Tesla Model 3 Outselling Small, Midsize Luxury Cars In US (forbes.com)

WindBourne shares a report from Forbes: In the second quarter of 2018, Tesla produced just over 53,000 vehicles, doubling its output compared to the same quarter last year. For the first time, Model 3 production (28,578) exceeded combined Model S and X production (24,761) with deliveries to customers totaling 40,740 for the quarter. The ramp up in Model 3 production is enabling it to outsell small and midsize luxury car sales in the U.S., according to some number crunching by CleanTechnica's Zachary Shahan.

His analysis claims that the Model 3 is crushing its "competitors" in that segment with total estimated sales for July amounting to 16,000 vehicles. The closest individual model to Tesla's mass-market endeavor is the Mercedes C-Class and even then, its July sales are estimated at just 6,029 units. The Model 3 is still untouchable when sales figures from multiple vehicles produced by the same company are added together. For example, the analysis expects sales of the BMW 2, 3, 4 and 5 Series to hit 12,811 at the end of July in total while customers will get their hands on 11,835 Mercedes C, CLA, CLS and E-Class models. That all means that Tesla would have a 23% share of the small and midsize luxury car market in July, ahead of BMW's 17% and Mercedes' 17%.

Comments

3... 2... 1...

[Narcocide]

Cuing a bunch of trolls, bots, and shills to come bitch about how batteries are useless in a hypothetical climate they've already destroyed.

Re:3... 2... 1...

[Cederic]

a hypothetical climate they've already destroyed

Destroyed? I'm enjoying the best summer I can remember. Weeks of beautiful warm sunshine and it's not even August yet.

Better yet, we're promised lots of snow when winter arrives.

This climate change thing is going to make my retirement a joy!

Re:3... 2... 1...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Found the Greenlander.

Re: 3... 2... 1...

[Anonymous Coward]

Take that Vlad The Petroleum Guy!

Re:3... 2... 1...

[Ol Olsoc]

This climate change thing is going to make my retirement a joy!

Meanwhile we're drowning here in the rainy Northeast.

Its like its weather or something.

Re:3... 2... 1...

[Ol Olsoc]

Cuing a bunch of trolls, bots, and shills to come bitch about how batteries are useless in a hypothetical climate they've already destroyed.

I haz da popcorn and Tequila.

Another Trump Success

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep making America great, Mr. President!

Re: Another Trump Success

[Anonymous Coward]

More EV cars sold now than 2 years ago ;)

Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting numbers... and they bode well for Tesla if true. But It was my understanding that Tesla was struggling to fill existing orders. And that this was leading to backlog. So, as impressive as these numbers are, I am wondering if they won't drop off as the backlog gets filled and demand goes more steady state.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[reanjr]

The size of the backlog is still increasing, so demand shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[fluffernutter]

It's my understanding most of the people on the list really wanted the $35K model and are now losing interest and bowing out because Must hasn't delivered on it.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[WindBourne]

give us a link that shows majority of ppl buying 35K model 3. All the ppl I know are buying the current cars and are getting deliveries now and over the next couple of months.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

The $35k model got canceled.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[ArchieBunker]

The way it works is the more you spend option wise the more you get bumped up in the queue. Realistically people are spending about $60k for a model 3.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[viperidaenz]

They're just filling pre-orders. The numbers make good clickbait though.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Zobeid]

I think it's funny how I've already seen attempts to spin this negative for Tesla no matter what the sales numbers are. Backlog of orders isn't shrinking? Poor Tesla, they just can't mass-produce them like a real car company, they'll never catch up. Backlog of orders shrinks? Poor Tesla, they're stuck building a product that there just isn't that much demand for after all. Everything is grist for the mill of skeptics.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

The one person I know on the list wanted the standard model. A few months ago he told me he was probably going to cancel. I havenâ(TM)t talked to him since the standard model got deleted from the Tesla website, but I can guess he has probably cancelled and will find a use for the $1000 heâ(TM)s been lending to Tesla for free.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking all aboard the squeeze train when I hear desperate spinning as you say. :)

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[haruchai]

It's my understanding most of the people on the list really wanted the $35K model and are now losing interest and bowing out because Must hasn't delivered on it.

Quite a few were holding out for the AWD / dual-motor which is now being delivered.
I imagine there'll be significant demand for the base ($35k) model with dual motor but those will have to wait until next year which means a Federal tax credit of at most $1900

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

In a surprise to exactly nobody, it turns out regressive leftist socialists don't have a lot of boycott power.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[AmiMoJo]

Unfortunately it's as bad from both sides. You have the people who want Tesla to fail for whatever reason, and the fanboys who can't accept that any other EV might not be a steaming pile of shit.

Tesla makes some good cars. They have also had a lot of quality issues, and their prices are pretty high. Good luck to them, we need more EVs. At the same time, companies like Hyundai and Nissan/Renault have made some good cars too, starting from the affordable end of the market instead, and are now releasing cars with 300 mile range and features like autopilot. Hooray for them too.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

More people will order when the backlog is cleared. At that time, they also get the customers who aren't into waiting.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

Then there's the fact that most of the world - including me - can't get theirs yet. Only the US and Canada.

Also there's a number of configs that you just can't get yet. Yes, some are lower profit, like non-PUP and SR battery. But I'm among those wanting, for example, air suspension and a tow hitch, both options Tesla has talked about (air suspension is supposed to be early next year), and neither of which are out. Also, the white interior is now available in the AWD, not just P, but still not RWD.

It's one of those cases of "Shut up and take my money!"

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

Deleted from the website, huh? (search "standard battery")
Funny, that (Scroll to "Model 3 specs")

That's the press kit and the Model 3 info page, respectively - the two most prominent places on the website to look for info on the Model 3.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

No matter how many times you repeat a myth, that doesn't make it true.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

Basically, yes. A reservation reserves you a place in line.... for a specific 1) configuration grouping, 2) market, and 3) customer status (employee > Tesla owner > non-Tesla owner). It's effectively not one list, but many smaller lists.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

No. The US federal tax credit starts next year at $3750, and for the latter half of the year drops to $1875. Model 3 SR is supposed to start shipping around the start of the year.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

Indeed they are. With production. Which is the whole point, as people on this site have been ranting and raving, "Tesla can't mass produce cars". Except that they can and are.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

300 miles - you're talking about the Kona. Hyundai expects it to be EPA rated at 250 miles combined for the more expensive variant. Remember that Model 3 LR RWD range actually measured in at 334 miles EPA; Tesla deliberately downrated it so that all variants (including LR P) would get the same EPA range. The long-range Kona will come in somewhat more expensive than the 220 mile Model 3 SR (not out in the US either), but less expensive than the 310/334 mile Model 3 LR. Basically priced in the same range. But you get a small CCS-charging "normal performance", somewhat awkward handling econobox. The CCS charging aspect is key, since CCS is a terrible patchwork. Which we've gone into before - you gave me Ireland as an example (trying to pick a place in western Europe where you thought CCS would outshine the Supercharger network), I pulled up the stations along the most obvious highway route, and half of them had spent significant amounts of time down, leaving people stranded. CCS is junk. This might change, but as it stands, it's terrible. Mostly 50kW (in practice ~44kw-ish), which is just way too slow for normal people on road trips. And even on higher power chargers, while Kona might compare to an old Model X (snicker) in distance per unit time, it doesn't even come close to Model 3 charge rates (distance per unit time). Model 3 is - contrary to Bjørn's assertion - a more efficient vehicle (compare EPA ranges to battery sizes, compare drag coefficients and masses, compare realized MPH charge rates, etc - Bjørn's Model 3 testing was on non-aero rims, sport tires and with an extra passenger, vs. Kona with no passenger on eco tires and aero rims, and the comparison done at low speeds which cancels out the aero advantage). And Model 3 has vastly higher charge powers. Model 3 LR, for example (we don't have SR's curve yet) can charge for nearly the Kona's entire range than the Kona's peak power - which it has to start ramping off of in the 50s. And here we're just talking about V2 superchargers. V3 comes out this fall, and Model 3s are already designed to make use of them.

Lastly: Hyundai's "autopilot" is terrifying.

Please don't take this as me "hating on the Kona" too much. I'm only "hating on the comparison". As far as non-Teslas go, I think the Kona is a standout. Unfortunately, I'm also pretty convinced that it's just a compliance car. Like the Ioniq. Hyundai only plans to produce 40k Kona + Niro EVs globally. Which is just nothing. If they were making a profit on it, they'd make them in much greater numbers.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

ED: "..nearly the Kona's entire range higher than the Kona's peak power..."

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[jellomizer]

There are a lot of people cancelling their per-order. But that is in general money in the bank to Testla as their deposit is non-refundable. For the most part I expect it wasn't people loosing interest but couldn't wait for a new car for one reason or an other. Being their backlog every cancel order is extra money to them and closer to finishing up their backlog.
Just as long the cancellations don't exceed output capacity they should be good.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[AmiMoJo]

We have been over all this. Bjorn did 510km in a Kona with normal driving, not hypermiling or anything. He was seeing over 350km range at 125km/h, so exceeding the speed limit constantly. And you are trying to compare with the M3 LR, a car that costs $20,000 more for a similar spec.

Bjorn also noted how well the autopilot works. His only criticism is that it doesn't slow down if you release your hands from the wheel, so pretty much the same as Tesla used to be until the latest software update that owners are moaning about.

CCS is good in Europe. Let's say for the sake of argument you drive really inefficiently and only get 350km range. You have better range than the similarly priced Model 3 SR so the slower charge is offset against the longer distance you travel before needing to charge. So really it's only on the second charge that the M3 starts to have an advantage, or after 700km or about 7 hours of solid driving. By being slightly more efficient you can push that to about 9 hours and still arrive at the same time as the M3.

Maybe you need to drive for more than 9 hours a day, but now we are into "EVs are crap because my off-grid remote mountain cabin can't charge them" territory.

I don't think we are ever going to agree, but perhaps we can at least get as far as agreeing that the most suitable comparison is the M3 SR with AP. It costs a little more than the top spec Kona but is similar in terms of the major features.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me a single $35000 model 3. You claimed they would be sold back in January.

Here’s the facts. They weren’t make in January, they won’t be made in next January, they won’t be made ever because they were canceled.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

The deposit order IS refundable. Go stock troll on seeking alpha or some sub-reddit

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

We have been over all this. Bjorn did 510km in a Kona with normal driving, not hypermiling or anything

Oh come on. He did 510km in a Kona on eco tires and aero wheels with no passenger at an average speed of under 90kph / 56mph. And you know that.

He was seeing over 350km range at 125km/h

1) His long-range run was at 120kph, not 125. With an average slightly under that.
2) Going 68% as far at 120kph as at 90kph is a big dropoff, and a testament to the lack of good aerodynamics on the Kona.

so exceeding the speed limit constantly

120kph (75mph) - while far faster than my speed limit - is not by any stretch an unusual highway speed in much of the world. Many places drive faster. 90kph / 56mph, by contrast, is on the very low end of highway speeds, by global standards. I live in AFAIK the only developed country that doesn't have any roads with speed limits faster than that.

And you are trying to compare with the M3 LR, a car that costs $20,000 more for a similar spec.

