20 ms·

I assume the high value is more about Tesla being more than a car company. 1) If they win the self driving race that will be incredible value beyond just manuf

I assume the high value is more about Tesla being more than a car company. 1) If they win the self driving race that will be incredible value beyond just manufacturing cars. 2) Battery manufacturing in general is huge on its own. 3) The roof top combined with domestic battery side is potentially significant in replacing (full or part?) domestic power companies 4) Insurance - Musk said this could grow into 30-40% of their business 5) Super charger network gives them a first advantage to replace petrol stations to a degree. 6) Elon factor of what's next. And dont get me wrong, I do feel its gone beyond reasonable value, but there is more than a car company there.

anonu 6y ago
They may also buy SpaceX
neogodless 6y ago
This gave me chills. If I understand this correctly, they'll be able to write their own checks because they will essentially... 1) Own self-driving and thus, most personal transportation 3) Own / replace a large segment of public utility / power companies 4) Own / replace a large segment of insurance 5) Own / replace transportation power network Right now, it's silly to think of Tesla as some kind of mega-monopoly across industries. So we invest in them betting on them becoming that. Is that what we want? My counter-argument is that one of the bigger markets for automobiles, the U.S., is designed around personal choice, personal autonomy, etc. Many people just want a working car to give them freedom, and will buy whatever popular, trusted brand is available. The rest want one of the smaller brands, something that seems different from the mainstream (even if it's really barely skin deep). That has kept quite a few big players in the automotive marketplace, and despite consolidation over time, there's still variety, which buyers want. This argument really only addresses them as a car maker, though... and not at all for their spread across industry lines.
- sandspar 6y ago
  Something will stop them. They're not expanding into a vacuum: they're expanding into well-established markets full of billion dollar companies run by people just as driven and talented as they are - not to mention other forces like governments, supply and demand etc. Look at someone who eats 5,000 calories a day and gains 3 lbs a week. "My god, in 10 years they'll weigh 10,000 lbs!"
  - belltaco 6y ago
    People said the same thing about Apple, and watched while it eventually decimated Nokia, Blackberry etc. Both Tesla and Apple have that premium brand reputation, and older brands are perceived as legacy. Doesn't mean that the car brands will fall to a similar fate, but they have an uphill battle to fight and need to pull a rabbit out of their hats.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      But being a "premium" or lifestyle brand is a lot less useful if you're competing in the insurance or utility markets.
      - dexterdog 6y ago
        Is Tesla considered a premium brand? Most of the cars they currently sell are pretty basic.
        mhh__ 6y ago
        Yes, or at least they are a fashion statement to many. They aren't all that premium on paper
        Ekaros 6y ago
        So they are the Prius of recent years?
        benhurmarcel 6y ago
        They're pretty basic in terms of finish and equipment, but premium in terms of price. The most sold cars in Europe are models that start around 15~20k€. The cheapest Tesla starts at 51k€; that's about 3 times the price. Even if you only look at electric cars, the best selling one is the Zoe which starts at about half the price of the cheapest Tesla.
        emptyfile 6y ago
remote_phone 6y ago
This is the same BS that Uber said about themselves. Only in the last few months have you found themselves dismantling everything except ridesharing and food delivery.
- kfarr 6y ago
  And also admitting the margin on those items is not great and they're not much more than a taxi company with a fancy app and the admitted blessing of being able to outsource fleet management to their drivers.
j2bax 6y ago
I have invested (read: gambled!) on and off in Tesla. The Elon factor concerns me as a long term investment. Do people think the company will continue to grow at the rate they are if something happens to him? Worries me to put so much faith in one guy, despite his insane accomplishments.
- mellow-lake-day 6y ago
  I don't think Elon will stick around long term at Tesla. The goal for Tesla is to accelerate transition to electric vehicles. Once that is completed Elon will move on to another project similarly to when he transitioned from X.com/Paypal to something else.
  - pmulard 6y ago
    All signs point to SpaceX and his mission to Mars.
    - gxon 6y ago
      Luckily, it seems like he's mostly abandoned the spectacularly stupid hyperloop idea. More tunnels would be cool, but I find it hard to believe there's really that much room for improvement over established companies.
      - aembleton 6y ago
        Don't you the boring company? I think the hyperloop is even more ludicrous given the technological problems involved in vacuum tubes. But I think Elon realises that which is why all he did is write a memo on it rather than create a company around it.
        gxon 6y ago
        Yeah, I was referring to the hyperloop and the boring company as separate things. I feel like the Boring company is what he settled on once it was made clear to him how monumentally stupid hundreds or thousands of miles of near vacuum tube would be in practice. Even if you could actually build a working prototype, it's hyper fragile and will just never be economically viable compared to other solutions.
