4 ms·

You can always read financial reports like 10-Ks and see what the company says and what their number say. Numbers like that don't really lie. The media has nev

You can always read financial reports like 10-Ks and see what the company says and what their number say. Numbers like that don't really lie. The media has never been a "source of truth" at the best they act as watchdogs, at the worst they are propaganda. You can still find answers for yourself but good information has a time cost.

ein0p 3y ago
Demand is a lagging indicator, and worse, they have to plan well ahead for how it changes. Building multiple billion dollars worth of production capacity ahead of a severe recession would be a potentially fatal decision.
- green_goober 3y ago
  You can always use leading indicators (unemployment, inflation) to estimate future car sales, then extrapolate the EV market share based on current growth numbers. It's not perfect but it's not like large institutions somehow have a crystal ball. They are likely doing the same, just with better models.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    The only leading indicators you need in the car market are days of inventory and recent price actions. Tesla's have deep discounts, suggesting a decline in demand. The end. Inventory is harder because they lack dealerships, but it doesn't seem difficult to find a Model3/ModelY right now at all. ------- For other EVs like Ford Mustang MachE, days of inventory are rising and prices are declining as well as incentives. It's not just Tesla, it's a wide group of EVs that were overproduced. https://caredge.com/guides/fastest-and-slowest-selling-cars-2024 https://caredge.com/guides/fastest-and-slowest-selling-cars-... Go browse some stats yourself.
    - ein0p 3y ago
      You’re considering those metrics as though they’re independent from APR on loans, which could easily double from where they are now in case we enter a recession and rate hikes prove ineffective. Try to sell an expensive car on a loan with an eye watering APR of, say 10-12%. This did actually happen in the past, and could very well happen again.
      - dragontamer 3y ago
        > recession You've got it backwards. Recessions cause rate-drops. > Try to sell an expensive car on a loan with eye watering APR of, say 10-12%. This did actually happen in the past, and could very well happen again. Rate-hikes cause us to lose demand. Yes. But we can see that Toyota demand remains strong with less than 30-days-of-inventory on the average. So the rate-hikes from the current Fed plan are causing expensive cars (like EVs) to lose demand, while cheaper, more-reliable ICE / Hybrid cars from Toyota are selling like hotcakes. Yes, I'm watching interest rates and am trying to understand how our economy shifts because of them. But at this base level, EVs are doing worse (and the stats prove it), while cheaper cars (namely ICE/Hybrids) are doing far better right now than anyone expected.
        ein0p 3y ago
        Don’t look at recent recessions which happened under almost zero rate regime. Look at the Carter era recession. Consider as well the cost of “printing money” if the rate reaches double digits, and the cost of refinancing the existing debt load.
        dragontamer 3y ago
        You've got my wording reversed. I said: recessions cause rate-drops. Which has always been true. Rate-drops don't always cure recessions, but its one of the first moves a central bank will make to try to fix a recession. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS That's 2020, 2007, 2000, 1990, 1981, 1979 where a recession immediately caused a rate-drop. We have to go all the way back to 1974 before we had inflation so high that the central bank kept rates high even during a recession. (Dropping rates causes inflation, so its a balancing act). Even then, interest rates dropped to bring us out of the recession of 1974. After that, we have 1969, 1959, and 1957 recessions, all three of which caused interest rates to drop. So 9/10 times, a recession caused an immediate drop in interest rates. And the last 1 time (1974), the recession _eventually_ caused the bankers to drop rates. > Consider as well the cost of “printing money” if the rate reaches double digits, and the cost of refinancing the existing debt load. You've got it backwards. Increases rates destroy money. Lower-rates print money. That's why the central bank lowers rates during recessions, its an indirect way to print money (or perhaps more accurately, expand M2). Raising rates, like what we're doing today, destroys money (or more accurately, contracts M2). We're destroying money today with 5%+ interest rates because we've seemingly made too much in the 2020 recession / COVID19.
