6 ms·

Tesla's in Serious Trouble

12 points by bertman 3y ago

rogerkirkness 3y ago
"The Austin, Texas, electric vehicle, solar panel and battery maker said Wednesday that its net income was $7.93 billion from October through December, compared with $3.69 billion a year earlier." Damn they must really be hand to mouth right now...
- MilnerRoute 3y ago
  You left out the next paragraph of that article. "But excluding one-time items such as the $5.9 billion noncash tax benefit for deferred tax assets, the company made $2.49 billion, or 71 cents per share. That was down 39% from a year ago and short of analyst estimates of 73 cents per share according to FactSet." https://www.kolotv.com/2024/01/25/tesla-4q-earnings-fall-short-analyst-estimates-company-warns-lower-sales-growth-this-year/ https://www.kolotv.com/2024/01/25/tesla-4q-earnings-fall-sho...
  - rogerkirkness 3y ago
    Any non cash expense like stock-based compensation is pretend from a cash perspective. Stacking money in the bank with no debt is the purpose of a company and what Tesla is doing in increasingly effective fashion.
  - belltaco 3y ago
    That's in a big part due to interest rates going sky high during that year, but you won't find that mentioned in the blog post. Wonder why.
fullshark 3y ago
I believe Tesla's in serious trouble, but these blogposts where the seething hatred for Musk is palpable are hard to trust as reliable analysis.
- jackmott42 3y ago
  Why is that? He has been behaving terribly, I would be concerned about the ethics of anyone who doesn't hate him at this point.
  - fullshark 3y ago
    Just the anti-musk blog ecosystem is largely noise, this particular post looks pretty good though and mostly rings true to me.
    - belltaco 3y ago
      That's because it's omitting inconvenient facts, like zero mention of interest rates becoming sky high as one of the reasons for the slowdown.
- DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
  You may be right but this is not one of them.
  - belltaco 3y ago
    How so? There's not even a passing mention of the macroeconomic conditions like high interest rates that affect sales of big ticket items that almost everyone takes out a loan for. Teslas have been in the mid luxury segment. It's definitely not reliable analysis.
- stephenitis 3y ago
  Blog post read alright, the author probably has a short position.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Aqueous 3y ago
Not buying it. Tesla has a huge share of a growing pie. They will continue to grow as the EV market grows. While I agree that the past few months were not good, the long-term outlook for EVs is positive and therefore Tesla's outlook is positive. Just because we have all decided we hate Elon Musk doesn't mean everything he has done is bad and destined to fail.
- gregoriol 3y ago
  Being first doesn't necessarily make a good outcome. Leadership is the most important to keep it going. Many incredible companies/products have failed as soon as leadership has failed. Musk is more and more worrying investors and customers. It doesn't mean it's going to fail, but it leaves more and more space to.
- electric_mayhem 3y ago
  It’s not destined to fail. But Elon’s jumping the shark has absolutely harmed Tesla sales. Personal anecdote: I got into the Tesla ecosystem with a model 3. All it took was one test drive and I was sold. I went on to buy solar and powerwalls, because their prices were literally a fraction of every one of the six local solar companies I got quotes from. Heck, solar plus 3 powerwalls cost the same as just solar from the local clowns. To your point that not everything they do is destined to fail: I’m still considering getting a couple more powerwalls because with tax incentives and utility rebates they’re a staggeringly good deal. And no one can see the Tesla logos in my basement. But not only have musk’s idiot antics welded my wallet shut when it comes to not buying another Tesla car, I’ve got a set of emblems from a Mazda 3 to replace the Tesla badges on the one I’ve already got so I can stop feeling embarrassed to be implicitly advertising for them everywhere I drive. The alternative to the badges was a bumper sticker I once saw which said something like “I bought this before Elon jumped the shark”.
  - stephenitis 3y ago
    Putting Mazda Emblems on a Tesla is sort of embarrassing. Just debadge your car. I'm in the DC Metro MD VA area and Teslas feel as common as civics now.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
stephenitis 3y ago
I want a comparison of the lithium battery supply chains that the competitors have. Isn't this a major factor?
bryanlarsen 3y ago
Tesla's quite profitable, with a big cash buffer and little debt with the most popular entry in a highly growing market. It's biggest competition is from Chinese makers like BYD who are being increasingly excluded from Western markets. Tesla is fine. Tesla's stock price, OTOH, probably isn't. A P/E of 75 can perhaps be justified with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 50%, but when the company itself says that it won't hit that CAGR, a share price drop of only 12% is less than I would expect.
b7we5b7a 3y ago
I'm not sure where this serious trouble is. - Model Y was the bestseller 2023 - they keep ramping up production and fabs - they are sitting on a pile of money - quality has been steadily and consistently improving - they have the SC network that everyone is adapting to - they managed to slash prices, reduce per-car costs, while still getting the average auto industry margin - there is no EV competitor that can do this without selling at a loss, at the moment (if they do, everything becomes an optional and you get back to 50k$) - finally a Non-US-sized vehicle is going to be released in 2025 - definitely 2y too late due to the CyberFuckup (seriously, the only market capable of buying this is the US) Everyone keeps comparing to BYD, but I just read today that the software quality and compat for charging are simply not there yet. The other manufacturers are even more behind. What I see/think: - Wall Street pseudo-science of EPS has been flawed since forever: the same analysts expect Tesla to keep growing >50% YoY, and call for doom if it misses 600mln out of 25bn, or 0.03$ out of 0.71$ (I see this all the time also with other stocks, esp. in the last ~4y) - Tesla's valuation is heavily reflecting the expected future developments, and has been inflated for some time; this is not necessarily a bad thing, but a market correction was to be expected and long overdue - Musk's cult and news outlets created this alternate reality where having a Tesla product expresses approval of the CEO: I don't buy it, and I don't care; I own a M3 and plan to get a Powerwall because they're the best products in the price range - Musk's behavior is concerning, I'd rather see him out at some point, but I fear Tesla would lose its most powerful asset: the constant, enormous push to innovate and break boundaries; if Tesla were to become the regular car company, it would probably disappear in less than 5y - I hear all the time on Reddit that Service Centers are a hit and miss (esp. in US), this will need to be addressed ASAP not to break user trust (along with repair costs); my experience has been flawless luckily - their products are way superior to competition for the price range, other car companies cannot get even close to the efficiency and reliability of Tesla vehicles, not to mention the UX/software updates (not FSD) - FSD 12.1 video released a couple days ago is impressive, I finally get the feeling we're getting close to something usable (I don't have it and will very likely never buy it) - CyberFuckup should have been canceled before prototype phase, and deposits refunded; it was and still is a massive resource distraction on the way of bringing EVs to the masses - a 25k$ vehicle should have come sooner, it's coming, and will sell like crazy when available, esp. outside the US - I hope storage and solar won't be forgotten, all other solutions I've seen so far are not so well integrated with the house, or as easy to control via a phone app