kec 6y ago
> 3) The roof top combined with domestic battery side is potentially significant in replacing (full or part?) domestic power companies A model s has a footprint of about 4m^2. In ideal conditions that would net you maybe 800W during daylight hours... 6.4kWh over the day. That would give you around 30 miles of driving range. Solar on personal vehicles will never be anything more than a gimmick.
- tashoecraft 6y ago
  Believe they are referring to Solar roof, solar panels on houses
- mellow-lake-day 6y ago
  I think he is referring to solar roofs on houses not on cars: https://www.tesla.com/solarroof https://www.tesla.com/solarroof
- jrv 6y ago
  It's about solar on the roof of your house, not the roof of a Tesla car.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jpcapdevila 6y ago
  I believe he was referring to Tesla solar roof for houses. https://www.tesla.com/solarroof https://www.tesla.com/solarroof
- LASR 6y ago
  Can’t tell if your comment is sarcasm or genuine. Obviously putting a solar panel on your car roof is pointless. You don’t think they would have thought this through?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ameen 6y ago
While this sounds good as an hypothesis - the ground reality is far from this, Tesla build quality is below average at best w QA being non-existent. Tesla Insurance is an unproven entity and horribly mismanaged. Eg: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-insurance-claim-check-bounced.214809/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-insurance-clai... Many potential Tesla solar customers (that I know of) have ended up using other solutions as Tesla simply didn’t have stock availability - it’s a novelty product line. Many “investors” do not know the ground reality and base their decisions on the Twitter feed of an individual.
- cptskippy 6y ago
  > Many potential Tesla solar customers (that I know of) have ended up using other solutions as Tesla simply didn’t have stock availability - it’s a novelty product line. I order a system from Tesla on Sept 30th, it was installed Nov 3rd, and I received permission to operate on Nov 23rd. Other quotes I received were targeting installation Jan or Feb 2021.
  - linsomniac 6y ago
    I believe the previous article is talking about the first generation solar shingles which Tesla never really got off the ground.
    - conk 6y ago
      It may have taken Tesla longer to bring the solar roof to market than originally planned but it’s been available since early this year. I’ve seen several Tesla roofs in person, and they seem to be a great choice if you need a new roof and can afford it.
  - ameen 6y ago
    Maybe availability has improved now. As the child suggests it was about the Tesla shingles.
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    It’s the same argument as ‘they’re so busy nobody goes there anymore’ anyway.
linsomniac 6y ago
I don't think Tesla is a car company, they are a sustainable energy company. That was their plan all along, as I understand their Secret Plan Part Deux. https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux
atomi 6y ago
There is a herculean effort by every car manufacturer in the world to compete for Tesla's electric car market share. In the coming years there will be so much competition in this space. And then you have Elon snubbing California, one of the largest consumer markets in the space. I'd short.
- randmeerkat 6y ago
  Elon Musk will love this: Tesla short sellers lost more than the US airline industry this year https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/investing/tesla-short-sellers-elon-musk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/investing/tesla-short-sellers...
  - calabin 6y ago
    To be fair, all of the Enron shorts lost their shirts until they didn't. I'm not saying that TSLA is an Enron, but using performance thus far as an indicator of likely performance into the future is a famously poor idea. TSLA has famously bad QA issues, etc etc I don't need to go on. Few (including some of those who are holding TSLA stock right now) would say that there is meaningful justification for the current valuation.
    - weare138 6y ago
      A more recent example is WeWork.
      - opinion-is-bad 6y ago
        No one got a chance to short WeWork since the IPO never happened.
- seanmcdirmid 6y ago
  > And then you have Elon snubbing California, one of the largest consumer markets in the space. And then you look at them as one of the few American brands absolutely killing it in China right now. Not as simple as it seems. > I'd short. Everyone who has done this so far as lost their shirt.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I actually assume Tesla's valuation has very little to do with any quaint notion of discounted value related to future cash flows. There is just a ton of money looking for a place to invest, and Tesla is certainly telling a higher growth story than any of the existing car companies.
- bob33212 6y ago
  A lot of people feel like cash is a depreciating asset. Real Estate and High growth companies are the best hedge against that. There are certainly plenty of complaints you can make against Musk or TSLA, but you cannot stay that TSLA hasn't been growing and isn't on a path of growth.
- kjksf 6y ago
  It's not a story. Tesla has been growing revenues 50% on average for the past 10 years. Most other car makers are roughly flat. This year ICE cars, globally, are in decline. Tesla will grow 50% on average for at least next 5 years. Also, there has been a ton of money looking for a place to invest for the past 20 years. And there are plenty companies that are investable. Just recently we had monster IPOs from DoorDash, AirBnb, Snowflake and others. At the same time there are many more companies that one could invest in but doesn't so it's lazy to attribute "lost of money available" to outsized successes like Tesla or Snowflake.