No. Please, at least get your pricing right. Model 3 LR starts at $44k USD. You're adding PUP and who knows what else in. The "long range" Kona starts at £34,500 in the UK (no US pricing yet). So subtracting 20% VAT and converting to USD, that's $37830. Pricewise, that's slotting in 31% of the way between SR and LR. Range-wise, that's 33% of the way between SR and the nominal LR range of 310 miles, or 26% of the way between SR and the measured LR range of 334 miles.

I know you want to try to load up the Model 3 with packages to try to make it more expensive, under the excuse of "anything that Kona has, we'll tack on a Model 3 package for that", but sorry, that's not even remotely a fair comparison, since you're not doing the reverse. Kona doesn't even have a freaking app for crying out loud, let alone literally dozens of standard Model 3 features. I know your favourite package to do this with is Autopilot, but the portions of that which really matter (safety-related) come free.

You don't get to load up one with options to try to artificially boost the price; that's just ridiculous.

Bjorn also noted how well the autopilot works

Who should I listen to, some not-that-enthusiastic commentary, or my lying eyes? Here, let's quote from the comments section of that video:

"That's... actually rather terrifying." - My comment. One of the most liked comments in the thread
"So the car will turn off the assist and rely on lesser technologies when you need it the most? Incredibly bad design." - THE most liked comment in the thread
"we called it DDM = drunk driver mode not LFA :)"
"This is dangerous :O They need to fix this in case people have a medical situation."
"Thats not good. it need to drop the speed"
"Scary drunk system"
"That’s disappointing "
"WTF I was expecting lexus lfa =("

You seem to be the only person who thinks this is acceptable. This is going to kill people. And I don't mean "one every several hundred million miles, at a rate less than a human driver". I mean frequently. You leave your hands off the wheel for too long and the car decides to drive like you're on heroin? Who the heck thought this up?

His only criticism is that it doesn't slow down if you release your hands from the wheel, so pretty much the same as Tesla used to be until the latest software update that owners are moaning about.

1) This is not true. Autopilot has always braked to a stop and put the flashers on if you cease responding to driver input

2) The only thing people were "moaning" about was the frequency of the alerts. In the latest update, they decreased them (but not to as far apart as they were previously) and made the

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

** Ed: "6 (or if you'd rather, 7) hours."

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[AmiMoJo]

The pre-order deposit is fully refundable until you order. I know a few people who have had their refunds lately.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

Also: Your timing logic is flawed. Because nobody drives 100% DoD charge cycles. Most people will want at least 50km / 30 miles safety buffer, if not more, and only your first leg starts at 100% charge, since nobody charges to 100% on the road. You have maybe 85% of a charge to use for the first leg, and then maybe 60% of a charge to use for subsequent ones (if that).

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

Show me a single $35000 model 3. You claimed they would be sold back in January.

Show me where I said that.

Also, your false assertion doesn't change the fact that not only has the base model not been cancelled, but it still features prominently on Tesla's website. The notion that it had been "scrubbed from their website" is simply wrong; it's still all over their website. What they changed was the order page, when they transitioned from a reservation-based system to a direct order system. Because - news flash - you can't direct order something that's not currently in production.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

"B-bu-but Trump will be impeached any day now... R-right?" you sniveled.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck are you talking about, you fucking imbecile?

I refunded one of my two reservations. It took 45 seconds, and the money was in my bank within 3 days.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[slashdice]

It's my understanding most of the people on the list really wanted the $35K model and are now losing interest and bowing out because Must hasn't delivered on it.

Fake news! Most of the people on the list wanted the $25K model (after state and federal kickbacks). The federal tax credit will be gone before a 35K model is produced. And if you want to spend $60K+ on a Tesla, why not just get a model S? It's a better car, has better build quality, and fewer design defects.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Followed your links. While the press kit still says it starts at $35k, if you go to order a standard battery, no options, no frills Model 3, it costs $49k

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the dems want to keep Trump in power, he's doing their dirty work destroying the republican party.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[dehachel12]

that's only for the US market ...

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Wdomburg]

If you click on "Order Now" the cheapest option is $49K. Cancelled or not, it is unavailable even to order for the foreseeable future.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

What market do you think haruchai was talking about when they said "Federal tax credit"?

Not that it it matters, but in my market we have no credit, but instead have no VAT on EVs, which is an even bigger thing, combined (obviously) with the lack of emissions fees. That's saving like 40% vs. an equivalent gasoline vehicle. We also have $8/gal gasoline and cheap electricity. ;)

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[datavirtue]

If I was in the market for a little beater a Tesla would be near the top of my short list. Is this some type of revelation? Anyone shopping for a little car is going to look at Tesla...unless they have a Huyundai budget.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[AmiMoJo]

He drive 510km at normal highway speed in Norway in the tyres/wheels that the car comes with. What do you want Rei, what specific set-up do you require for the Rei Certified Efficient Driving Range Test?

His long-range run was at 120kph, not 125

Look at the speedometer. Anyway, who cares? He was doing the speed limit or slightly above. Most of Europe has the same limit. He got 220 miles, which is the same as the similarly priced Model 3 SR gets with efficient driving. The point is undeniable, even if you do want to quibble over 5 kph.

And your beloved Model 3 also tanks efficiency at higher speeds. That's how drag works. And the Kona is still showing better efficiency at 120 kph in Bjorn's test.

Many places drive faster.

Here's a comprehensive list: https://www.theaa.ie/aa/motori...

Most are 120, and handful 130.

Model 3 LR starts at $44k USD. You're adding PUP and who knows what else in.

I'm adding autopilot, because the Kona has something similar. You get fewer luxuries in the M3 at that price, but it's broadly similar.

Here, let's quote from the comments section of that video:

Really, you are quoting the YouTube comments section now? And you take that over what Bjorn, an exert on EVs who has driven them all and extensively tested multiple steering assist systems, says?

Anyway, I'm not convinced that coming to a stop in the middle of a 120km/h highway is such a good idea either. Especially since Autopilot tends to just ram straight into stationary vehicles without bothering to slow down. That sounds even more suicidal.

If lane keeping alone was that dangerous then we would already see all these frequent fatalities as people with cruise control and lane keeping take their hands off the wheel and get little more than a beep or a nudge in the many millions of vehicles that already have it.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Cute literalism, Karen, but it's clear enough what AC was referring to, particularly for someone as close to the issue as I know you are.

You can't actually order a $35k Model 3 (for delivery on any date), and as shown in detail in the above link Tesla has restructured its ordering and pricing system (both on the website and on the price sheets on the vehicles themselves) to eliminate any reference to $35k as a baseline for the higher-margin configurations they'll actually sell you today. The fact as you point out that they're still including the number in their high-level marketing materials just amplifies the ongoing bait-and-switch.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

Yes, they transitioned for US/Canada buyers from a reservation system to a direct order system. You expect them to let you direct order and pay for a config that they can't give you yet? Tesla has repeatedly confirmed that the Model 3 SR is still on for the start of next year - including after the direct order transition.

I swear, if Tesla was photographed repainting the employee parking lot, the next day there would be an article on Seeking Alpha about how Tesla is hiding cracks and the ground under the Tesla factory is subsiding and will soon collapse and Musk is trying to repress employees from talking about it.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

He drive 510km at normal highway speed in Norway in the tyres/wheels that the car comes with. What do you want Rei, what specific set-up do you require for the Rei Certified Efficient Driving Range Test?

You don't have to do "Youtube drive tests" to measure efficiencies. That's what drive cycles are for. Hyundai expects Kona to receive a 250 mile rating in the US. Tesla expects Model 3 SR to receive 220 miles. LR received 310, but RWD was downrated from 334. These are the facts. I'm sorry if you don't like them.

Look at the speedometer

He specifically stated that the average was 120. Regardless of what the speedometer happened to show at some random time.

He was doing the speed limit or slightly above. Most of Europe has the same limit.

1. Nope.
2. You've been acting like that's "fast", "inefficient". When in reality it's below average.

He got 220 miles, which is the same as the similarly priced Model 3 SR gets with efficient driving.

What's your obsession with ignoring formal drivecycle measurements? Guess I have to repeat what I wrote before: "Model 3 LR starts at $44k USD. You're adding PUP and who knows what else in. The "long range" Kona starts at £34,500 in the UK (no US pricing yet). So subtracting 20% VAT and converting to USD, that's $37830. Pricewise, that's slotting in 31% of the way between SR and LR. Range-wise, that's 33% of the way between SR and the nominal LR range of 310 miles, or 26% of the way between SR and the measured LR range of 334 miles."

And your beloved Model 3 also tanks efficiency at higher speeds. That's how drag works

To be more specifically, drag works by CdA. Kona's Cd is reported as 0,29, Model 3's is 0,22. A is not 32% more in Model 3. Do the math.

And the Kona is still showing better efficiency at 120 kph in Bjorn's test.

189 Wh/km / 304Wh/mi is not better than Model 3 at 120 kph / 75mph (on aero wheels and eco tires like the Kona). Not even better than the heavier Model 3 LR, let alone Model 3 SR. 304 Wh/mi at 120kph/75mph is Model S levels of energy consumption, not Model 3.

Since you prefer ancedotes to drivecycles, here you go.

Wheels: unknown. Time of year unknown. Lifetime average: 267 Wh/mi, primarily at 79-83 mph: "Have you set a separate trip meter at 75 mph to see what your wh / mi would be?" "Yep I’ve tested that. Goes down to about 244 Wh/mi.

Wheels: unknown. January in Portland : "75 mph - 303 wh/mile"

Wheels: unknown. Time of year unknown "Similar numbers. Model 3 LR, ~600 miles, 19" wheels, Colorado. 239Wh/mile, majority at 65-75mph."

Wheels unknown: ". In summer, dry road conditions I am able to get 285 miles on a full charge driving 75-80 MPH, or 305 miles if I back it down to 65 MPH." (285 mi = 263 Wh/mi) "going 75 MPH over 200 miles, I lost around 35 miles of rated range" (275mi = 272 Wh/mi) "Long road trip on very hot days: 80 mph with A/C I lost 20% of my range. I have 18" w/Aeros on. I think that's as bad as it could ever get." (258mi = 290 Wh/mi)

Random Model 3s: "All other Wh/mi at hwy speeds (75/80/90) were much higher than in your figure. I've seen 255-300 "

These are just the first hits I get for searching "model 3 Wh/mi 75mph

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

** to be more specific

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[AmiMoJo]

What's your obsession with ignoring formal drivecycle measurements?

I don't ignore them, but I'm also aware that they are not terribly realistic either. If you drive at motorway speed you will get less, if you drive efficiently you will get a lot more. The NTSB rating is in the middle and represents some kind of mixed motorway/urban driving cycle.

But really this obsession with exact range numbers is pointless. The point I'm making here is that unless you do a 8+ hours of driving in a single day the greater range and lower charge speed cancel out and you end up with about the same travel time in a Kona or M3 SR. It's not something that would justify buying one over the other for most people, certainly much less of a consideration than if they want a compact SUV or low sporty hatchback.

Okay, add in remote climate control start. Remote charge monitoring. GPS tracking. Remote driving access granting. Giant glass windows. Far more trunk space. Well more interior space. Non-cheapo-hard-plastic interior. 15" touchscreen with smooth, responsive interface. Vastly more power. Significantly better handling. Keyless entry. Best-in-class voice controls.

