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> The Cybertruck is going to flop, after it initially sells well. Ford and the other traditional truck manufacturers will dominate electric trucks, because they

by nickik 5y ago

> The Cybertruck is going to flop, after it initially sells well. Ford and the other traditional truck manufacturers will dominate electric trucks, because they're going to sell their customers the trucks those customers actually want to buy, not impractical gimmicks. Complete nonsense. Ford or GM do not have supply of batteries to produce all those trucks you believe they will make. Specially not when also attempting to ramp many of their normal cars. The claim that Tesla vehicles will drop of in sales after early adopters has been wrong every single time. Cyblertruck has more pre-orders then any vehicle ever. Every single analysis on interest in the truck show gigantic interest. > Musk already knows it's going to ultimately flop, he has begun preparing the market for that outcome. This statement is literally wrong. Musk actually did the exact opposite. Musk says its the best product they have ever designed. And they are building a gigantic factory specifically for that product, a factory that cost billions. Solar, EV, Battery, Grid Battery, Semis are all in exponential growth. Saying 'look at the currently biggest battery company' is an dumb measure. That like saying 'look at what the largest airplane company is worth in 1920, therefore no large airplane company in 1940 can that big'. I haven't look at that specific forecast, it might well be optimistic. But there is no question that all of those markets are gone grow exponentially and its no question that Tesla is incredibly well placed to take advantage of those growth curves.