  - nopzor 6y ago
    fwiw even if tesla increases their revenue by 50% cagr, for the next 5 years, they will still have a -lot- less revenue than the large ice car vendors.
    - jrbuhl 6y ago
      Tesla from Sept. 20, 2019 to Sept. 20, 2020 revenue is $28.17 B. Ford revenue in the same period was $130.9 B and GM was $115.8 B. 28.17 * 1.5^5 = 213.9. That doesn't even include the inevitable decrease in sales for F and GM if Tesla grows that much.
wefarrell 6y ago
I don't see how #1 is possible. Tesla is on record as having driven driven a total of 12.2 autonomous miles, vs 1.45 million for Waymo[1]. If they were actually serious about building a self driving car in the near future they would be taking steps now to get regulatory approval, and to the best of my knowledge they have not. Meanwhile Waymo has taxis on the road without human drivers and Cruise has a pilot program. The only pro Tesla argument that I hear is that they are gathering more data. This is entirely fallacious because there are no meaningful milestones for data gathered, and it's not true. Google has orders of magnitude more of driving data from Android, Maps, and Waze. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/21/tesla-self-driving/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/21/tesla-s...
- Flemlord 6y ago
  Tesla has been shipping cars with integrated self-driving hardware for years. Every car is transmitting data back to Tesla. They have been turning on additional self-driving features every few months for years. Tesla is doing a limited beta of full self driving now which will be widely expanded in just a few months. I don’t understand how anybody but Tesla is poised to have self driving cars in the near future.
  - wefarrell 6y ago
    Waymo currently has self driving cars on public roads today, with actual paying customers: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/waymo-finally-launches-an-actual-public-driverless-taxi-service/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/waymo-finally-launches-... Meanwhile Tesla has taken no steps to get approval from regulators (feel free to prove me wrong). Until they start to do so, their self driving program is pure vaporware. Also, to date they have shipped no features that they are legally allowed to call "self driving" or "autonomous".
    - nickik 6y ago
      Waymo has self driving cars with a tiny amount of paying customers in a tiny are losing 10s of millions of dollars every year. Tesla on the other-hand is MAKING money with self driving technology already. What something is called doesn't really matter, I bet on the company that has 100ks to millions of cars with advanced self-driving computers and hardware on the road in daily use over a company that has a couple 100 cars in Arizona any day. The complexity of self driving is in the complexity of the road network in the real world. The only way to solve it is to have millions of cars learning all the complexity and finding the corner cases. The real money in self driving is not offering ride-share in small geo-locked areas.
snicker7 6y ago
7) Robinhood making TSLA a meme stock.
xangel 6y ago
You are right, we all assume Tesla is much more than a car company. BUT - to justify its current value, Tesla must monopolize all the sectors you have mentioned. Nobody takes this into account. They just claim: "Tesla has this and that potential", "this and that market could be huge". Okay, this should give the stock price a significant boost, but not 10x. It's a bit like crypto speculation.
weare138 6y ago
Market capitalization is based purely on the value of the stock itself and doesn't take into account any other factors such as projections, profitability or debt. It's an odd way to value a company in my opinion and just leads to inevitable debacles like WeWork. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketcapitalization.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketcapitalization.as...
- simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  > Market capitalization is based purely on the value of the stock itself > doesn't take into account any other factors such as projections, profitability or debt You seem to confuse a few things here. Explain how Amazon could ever be worth more than zero for most of its existence, then? Price of stock is largely dependent on people willing to buy it and sell it. When more people want to buy it, the stock price generally goes up. Why do people want to buy more than sell? Generally, it's when they think the future price will be higher. Projections, sort of.
wintorez 6y ago
I think more than being a car company, Tesla is a software/hardware/battery company that also created a series of cars to sell those. Similar to how Apple thinks of itself as a hardware company, but also created iOS/macOS to sell those hardware.
rich_sasha 6y ago
The first mover advantage is real, but I can’t quite understand why it is thought to be a check-mate. Ford had an oh-my-God enormous first mover advantage with the production line. Japanese car companies started literally from nowhere, in an economy shattered by war. VW was literally kickstarted quite late into the game. I don’t think it is right to assume that, even if Tesla makes the first affordable, good range electric cars, then the rest of the market can just fold. Especially since electric cars are simpler than ICEs so surely it’s easier to catch up.

