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Tesla Motors Turns a Profit For the First Time
d0rp writes with news that Tesla Motors has reported earning a profit for the first time in its six-year history. Sales of the $109,000 Roadster earned the company $20 million in revenue, which settled out to $1 million in profits. "Most of that money rolled in after Tesla delivered cars customers had already placed deposits on. Although the company has, according to spokeswoman Rachel Konrad, seen a 'surge' in orders for the Roadster and the higher-performance Roadster Sport (price: $127,500), it isn't likely to keep rolling cars out so quickly. Konrad says Tesla is 'definitely on pace' to meet its goal of 1,000 to 1,200 cars a year but didn't say when that might happen. Tesla has so far delivered about 609 Roadsters since production started in March, 2008." The company is working on a new 'Model S' sedan, with the help of $465 million in government loans, and has also entered into a partnership with Daimler to help the German auto company produce electric Smart cars.
...year of profits!
This should be taken with a bit of skepticism. There's a difference between positive cash flow (more cash coming in than going out), positive net income (what most people think of as 'profit') and positive EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or profit from operations). TFA doesn't mention which Tesla is reporting.
That would seem to be a fairly accurate definition of "patent"...
rj
What the heck is your problem????
Don't you find it good that a company in CALIFORNIA manages to turn a profit on new technology? If the company had to reinvent the wheel on batteries, motors and everything else they would be years from a model and profit. This is why GM's electric system is so far behind. They have to invent everything themselves. And what results is a crappy car called the volt, which is not even completely electric. It reaches 40 miles before needing juice. GIVE ME A BREAK...
BTW China is starting to honor IP... Why? Chinese companies are starting to sue Chinese companies for stealing of their IP.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I see a profitable road ahead for Tesla if they can keep building cars people want to buy.
There fixed that for you.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
No. It's pure naivete to think that Tesla will somehow continue in this business as a car manufacturer. They don't even manufacture the body of the car they sell. They are an IP company through and through. Their only hope is to have a good patent chest and find licensees.
Daimler seems to be interested, and I'm sure they aren't the only ones who want to build an electric vehicle.
Anyone who thinks Tesla will be around as a car manufacturer 3 years from now ought to buy stock in Moller today.
This is slashdot, if it is not an Apple product made in China, then it is not worth bothering with.
How does a company that makes $1,000,000 in profit over 1 full year, get 465 Million dollars in loans from our government?? How will they pay that back in a reasonable time?
Seriously, I don't know anyone that could just blow $100k on a car. Where are these people getting all this money and why does it seem like there are so many of them?!
Well, look around you next time you're out on the road. See those huge new pick-ups and SUVs? Many are up in the 60k range, and for a sports car, those same type of people are the customers. People who have few obligations such as family and making "good money" plunk down that kind of change for toys all the time.
But the carrot is that the technology in these 100k$ cars will trickle down to cheaper, more consumer targeted vehicles.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
IDK, fabless chip manufacturers are still chip manufacturers, so why not a car manufacturer that outsources all its factory work?
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
I don't completely disagree with you, but you might want to take price into consideration as well. The Model S is supposed to retail for $57,000. The Volt is supposed to retail for $40,000. Both have a $7500 tax credit attached to them.
Which do you think is more affordable for the average person? A $33,000 car, or a $50,000 car? Neither is an acceptable answer, but at least the Volt is in the ballpark.
A 40 mile electric charge range ain't bad. On most days I don't drive more than 40 miles, and I commute to work every workday. If I were making the choice between them, I'd easily choose the Volt over the Model S and do something else with the $17,000 in savings (hell, you could buy a whole other car for that if you were so inclined). In reality I'll buy neither of them, but at least it's a start.
AccountKiller
How about the sub $20K, 100 mile Aptera 2e? (Or if you wait until 2010, the hybrid model that goes 600 miles on one tank?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_Motors
Tesla also has a revered brand for which people are willing to pay.
On the manufacturing side they are some advantages as well. They have very few long term commitment contracts with suppliers who make parts that are irrelevant to electric cars. They are very few if any long term commitment contracts to labor organizations to keep organizational charts wide and heavy. They have few if any long term contracts with city, county or state governments regarding factory locations or employment levels. They have few if any long term leases on land and facilities that must be used or create a financial drag on the organization. They have few if any dealership agreements with odd inventory management clauses that cause inconsistent and inefficient bullwhip effects through the entire supply chain. They have few if any contracts with top executives who demand lavish lifestyles or are ineffectual without hundreds of subordinates that somehow make things happen in spite of their ignorance and egos.