12 points by bertman 3y ago

"The Austin, Texas, electric vehicle, solar panel and battery maker said Wednesday that its net income was $7.93 billion from October through December, compared with $3.69 billion a year earlier." Damn they must really be hand to mouth right now...

MilnerRoute 3y ago
You left out the next paragraph of that article. "But excluding one-time items such as the $5.9 billion noncash tax benefit for deferred tax assets, the company made $2.49 billion, or 71 cents per share. That was down 39% from a year ago and short of analyst estimates of 73 cents per share according to FactSet." https://www.kolotv.com/2024/01/25/tesla-4q-earnings-fall-short-analyst-estimates-company-warns-lower-sales-growth-this-year/ https://www.kolotv.com/2024/01/25/tesla-4q-earnings-fall-sho...
- rogerkirkness 3y ago
  Any non cash expense like stock-based compensation is pretend from a cash perspective. Stacking money in the bank with no debt is the purpose of a company and what Tesla is doing in increasingly effective fashion.
- belltaco 3y ago
  That's in a big part due to interest rates going sky high during that year, but you won't find that mentioned in the blog post. Wonder why.

fullshark 3y ago

I believe Tesla's in serious trouble, but these blogposts where the seething hatred for Musk is palpable are hard to trust as reliable analysis.

jackmott42 3y ago
Why is that? He has been behaving terribly, I would be concerned about the ethics of anyone who doesn't hate him at this point.
- fullshark 3y ago
  Just the anti-musk blog ecosystem is largely noise, this particular post looks pretty good though and mostly rings true to me.
  - belltaco 3y ago
    That's because it's omitting inconvenient facts, like zero mention of interest rates becoming sky high as one of the reasons for the slowdown.
DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
You may be right but this is not one of them.
- belltaco 3y ago
  How so? There's not even a passing mention of the macroeconomic conditions like high interest rates that affect sales of big ticket items that almost everyone takes out a loan for. Teslas have been in the mid luxury segment. It's definitely not reliable analysis.
stephenitis 3y ago
Blog post read alright, the author probably has a short position.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Aqueous 3y ago