Actually the Kona has keyless entry but them M3 doesn't really. It has that janky phone link that requires you to keep the battery draining Bluetooth enabled, or it has a card you have to touch the door pillar.

If we are trying to match the exact same spec then you bad better add ventilated seats, unlimited (US) or 8 year 200k mile (EU) battery warranty, lower service costs, Android Auto, Apple Carplay, wireless phone charging, driver attention monitoring, physical buttons, reliable non-beta rain sensitive wipers, HUD...

Maybe we should also measure the panel gaps if you really want to play this game. But in reality most people will choose based on if they want a compact SUV and lower monthly payments or if they want a squat, sporty hatchback for a few dollars more.

Yes, stopping and putting your flashers on is so much more dangerous than driving like you're on heroin until you crash. Sure.

So what is the actual scenario we are considering here. Driver passes out? Driver is busy sending a text?

If you're only here to push transparent FUD, my conversations with you are done.

It's not FUD that AP has a known issue with stationary vehicles, as do most humans driving at motorway speeds. Averages have nothing to do with it, we are talking about a specific scenario for which we have evidence of a systemic flaw. Or perhaps "limitation" would be a better word, since the driver is supposed to prevent such accidents.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently bought a Chevy Bolt. I'm a fucking idiot, I should have waited. The car drives OK but its half the overall experience of the Tesla. You feel every bump on the road, the bluetooth integration is trash, the UI is half physical, half on the screen, its inconsistent.

I needed a car and didn't want to invest in an ICE but I should have just waited.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

He did 510km in a Kona on eco tires and aero wheels

Dude you seen the crappy looking Model 3 "aero" hub caps? Look in the mirror before you start accusing others.

And Model 3 tire pressure is recommended upwards of fucking 45 psi (300 kPa). Your basic Tesla DIY "eco tires".
Prepare to shell out $$$ for new tires every 3,000miles/5,000km.
Such high tire pressure also reduce your skid pad performance.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Yawn -- it's clear you didn't read and/or comprehend the article I linked to. Doing so probably would have taken less time than typing yet another one of your deliberately-miss-the-point snarky little rejoinders.

And whatever your uncited sources, Tesla "repeatedly confirming" that something is "still on" half a year in the future is worthless currency at this point, particularly when all other signs point to the $35k base price being quietly and incrementally memory-holed.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

Yes, when I want to "memory hole" a model, I leave it up on the two most prominent places on the website that people would go to look for information about it.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me where I said that.

Right here

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Yes, when I want to "memory hole" a model, I leave it up on the two most prominent places on the website that people would go to look for information about it.

Ah, so you're saying they have it down to only two places they need to edit when Elon feels like he's come up with a good enough cover story/distraction to flush it for good. How efficient!

It's clear you're not going to address the systematic scrubbing of the $35k base price explained in extensive detail (complete with lots of pretty pictures) in the article I linked, so you may as well save your keystrokes on any further deflections.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Rei]

You know very well I didn't say "only". I stopped after I found clear unambiguous references on the most obvious places a visitor to the site would visit.

Your obsession over the change in the order page when they changed how they were doing orders is duly noted. Goodbye.

Re: Regular orders or filling back orders?

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Aw, sock puppet account had mod points. How cute.

Your obsession over the change in the order page when they changed how they were doing orders is duly noted. Goodbye.

And your cowardice over addressing the simple fact that your church removed the "$35,000" base price from the real-world window stickers on the cars in their real-world sanctuaries is duly noted. Be seeing you....

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Kona doesn't even have a freaking app for crying out loud"

That's all we need to see to know that you have zero credibility.
You're not interested in a car, you want a tech toy. That market is tiny.

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Agripa]

Unfortunately it's as bad from both sides. You have the people who want Tesla to fail for whatever reason, and the fanboys who can't accept that any other EV might not be a steaming pile of shit.

Wanting Tesla to fail is an old game.

https://www.dailykos.com/stori...

Re:Regular orders or filling back orders?

[Shirley Marquez]

They're giving in to the upsell and buying now because of the situation with the tax credit. By the time Tesla actually ships the $35K model, Teslas will no longer be eligible because the company will have sold too many electric cars. So you're really comparing buying a $36.5K car now vs a $35K car later, and given that choice buying the LR version is a no brainer.

Trucks?

[CaffeinatedBacon]

But are they outselling gas guzzling trucks and SUV's?

Re:Trucks?

[TheRealQuestor]

Living in south Texas I'd have to say no.....not by a long shot. There are like 3 pickups for ever 1 SUV and 3 SUVs for every car on the road. And like 1/4 of the car are Mustangs. sigh.

Re:Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Not by a long shot.

They're outselling a small part (luxury) of the rapidly shrinking passenger car slice of the US market. Ford, for instance, will make only Mustangs and Focus crossovers in 2019; all other passenger cars are gone from the Ford lineup. Fiat Chrysler and GM aren't far behind, phasing out or scaling back production of most passenger car models, including staples such as the Dart and Impala. Soon the only true US coupes and sedans left will be high performance models and one or two high end luxury cars like the CT5.

Re:Trucks?

[Kernel Kurtz]

Every day Ford sells an average of 2,452 F-Series trucks...

http://autoweek.com/article/tr...

Re:Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least read the fucking title if you are not capable of reading the article.
This was outselling comparable ICE models, i.e. small, midsize luxury cars in US.
The Model Y that starts production next year, is a small, midsize luxury SUV and it will probably overtake the small, midsize luxury SUVs.

Re:Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

America does not make small to midsize luxury sedans. Plenty of them are sold here in America, but not by GM or Ford.
And today's pony cars like Mustangs, Camaros, and luxury car like CT5 are highly overrated, expensive, slow crap.

Re:Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it's a real shame people won't be reasonable and do things your way

Re:Trucks?

[WindBourne]

yeah, Tesla's production is not up there enough for that, but, in either 2019 or 2020, Tesla is supposed to have their truck out. I think it will be interesting to see how well they do at that.

Re:Trucks?

[Bruce Perens]

Every day Ford sells an average of 2,452 F-Series trucks...

And in 1907 more people bought horse carriages than all automobiles combined, and the city streets were full of manure rather than the air being full of pollution. Change happens.

Re:Trucks?

[viperidaenz]

They still won't have cleared their model 3 backlog by then, so good luck with that.

Re:Trucks?

[viperidaenz]

So the air went from being smelly to causing cancer?

Re:Trucks?

[avandesande]

Toyota sold 180,000 Camry the first half of 2018

Re:Trucks?

[LynnwoodRooster]

If they had an actual $35K vehicle for sale, then they could be compared to mid-size vehicles like the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, both of which compete nicely at the $35K price point. And crush the model 3 in terms of sales volumes.

Re:Trucks?

[swillden]

So the air went from being smelly to causing cancer?

From being a vector of immediate disease affecting all ages to being a vector of delayed disease affecting primarily the elderly, yes.

http://www.banhdc.org/archives/ch-hist-19711000.html

Re:Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every day Ford sells an average of 2,452 F-Series trucks...

And in 1907 more people bought horse carriages than all automobiles combined, and the city streets were full of manure rather than the air being full of pollution. Change happens.

Right but that's because the automobile was expensive and unreliable. Tesla's vehicles are not overly expensive and certainly aren't unreliable, sure if they eventually get to a case where a EV truck can replace a gas truck for the majority of use cases we will get to polluting the environment with the lithium ion battery manufacturing and waste rather than gas emissions but who knows.

Re:Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

trucks will be additional production lines in parallel with model 3,
same as now model 3 did not stop making of older models they added new lines for model 3, and make all of current models at same time on separate production lines (only 3 of those lines make model 3, other lines still make older more expensive models)

Re:Trucks?

[hai_Priesty]

THIS, plus air in concentrated urban settlements had been a bigger culprit for causing cancer and all sorts of ailments, in a magnitude not comparable in modern western world, almost since towns and cities started. Air quality was worse by so many magnitudes that automobiles that came with technology advancement should probably more regarded as an air improvement good, back in the old days.

Ancient people just happened not to have discovered cancer or properly documented many ailments from burning of wood in an inefficient fireplace or stove. Given how poorly designed their wood-burning devices (sometimes those are just dent in the ground or earth mounds) and quality of fuel they put in - just boiling some potatoes for dinner would often have rendered your whole house suffocatingly thick with smoke. This scenario, replicated x100,000 for an large city, and your whole densely populated working class zone is a death pit in modern standards.

Re: Trucks?

[CaffeinatedBacon]

That's exactly my point. Tesla is a rounding error, but fanbois like Windy think they are single handedly changing the world.

Re:Trucks?

[WindBourne]

do not forget that from the 40s through the mid 70s, a LOT of lead was released into the air harming our kids.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla are gunning for the segment of the market that are willing to pay $60,000 for an electric Honda Accord, all so they can turn a few heads and convince themselves they're the vanguard of a revolution.

Re:Trucks?

[WindBourne]

Yet, it is rated as a compact luxury car, just like the BMW Model 3s. The entry level of BM3 is basic just like Tesla. Yet, everybody calls it a compact luxury.

Re: Trucks?

[RhettLivingston]

What Honda Accord does 0-60 in 3.5? Every Tesla outperforms every BMW on the road at the same price point and many cars at higher price points. Performance is why electric is suddenly filling the future roadmaps for all car companies. We love performance.

When electric pickups do hit the market, they are going to have to ban them from tractor pulls. Otherwise, a lot of sensitive folks will be real embarrassed. There have already been a lot of incidents when stock Tesla sedans took the slips from people with hot rods and the folks with the hot rods sort of lost it.

You'll see the way non-hybrid, non-EV gas or diesel trucks are advertised change overnight. They will never talk about their towing power again. The low end torque of the electric blows everything else in the consumer market away, and the stability added by the battery packs placed down low will allow them to put more of that torque on the road.

Re:Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the performance. It crushes the BM3 even without the dual motor option and deserves the comparison. I own a 330ci and have driven a friend's model 3. The model 3 blows away my 330ci on the road. I had already decided to never buy a BMW again, but this assures it.

Re:Trucks?

[AHuxley]

No more Buick Park Avenue?

Re:Trucks?

[haruchai]

"but, in either 2019 or 2020, Tesla is supposed to have their truck out."
And I think you meant Model Y, not the Tesla Truck - or did you mean Tesla Semi?
If Musk & Straubel are telling the truth they'll still be struggling to meet demand for the S3X mobiles, they'll need a place to build the Semi and they'll still be trying to make enough battery cells for Model 3, PowerPacks and PowerWalls

Re: Trucks?

[haruchai]

"You'll see the way non-hybrid, non-EV gas or diesel trucks are advertised change overnight. They will never talk about their towing power again. The low end torque of the electric blows everything else in the consumer market away"

The advantage for towing will probably be claimed by hybrids. Long distance towing at highway speed is too much for the currently available Li-on battery packs.
For the Model X, towing 3500 lbs at 60 mph will probably cut your range by 40-60% depending on road condition & weather

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

What Tesla is priced similarly to a Honda Accord and does 0-60 in 3.5s? The 3.5s you're quoting starts at $64K and could buy you TWO Accords.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

2018 Honda Accord 2.0T -- 0-60 5.7 sec -- available today starting at $30K
Tesla 3 standard - 0-60 5.6 sec -- $35K? Available when??

