any established player could, at that point, compete with a company that gets to lose $13.5k per car they sell. That would be like if Nissan started building base-model Sentras and selling them for $4500. Yes, they would sell a lot of them. As markets normalize and Tesla has to compete on a level playing field, my guess is their product is viewed more and more as what it is: a luxury car. Nothing wrong with that, but it's hard to see them owning more than a few percent of the market, especially considering established companies have gone all in on electric at this point. And, nothing can justify a price-sales multiplier of 20 for the company. Nothing.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TotempaaltJ 7y ago
How does Tesla lose money on the rebate?
- sfblah 7y ago
  They don’t. It’s that they get to charge less for their cars than would a competitor.
  - mrep 7y ago
    Those competitors can sell cars with the same rebate as Tesla though.
    - sfblah 7y ago
      Yes, assuming Tesla doesn’t successfully lobby to change the law, which I expect them to do.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    They get to charge more, you mean. They have had to steadily lower their prices as the rebate phased out.
toomuchtodo 7y ago
Fiat Chrysler and GM used to build compliance cars. Fiat's CEO was famous for saying not to buy theirs [1] because they lost money on it, but were required to build them to meet emissions mandates so they could sell their polluting combustion cars (fun fact: Fiat has to pay Tesla $2 billion now to continue selling non-EVs in Europe, they are effectively funding Gigafactory 4 in Berlin [2]). These companies have enormous existing manufacturing capacity, and capital market resources. If they didn't have spineless management, or short term shareholders, they could've been the ones to capture the gains from the transition to electrified transportation. Instead, Tesla came along, doing the hard work for a decade performing R&D, building their own manufacturing capacity (GF1, 2, 3, and now 4) and Supercharger network, and most importantly, a desirable and sexy brand. TLDR Tesla spends crazy money on capex but everyone funding Tesla is onboard with it, legacy automakers cannot do so. Polluting and emissions have a very real cost (climate change, particulate pollution). I am astounded when someone complains that this cost must be paid for, and that it was in some way wrong or economic fraud for Tesla to take advantage of intelligent public policy (ZEV credits, tax credits, etc). Disclaimer (bigger one in profile): I am a TSLA shareholder, and willing to wait until the heat death of the universe for any return on capital. My investment is in fixing climate change. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs/fiat-chrysler-ceo-please-dont-buy-fiat-500e-electric-car-idUSL1N0O71MS20140521 https://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs/fiat-chrysl... (“I hope you don’t buy it because every time I sell one it costs me $14,000,” he said to the audience at the Brookings Institution about the 500e. “I’m honest enough to tell you that.” -- Sergio Marchionne) [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/fiat-will-effectively-fund-tesla-s-german-factory-baird-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/fiat-will... (Fiat Will Effectively Fund Tesla’s German Factory, Baird Says)