anonu 6y ago

They may also buy SpaceX

neogodless 6y ago

This gave me chills. If I understand this correctly, they'll be able to write their own checks because they will essentially... 1) Own self-driving and thus, most personal transportation 3) Own / replace a large segment of public utility / power companies 4) Own / replace a large segment of insurance 5) Own / replace transportation power network Right now, it's silly to think of Tesla as some kind of mega-monopoly across industries. So we invest in them betting on them becoming that. Is that what we want? My counter-argument is that one of the bigger markets for automobiles, the U.S., is designed around personal choice, personal autonomy, etc. Many people just want a working car to give them freedom, and will buy whatever popular, trusted brand is available. The rest want one of the smaller brands, something that seems different from the mainstream (even if it's really barely skin deep). That has kept quite a few big players in the automotive marketplace, and despite consolidation over time, there's still variety, which buyers want. This argument really only addresses them as a car maker, though... and not at all for their spread across industry lines.

sandspar 6y ago
Something will stop them. They're not expanding into a vacuum: they're expanding into well-established markets full of billion dollar companies run by people just as driven and talented as they are - not to mention other forces like governments, supply and demand etc. Look at someone who eats 5,000 calories a day and gains 3 lbs a week. "My god, in 10 years they'll weigh 10,000 lbs!"
- belltaco 6y ago
  People said the same thing about Apple, and watched while it eventually decimated Nokia, Blackberry etc. Both Tesla and Apple have that premium brand reputation, and older brands are perceived as legacy. Doesn't mean that the car brands will fall to a similar fate, but they have an uphill battle to fight and need to pull a rabbit out of their hats.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    But being a "premium" or lifestyle brand is a lot less useful if you're competing in the insurance or utility markets.
    - dexterdog 6y ago
      Is Tesla considered a premium brand? Most of the cars they currently sell are pretty basic.
      - mhh__ 6y ago
        Yes, or at least they are a fashion statement to many. They aren't all that premium on paper
        Ekaros 6y ago
        So they are the Prius of recent years?
      - benhurmarcel 6y ago
        They're pretty basic in terms of finish and equipment, but premium in terms of price. The most sold cars in Europe are models that start around 15~20k€. The cheapest Tesla starts at 51k€; that's about 3 times the price. Even if you only look at electric cars, the best selling one is the Zoe which starts at about half the price of the cheapest Tesla.
      - emptyfile 6y ago

remote_phone 6y ago

This is the same BS that Uber said about themselves. Only in the last few months have you found themselves dismantling everything except ridesharing and food delivery.

kfarr 6y ago
And also admitting the margin on those items is not great and they're not much more than a taxi company with a fancy app and the admitted blessing of being able to outsource fleet management to their drivers.

j2bax 6y ago

I have invested (read: gambled!) on and off in Tesla. The Elon factor concerns me as a long term investment. Do people think the company will continue to grow at the rate they are if something happens to him? Worries me to put so much faith in one guy, despite his insane accomplishments.

mellow-lake-day 6y ago
I don't think Elon will stick around long term at Tesla. The goal for Tesla is to accelerate transition to electric vehicles. Once that is completed Elon will move on to another project similarly to when he transitioned from X.com/Paypal to something else.
- pmulard 6y ago
  All signs point to SpaceX and his mission to Mars.
  - gxon 6y ago
    Luckily, it seems like he's mostly abandoned the spectacularly stupid hyperloop idea. More tunnels would be cool, but I find it hard to believe there's really that much room for improvement over established companies.
    - aembleton 6y ago
      Don't you the boring company? I think the hyperloop is even more ludicrous given the technological problems involved in vacuum tubes. But I think Elon realises that which is why all he did is write a memo on it rather than create a company around it.
      - gxon 6y ago
        Yeah, I was referring to the hyperloop and the boring company as separate things. I feel like the Boring company is what he settled on once it was made clear to him how monumentally stupid hundreds or thousands of miles of near vacuum tube would be in practice. Even if you could actually build a working prototype, it's hyper fragile and will just never be economically viable compared to other solutions.