On the down side, they do not have a manufacturing plan or a well built organization to support such a plant. With the big automakers suffering Tesla will likely get to pick the cream of the crop of executives and management to create this without falling into many of the pitfall often plagued by young organizations.
-rd
The infrastructure is already in place in some cities. In Los Angeles, where I expect to see more than a couple of Teslas on the road, there have been signs for electric vehicle charging stations all over the place for years.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Maybe not, but it will sure solve a lot of smog problems out here in Southern California. We get our power from natural gas, nuclear and a little bit of hydro and wind. The smog is from the cars.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
I noticed a lot of negative comments but the news was amazing. We aren't even talking 18 months after they delivered their first car they showed a profit! I've never heard of that from anyone in recent history. Breaking even for a car maker takes years not months. Yes I know it's not a true profit to the investors but that was always going to take years, probably 5 to 10 years and they all knew it. Ask any investor if they are happy or disappointed and I'll bet you couldn't wipe the grin off their faces. I've seen claims Tesla won't survive 3 years get modded Insightful. I'd mod it shortsighted. Dan hasn't peaked yet so declaring their death is a little premature. They are doing the right thing and expanding their car line to more afordable models. They are partnering up with established companies. They seem to be doing all the right things to not only survive but thrive. People have called the roadster expensive but haven't pointed out that it can beat a car costing twice as much in the straightaway. Once batteries get lighter they'll corner better and they can beat them in the corners as well. People say electrics must be cheaper to be acceptable because of range and recharge limitations. How's half priced for cheaper? Yes they can't make a family car cheaper and they probably never will. The range and recharge will improve over time. You've got to remember a Tesla car is exactly the same as a hydrogen car it just uses batteries instead of a fuel cell. The cars could use fuel cells just as easily. The batteries are the major expense. Electric motors tend to be cheaper than gas engines and they lack all the extra bits like fuel pumps and such to keep them going. How much geekier can you get than an electric car??? Time to celibrate. Also you've got to remember the single biggest point. They did it in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression! Two out of the big three car makers just declared backruptcy!
I call bs on this statement: "The efficiency of converting gas into kinetic energy is relatively high, as far as energy conversions go. Converting fuels into electricity is far less efficient, not to mention losses from battery storage."
The efficiency of converting gas into kinetic energy is NOT relatively high, Theoretical max of ~30%, in a high efficiency car it will be in the upper 20s.
Converting fuels into electricity is NOT far less efficient, Theoretical max of ~70%, and this is just using a steam turbine generator, ie coal plant.
The truth is that ~70% of the energy stored in gas is heat, ~30% is expansion. The internal combustion engine uses the expansion of gasses, and then uses energy to throw away the heat.
In order for gas to be more efficient you have to have over 50% loss. The loss areas include: electric transmission 92.8% efficient, storage in lithium batteries 90%, and the electric to kinetic( the electric motor) 89%. This is equivalent to over 48% net efficiency. and 48% >> 28%. This is not even taking into account the benefit of regenerative braking.
If you convert the cost per mile (of energy ie electricity) of a tesla to mpg, is will be in the 230 mpg range. Find me a internal combustion engine that can support that.
No need to fight wars for a nuclear, or solar or wind energie or geo-energie.
That is the beauty of the electric grid. it don't give a damn what you hook up to it.
Petrol cars run on petrol.
Electric cars run on anything that pump out juice.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So far, they sell one nice electric sports car. And they announced to make a sedan for a somewhat wider audience. But Tesla does not have the market share yet to put real pressure on the major car makers.
I think Toyota played a bigger role there:
While only partially electric, their Prius demonstrated that a hybrid can actually sell serious numbers. AFAIK one million worldwide so far.
C - the footgun of programming languages
They've spent far less money than GM spent on the EV-1, and have almost as many cars on the road. About 1100 EV1 cars were produced.
The current version of the Tesla roadster is a reasonably good sports car. Speed is good, acceleration is very good, the range is 200 miles, and it looks good as it whooshes by. It's overpriced, but there's hope of getting that down as volume goes up.
They had some initial problems stemming from trying to make it go fast. First they had motor overheating problems at high revs, so they put in a two-speed transmission. That was a disaster; shifting under load ate up the transmission because the two speeds were too far apart. Then they went back to a simple single speed transmission, but water-cooled the motor, which simplified the mechanics and got them the desired top speed. The current drive train seems to be holding up well. Top speed is only 125MPH, which is low for $100K+ sports cars, but few customers really take their Ferraris to a track anyway.
