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Why are they focused on improvements in margins that are this small now? At autonomy investor day last year they promised a Robotaxi network this year that woul
by cma 6y ago
Why are they focused on improvements in margins that are this small now? At autonomy investor day last year they promised a Robotaxi network this year that would give around a $150,000 margin on each car. They would quit selling the cars at current prices at that time, so they said customers better buy FSD early to get in on the action. Your car would generated you around $30,000 per year in profit according to the event.
These plans eventually lead to the stock price shooting up ten-fold in anticipation.
They could get battery cost down to zero and it wouldn't be as profitable as what they were talking about just last year.
The announcement at this new event of a $25,000 car available for sale to consumers because people don't all have enough for the model 3 doesn't make any sense given what was promised last year. It could add to the Robotaxi fleet, but would make no sense to sell to consumers without enough money when it could be operating as an automated taxi driver earning Tesla money instead.
One thing Musk says in this new presentation is that all manufacturers will eventually have autonomy, so this battery stuff is what really makes Tesla a valuable company. But the timeframe doesn't make sense. Either Tesla has some decent exclusivity period on autonomy, or autonomy isn't worth much to people buying FSD now, because there will be lots of Robotaxi competition. And in the case of a decent exclusivity period on autonomy, none of these margin improvements matter and the near term release of a $25,000 car to consumers is a huge mistake.
Go back and watch autonomy investor day and see if any of it holds up to scrutiny.
- brianwawok 6y agoRobo taxi fleet is one business line that currently has 0 revenue. Making cars is a business line that currently had a lot of revenue, and if mapped out to a 25k car could take a large percentage of the worldwide car sales business. There is also the grid level batteries, or selling batteries to others if they pull far enough ahead in batter production. You don’t just stop battery research and assign those scientists to AI driving. They are fundamentally different hard problems.
- cma 6y agoGo back and watch autonomy day and listen to the conviction that it would be ready this year. Obv. COVID may impact that, but no more so than advanced battery research would be impacted. How does, say, the Cybertruck factory make any sense if there is a limited period of time that is immediately imminent where hey will be the exclusive car producer with autonomy? In the end, I think Nikola and Tesla have a lot in common beyond their namesake.
- zwily 6y agoMusk is delusional with his timeframes, but I think he's sincere about his aspirations, and has a track record of eventually delivering. Milton (Nikola) just flat out made stuff up all the time that had no basis in truth.
- cma 6y agoMusk demoed non-functional solar shingles on the set of Desperate Housewives and basically got a billion in solar subsidies from New York and never delivered. The shingles are coming from China. Near a billion in California subsidies for fast battery swapping, and they just did one or a few demo stations then canceled it. It probably just used some hacked factory equipment and would never work with normal wear and tear on the cars.
- Robotbeat 6y agoTesla has delivered for New York what was contracted in terms of jobs and the factory is used for making solar panels. If they hadn't, they would have had to pay a penalty.
- cma 6y agoI believe they weren't on track to meet the goal before coronavirus and then got an extension ostensibly because of coronavirus (in reality it was more likely for the governor to save face): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_New_York#Jobs_commitment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_New_York#Jobs_commitment
- bryanlarsen 6y agoAccording to your link they were over their commitment in early 2020.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]