Re:Trucks?

[vtcodger]

"Tesla's vehicles are not overly expensive"

Watcha smokin there man? Of course Tesla's vehicles are overly expensive. The base price of the cheapest Toyota Camry -- which is what you look at if you have a wife, a couple of kids, a normal job, and need wheels is $23645. Prius (hybrid) is about the same. Likewise Honda Accord, Ford Fusion, and I assume whatever GM is selling to typical North Americans.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Expensive? To get a C-class or 3-series with the same HP as a mustang, you end up in the AMG/M terrain, where prices start at twice the Mustang. Crap? For sure, you get what you pay for.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the Model X, towing 3500 lbs at 60 mph will probably cut your range by 40-60% depending on road condition & weather

You seem to have confused "acceleration" with "range". Why would it cut your range by any meaningful amount if you are driving on flat ground?

Extra mass results in trivially greater rolling friction and no change in wind resistance. Wind resistance is the main problem at highway speed. If you are towing 20 man parasailing teams or a blimp, sure, but a streamlined low profile trailer? Not a big problem.

If you want to goal post shift to hill climbing, that cuts gasoline truck range too. More so since the low end torque lets a tesla climb a staircase if you don't care about your suspension or warranty.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

And with the Honda you can do those 0-60 over and a over and over again. Do it trice in the tesla and it's cutting off to protect the battery from overheating. That doesn't matter much as it soon needs recharging anyway.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Air resistance?

Re: Trucks?

[Barsteward]

telsa has certainly changed the car market which encouraged the major ICE competitors like Audi, JLR, Mercedes, BMW etc to produce telsa competitors. nissan renault etc are doing the same at the bottom end of the market

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even a low profile trailer at speed has significant air resistance as it isn't designed to provide nice smooth airflows and the resulting turbulence will have a NON negligible impact on range, anything with even slightly more than very low profile flat trailer will have a massive impact on range.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

well, who cares? Tesla is currently not a truck company. No problem for them, that Ford is big there.

Re:Trucks?

[Rei]

I assumed he was talking about the pickup, which comes out after Model Y. But that won't be in 2019 or 2020. 2021 at the earliest.

In some ways, pickup trucks are awesome targets for an EV manufacturer like Tesla. They can produce bonkers amounts of torque. They have a low CG to resist tipping with awkward loads. They can (and Tesla plans to) put high-power AC sockets on the vehicle so you can use your truck in place of a generator on a worksite. Their air suspension will self-level loads, and they're talking about adding an external compressor port to drive pneumatic tools. Lots of neat possibilities. The main downside is that pickups are "guzzlers". Which means lots of batteries, which means more expensive. So it's rightfully been slotted further down the queue, to give more time for the ongoing march of battery price declines to make it cheaper.

Re:Trucks?

[Rei]

They're comparing to the situation with earlier cars. Early automobiles were seen as luxury toys for wealthy families. The Model T helped change this, but it still wasn't cheap. While a simple "purchasing power" conversion on the $850 starting price is $22,5k in today's money, the average household annual income back then for the bottom 90% was under $10k.

Re: Trucks?

[Rei]

A Honda Accord is an econobox with a fraction the standard features, it's a silly comparison. And it still loses the performance on that. And even if it wasn't a silly, losing comparison, just the energy cost savings alone (forget about tax credits) would put the Model 3 in front.

And you're apparently unaware that 1) it was not battery overheating that limited how many laps you could do at max power in the Model S and X, but rotor overheating (common misunderstanding), and 2) this does not affect Model 3, as it uses a different motor technology. Go to YouTube, you can find videos of Model 3s being raced at the track for long periods of time.

Re:Trucks?

[Gilgaron]

I realize a lot of those are work vehicles and that they're very popular as personal vehicles as well, but it is staggering to think that we must also be wearing out a significant portion of that many trucks every day.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

A Honda Accord is better equipped than any Tesla shit box.

Re: Trucks?

[Rei]

Apparently "shitboxen" earn the highest consumer satisfaction rating in the industry.

Re:Trucks?

[swillden]

Very true, but likely still an improvement over the harm done by massive piles of rotting horse manure. Also, you mean "harming our parents / us", unless you were born in the 1920s or earlier.

Re:Trucks?

[yodleboy]

How do you call that an improvement? Lead stays around damn near forever. Horse crap, or an infectious patch of it doesn't. Lead exposure is causing health issues decades after the last horse and buggy were off the streets.

Re:Trucks?

[Registered Coward v2]

But are they outselling gas guzzling trucks and SUV's?

If you take a broader look at the market and include 50K vehicles (which is what M3's are currently selling for) the Ford F150 alone crushed Tesla. The US market has moved heavily toward pickup trucks, with the premium (50k+) being the heavily targeted by domestic manufacturers. In the US, car sales have declined while light truck sales, as a percentage of the market, have increased. In June they were 67% of the total market. Tesla is grabbing a larger share of a shrinking market, to me their long term challenge is to crack the pickup truck market in the US.

Re:Trucks?

[Registered Coward v2]

Every day Ford sells an average of 2,452 F-Series trucks...

And in 1907 more people bought horse carriages than all automobiles combined, and the city streets were full of manure rather than the air being full of pollution. Change happens.

True, and the question before us is not will electric vehicles become more common in the future but can Tesla survive when the entrenched players make serious moves into the market? There were hundreds of horseless carriage manufacturers as that new technology began to be seen as a replacement for the horse; being an early entrant didn't ensure success; having enough capital to survive did. It will be interesting to see if Tesla survives or if it becomes another Tucker, Checker, Mercer, Stanley...

Re: Trucks?

[Wdomburg]

At $35k you get the 2.0 turbo touring model, which includes a heads-up display, heated and ventilated seats, wireless phone charging, rain sensing windshield wipers, heated and powered side mirrors, powered leather , leather trim, satellite navigation, premium audio system, auto-domming mirrors, powered moon root, blind spot information system, cross traffic monitor, remote start, etc etc.

This is not an econobox. You can get one of those for about half as much (base level Insight starts at $18,725).

Re:Trucks?

[drinkypoo]

Leaded gas was still available for automotive use at least into the early eighties, even in California. It wasn't fully banned until 1988. And it's still being used in aviation, on planes with absolutely zero emissions equipment, and a strong tendency to throw unburned fuel right out the tailpipe (especially during takeoff.)

Re: Trucks?

[datavirtue]

No and I cannot fathom why not. No one can seem to crack Ford's truck market. The only worthy competitors have to skip on quality to be competitive and really only sell to a crowd that is religious about their favorite brand.

The Ford F-150 gets better gas mileage than a little Toyota....far better. The power of an electric motor would be welcome in a truck but the battery tech is not there yet. You also are dealing with marketing issues where the best truck customers love the sound of the petrol motor and are not interested in the inconvenience of charging.

Re:Trucks?

[drinkypoo]

The main downside is that pickups are "guzzlers". Which means lots of batteries

This is only partly due to aerodynamics, which these days are actually getting much better on pickups — they are adding automatically retracting air dams, and front grill louvers — but largely due to having a big ugly engine to meet truck drivers' expectations. This is changing rapidly, with trucks even going hybrid. (Some mild hybrid models are expected to hit the market very soon.) But an EV doesn't need to have a huge motor to have the torque necessary to do pickup jobs.

The reason they're waiting isn't because pickups are inefficient. They're waiting because pickups need more range than cars. If your car dies on the side of the road, you just tow it. Same for a pickup, unless it has a load. Then you have to transfer the load first. It's much less acceptable to have range anxiety in a pickup.

Re:Trucks?

[swillden]

Lead stays around damn near forever.

It doesn't. Blood lead levels in children have dropped to pre leaded-gas days. Indeed they dropped off very quickly once we stopped pumping the stuff into the atmosphere and painting our walls with it.

Re:Trucks?

[swillden]

Leaded gas was still available for automotive use at least into the early eighties, even in California. It wasn't fully banned until 1988.

Levels were lowered significantly in the mid 70s, though, and blood lead levels started to decline by the late 70s. Though I suppose the "our children" comment can apply to people who are a few years older than me; my oldest was born in 1993.

And it's still being used in aviation, on planes with absolutely zero emissions equipment, and a strong tendency to throw unburned fuel right out the tailpipe (especially during takeoff.)

People who live right next to airports may need to be concerned (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/), but across the population as a whole, blood lead levels have dropped to pre-leaded gas levels.

Back to the point, this is clearly much less of a concern than mountains of rotting manure.

Re:Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

If that is the case, why is the car not being compared to the other fuel efficient vehicles? Like a corolla or a civic? I thought the model 3 was a car for the common people?

Re:Trucks?

[AvitarX]

Isn't their next model the small crossover ('Y')?

It seems unlikely that both will be released in the next 2 years.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently "shitboxen" earn the highest consumer satisfaction rating in the industry.

A bunch of anonymous "reviews" could be mostly paid shill bullshiters like yourself though.

Apparently internationally recognized experts like Sandy Munro did think the Tesla Model 3 is a "shitbox":

...I thought that this(Model 3) was one of the worst fit and finish I've seen in decades...

...these are flaws(Model 3) that we would see on a Kia in the 90s...

Re:Trucks?

[luis_a_espinal]

How do you call that an improvement? Lead stays around damn near forever. Horse crap, or an infectious patch of it doesn't. Lead exposure is causing health issues decades after the last horse and buggy were off the streets.

True, shit particles in the air didn't stay for long, but neither the people who breathed it. As bad as lead was (and still is, see Flint), bro, shit in the air was a lot worse. Sometimes people really do not grasp how bad shit was (and please do not take this as an endorsement of what came after, but we need to keep perspective on how bad things are/were with respect to one another.)

Re:Trucks?

[Kernel Kurtz]

Indeed. One day someone may make something way better than a modern pickup truck.

I personally doubt it will be Tesla, but you never know.

Re:Trucks?

[b0bby]

I'm keeping my eye on the Workhorse pickup; 80 miles EV + generator, 5000 lbs towing capacity. If the reliability is good (which it should be since they are geared towards fleet sales) it might get me to buy a pickup.

Re: Trucks?

[LynnwoodRooster]

What $35K Tesla Model 3 does 0-60 in 3.5 seconds?

Re: Trucks?

[LynnwoodRooster]

What features does a base model Tesla Model 3 have that are not present in the Accord?

Re:Trucks?

[LynnwoodRooster]

It's only rated as a compact luxury car because they are priced like that; when you drop $60K on a car, it's not really an affordable, mass-market vehicle. When the Model 3 for $35K starts shipping - that will be akin to the Accord or Camry. Of course, that that vehicle does not exist...

Re:Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

do not forget that from the 40s through the mid 70s, a LOT of lead was released into the air harming our kids.

While true, that was not an inherent evil of the automobile per se, but one brought upon society by GM, Dupont, etc. It could have been avoided.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but the tesla model 3 will save more than $14,000 in energy costs over 200,000 miles. TCO will be way lower.

(Honda 2.0t gets 27 mpg combined; (200,000 / 27) * $3/gallon = $22,222 in fuel costs. Tesla model 3 uses about $8,000 of electricity for the same distance).

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ability to crash itself in the back of a fire truck.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of those manufacturers were producing or researching EVs well before Tesla, though. Maybe investment was increased, but it's not a new thing for many majors.

