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I don't think that Tesla is a tech company. They trade as a tech company, sure. But down the line I don't think they will. The main differentiator with tech com

I don't think that Tesla is a tech company. They trade as a tech company, sure. But down the line I don't think they will. The main differentiator with tech companies is that they scale on a fungible product (software). If Tesla is a tech company, then we should call Ford, GM, VW, Toyota, etc. all tech companies.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I hope others feel the deep irony in not considering Tesla, a company whose technology has revolutionized the transportation industry, a "tech" company, but every mobile-app-of-the-month company somehow should be.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  After software swallowed the world, it also swallowed the branding of “tech”.
- giantrobot 5y ago
  > a company whose technology has revolutionized the transportation industry They make electric cars with what are essentially really large laptop batteries. There's not a lot of "revolution" there. There's evolution. At the end of the day they're making cars that fit people and drive on existing roads. Their technology isn't bad but it's not some major revolution. The technology they crow about like FSD does not work very well. It's also unlikely to get better because of hubris at the top about sensors. They want to be seen as a tech company but they're a car company. Electric cars are cool and are a marked improvement over ICE cars but they're still cars.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Nobody ever notices or respects manufacturing revolutions. :( Apple's biggest revolution was the manufacturing chains they built in China.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  Ford's technology also revolutionized the transportation industry. Are they a tech company?
throw__away7391 5y ago
@hn_throwaway_99 well yes, but for the purpose under consideration, a bubble bursting, implying the presence of industry-wide forces or conditions, you do need to consider things like who their customer and competitors are, conditions in their market, availability of financing, manufacturing costs...in all these ways I think Tesla is going to have a lot more in common with Ford or Volkswagen than Microsoft. Pure software companies have some highly desirable attributes for investors, namely practically non-existent marginal costs, that have driven up their valuations. As a result, many companies that are not primarily in the business of selling software have tried to position themselves to investors as "tech companies". Nothing against these companies, manufacturing, real estate, food delivery, vacations rentals, and taxi services are all perfectly fine business, but they're not in the software production industry, they're software consumers.
Gustomaximus 5y ago
I would counter that by the car companies that reach self driving are going to leave the others in the dust. We see how hard it is to achieve self driving vs build a car. The market forces for self driving will be huge over any car manufacture no matter how good if they dont have this technology. Who wants to drive if you dont have to. What trucking companies want to pay for drivers when they dont have to. Software will be a, even 'the', defining variable in the car industry soon enough.
- mellavora 5y ago
  So how is this different from other industries? In other words, you are arguing that every company is a tech company.
- giantrobot 5y ago
  > Software will be a, even 'the', defining variable in the car industry soon enough. The issue with FSD is it is not and cannot just be software. You can't just use a couple 2D cameras and think you'll software your way to success. Humans use a lot more than just their vision to drive. Tesla is making a mistake in thinking they can just throw some relatively cheap cameras on a car and throw software at the problem. Spacial awareness from only 2D images in fantastically hard and extremely error prone. A reliable FSD will need ranging/detection sensors (RADAR/LIDAR), inertial sensors, image sensors, and external sensors like GPS and likely coded road signage. Software is obviously a component of FSD but not the only one.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

I hope others feel the deep irony in not considering Tesla, a company whose technology has revolutionized the transportation industry, a "tech" company, but every mobile-app-of-the-month company somehow should be.

Apocryphon 5y ago
After software swallowed the world, it also swallowed the branding of “tech”.
giantrobot 5y ago
> a company whose technology has revolutionized the transportation industry They make electric cars with what are essentially really large laptop batteries. There's not a lot of "revolution" there. There's evolution. At the end of the day they're making cars that fit people and drive on existing roads. Their technology isn't bad but it's not some major revolution. The technology they crow about like FSD does not work very well. It's also unlikely to get better because of hubris at the top about sensors. They want to be seen as a tech company but they're a car company. Electric cars are cool and are a marked improvement over ICE cars but they're still cars.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Nobody ever notices or respects manufacturing revolutions. :( Apple's biggest revolution was the manufacturing chains they built in China.
colinmhayes 5y ago
Ford's technology also revolutionized the transportation industry. Are they a tech company?

throw__away7391 5y ago

@hn_throwaway_99 well yes, but for the purpose under consideration, a bubble bursting, implying the presence of industry-wide forces or conditions, you do need to consider things like who their customer and competitors are, conditions in their market, availability of financing, manufacturing costs...in all these ways I think Tesla is going to have a lot more in common with Ford or Volkswagen than Microsoft. Pure software companies have some highly desirable attributes for investors, namely practically non-existent marginal costs, that have driven up their valuations. As a result, many companies that are not primarily in the business of selling software have tried to position themselves to investors as "tech companies". Nothing against these companies, manufacturing, real estate, food delivery, vacations rentals, and taxi services are all perfectly fine business, but they're not in the software production industry, they're software consumers.

Gustomaximus 5y ago

I would counter that by the car companies that reach self driving are going to leave the others in the dust. We see how hard it is to achieve self driving vs build a car. The market forces for self driving will be huge over any car manufacture no matter how good if they dont have this technology. Who wants to drive if you dont have to. What trucking companies want to pay for drivers when they dont have to. Software will be a, even 'the', defining variable in the car industry soon enough.

mellavora 5y ago
So how is this different from other industries? In other words, you are arguing that every company is a tech company.
giantrobot 5y ago
> Software will be a, even 'the', defining variable in the car industry soon enough. The issue with FSD is it is not and cannot just be software. You can't just use a couple 2D cameras and think you'll software your way to success. Humans use a lot more than just their vision to drive. Tesla is making a mistake in thinking they can just throw some relatively cheap cameras on a car and throw software at the problem. Spacial awareness from only 2D images in fantastically hard and extremely error prone. A reliable FSD will need ranging/detection sensors (RADAR/LIDAR), inertial sensors, image sensors, and external sensors like GPS and likely coded road signage. Software is obviously a component of FSD but not the only one.