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I was under the impression Tesla has only made profit selling cars for one quarter since existence. Most of their revenue is from the weird money pump/merger wi

I was under the impression Tesla has only made profit selling cars for one quarter since existence. Most of their revenue is from the weird money pump/merger with Solar city and carbon credits. I'm with everyone else with the confusion on the valuation. Investors seem to love TSLA even though they lose their money every car they sell. I guess they're banking on the Uber/Lyft strategy which is to dominate the market hoping that the competitors will not last(?). Equally confused with the self driving fleet strategy too. Even if Tesla figures out how to get cameras to provide as meaningful data as LiDAR, they will still be years behind. All the big players have been spending the past couple years trying to figure out how to create a robust "driver" while Tesla is spending all this time figuring out how to get useful sensor data. Disclaimer, I work in the Autonomous vehicle industry and my opinion are of my own and not of my employer. Edit: I would love to hear if any part of my comment was wrong rather than just being down-voted. I even double checked the profits from TSLA earning and they have had 6 (barely) profitable quarters in the past five years. None of those would of been possible without EV and/or solar credits...

belval 6y ago
You are being downvoted because your comment [reads] like it was written in bad faith. The price (although inflated imo) is representative of having some truly new tech to offer. Batteries being one where they still beat the competition, but it's not hard to see that they've been leading the EV market by a mile. Their self-driving tech while arguably not ready for driverless car is the most advanced that you can buy today. They are lacking in assembly and manufacturing volume. Both are areas that could be improved with an older partner with more experience in manufacturing, which is why they are open to a merger.
- hakfoo 6y ago
  I wonder if the stock market likes it because it's a "purer" speculation than some other automakers. Tesla tracks one clear proposition: the future of personal transport is electric. If you buy the premise, it's one of the most precise bets you can make on it. In contrast, GM or Hyundai or Volkswagen are inherently hedged. If petrol drops to twelve cents per litre, they'll pivot back to V8 boats and Tesla goes bust. But that means they'll pay out less if the future is electric-- they wasted resources and time that could have been in retrospect better spent going whole hog on electric vehicles. I wouldn't be surprised if this is part of the reason firms like Nikola can still get market traction with way more vaporous fundamentals: they're also positioned as a pure bet on that proposition. (Disclaimer: long TSLA)
  - 55873445216111 6y ago
    Yes. It's called "Sum of the parts" valuation. Companies sometimes break up because the market values the separate pieces more than the whole. https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/valuation/sum-of-the-parts-sotp-valuation/ https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/va...

belval 6y ago

You are being downvoted because your comment [reads] like it was written in bad faith. The price (although inflated imo) is representative of having some truly new tech to offer. Batteries being one where they still beat the competition, but it's not hard to see that they've been leading the EV market by a mile. Their self-driving tech while arguably not ready for driverless car is the most advanced that you can buy today. They are lacking in assembly and manufacturing volume. Both are areas that could be improved with an older partner with more experience in manufacturing, which is why they are open to a merger.

hakfoo 6y ago
I wonder if the stock market likes it because it's a "purer" speculation than some other automakers. Tesla tracks one clear proposition: the future of personal transport is electric. If you buy the premise, it's one of the most precise bets you can make on it. In contrast, GM or Hyundai or Volkswagen are inherently hedged. If petrol drops to twelve cents per litre, they'll pivot back to V8 boats and Tesla goes bust. But that means they'll pay out less if the future is electric-- they wasted resources and time that could have been in retrospect better spent going whole hog on electric vehicles. I wouldn't be surprised if this is part of the reason firms like Nikola can still get market traction with way more vaporous fundamentals: they're also positioned as a pure bet on that proposition. (Disclaimer: long TSLA)
- 55873445216111 6y ago
  Yes. It's called "Sum of the parts" valuation. Companies sometimes break up because the market values the separate pieces more than the whole. https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/valuation/sum-of-the-parts-sotp-valuation/ https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/va...