Re: Trucks?

[RhettLivingston]

The AC did say a $60K electric Honda Accord. I believe the $35K model is advertised to be 5.6 seconds. The long range single motor model is claimed by Tesla to be 5.1 seconds due to the greater amperage capability in its power pack and has actually tested at 4.6 seconds. From that accounting, we can surmise that Tesla is being nice and giving ratings based on a not-so-new battery. When new, it will likely be well under 5.6 seconds. In any case, every single version performs very well for its price point compared to other non-electric cars at the same price point.

In short, EVs in the end will win because dollar-for-dollar, they are going to be more fun.

Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very little heavy towing is long distance. I'd bet that the most the vast majority of truck owners do is haul a big boat to the closest lake and back. And many of the real workhorses never leave the farm or plant.

I'll grant you that people hauling horse trailers to shows or the few that actually do commercial long haul deliveries of things like portable lumber mills will be much happier with a hybrid during the coming transition - for another decade or so.

Re: Trucks?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Yes, the $35K unit does 0-60 in 5.6 seconds; the Honda Accord does it in 5.7, and the Toyota Camry in 6.0 flat. So basically the same performance levels. Except the Tesla is a stripper model with really no options, and the Accord and Camry (in addition to having the same interior dimensions) have every option you can get.

EVs do have the potential to win - however, I don't think Tesla will be the one to do it, considering they lose money on every vehicle they sell - BEFORE you account for things like R&D, interest on debt, etc. Just the cost of the car and sales/admin costs related to the sale results in a loss. If it is Tesla who really gets the win - it's because they've been bought by someone else, as a new brand added to another company's stable. But my money is actually on either Toyota or VW winning - they are both committing to EVs and hybrids, and have the capital, expertise, and systems in place to actually build EVs in volume and make a profit doing so.

Pent up orders mostly

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this mostly about finally delivering on orders made awhile ago.

That's what counts

[AlanObject]

I suppose we can expect more muskisdelusionalandoutofcash postings.

In the last Tesla thread I pointed out that, as an stockholder, what I am looking for is NOT Elon Musk's cute personality or science fantasy. Nor do I care to whig out at every little story of production problems. What I am looking for is:

Technological leadership.

Market presence.

Production leadership.

Most of all: backorders and strong forecast. None of the rest matters unless you have someone willing to buy it. Tesla has that in spades.

So Tesla is delivering. Skepticism is healthy but not to the extent that the Tesla naysayers on /. take it.

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Technological leadership.

Market presence.

Production leadership.

Most of all: backorders and strong forecast.

Tesla’s none of those things.

Re:That's what counts

[110010001000]

Well then as a stockholder you are looking at the wrong thing then. You can have all those things and still go out of business. The fact is that Tesla is $10 billion in debt and has a negative 90 P/E ratio. In addition, Tesla will need to go back to the capital markets to get more money. This means more convertible bonds, which means YOUR stock will be diluted further. You shouldn't be investing in individual stocks unless you really know what you are doing. Even then the risk is very high, because companies could be lying about their numbers (e.g. Enron). None of this should be a surprise. Tesla is down 20% in the last 12 months while the overall (bull) market has been up 12%.

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, you are a notorious anti Tesla fuckwit so please piss off.

Re:That's what counts

[110010001000]

Poor snowflakes. They can't handle facts. Don't worry, Elon is taking you to Mars soon.

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then as a stockholder you are looking at the wrong thing then. You can have all those things and still go out of business. The fact is that Tesla is $10 billion in debt and has a negative 90 P/E ratio. ...
Even then the risk is very high, because companies could be lying about their numbers (e.g. Enron).

Yes, there are some things that don't quite add up.

Tesla produced 53,000 cars in the quarter, but only delivered 40,000 to customers. So, they've got 13,000 cars sitting around that they made but didn't sell?

Sure, all companies carry a certain amount of inventory, but, doesn't Tesla **supposedly** have a backorder of something like 400,000 cars that people have put a deposit on? Shouldn't every car produced for the next couple of years be going immediately to customers?

Also, tax credits are going to start phasing out soon. When Denmark ended subsidies for electric vehicles, sales dropped to almost zero. Of course, Denmark is a much smaller market than the U.S., but still, a $7,000 price increase isn't going to help sales.

Re:That's what counts

[110010001000]

Most likely what happened was that Tesla desperately threw together cars in their tent production line in order to desperately make some random production goal that Elon set in order to make the "shorts" pay up. The cars then sat there and can't be sold because they need to be reworked to fix the problems. You can take Teslas production and backlog numbers with a grain of salt. Most of their backlog, if there is one anymore, is looking for a $35k model, not the $50k+ models they are selling now. Since it is doubtful that Tesla is going to produce that $35k model then people are dropping out. There are only so many people that can afford a $50k+ EV car. That doesn't mean that EVs won't win out eventually.

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the money for Tesla and SpaceX have not come from public funding but from silicon valley.
And, please, go ahead and put your money where your mouth is. Short Tesla. Likewise, go buy a new Mercedes S class, or an A5, or a 5 series. And you can not sell it for 2 years. Have enough of a spine to back up what you are claiming.

Re:That's what counts

[110010001000]

No thanks. I wouldn't short Tesla. You guys are way too irrational and it was way too risky. I wouldn't go long or short Tesla, no individual should, that is my point. I wouldn't purchase a Mercedes anything, not even sure why you brought that up. You guys are nuts.

Re:That's what counts

[jemmyw]

It'd be interesting to know if sales in Denmark have picked up again. The thing was, everyone knew the taxes were changing for 6 months before so a large number of people purchased at that time who may have otherwise waited - it was almost half price.

Re:That's what counts

[Michael Woodhams]

This quarter could be a special case. There is a 200,000 vehicle trigger for reducing/eliminating government subsidies at Tesla is close to that mark. By delaying deliveries by a few weeks or diverting production to another market, they can push the date when the 200,000 limit is reached into the next quarter, and thus delay the loss of subsidies by a quarter. I've seen this discussed several times, here is the first article discussing it that I found by web search:

http://www.latimes.com/busines...

Researchers at the online publication Inside EVs said Tesla probably reached the 200,000-unit mark on its models 3, X and S in June. However, Tesla could have worked the numbers so the target will be hit in July, by shipping more cars to Canada, for example.Under Internal Revenue Service rules, the first subsidy cutback, to $3,750, would begin for cars delivered in October or January, depending on when the 200,000 limit is hit.

Re: That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla is all of those things.

Re:That's what counts

[Bruce Perens]

They warehoused cars to game around the tax credit and maybe the California express lane sticker. Holding those cars back for a quarter meant that buyers could get the government benefits for another quarter. They go over 200,000 cars in the next quarter and that starts the reduction of the tax benefit. A lot of them were kept in Pt. Richmond, California, right near my home. We knew they had buyers.

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

"What I am looking for is: "

Really? You seem to be missing a pretty important aspect of a business.
The number of back-orders is irrelevant if the income does not exceed the cost of each unit sold. This must include all costs, not just manufacturing. Tesla has a huge amount of debt to service and extensive R&D costs they've yet to recoup. As long as they require capital injections, and generous government incentives, they're teetering on the edge and extremely vulnerable to the major companies if they decide to seriously release a true competitor.

For example, if Ford announced (and meant it) that they'd be releasing a vehicle that can do at least 80% of range/performance of the 3, and release a mid-spec version with similar driver assists/entertainment as their other cars, for 40K, in 6 months. How fucked would Tesla be? I think that is completely within Ford's ability if they thought there was sufficient sales to make it worth their while.

As much as the fandom likes to support a short conspiracy, the large shorts do their homework, there's a reason they've taken their position.

Re: That's what counts

[saloomy]

Eg: Enron? Yeah... so typical (you are grasping at straws if that's what you use to defend your argument).

Tesla is not lying about it's numbers, or they would look better. Tesla is delivering on their agenda, and continuing to develop products and refine their business WHILE short on capital (Roadster, Model 3, Semi, Model Y).

That demonstrates management's commitment to the vision. Elon will get the money. They fact that there is a story about Tesla in papers every third day tells you that love him or hate him, he is going to be sticking around. Sheer will power of people who believe his vision will keep him around.

Besides, Amazon didn't turn a profit until very recently. Financials aren't the only way to value a business. The prospective future is a strong motivator for investment, and if Tesla delivers; their future is very bright.

Re: That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

There were stories about Enron in the paper every third day.

Re: That's what counts

[110010001000]

Oh you got one thing right: Elon will get his money from the capital markets. Guess where that money comes from? Convertible bonds. Do you know what they are? They convert to stock, which means YOUR STOCK will get diluted. And yeah, so typical with the Amazon comparison. Tesla is no Amazon. It is more like an Enron, complete with the egomaniac CEO who can't control his temper.

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

They withheld some shipments to keep from crossing over the 200K mark before the start of the quarter. More than 50K buyers who would have had their tax cut reduced otherwise in the fourth quarter greatly thank them for that. It was the right move, period.

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Start posting facts then fucktard.

Re:That's what counts

[viperidaenz]

They probably had 13,000 cars they had to scrap because their production line is shit.

Re: That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop using the term snowflake: it makes you look like a fucking twat

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

I too can read notorious full of shit Alt-Right garbage like ZeroHedge and then spew lies pretending to sound smart.

News flash cunt - You are not smart. You are a pathetic known anti Tesla troll. Fuck off

Re:That's what counts

[110010001000]

No idea what ZeroHedge is, but sorry snowflake I'll post whatever I want.

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Go eat your shorts sucker.

Re: That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla is not the only long range EV on the market. Get yourself a Chevrolet Bolt. I did, and I love it. Never owned a big 3 American passenger car, and did not think I would. Got the Bolt because I didnâ(TM)t want to wait to stop using gasoline or diesel in my car.

With more DC fast chargers available each week, I am enjoying taking it on long distance trips more and more.

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHAHA you posted Zerohedge word for word you liar

Face it, all you are is just a anti Tesla troll and you got found out your source is alt-right bullshit sites.

Re:That's what counts

[rtb61]

Yeah everyone knows, Telsa has been shorted to hell but all those shorts are like ticking time bombs because Tesla Roadster. Also the company looking to buy Tesla on the cheap seems to have given up and is instead making their own electric vehicles.

Not that everything is rosy for Tesla, 2019 looks to be the year of electrics, a lot of models coming out across a wide range of manufacturers. Likely 2020 should be the last year you buy a infernal combustion engined vehicle because after that you will be burning money on resale.

The infinite greed fossil fuellers, look pretty much fucked. Should have made moves earlier but greed driven stupidity demanded the psychopath solution, bullshit, failure and golden parachutes all whilst sucking out the biggest bonuses possible.

Re: That's what counts

[saloomy]

1. I own no Tesla stocks. Those that do either short them, or see such valuations, that they are prepared for that to happen. Running out of funds isn't something that's going to come as a surprise to anyone, much less shareholders who actively watch the news cycles. Also, that's assuming they don't sell enough to satisfy their debt, a big IF.

2. If you have disdain for the CEO, that's one thing. But your just throwing shade at the company. You run dangerously close to the sort of guys we heard throwing shade at Steve Jobs for firing employees in elevators, scream at journalists, and blasting Adobe. The history is pretty much settled on Jobs. Like his products or hate them, Apple is the cash printing machine other companies can only dream of. Their products (even the product rumors) guide industry trends.