kec 6y ago

> 3) The roof top combined with domestic battery side is potentially significant in replacing (full or part?) domestic power companies A model s has a footprint of about 4m^2. In ideal conditions that would net you maybe 800W during daylight hours... 6.4kWh over the day. That would give you around 30 miles of driving range. Solar on personal vehicles will never be anything more than a gimmick.

tashoecraft 6y ago
Believe they are referring to Solar roof, solar panels on houses
mellow-lake-day 6y ago
I think he is referring to solar roofs on houses not on cars: https://www.tesla.com/solarroof https://www.tesla.com/solarroof
jrv 6y ago
It's about solar on the roof of your house, not the roof of a Tesla car.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jpcapdevila 6y ago
I believe he was referring to Tesla solar roof for houses. https://www.tesla.com/solarroof https://www.tesla.com/solarroof
LASR 6y ago
Can’t tell if your comment is sarcasm or genuine. Obviously putting a solar panel on your car roof is pointless. You don’t think they would have thought this through?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ameen 6y ago

While this sounds good as an hypothesis - the ground reality is far from this, Tesla build quality is below average at best w QA being non-existent. Tesla Insurance is an unproven entity and horribly mismanaged. Eg: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-insurance-claim-check-bounced.214809/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-insurance-clai... Many potential Tesla solar customers (that I know of) have ended up using other solutions as Tesla simply didn’t have stock availability - it’s a novelty product line. Many “investors” do not know the ground reality and base their decisions on the Twitter feed of an individual.

cptskippy 6y ago
> Many potential Tesla solar customers (that I know of) have ended up using other solutions as Tesla simply didn’t have stock availability - it’s a novelty product line. I order a system from Tesla on Sept 30th, it was installed Nov 3rd, and I received permission to operate on Nov 23rd. Other quotes I received were targeting installation Jan or Feb 2021.
- linsomniac 6y ago
  I believe the previous article is talking about the first generation solar shingles which Tesla never really got off the ground.
  - conk 6y ago
    It may have taken Tesla longer to bring the solar roof to market than originally planned but it’s been available since early this year. I’ve seen several Tesla roofs in person, and they seem to be a great choice if you need a new roof and can afford it.
- ameen 6y ago
  Maybe availability has improved now. As the child suggests it was about the Tesla shingles.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  It’s the same argument as ‘they’re so busy nobody goes there anymore’ anyway.

linsomniac 6y ago

I don't think Tesla is a car company, they are a sustainable energy company. That was their plan all along, as I understand their Secret Plan Part Deux. https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux

atomi 6y ago

There is a herculean effort by every car manufacturer in the world to compete for Tesla's electric car market share. In the coming years there will be so much competition in this space. And then you have Elon snubbing California, one of the largest consumer markets in the space. I'd short.

randmeerkat 6y ago
Elon Musk will love this: Tesla short sellers lost more than the US airline industry this year https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/investing/tesla-short-sellers-elon-musk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/investing/tesla-short-sellers...
- calabin 6y ago
  To be fair, all of the Enron shorts lost their shirts until they didn't. I'm not saying that TSLA is an Enron, but using performance thus far as an indicator of likely performance into the future is a famously poor idea. TSLA has famously bad QA issues, etc etc I don't need to go on. Few (including some of those who are holding TSLA stock right now) would say that there is meaningful justification for the current valuation.
  - weare138 6y ago
    A more recent example is WeWork.
    - opinion-is-bad 6y ago
      No one got a chance to short WeWork since the IPO never happened.
seanmcdirmid 6y ago
> And then you have Elon snubbing California, one of the largest consumer markets in the space. And then you look at them as one of the few American brands absolutely killing it in China right now. Not as simple as it seems. > I'd short. Everyone who has done this so far as lost their shirt.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

I actually assume Tesla's valuation has very little to do with any quaint notion of discounted value related to future cash flows. There is just a ton of money looking for a place to invest, and Tesla is certainly telling a higher growth story than any of the existing car companies.