Not buying it. Tesla has a huge share of a growing pie. They will continue to grow as the EV market grows. While I agree that the past few months were not good, the long-term outlook for EVs is positive and therefore Tesla's outlook is positive. Just because we have all decided we hate Elon Musk doesn't mean everything he has done is bad and destined to fail.

gregoriol 3y ago
Being first doesn't necessarily make a good outcome. Leadership is the most important to keep it going. Many incredible companies/products have failed as soon as leadership has failed. Musk is more and more worrying investors and customers. It doesn't mean it's going to fail, but it leaves more and more space to.
electric_mayhem 3y ago
It’s not destined to fail. But Elon’s jumping the shark has absolutely harmed Tesla sales. Personal anecdote: I got into the Tesla ecosystem with a model 3. All it took was one test drive and I was sold. I went on to buy solar and powerwalls, because their prices were literally a fraction of every one of the six local solar companies I got quotes from. Heck, solar plus 3 powerwalls cost the same as just solar from the local clowns. To your point that not everything they do is destined to fail: I’m still considering getting a couple more powerwalls because with tax incentives and utility rebates they’re a staggeringly good deal. And no one can see the Tesla logos in my basement. But not only have musk’s idiot antics welded my wallet shut when it comes to not buying another Tesla car, I’ve got a set of emblems from a Mazda 3 to replace the Tesla badges on the one I’ve already got so I can stop feeling embarrassed to be implicitly advertising for them everywhere I drive. The alternative to the badges was a bumper sticker I once saw which said something like “I bought this before Elon jumped the shark”.
- stephenitis 3y ago
  Putting Mazda Emblems on a Tesla is sort of embarrassing. Just debadge your car. I'm in the DC Metro MD VA area and Teslas feel as common as civics now.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

stephenitis 3y ago

I want a comparison of the lithium battery supply chains that the competitors have. Isn't this a major factor?

bryanlarsen 3y ago

Tesla's quite profitable, with a big cash buffer and little debt with the most popular entry in a highly growing market. It's biggest competition is from Chinese makers like BYD who are being increasingly excluded from Western markets. Tesla is fine. Tesla's stock price, OTOH, probably isn't. A P/E of 75 can perhaps be justified with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 50%, but when the company itself says that it won't hit that CAGR, a share price drop of only 12% is less than I would expect.

b7we5b7a 3y ago

I'm not sure where this serious trouble is. - Model Y was the bestseller 2023 - they keep ramping up production and fabs - they are sitting on a pile of money - quality has been steadily and consistently improving - they have the SC network that everyone is adapting to - they managed to slash prices, reduce per-car costs, while still getting the average auto industry margin - there is no EV competitor that can do this without selling at a loss, at the moment (if they do, everything becomes an optional and you get back to 50k$) - finally a Non-US-sized vehicle is going to be released in 2025 - definitely 2y too late due to the CyberFuckup (seriously, the only market capable of buying this is the US) Everyone keeps comparing to BYD, but I just read today that the software quality and compat for charging are simply not there yet. The other manufacturers are even more behind. What I see/think: - Wall Street pseudo-science of EPS has been flawed since forever: the same analysts expect Tesla to keep growing >50% YoY, and call for doom if it misses 600mln out of 25bn, or 0.03$ out of 0.71$ (I see this all the time also with other stocks, esp. in the last ~4y) - Tesla's valuation is heavily reflecting the expected future developments, and has been inflated for some time; this is not necessarily a bad thing, but a market correction was to be expected and long overdue - Musk's cult and news outlets created this alternate reality where having a Tesla product expresses approval of the CEO: I don't buy it, and I don't care; I own a M3 and plan to get a Powerwall because they're the best products in the price range - Musk's behavior is concerning, I'd rather see him out at some point, but I fear Tesla would lose its most powerful asset: the constant, enormous push to innovate and break boundaries; if Tesla were to become the regular car company, it would probably disappear in less than 5y - I hear all the time on Reddit that Service Centers are a hit and miss (esp. in US), this will need to be addressed ASAP not to break user trust (along with repair costs); my experience has been flawless luckily - their products are way superior to competition for the price range, other car companies cannot get even close to the efficiency and reliability of Tesla vehicles, not to mention the UX/software updates (not FSD) - FSD 12.1 video released a couple days ago is impressive, I finally get the feeling we're getting close to something usable (I don't have it and will very likely never buy it) - CyberFuckup should have been canceled before prototype phase, and deposits refunded; it was and still is a massive resource distraction on the way of bringing EVs to the masses - a 25k$ vehicle should have come sooner, it's coming, and will sell like crazy when available, esp. outside the US - I hope storage and solar won't be forgotten, all other solutions I've seen so far are not so well integrated with the house, or as easy to control via a phone app