Wait and see how many companies come up with full-screen display-only electric vehicles with aesthetics following in Tesla's foot steps for the aerodynamic efficiencies Tesla vehicles have, with some component of self-driving in them. Tesla is like Apple circa 2001, more than it is like Amazon. I agree. Staving off bankruptcy, and having supply-side challenges, while garnering a Cinderella story the media can't get enough of.

Plus, Tesla is an underdog now, much like Apple was in 2001. Tesla just released it's iPod. The Macs were always out of reach of most consumer PC shoppers, but everyone had an iPod. First they were FireWire only, then they were made USB, and made to work with Windows. That's akin to the $35k vehicle when it finally ships. And since they are cash starved, it's only smart business to use your limited supply to fulfill the most revenue and marginal products (the more expensive versions). That is what helps you climb out of that mess. If I was a shareholder, and you told me you had 100,000 55k orders, and 200,000 35k orders, and you decided to fill the 35k orders first, and you were in a cash-crunch; I'd fire you or vote you out for fiscal meal-practice. The company is supposed to operate in a way that gets cash-flow in as fast and quickly as possible.

But, think of what they are doing. Pioneering all-electric cars, helping transition us to solar, providing power walls, democratizing multi-kWh battery packs with large facilities, and pioneering self-driving. Why wouldn't you want to wish them the best and cheer them on as they try and change the world?

Re:That's what counts

[superdave80]

What I am looking for is: Technological leadership. Market presence. Production leadership. Most of all: backorders and strong forecast.

I notice that you didn't list 'Making a Profit' in your list.

Re: That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop using the term snowflake: it makes you look like a fucking twat

Stop using the term twat: it makes you look like a fucking dick

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. There aren't only 2 options here. Don't short Tesla, Don't buy Options, Certainly don't buy shares. Stay the fuck away from them, the share price is totally divorced from reality and predicting whether that will or won't last is a mugs game especially when there are so many better shares to invest in with much better upsides for much lower risks.

Re:That's what counts

[The Cynical Critic]

If there were 13.000 unsold Teslas lying around there would have to be a lot big enough of them to be noticed. However considering they've been getting Model 3 production into very high gear only at the absolute end of the quarter my feeling is that those cars were produced in the last 2-2.5 weeks of the quarter, they have after all been able to get 7000 Model 3s made in a single week, that haven't yet reached their owners.

Re:That's what counts

[Barsteward]

"Comprehension" is not one of your things

Re:That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Telsa has been shorted to hell but all those shorts are like ticking time bombs because Tesla Roadster.

Wait, what!? The new Roadster is sweet, but it's $250,000. It's a niche, vanity project. It's not a bad idea, but it will not make or break the company. What is going to make or break the company is long term, large-volume sales of cars like the 3, Y, and the truck, and doing do in the face of increasing competition, as you point out.

Re:That's what counts

[Registered Coward v2]

Tesla also appears to be adopting the common platform approach used by the major manufacturers, in that future vehicles will be based on the Model 3 platform. This saves a ton of development costs and enables new models to be introduced faster. IMHO, Tesla's real challenge will come as the majors move more heavily into electric vehicles. Right now, the US manufacturers are more interested in building and selling high margin pickup trucks, but that will change. I can see the foreign manufactures will probably be the first to really challenge Tesla.

Re: That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop using the word dick; it makes you look like a faggot.

Re: That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Like all cowards, you lack the strength of your convictions.

That, or you know you're a liar but just don't care, which is probably the case.

Re: That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla has yet to release their iPod. Their promised $35k sedan has not materialized, and it is too little, too late. The $7500 FITC will be gone before it gets here and at the $35k price point without incentive it's not going to sell in the volume they were predicting.

Re:That's what counts

[AmiMoJo]

The Hyundai Kona is very competitive with the M3, and the soon to be released Kia Niro and Nissan Leaf 60 probably will be too. This is in no small part thank's to LG's excellent battery pack. They managed to get the cost down lower than Tesla, and are able to offer an unlimited warranty on it.

Re:That's what counts

[Registered Coward v2]

The Hyundai Kona is very competitive with the M3, and the soon to be released Kia Niro and Nissan Leaf 60 probably will be too. This is in no small part thank's to LG's excellent battery pack. They managed to get the cost down lower than Tesla, and are able to offer an unlimited warranty on it.

Good points. Tesla has gone for the sedan market while Kia/Hyundai are targeting the crossover market; which is very popular in the US. I'm not a fan of the Leaf's styling but a 60W battery should put it's range up there with the others. I suspect cost will be a big factor driving purchases so it will be interesting to see when (if) Tesla actually sells a 35K car. Kia/Hyundai should get the full incentive as these are their first evehicles. Things should get interesting in late 2018/2019.

Re:That's what counts

[AlanObject]

I notice that you didn't list 'Making a Profit' in your list.

In this category of company? No.

Tesla was founded (and not by Musk BTW) to change the game on electric vehicles. Something that no major auto maker was interested in doing until Tesla made its mark. They were not founded to squeeze out nickel and dimes to try to win at the existing automaker's game.

That's what the bears are missing. This isn't Ford's game and this isn't GM's game and it isn't Toyota's game. It is Tesla's game and those guys are the ones that are going to have to try and get in. Not the other way around which is what a lot of people seem to be insisting that's what they shoudl do.

If Telsa were putting significant amounts retained earnings on the books and paying stockholder dividends at this point I expect that a lot of the sky-high valuation they now posses would evaporate. Whatever cash they have to spend, regardless of whether they get it from operations or from loans or equity sale they should be spending in R&D for both product, technology, and manufacturing capacity.

Re: That's what counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Like all retards you’re just a fucking retard.

Re:That's what counts

[superdave80]

If Telsa were putting significant amounts retained earnings on the books and paying stockholder dividends...

they would be bankrupt. What 'earnings' are you referring to? They are spending more cash than they make.

Re:That's what counts

[AlanObject]

They are spending more cash than they make.

My point was that the investor's high expectation are specifically for them to spend every dime they can get their grubby little hands on to create new tech and new infrastructure that will disrupt the market for long term profits. Not just to bank it to earn interest or dribble out dividends.

Maybe you think that is foolish. Don't buy Tesla stock then. Maybe you think that is wild-eyed delusional gambling. Don't buy Tesla stock then. Maybe you think it is all one big scam. Don't buy Tesla stock then.

Obviously the major holders of Tesla stock don't think any of those things. That is what is supporting the valuation.

Except sales are slowing.

[Anonymous Coward]

They produced ~13000 cars they failed to sell.

Re:Except sales are slowing.

[viperidaenz]

They're already pre-sold.
More like 13,000 cars failed QA due to production issues or they're gaming the tax credit/government subsidies by delaying shipment.

Re:Except sales are slowing.

[WindBourne]

nope. They are pre-sold, but they did not gear up the delivery system to handle that kind of load. Now, they are trying to make it cheap and fast to do.

Re:Except sales are slowing.

[Barsteward]

Guesswork, especially bad guesswork, will not benefit you - try looking up what "research" means and implement it

Re:Except sales are slowing.

[viperidaenz]

That would take time and effort.
I don't spend time researching slashdot comments.

When do we bail out the shorts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lotta people gonna loose a lot of money if Tesla doesn't tank soon. Will there be bailouts for short sellers as we take the risk out of capitalism?

Re:When do we bail out the shorts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will there be bailouts for short sellers as we take the risk out of capitalism?

What capitalism? But for subsidization most of the US economy isn't viable. It's actually an interesting and informative exercise to try and identify significant parts of the US economy that aren't the product of some tax break or subsidy. Slot machines, maybe. Porn. Not much else.

Re:When do we bail out the shorts?

[WindBourne]

depends on who is in the WH, and who were the big losers on the shorts.

Re:When do we bail out the shorts?

[Anonymous Coward]

what do you mean? Tesla has tanked, most shorts are well and truly in the positive except the real high stakes gamblers. Tesla is well down for the year against a rising market. Unless there is a significant spike with tomorrow earnings report the shorts have won (not that it was a competition)

Re:When do we bail out the shorts?

[Anonymous Coward]

might want to go read up on how shorts work and then look at the share price charts. I can assure you it isn't the shorts that need bailing out this month.

Re:When do we bail out the shorts?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is OT but in Gemany a government party wants to provide giov. support for feminist pr0n. Not sure what sort of pr0n that is but gov. will have to pay for it this much is sure. If Germans are so smart then maybe US pr0n is supported by gov. too.

Market share may solve there problems...

[balsy2001]

But they have a huge debt load and one report I saw said model 3 cancellations outnumber orders now. See here https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/...

Re:Market share may solve there problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can see that all ready. They produced 13000 cars that failed to sell.

Re: Market share may solve there problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck kind of crack are you smoking?

Re: Market share may solve there problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla produced just over 53,000

with deliveries to customers totaling 40,740

53000 - 40000 = 13000

Re: Market share may solve there problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back to Zerohedge you fucking idiot

Re:Market share may solve there problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

The chances of this report being true are just about zero. As reported, Tesla denies it. In general it's unwise to trust corporate statements like this, but Tesla's record of accuracy is much, much better than the record of those reporting doom & gloom stories about it. If you follow Tesla news closely, you'll find there are reports like this almost every week, and they're literally always false. E.g. the report that they lose money on every car, disproved by the German tear-down a month or two ago. Or the report that they would die because cobalt for batteries will be too expensive, which was published *after* Tesla announced they were going to zero-cobalt batteries, and *after* the German tear-down determined that they have already halved the amount of cobalt in their batteries, compared to their competitors.

There's a staggering amount of money hanging on the death of Tesla, and the untenable position of the Telsa bears is reaching crisis, which has created a profitable market for fabricated news about Tesla's demise. You shouldn't take it seriously.

Re:Market share may solve there problems...

[Zobeid]

I saw the same "report" that you saw, and it was nothing but a rumor. Then Elon Musk responded saying it was false, but didn't release any actual numbers. So I guess you can believe whatever you want to believe. As for the "huge debt load", it's nothing compared to Ford, but somehow I don't see people raging on Ford all the time.

Re:Market share may solve there problems...

[magzteel]

I saw the same "report" that you saw, and it was nothing but a rumor. Then Elon Musk responded saying it was false, but didn't release any actual numbers. So I guess you can believe whatever you want to believe. As for the "huge debt load", it's nothing compared to Ford, but somehow I don't see people raging on Ford all the time.

TSLA has over 11B in long and short term debt. FMC has 3.1B

You should compare TSLA and FMC finacials.

https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/...
https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/...

Re: Market share may solve there problems...

[balsy2001]

Iâ(TM)m not saying Tesla cant make it as acompany but they have some challenges. The difference between ford and tesla is ford had $156B in revenue in 2017 and $7.6B in net income (see https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/...) while tesla had $12B in revenue and -$2B net income (see https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/...) and their cash burn appears to be accelerating. Just comparing debt load between the two is not apples to apples.

Re:Market share may solve there problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

A quick Google search can readily point out why blindly pulling a number from a balance sheet is misleading. Ford's debt is its largely from auto loans in their finance division which is profitable.

Re: Market share may solve there problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

so business

such knowledge

so concern

Of course...