    - tomcam 3y ago
      Discounts seem to be $2K for a $47K Model Y long range picked from inventory—-is that actually deep or can I find better deals?
      - dragontamer 3y ago
        https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-y/2022/ https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-y/2022/ > Price: The 2022 Tesla Model Y starts at $64,990. A Model Y Performance model starts at $67,990. Fully loaded, a Performance model can exceed $80,000. Is there any other car, EV or otherwise, that is seeing a 33%+ decline in price over the last two years? Other EVs are seeing deep shadow-discounts. I'm seeing 0% or 1.9% APY financing, which comes out to a few $x,000 savings over the term of the loans. Its an interesting trick to reduce prices without changing the MSRP, but I'm perfectly aware of these games. Still, no one is doing the depth of discounts like Tesla is doing right now. Granted, all EV makers (Ford F150 Lightning, Subaru Solterra, etc. etc.) have discounts of some kind, or at least financing-1.9% or other "shadow discounts". But nothing on the level of wtf 30%+ declines like Tesla.
        mavhc 3y ago
        Tesla sell more EVs in USA than everyone else combined, partially because they can cut prices. Is any other company even making a profit selling EVs in USA?
        AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        The comparison is a little weird because Tesla changes their pricing a lot. The Model 3 price is down ~25% year over year: https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2023/ https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2023/ (Long Range MSRP $45,990) https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2022/ https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2022/ (Long Range MSRP $57,190) But that's still higher than its release price in 2017: https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2017/ https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2017/ (Long Range MSRP $45,200) And the "target price" for this thing was supposed to be $30,000. It's hard to do the same comparison for the Model Y because it was originally released in the middle of the COVID supply chain problems, but notice that the year you're using was the high water mark. The Model Y Performance was $69,190 in 2022 but $61,190 in 2021: https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-y/2021/ https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-y/2021/ 2022 - 2023 was -32% but 2021 - 2023 was only -16.5%, which itself presumably had some of the supply chain issues priced into it.
  - ein0p 3y ago
    Both unemployment and inflation numbers are known to be fake though. They’re specifically designed to make the government look good. One would be a fool to rely on them exclusively.
    - oblio 3y ago
      There are many numbers and government numbers are not fake. They're cherry picked, there's a difference.
    - green_goober 3y ago
      Then I guess nothing is truly measureable and we should never attempt to make predictions.
      - riehwvfbk 3y ago
        [flagged]
      - ipaddr 3y ago
        If unemployment and inflation rates are politically gamed nothing is truly measurement? Many things can be measured. And unemployment is measuring something but not what it's titled suggests. It's measuring some group of people who qualify as looking for work within a specific timeframe. Someone looking for work for a few years is deemed to employed by this calculation some might question it. Changing the definition of a recession is political. That doesn't mean measurements are incorrect and prediction is impossible.
        green_goober 3y ago
        My comment was sarcasm. OP is being a defeatist to anyone trying to explain that, yes, actually, you can measure these things. You don't need the media to spoonfeed you fake information.
      - lmm 3y ago
        By the time a number is getting printed in the newspaper, Goodhart's Law has already taken effect. Anyone who has a good metric is keeping it quiet, the only way to know anything is to get deeper into the details than the average voter.