adventured 5y ago
> Solar, EV, Battery, Grid Battery, Semis are all in exponential growth. Solar is a modest growth business, you can see that represented in the sales growth of all the largest solar companies. Annual sales growth in the industry is not expanding as you're implying. The big rig / semi market is the exact opposite of experiencing exponential growth, it's largely a slow growth replacement market. EV sales are overwhelmingly replacement sales, largely taking up the sales from the ICE vehicle market. Which goes back to Tesla's competition problem, they have to forever take market share from Daimler, BMW, Toyota, et al.; to become a giant, they have to eat one of the giants. The global auto market is not a high growth market, it's a slow growth market, which creates a ceiling growth problem for Tesla; the overall industry is growing slow, and they have to kill the other giant competitors to keep growing, which is a very difficult and expensive thing to accomplish. The masses of people in the developed world are not going to suddenly wake up and decide they should needlessly add an extra car to the family vehicle lineup; they're going to do gradual replacement purchases over time. And over that time, the competition is going to get a lot worse for Tesla in EVs, not easier. What's Panasonic's entire battery business worth today? Now increase that 5x or 10x. What would that be worth? How much is Tesla worth today in comparison? How does that battery growth forecast then stack up to the $4.3 trillion in the forecast in question? And besides that, even with the battery business and assuming an extraordinary outcome, Tesla is selling cars for $45,000+ and the battery packs are a modest fraction of that value. You think Tesla is going to validate $4 trillion in market value by selling $20-$30 billion in batteries on the side every year at 15% end profit margins? It doesn't get them anywhere remotely close and that's the optimistic outcome. And we're specifically talking about what Tesla can do between now and 2026, not 2050. Five years. That's the $4 trillion forecast timeline in question that is the root of this discussion and that's what I focused on. How many vehicles Tesla can sell in that time, how their other segments might contribute, how much growth they can generate overall in that time, what their profit could be, and how that might translate to their market cap circa 2026. > This statement is literally wrong. Musk actually did the exact opposite. Nope. Musk has been trying to guide the market expectations and the high risk of the Cybertruck being a flop. He knows the damage a flop could cause to the stock. July 16, Barrons: "Elon Musk Admits Tesla’s Cybertruck Might ‘Flop’ Because It’s so Different" https://www.barrons.com/articles/elon-musk-admits-teslas-cybertruck-might-flop-because-its-so-different-51626464485 https://www.barrons.com/articles/elon-musk-admits-teslas-cyb... > Complete nonsense. Ford or GM do not have supply of batteries to produce all those trucks you believe they will make. Specially not when also attempting to ramp many of their normal cars. Tesla is still at an inferior position to both Ford and GM when it comes to industrial scale (to say nothing of political connections). There's no reason to believe Ford and GM will be incapable of securing the necessary resources to scale their EV businesses in the coming years. GM has an exceptional partnership history in China for one thing, if they need to produce huge volumes of batteries. What Tesla has done in making battery factories for their demand isn't a unique value proposition, it's going to be easily endlessly replicated by their competition. Tesla represents a very small share of the auto industry globally. The majors all have more total resources, more political connections (which is very important for securing natural resources and manufacturing), and greater industrial scale. And they are bringing all of that to the field; not tomorrow, but right now. Tesla needs all the headstart they can get. The past decade was the easy part for Tesla, not the hard part.
- nickik 5y ago
  > The big rig / semi market is the exact opposite of experiencing exponential growth Non of those are EV now. > EV sales are overwhelmingly replacement sales, largely taking up the sales from the ICE vehicle market. All those need to be replaced by EVs. Tesla has no ICE vehicles so for them its simply growth. Tesla can scale EV faster and they can reach better margin then current companies. Currently these manufactures can subsidies their EV with ICE sales, but their ICE infrastructure will turn into a liability soon. At the same time they build out global charging infrastructure to fuel all those cars giving them a long term income at great margin. > What's Panasonic's entire battery business worth today? Now increase that 5x or 10x. We are only just at 2% EV in the market and Panasonic is only a part of that market. Add grid and home storage, industrial vehicles and so on. And eventually also planes. > Tesla is still at an inferior position to both Ford and GM when it comes to industrial scale Who wouldn't want all those distributed factories with union workers demonstrating while giving most of the profits to the dealers and suppliers. > (to say nothing of political connections). Yeah California and Texas where Tesla produces all the jobs are politically so weak. Elon Musk is also not on of the most famous people in the world and a twitter profile more powerful then GM/Ford marketing budget. > Tesla represents a very small share of the auto industry globally. Yes and they are already at industry leading operating margin while still being comparatively small and they continue to grow very fast. > The past decade was the easy part for Tesla, not the hard part. And just continuing to produce ICE vehicles and ignoring EV was the easy part for the competition. Repeatably in history we have seen how difficult massive technology transitions are and how established players ran into a lot of issues.
ac29 5y ago
> And they are building a gigantic factory specifically for that product, a factory that cost billions. Are you talking about Austin? Thats not specifically for Cybertruck, it is also building Model 3, Y, and the Semi according to wikipedia.
- nickik 5y ago
  One side of the factory is for the Model Y. The other larger side is for the Cybertruck. That is a huge space. Semi might be in Austin but likely not in the current building.