[taiwanjohn]

All this depends on Tesla being able to get the damn things produced and delivered to customers. The Model 3 production ramp up has been much slower than Elon predicted, but it is steadily improving, even as TSLA stock takes a beating (mostly due to Elon's regrettable antics on social media). Ironically, Elon's bold claims are probably more to blame than Tesla's actual performance. In any other context, a 100% increase in production in one year would be seen as quite strong, but because they keep failing to meet Elon's projections, they keep getting criticized by analysts.

Ultimately, I think they will get over this hump, but "production hell" is going to continue for a good while yet. Ramping up to high-volume production of automobiles is a unique challenge for Elon, and building a production line in tents has an unpleasant aroma of desperation.

Re:Of course...

[WindBourne]

At this time, they are staying in the 3000-4000 cars / week, but are modifying their lines again. Supposedly, they will be above 6000 cars / week by end of august. That will put them in the range of 300, 000 model 3 / year, along with another 50,000+ of each model S and model X.

BTW, the 'tent' makes total sense. First off, they are based where they have a nice moderate climate similar to what Europe has. Generally, no real weather extreme. But, here in COlorado, DIA, generally the top rated airport in America, has a large 'tent' for the main concourse. It outperforms the regular constructed island concourses. Likewise, we have plenty of sprung buildings (what you call a 'tent') around here, even though we run from 105F/41C to -30F/-35C. It would be too expensive to have weeks of 35+ C or -20- C to use spring buildings, but otherwise, they do just fine.

Re:Of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

Supposedly, they will be above 6000 cars / week by end of august.

Too bad according to Sandy Munro, Tesla Model 3 is a piece of shit:

...I thought that this(Model 3) was one of the worst fit and finish I've seen in decades...

...these are flaws(Model 3) that we would see on a Kia in the 90s...

Cars don't matter

[fluffernutter]

Cars don't even matter any more. Ford stopped selling all but two of them.

Re: Cars don't matter

[reanjr]

Next time there's a gas crisis, Ford will be looking for their bailout.

Re:Cars don't matter

[110010001000]

And especially this market segment. This narrow segment that Tesla is "winning" in represents about 4% of all vehicle sales. And they (supposedly) own 23% of that 4%. The sales numbers are doubtful, but even if true it makes no difference.

Re:Cars don't matter

[ArchieBunker]

Ford doesn't need to. They can't build trucks fast enough and have jacked prices way up.

Re: Cars don't matter

[LynnwoodRooster]

Considering you can get close to 30 MPG in a modern SUV, a gas crisis may not have the impact it had last time...

Re:Cars don't matter

[WindBourne]

yes, no doubt ford has jacked up prices. So, while Tesla works hard to bring their prices down while still keeping 30+% profit margins, others car makers are having to raise their prices and still do not have those kinds of margins.

Re: Cars don't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Ford are desirable enough people want to pay more. Tesla are so desperate they ask their suppliers for money back.
Who do you think is doing better.
Rhetorical question, no need to take out muskies cock and answer. It's clear to everyone else.

Re: Cars don't matter

[Gilgaron]

Eh, Tesla will likely persist having made it this far, with their scale of battery manufacturing they'll end up making batteries for the other car companies at worst.

Re: Cars don't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Ford didn't get a bailout.

Re:Cars don't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that they don't need to now. However, when you stop making something, you lose the ability to make it without expensive, time-consuming spin-up time. It makes sense long-term to maintain the capability; they really need to make sure they know how to make a car because the pendulum will swing back. They will need to keep making the Active (I think that's what it is called).

Now what, shorts?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Time to get your media buddies to make up some #metoo fake news about Elon before your positions are called.

Or maybe just flee to Thailand before the inevitable happens.

Re:Now what, shorts?

[110010001000]

I don't know why people are so concerned about the "shorts". The shorts have "made" over $1.25 billion this month alone. You guys don't even know the basics.

Re: Now what, shorts?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it more than appropriate that the shortsellers are largely members of the "pound me too" movement. It's obvious they enjoy getting raped hard both on the trading floor and off.

Re:Now what, shorts?

[Anonymous Coward]

When these cars are out of warranty is when Tesla will go bankrupt. Their business model of being a sole provider of service only works for luxury cars.

Re:Now what, shorts?

[Anonymous Coward]

or just cash in on the rapidly falling stock price? the shorts are the ones that have taken a pounding this month, it is the longs and option holders.

Re:Now what, shorts?

[WindBourne]

They are not the sole provider of service. There are other companies that deal with them, just like there are companies that deal with European cars or Japanes cars. BUT, not enough on the road to warrant but a few companies. You can bet that more are coming though.
But the truth is, they need to little of maintenance that there will be a fraction of the companies out there.

UM luxury?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um the model 3 is a luxury car?

Re:UM luxury?

[LynnwoodRooster]

No, it's a mid-size family car (like the Camry or Accord) but because of the way they're getting sold, you can only buy the $50K+ models, and thus they are priced like a luxury vehicle.

Re:UM luxury?

[WindBourne]

Hmmm. Lets see:
1) wiki The Tesla Model 3 is a mid-size (US) / compact executive (EU)[7] luxury all-electric four-door sedan manufactured and sold by Tesla, Inc.
2) Car and DriverHowever, in its current form (only models equipped to a price of $50,000 and up are available as of this writing), it is actually more of a compact luxury sedan competing with the BMW 3-series in size and price.
3) Top Gear What is it? Oh, just some sensibly priced electric BMW 3 Series rival from a little-known American start-up.
4) Motor Trend This shows the luxury compact cars, which includes Tesla model 3.
5) Edmunds There's 15 cubic feet of trunk space, again similar to what other entry-level luxury cars offer.

So, the gov, all the other car makers, and all the experts consider the TM3 to be a compact luxury car. You can claim whatever you want, but ...

Re:UM luxury?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Dimensionally - it's the same as an Accord or Camry. Trunk space - same size. If it sold for $35K, it would be a well-optioned Accord or Camry. Performance wise, the three are within about half a second in the 0-60. They are 4 door sedans. I know Tesla fans like to compare against the European brands - but it's a Accord or Camry competitor.

Re: UM luxury?

[WindBourne]

And yet, Accord/camrey do not have high-end versions. Otoh, BMW 3 series has similar low-end config and then gets deck out just like the TM3.

Re: UM luxury?

[LynnwoodRooster]

No, the Accord and Camry have high-end versions, they just sell for around $35-40K...

Strange

[nehumanuscrede]

I can count on one hand the TOTAL number of Tesla vehicles ( any of them ) I've actually seen driving around in and around the Houston / Galveston Metro area.
( Since Tesla became a company ) I've seen more Ferrari and Lamborghini than I have Tesla :|

I have yet to see a single charging station at all anywhere in Texas. ( I did spot a few in Colorado )

So, I'll take this " Outselling everyone " silliness with a grain of salt until I actually start seeing them in higher numbers.

Re:Strange

[110010001000]

The market segment they are talking about is 4% of car sales. Tesla "owns" 23% of that, so I guess the chances of you seeing one is small. You will see them mostly in tech valley California and DC and New York so rich people can virtue signal how much they care about the environment...in their car.

Re:Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in an upper midwest city of 300k, and I see Teslas all of the time. But guess what? They are nearly invisible. They are understated sedans. My wife can't see them, because to her, they look like just another mid-sized sedan.

If you don't know to look for the silver flush door handles, you will miss them every time. I bet you've seen dozens or even hundreds in Houston, and you've never even noticed them.

Re:Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

In Tampa FL area, I see a number of them. I see more charging stations than Teslas though.

Not a fan of the car in the least, but they are out there in decent numbers. Not everywhere, but I see a couple a week. Of course I am real close to the Tesla "service center" and many that I see are driven by people working there.

Re:Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, sure, but you're in Texas. If there were a free, zero-emissions car in shops tomorrow, Texans would spend their life savings trying to roll enough coal to keep the air polluted, just out of spite.

Living a couple hours from the bay area, Teslas are everywhere. I pass them every day, multiple times a day.

Re:Strange

[WindBourne]

Lets see.
Here is a map of just Tesla Super Chargers. I see load in Texas.
Here is a map of all commercial electric chargers Keep in mind with EVs, most of your electricity comes from your own home since few trips are more than 100 miles.
Here is a graph of Tesla registrations by state, about a year ago. Since over 5% are in Texas, that would mean at least 20K cars are Tesla just in Texas.

The real issue is that you are noticing what you want to see.

Re:Strange

[Zobeid]

Maybe you should try visiting Austin sometime. And as far as charging stations in Texas, please let me introduce you to plugshare.com!

Just as an exercise, I zoomed the plugshare map in on the Houston / Galveston area, and it popped up 208 charging locations. And then just for fun I filtered out everything except Tesla-specific locations (i.e. filtering out ones a Tesla would require a simple adapter to use), and came up with 66. However If you actually live in the Houston / Galveston area, you'd probably never use any of them. If you are like most Tesla owners you'd charge your car at home and only use other charging points when you actually travel out of town anyhow.

Re:Strange

[110010001000]

There are 9 million cars registered in Texas. That means that 0.2% of all cars in Texas are Teslas. That is the main problem with Tesla fanboys: they have no concept of proportion. Chances are those 20k Teslas are in Austin and the other tech hubs.

Re:Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck would any rational person go to Austin. What a leftie shithole. Anyway they want to change the name of your town to something PC without checking if that person is fully PC. It depends on the hierarchy. Better choose a namesake that is non white, non male, non hetero, non cis, and preferably someone whose family lineage was here prior 1492. Oh - but then you'll be stealing from a native tribe without permission. So - good luck.

Re:Strange

[jonwil]

Blame the fact that there are less Teslas in Texas than there are elsewhere on the scumbags at the Texas Automobile Dealers Association that have thus far managed to buy out enough politicians to keep their dinosaur business model alive and keep Tesla out of the state.

Re:Strange

[Barsteward]

maybe you are not looking https://www.tesla.com/findus/l...

Re:Strange

[Barsteward]

No, you detractors have no concept of proportion, you seem to think there should be millions of them on the road already even though its a young company and they should be making billions overnight. you keep comparing Tesla to 100 year old ICE companies, some of which have been bailed out by the taxpayer because the went bust.

Re:Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

I can count on one hand the TOTAL number of Tesla vehicles ( any of them ) I've actually seen driving around in and around the Houston / Galveston Metro area

They can't even sell cars here (Michigan) and I've seen plenty of them. Hell, I saw a Model 3 on the street months ago when hardly any had been delivered.

Re:Strange

[SpiceWare]

Suspect you've seen them and not realized it. A few years ago after I became interested in Tesla, and became familiar with what they looked like, I started to notice them all around Houston, though predominantly in the Galleria area. Now I see them all around town, even in my neck of the woods (Fresno, off highway 6 between Missouri City and Pearland). As of the end of May people around here now regularly see my blue Model 3.

There's no signs for Superchargers along the highways/interstates as there's no need - the car tells you were they are. They're often not visible from the road either, so if you didn't already know they were there you'd drive right past them and be none the wiser. This past weekend I went to San Antonio and Austin. I drove past the Superchargers in Columbus, stopped for dinner and charged in Flatonia, then made it to my friends in San Antonio and plugged into a 120V outlet (slowest charging option, but still gained 50 miles of range overnight). We went up to Austin for Classic Game Fest, then on the way back stopped for dinner in San Marcos and charged. Of the three, the Flatonia location is the only one you'd have had any chance of seeing from the interstate.