ein0p 3y ago

Demand is a lagging indicator, and worse, they have to plan well ahead for how it changes. Building multiple billion dollars worth of production capacity ahead of a severe recession would be a potentially fatal decision.

green_goober 3y ago
You can always use leading indicators (unemployment, inflation) to estimate future car sales, then extrapolate the EV market share based on current growth numbers. It's not perfect but it's not like large institutions somehow have a crystal ball. They are likely doing the same, just with better models.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  The only leading indicators you need in the car market are days of inventory and recent price actions. Tesla's have deep discounts, suggesting a decline in demand. The end. Inventory is harder because they lack dealerships, but it doesn't seem difficult to find a Model3/ModelY right now at all. ------- For other EVs like Ford Mustang MachE, days of inventory are rising and prices are declining as well as incentives. It's not just Tesla, it's a wide group of EVs that were overproduced. https://caredge.com/guides/fastest-and-slowest-selling-cars-2024 https://caredge.com/guides/fastest-and-slowest-selling-cars-... Go browse some stats yourself.
  - ein0p 3y ago
    You’re considering those metrics as though they’re independent from APR on loans, which could easily double from where they are now in case we enter a recession and rate hikes prove ineffective. Try to sell an expensive car on a loan with an eye watering APR of, say 10-12%. This did actually happen in the past, and could very well happen again.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      > recession You've got it backwards. Recessions cause rate-drops. > Try to sell an expensive car on a loan with eye watering APR of, say 10-12%. This did actually happen in the past, and could very well happen again. Rate-hikes cause us to lose demand. Yes. But we can see that Toyota demand remains strong with less than 30-days-of-inventory on the average. So the rate-hikes from the current Fed plan are causing expensive cars (like EVs) to lose demand, while cheaper, more-reliable ICE / Hybrid cars from Toyota are selling like hotcakes. Yes, I'm watching interest rates and am trying to understand how our economy shifts because of them. But at this base level, EVs are doing worse (and the stats prove it), while cheaper cars (namely ICE/Hybrids) are doing far better right now than anyone expected.
      - ein0p 3y ago
        Don’t look at recent recessions which happened under almost zero rate regime. Look at the Carter era recession. Consider as well the cost of “printing money” if the rate reaches double digits, and the cost of refinancing the existing debt load.
        dragontamer 3y ago
        You've got my wording reversed. I said: recessions cause rate-drops. Which has always been true. Rate-drops don't always cure recessions, but its one of the first moves a central bank will make to try to fix a recession. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS That's 2020, 2007, 2000, 1990, 1981, 1979 where a recession immediately caused a rate-drop. We have to go all the way back to 1974 before we had inflation so high that the central bank kept rates high even during a recession. (Dropping rates causes inflation, so its a balancing act). Even then, interest rates dropped to bring us out of the recession of 1974. After that, we have 1969, 1959, and 1957 recessions, all three of which caused interest rates to drop. So 9/10 times, a recession caused an immediate drop in interest rates. And the last 1 time (1974), the recession _eventually_ caused the bankers to drop rates. > Consider as well the cost of “printing money” if the rate reaches double digits, and the cost of refinancing the existing debt load. You've got it backwards. Increases rates destroy money. Lower-rates print money. That's why the central bank lowers rates during recessions, its an indirect way to print money (or perhaps more accurately, expand M2). Raising rates, like what we're doing today, destroys money (or more accurately, contracts M2). We're destroying money today with 5%+ interest rates because we've seemingly made too much in the 2020 recession / COVID19.
  - tomcam 3y ago
    Discounts seem to be $2K for a $47K Model Y long range picked from inventory—-is that actually deep or can I find better deals?
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-y/2022/ https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-y/2022/ > Price: The 2022 Tesla Model Y starts at $64,990. A Model Y Performance model starts at $67,990. Fully loaded, a Performance model can exceed $80,000. Is there any other car, EV or otherwise, that is seeing a 33%+ decline in price over the last two years? Other EVs are seeing deep shadow-discounts. I'm seeing 0% or 1.9% APY financing, which comes out to a few $x,000 savings over the term of the loans. Its an interesting trick to reduce prices without changing the MSRP, but I'm perfectly aware of these games. Still, no one is doing the depth of discounts like Tesla is doing right now. Granted, all EV makers (Ford F150 Lightning, Subaru Solterra, etc. etc.) have discounts of some kind, or at least financing-1.9% or other "shadow discounts". But nothing on the level of wtf 30%+ declines like Tesla.
      - mavhc 3y ago
        Tesla sell more EVs in USA than everyone else combined, partially because they can cut prices. Is any other company even making a profit selling EVs in USA?
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        The comparison is a little weird because Tesla changes their pricing a lot. The Model 3 price is down ~25% year over year: https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2023/ https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2023/ (Long Range MSRP $45,990) https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2022/ https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2022/ (Long Range MSRP $57,190) But that's still higher than its release price in 2017: https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2017/ https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-3/2017/ (Long Range MSRP $45,200) And the "target price" for this thing was supposed to be $30,000. It's hard to do the same comparison for the Model Y because it was originally released in the middle of the COVID supply chain problems, but notice that the year you're using was the high water mark. The Model Y Performance was $69,190 in 2022 but $61,190 in 2021: https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-y/2021/ https://www.kbb.com/tesla/model-y/2021/ 2022 - 2023 was -32% but 2021 - 2023 was only -16.5%, which itself presumably had some of the supply chain issues priced into it.
- ein0p 3y ago
  Both unemployment and inflation numbers are known to be fake though. They’re specifically designed to make the government look good. One would be a fool to rely on them exclusively.
  - oblio 3y ago
    There are many numbers and government numbers are not fake. They're cherry picked, there's a difference.
  - green_goober 3y ago
    Then I guess nothing is truly measureable and we should never attempt to make predictions.
    - riehwvfbk 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - ipaddr 3y ago
      If unemployment and inflation rates are politically gamed nothing is truly measurement? Many things can be measured. And unemployment is measuring something but not what it's titled suggests. It's measuring some group of people who qualify as looking for work within a specific timeframe. Someone looking for work for a few years is deemed to employed by this calculation some might question it. Changing the definition of a recession is political. That doesn't mean measurements are incorrect and prediction is impossible.
      - green_goober 3y ago
        My comment was sarcasm. OP is being a defeatist to anyone trying to explain that, yes, actually, you can measure these things. You don't need the media to spoonfeed you fake information.
    - lmm 3y ago
      By the time a number is getting printed in the newspaper, Goodhart's Law has already taken effect. Anyone who has a good metric is keeping it quiet, the only way to know anything is to get deeper into the details than the average voter.