bob33212 6y ago
A lot of people feel like cash is a depreciating asset. Real Estate and High growth companies are the best hedge against that. There are certainly plenty of complaints you can make against Musk or TSLA, but you cannot stay that TSLA hasn't been growing and isn't on a path of growth.
kjksf 6y ago
It's not a story. Tesla has been growing revenues 50% on average for the past 10 years. Most other car makers are roughly flat. This year ICE cars, globally, are in decline. Tesla will grow 50% on average for at least next 5 years. Also, there has been a ton of money looking for a place to invest for the past 20 years. And there are plenty companies that are investable. Just recently we had monster IPOs from DoorDash, AirBnb, Snowflake and others. At the same time there are many more companies that one could invest in but doesn't so it's lazy to attribute "lost of money available" to outsized successes like Tesla or Snowflake.
- nopzor 6y ago
  fwiw even if tesla increases their revenue by 50% cagr, for the next 5 years, they will still have a -lot- less revenue than the large ice car vendors.
  - jrbuhl 6y ago
    Tesla from Sept. 20, 2019 to Sept. 20, 2020 revenue is $28.17 B. Ford revenue in the same period was $130.9 B and GM was $115.8 B. 28.17 * 1.5^5 = 213.9. That doesn't even include the inevitable decrease in sales for F and GM if Tesla grows that much.

wefarrell 6y ago

I don't see how #1 is possible. Tesla is on record as having driven driven a total of 12.2 autonomous miles, vs 1.45 million for Waymo[1]. If they were actually serious about building a self driving car in the near future they would be taking steps now to get regulatory approval, and to the best of my knowledge they have not. Meanwhile Waymo has taxis on the road without human drivers and Cruise has a pilot program. The only pro Tesla argument that I hear is that they are gathering more data. This is entirely fallacious because there are no meaningful milestones for data gathered, and it's not true. Google has orders of magnitude more of driving data from Android, Maps, and Waze. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/21/tesla-self-driving/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/21/tesla-s...

Flemlord 6y ago
Tesla has been shipping cars with integrated self-driving hardware for years. Every car is transmitting data back to Tesla. They have been turning on additional self-driving features every few months for years. Tesla is doing a limited beta of full self driving now which will be widely expanded in just a few months. I don’t understand how anybody but Tesla is poised to have self driving cars in the near future.
- wefarrell 6y ago
  Waymo currently has self driving cars on public roads today, with actual paying customers: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/waymo-finally-launches-an-actual-public-driverless-taxi-service/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/waymo-finally-launches-... Meanwhile Tesla has taken no steps to get approval from regulators (feel free to prove me wrong). Until they start to do so, their self driving program is pure vaporware. Also, to date they have shipped no features that they are legally allowed to call "self driving" or "autonomous".
  - nickik 6y ago
    Waymo has self driving cars with a tiny amount of paying customers in a tiny are losing 10s of millions of dollars every year. Tesla on the other-hand is MAKING money with self driving technology already. What something is called doesn't really matter, I bet on the company that has 100ks to millions of cars with advanced self-driving computers and hardware on the road in daily use over a company that has a couple 100 cars in Arizona any day. The complexity of self driving is in the complexity of the road network in the real world. The only way to solve it is to have millions of cars learning all the complexity and finding the corner cases. The real money in self driving is not offering ride-share in small geo-locked areas.

snicker7 6y ago

7) Robinhood making TSLA a meme stock.

xangel 6y ago

You are right, we all assume Tesla is much more than a car company. BUT - to justify its current value, Tesla must monopolize all the sectors you have mentioned. Nobody takes this into account. They just claim: "Tesla has this and that potential", "this and that market could be huge". Okay, this should give the stock price a significant boost, but not 10x. It's a bit like crypto speculation.

weare138 6y ago

Market capitalization is based purely on the value of the stock itself and doesn't take into account any other factors such as projections, profitability or debt. It's an odd way to value a company in my opinion and just leads to inevitable debacles like WeWork. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketcapitalization.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketcapitalization.as...

simonebrunozzi 6y ago
> Market capitalization is based purely on the value of the stock itself > doesn't take into account any other factors such as projections, profitability or debt You seem to confuse a few things here. Explain how Amazon could ever be worth more than zero for most of its existence, then? Price of stock is largely dependent on people willing to buy it and sell it. When more people want to buy it, the stock price generally goes up. Why do people want to buy more than sell? Generally, it's when they think the future price will be higher. Projections, sort of.

wintorez 6y ago

I think more than being a car company, Tesla is a software/hardware/battery company that also created a series of cars to sell those. Similar to how Apple thinks of itself as a hardware company, but also created iOS/macOS to sell those hardware.

rich_sasha 6y ago

The first mover advantage is real, but I can’t quite understand why it is thought to be a check-mate. Ford had an oh-my-God enormous first mover advantage with the production line. Japanese car companies started literally from nowhere, in an economy shattered by war. VW was literally kickstarted quite late into the game. I don’t think it is right to assume that, even if Tesla makes the first affordable, good range electric cars, then the rest of the market can just fold. Especially since electric cars are simpler than ICEs so surely it’s easier to catch up.