I see Teslas on the road almost daily. I live near the Silicon Valley dealership and on a road the sales reps use for demos. They change lanes very smoothly, with all that battery mass holding the center of gravity down.
Ok, you know they are Electric cars right?
Except in places where the infrastructure is already near capacity (California and some parts of the northwest spring to mind), the infrastructure is already in place, and all anybody really needs is the correct outlet.
Infrastructure for these things is no problem, except in places where the electrical infrastructure is already poor.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Oh, because the batteries used in electric vehicles are quite a bit different than the ones used in laptops and cell phones? Laptops and Cell phones draw a small amount of current compared to the ones needed for electric vehicles. Also, the cell size and capacity are difference. Portable devices need light weight, SMALL battery cells. Battery cells for electric cars need a high power density and high current output, volume and weight are much less of an object. Among other things, the multiple order of magnitude difference in current draw makes the two types significantly different. Then there is the battery life. Your portable battery may a few years before becoming mostly useless. Car batteries need to last 10 years.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
They don't even manufacture the body of the car they sell.
That's not so unusual. Do you think the big auto makers actually make most of the parts that go into their cars? They don't. In fact it is standard practice to outsource even entire subsystems of the car to the Tier 1 suppliers. The body of the car is just another part which can be purchased from a supplier if desired. It's less common to outsource that part but not unheard of.
They are an IP company through and through.
So are most manufacturers when you get right down to it. Any sophisticated product not covered by patents and trade secrets will be copied quite rapidly these days.
Basic accounting does not consider a loan as profit. The Balance Sheet is defined as Assets = Liabilities + Equity. The loan increases cash(assets) and increases liabilities (obligation to repay). Profit appears on the Income Statement. Profit = revenue from sales less expenses of those sales over a defined time period.
How about having 100% of torque available at all speeds?
Besides, $109k for any car that does 0-60 in less than 4 (and has a chassis designed by lotus) is not a bad a deal - bonus if you never have to fill the thing with some flammable/combustible liquid to get it to work.
Maybe it makes me an asshole, but electric cars and hybrids for the sake of being 'green' are a stupid idea anyways, and I've grown to hate the notion that electric motivation = environmentally minded.
Eliminating the power curve and hundreds of additional moving parts from the gasoline engine formula makes for such huge performance potential for electric motivation.
Finally an electric car that can stand on its own in terms of performance, and is actually usable for every day - an electric car for those who appreciate performance, and decidedly not, kids with beards.
!#&*
...but they make no financial sense. $109,000???
You also miss the point entirely. The roadster was never intended to be economical. It was intended as a tool to persuade the masses that electric is cool. It was intended to provide a flexible platform on which to develop their technology while retaining the financial flexibility afforded by a sexy roadster tailored to appeal to financially enabled early adopters. Their next vehicle, a luxury sedan, is built upon the technology developments made through their roadster project. The sedan is effectively half the price and is put within reach of many working professionals and also giving it economics not far removed from a Prius. In addition, they're now licensing (manufacturing?) their roadster developed technology to other manufacturers. They're following the traditional path of new technology developments. Early adoption of new technology almost never makes financial sense. The horse was most certainly more financially sensible than the Model T but without the early adopters of it you wouldn't have that $9,000 gas guzzling pile, just a lot more manure.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Really, where can I plug in my electric car when I go on vacation 100 to 200 miles from home?
You vacation someplace that has gas stations but no power outlets?
What are you talking about?? Tesla Motors does not live off government money. GM and AIG do. Tesla Motors borrowed money from the government. And now that it is turning profits the chances of it paying the money back are higher than ever. That's what bailout should do -- lend money to companies that are viable and will even pay that money back! (As opposed to the companies that will use up the money and go bankrupt (GM) or continue sucking money down without being useful (AIG)).
Another good thing about renting a vehicle for long trips is peace of mind. You aren't adding excessive miles to your own car, plus the rental company is 100% there for any potential breakdowns, etc. In your own vehicle, you could get stuck a thousand miles from home and have to eat expensive repairs, parts and labor. Closer to home, like normal just get a cheap tow in and fix it yourself, save a lot, only pay for parts.
The roadster has a range of 220/244 miles, the model S has a range of 300 miles. They did not just "remove" batteries. Since the car is larger and heavier, intended for a different purpose, they are not really comparable, like a Ferrari and BMW sedan are not really comparable.
Insist on spending the whole $109k? The ZR1 Corvette will embarrass the Tesla by any meaningful performance metric.
Fuel economy? >.>
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