by nickik 5y ago

adventured 5y ago

> Solar, EV, Battery, Grid Battery, Semis are all in exponential growth. Solar is a modest growth business, you can see that represented in the sales growth of all the largest solar companies. Annual sales growth in the industry is not expanding as you're implying. The big rig / semi market is the exact opposite of experiencing exponential growth, it's largely a slow growth replacement market. EV sales are overwhelmingly replacement sales, largely taking up the sales from the ICE vehicle market. Which goes back to Tesla's competition problem, they have to forever take market share from Daimler, BMW, Toyota, et al.; to become a giant, they have to eat one of the giants. The global auto market is not a high growth market, it's a slow growth market, which creates a ceiling growth problem for Tesla; the overall industry is growing slow, and they have to kill the other giant competitors to keep growing, which is a very difficult and expensive thing to accomplish. The masses of people in the developed world are not going to suddenly wake up and decide they should needlessly add an extra car to the family vehicle lineup; they're going to do gradual replacement purchases over time. And over that time, the competition is going to get a lot worse for Tesla in EVs, not easier. What's Panasonic's entire battery business worth today? Now increase that 5x or 10x. What would that be worth? How much is Tesla worth today in comparison? How does that battery growth forecast then stack up to the $4.3 trillion in the forecast in question? And besides that, even with the battery business and assuming an extraordinary outcome, Tesla is selling cars for $45,000+ and the battery packs are a modest fraction of that value. You think Tesla is going to validate $4 trillion in market value by selling $20-$30 billion in batteries on the side every year at 15% end profit margins? It doesn't get them anywhere remotely close and that's the optimistic outcome. And we're specifically talking about what Tesla can do between now and 2026, not 2050. Five years. That's the $4 trillion forecast timeline in question that is the root of this discussion and that's what I focused on. How many vehicles Tesla can sell in that time, how their other segments might contribute, how much growth they can generate overall in that time, what their profit could be, and how that might translate to their market cap circa 2026. > This statement is literally wrong. Musk actually did the exact opposite. Nope. Musk has been trying to guide the market expectations and the high risk of the Cybertruck being a flop. He knows the damage a flop could cause to the stock. July 16, Barrons: "Elon Musk Admits Tesla’s Cybertruck Might ‘Flop’ Because It’s so Different" https://www.barrons.com/articles/elon-musk-admits-teslas-cybertruck-might-flop-because-its-so-different-51626464485 https://www.barrons.com/articles/elon-musk-admits-teslas-cyb... > Complete nonsense. Ford or GM do not have supply of batteries to produce all those trucks you believe they will make. Specially not when also attempting to ramp many of their normal cars. Tesla is still at an inferior position to both Ford and GM when it comes to industrial scale (to say nothing of political connections). There's no reason to believe Ford and GM will be incapable of securing the necessary resources to scale their EV businesses in the coming years. GM has an exceptional partnership history in China for one thing, if they need to produce huge volumes of batteries. What Tesla has done in making battery factories for their demand isn't a unique value proposition, it's going to be easily endlessly replicated by their competition. Tesla represents a very small share of the auto industry globally. The majors all have more total resources, more political connections (which is very important for securing natural resources and manufacturing), and greater industrial scale. And they are bringing all of that to the field; not tomorrow, but right now. Tesla needs all the headstart they can get. The past decade was the easy part for Tesla, not the hard part.

nickik 5y ago
> The big rig / semi market is the exact opposite of experiencing exponential growth Non of those are EV now. > EV sales are overwhelmingly replacement sales, largely taking up the sales from the ICE vehicle market. All those need to be replaced by EVs. Tesla has no ICE vehicles so for them its simply growth. Tesla can scale EV faster and they can reach better margin then current companies. Currently these manufactures can subsidies their EV with ICE sales, but their ICE infrastructure will turn into a liability soon. At the same time they build out global charging infrastructure to fuel all those cars giving them a long term income at great margin. > What's Panasonic's entire battery business worth today? Now increase that 5x or 10x. We are only just at 2% EV in the market and Panasonic is only a part of that market. Add grid and home storage, industrial vehicles and so on. And eventually also planes. > Tesla is still at an inferior position to both Ford and GM when it comes to industrial scale Who wouldn't want all those distributed factories with union workers demonstrating while giving most of the profits to the dealers and suppliers. > (to say nothing of political connections). Yeah California and Texas where Tesla produces all the jobs are politically so weak. Elon Musk is also not on of the most famous people in the world and a twitter profile more powerful then GM/Ford marketing budget. > Tesla represents a very small share of the auto industry globally. Yes and they are already at industry leading operating margin while still being comparatively small and they continue to grow very fast. > The past decade was the easy part for Tesla, not the hard part. And just continuing to produce ICE vehicles and ignoring EV was the easy part for the competition. Repeatably in history we have seen how difficult massive technology transitions are and how established players ran into a lot of issues.

ac29 5y ago

> And they are building a gigantic factory specifically for that product, a factory that cost billions. Are you talking about Austin? Thats not specifically for Cybertruck, it is also building Model 3, Y, and the Semi according to wikipedia.

nickik 5y ago
One side of the factory is for the Model Y. The other larger side is for the Cybertruck. That is a huge space. Semi might be in Austin but likely not in the current building.