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They should use $30b in stock to acquire Ford. Keep Ford as a separate operating entity. Use Tesla's tech and rapidly turn Ford into a 100% electric manufacture

They should use $30b in stock to acquire Ford. Keep Ford as a separate operating entity. Use Tesla's tech and rapidly turn Ford into a 100% electric manufacturer. Ford would become Tesla's mass consumer arm. Scrap the ridiculous, impractical Cybertruck (which will flop after it initially sells well, the novelty will quickly wear off) and focus on electrifying Ford's very lucrative truck lineup. There is a risk Tesla's stock might crash if they attempted this (it might crash anyway though, given how extreme their valuation is), it'd be critical to convince the market that Ford would remain a separate operating entity. The goal would be to push Tesla's tech directly into a lot more vehicles, gain some further scale benefits here and there (there are some gains to be had from being able to directly leverage Ford's manufacturing scale), and reap vast profit from selling electric versions of Ford's high margin trucks (while getting Ford for a very steep discount vs where Tesla is trading pound for pound).

bryanlarsen 6y ago
Ford has $155B in debt. I don't think they want to add that to their balance sheet, so that means they'd need to raise $180B to buy Ford.
nickik 6y ago
> They should use $30b in stock to acquire Ford. Keep Ford as a separate operating entity. Horrifyingly terrible idea in so many ways it almost plow my mind. Many legacy production sites that don't make much sense, with massive political entanglement and maybe even worse union labor contracts. A balance sheet full of leases for cars that will collapse in value. A product portfolio that has few profitable products and non that are gone be profitable in 5 to 10 years. The massive amount of dealers you would have that have no intensive at selling EVs. > Use Tesla's tech and rapidly turn Ford into a 100% electric manufacturer. So basically throw everything away Ford is currently good at and replace it with thing Tesla is already good at? You need to completely redesign product to make them full EV, you can't just plot a bunch of batteries in a Ford truck and sell them. > crap the ridiculous, impractical Cybertruck (which will flop after it initially sells well, the novelty will quickly wear off) Nonsense statement based on your own priors. It has more re-orders then anything and has an incredible price. If you are a contractor the operation cost will be unbeatable. If you are an off-roader the power and clearance will be unbeatable. If your a life-style drive you have something that is more unique then other trucks. In terms of practicality it better then any other truck. The only thing I heard as a counter argument is that, it is not so easy to load from the side. > focus on electrifying Ford's very lucrative truck lineup So just buy Ford so you can call your truck an F150? Those trucks all look the same, Tesla could just make a truck that basically looks the same. You taking an a huge amount of assets that are quickly losing value, just to get a bunch of production legacy facilities that you have to convert to EV anyway. Building new clean sheet production facilities without unions in strategic locations design for full vertical integration is a much better investment.

bryanlarsen 6y ago

Ford has $155B in debt. I don't think they want to add that to their balance sheet, so that means they'd need to raise $180B to buy Ford.

nickik 6y ago

> They should use $30b in stock to acquire Ford. Keep Ford as a separate operating entity. Horrifyingly terrible idea in so many ways it almost plow my mind. Many legacy production sites that don't make much sense, with massive political entanglement and maybe even worse union labor contracts. A balance sheet full of leases for cars that will collapse in value. A product portfolio that has few profitable products and non that are gone be profitable in 5 to 10 years. The massive amount of dealers you would have that have no intensive at selling EVs. > Use Tesla's tech and rapidly turn Ford into a 100% electric manufacturer. So basically throw everything away Ford is currently good at and replace it with thing Tesla is already good at? You need to completely redesign product to make them full EV, you can't just plot a bunch of batteries in a Ford truck and sell them. > crap the ridiculous, impractical Cybertruck (which will flop after it initially sells well, the novelty will quickly wear off) Nonsense statement based on your own priors. It has more re-orders then anything and has an incredible price. If you are a contractor the operation cost will be unbeatable. If you are an off-roader the power and clearance will be unbeatable. If your a life-style drive you have something that is more unique then other trucks. In terms of practicality it better then any other truck. The only thing I heard as a counter argument is that, it is not so easy to load from the side. > focus on electrifying Ford's very lucrative truck lineup So just buy Ford so you can call your truck an F150? Those trucks all look the same, Tesla could just make a truck that basically looks the same. You taking an a huge amount of assets that are quickly losing value, just to get a bunch of production legacy facilities that you have to convert to EV anyway. Building new clean sheet production facilities without unions in strategic locations design for full vertical integration is a much better investment.