Up until now the expectation was you would charge at home, or if traveling then at the place you stayed at (known as Destination Charging). So at the moment most Superchargers are along the roads between cities. As the cars drop in price the need for apartment dwellers to charge becomes a concern, so Tesla's rolling out Urban Superchargers(starting with Chicago and Boston).

"Outselling everyone" is for current sales, which does not cause all the cars sold in previous years to suddenly disappear from the roads. As such it'll take time for the increase in Tesla sales to become visible amongst all the existing vehicles.

If you're interested in seeing the cars and learning more, check out the National Drive Electric Week events that are occurring from September 8-16. The Houston Event is on the 15th from 9:30am -12:30pm at Ikea. So far 17 cars are scheduled to be there, covering 8 different vehicles.

Re:Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, Boston area here, I've seen more Telsa's than Lamborghini's and Ferrari's combined. Also I'm aware of the super charger map and, except for north east Montana, you can't travel more than 150 miles in any direction within the lower 48 states without being near a super charger. And that excludes other public chargers which are more or less numerous depending on population density. (Hardly any in South Dakota, about a million in California)

Re:Strange

[thegarbz]

So can I. Today for instance I saw 4 Teslas. Two on the way to work, one in the parking lot, and one on the way home.

I know as a Texan this may be news to you, but there's more to the world than Texas.

Re:Strange

[DaFallus]

I can count on one hand the TOTAL number of Tesla vehicles ( any of them ) I've actually seen driving around in and around the Houston / Galveston Metro area. ( Since Tesla became a company ) I've seen more Ferrari and Lamborghini than I have Tesla :|

I have yet to see a single charging station at all anywhere in Texas. ( I did spot a few in Colorado )

So, I'll take this " Outselling everyone " silliness with a grain of salt until I actually start seeing them in higher numbers.

You're full of shit. I live in Houston and I see Teslas on the road all the time. I see them in my West Houston suburb and in my neighborhood. I see them on I-10, the Sam Houston Tollway over to I-45 where I work (and there there happens to be a Tesla show room). I see them when I drive down 290 to go to my favorite Mexican restaurant off of Bingle. Shit, I even seem them on Highway 6 when I ride my bike over the bridge to Terry Hershey park. Mostly what I see are the Model S, but I've seen a few Model X around as well. If you don't see Teslas in Houston, you're intentionally not paying attention.

The old saying

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lies, damn lies and statistics...

wins with narrow criteria

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you narrow the criteria enough, you can get the Tesla 3 to "win". News at eleven.

Interesting information

[Okian Warrior]

I suppose we can expect more muskisdelusionalandoutofcash postings.

In the last Tesla thread I pointed out that, as an stockholder, what I am looking for is NOT Elon Musk's cute personality or science fantasy. Nor do I care to whig out at every little story of production problems. What I am looking for is:

Technological leadership.

Market presence.

Production leadership.

Most of all: backorders and strong forecast. None of the rest matters unless you have someone willing to buy it. Tesla has that in spades.

So Tesla is delivering. Skepticism is healthy but not to the extent that the Tesla naysayers on /. take it.

There are a lot of people sending out fake news about Tesla nowadays, but there's an interesting bit of information.

Normally, in the two weeks ahead of a financial report the stock will mirror the report outcome. If the report is good, the stock will rise a little just before the announcement. If the report is bad, the stock will drop a little.

Tesla will be making their Q2 announcement on Wednesday (after the market closes), and it's dropped by 10% in that time.

In any other stock that would indicate bad news, but for Tesla? It could indicate a last-ditch effort for the bears to drive the stock down before a "good news" report. People are changing Tesla from "hold" to "sell", and saying that they're certain Tesla will need another round of financing.

(Musk claims that they will not need another round, and that Tesla will be profitable in Q3 and Q4 of this year.)

Tesla short interest is 34m shares right now, and with 170m shares outstanding, that's about 20% of Tesla is being shorted right now. 25% is held by Musk, so that's about 1/4 of public shares are held short.

There are three key periods coming up for Tesla: the Q2 report (Wednesday), and Q3 and Q4 of this year.

Over 50% of Tesla shares are held by 5 entities: Musk, Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, and so on. If the institutions dig their heels into the sand and refuse to sell, and if the other public shareholders also refuse to sell, there will be a short run and the stock price will skyrocket. There's nowhere that the short sellers can go to settle.

If no one is selling the stock, or there are many buyers, including panic buyers, caused by other short sellers attempting to close out their positions as they lose more and more money, you may be in a position to incur serious losses.

The institutions know this. Many of the public shareholders know this.

If the stock jumps up and Tesla seems reasonably solvent, it's estimated the short sellers will be out several tens of billions of dollars.

Expect a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth...

(I own shares in Tesla and want to see them succeed.)

Re:Interesting information

[110010001000]

That makes no sense. How would "bears" drive the stock price down, especially if no one is selling? I can't believe you guys actually own individual stocks, especially risky ones like Tesla. People are saying that Tesla will need another round of financing because it is likely true. They are burning through cash and won't have any left. And according to Tesla they are looking at opening up more factories. Where is that capital coming from? Convertible bonds.

Re: Interesting information

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what they say about opinions. Doubly so if you don't actually have skin in the game.

Re:Interesting information

[The Cynical Critic]

How would "bears" drive the stock price down, especially if no one is selling?

If a company is on the stock market there's always going to be at least some selling and buying of their stock, which combined with a small number of people doing this makes the stock price manipulation relatively easy for big players. A stock short is an investment where you essentially borrow someone else's stock, sell it on the stock market and then bet that by the time you need to return those borrowed stocks the stock will be cheaper than you sold that (someone else's) stock and can buy the same number of shares with money to spare.

We've seen time and time again that the people who say Tesla is doomed and that you should sell your stock as fast as possible tend to be people with shorts on Tesla stock and thus an interest to keep the Tesla stock price low enough that the money they got from selling the borrowed stock will be enough to buy the replacement stock.

Re:Interesting information

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla has a daily volume of around 1.5-2 million shares. manipulating the market in those volumes would be hideously expensive and blatantly obvious. As you claim such manipulation is happening would you care to point to these transactions.

Re: Interesting information

[phantomfive]

Are you sure about that? I've never seen the effect of "stock mirroring profit report before it's released." From my perspective, the way the stock trades before the release is rather random. (I am not a Tesla stock holder but I want to see them succeed: electric cars replacing ICE will be good for the world in many ways)

Re:Interesting information

[gravewax]

such manipulation would be easily visible on the market, their hasn't been any such disturbances in the market volumes to back up your conspiracy theory.

Re:Interesting information

[The Cynical Critic]

Not sure what kind of market manipulation you're thinking about, but what I'm talking about is the technically legal kind where you rag on a company with things like setting trading recommendations to "sell" when they should at the very least be "hold" and trying to tell as many people as possible that the company is doomed and they should sell their shares before they become worthless.

It's essentially the same game played during the dot.com era except the other way around. Back then you had financial institutions try to push stocks of worthless companies by massively over-hyping them and their stock with cheerleader "analysts" singing their praises and trading recommendations to "buy" on companies with next to no actual revenue and no path to profitability (not even a completely unrealistic one).

Re:Interesting information

[Type44Q]

Expect a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth...

You better carry an armored umbrella walking anywhere near Wall Street... it'll be fucking great (I may even have to pick up a DSLR and head to New York). ;)

Re: Interesting information

[Anonymous Coward]

> electric cars replacing ICE will be good for the world in many ways

ROTFL. Go do some reading. Here's an solution that actually is actually carbon-negative:

http://energypost.eu/exclusive-report-boeing-reveals-biggest-breakthrough-biofuels-ever/

But go ahead and keep pretending that all of the CO2 generated by Lithium Ion batteries, along with the toxic waste they generate when used are good for the environment.

Re:Interesting information

[Anonymous Coward]

then you need to learn the definition of market manipulation. what your talking about is NOT manipulation and is perfectly legal and done with every company, especially any that are volatile, Tesla is not some precious gem here. Those same analysts also declare any short positions they hold as required, if you are dumb enough to take advise from someone with a vested interest be it positive or negative without a huge grain of salt you deserve everything you get.

Re:Interesting information

[Actually, I do RTFA]

If there's a short squeeze, it's likely to produce a bump, not long term rise, in stock price. That means Fidelity, etc, have an interest in selling to be the ones profiting from it (with the idea to buy it back when it settles back down).

Re:Interesting information

[leomekenkamp]

Based on your posting, a lot of other information and a you-need-to-start-acting-on-your-hunches from my wife (1), I bought 4 shares yesterday at around usd 296. Laughing hard now.

(1) When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, I stated to a friend that if I had 1000 euro to spare, I would buy Apple shares. Unfortunately I did not have money to spare back then...

Quick question

[Okian Warrior]

Well then as a stockholder you are looking at the wrong thing then. You can have all those things and still go out of business. The fact is that Tesla is $10 billion in debt and has a negative 90 P/E ratio. In addition, Tesla will need to go back to the capital markets to get more money.

Just a hypothetical question.

Suppose, just suppose, Tesla turns a profit in Q3 and Q4 of this year.

What would that do to the neg 90 P/E ratio, and would they still need to get more money?

Put aside whether they will or wont, first answer the question: If they become suddenly profitable, what will the outlook be like?

Tesla tends to run in the red in the years running up to a new model, then makes a profit for the next year or so.

If Musk is correct, and they start being profitable in Q3 and Q4, what will happen to the stock?

Re:Quick question

[110010001000]

How do I know if the stock will go up or not? I have no idea. The stock is intrinsically worth about $0 at this point, but it is $291. Tesla has a market capitalization greater than GM. It makes no sense. My point is as an individual stockholder you guys are looking at the wrong thing. You are putting your money at a huge risk with very little additional upside and zero return in your investment until you sell. Do you think Tesla stock will double and go to $600? Then you "made" 100%. What if it goes bankrupt? You lost all your money. Is the risk worth potentially making 100%? That is nuts.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

In reality nothing should happen to the stock. The current stock price is priced as though your hypothetical question has already happened and in fact that future quarters are not just profitable but wildly profitable and with no real competition. Current stock price though is completely separated from reality and the companies financials so it is really anyones guess.

Re:Quick question

[Barsteward]

"Tesla has a market capitalization greater than GM. It makes no sense. " - considering GM went bust quite recently and your taxes bailed it out at a billion dollar loss, it makes perfect sense

Re:Quick question

[Rei]

An obsession over P/E ratios isn't healthy. P/E is a past-looking metric. It is not predictive. If I bought a machine that could conjure gold out of thin air, and had my staff put all their focus on setting it up and getting it running, my P/E ratio would look terrible from the time I bought it to the time it was up and running at design capacity. But then I'm conjuring gold out of thin air.

P/E ratios are a useful tool, but it's critical to understand their limitations. They're not in any way a substitute for modeling a company's future balance sheet. Which unfortunately is harder work, but you have to do it. If you want to have a go at it for Tesla, try this for starters. Choose your own numbers.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know anything about stock trading, do you?

one major recall

[Anonymous Coward]

It would only take one major recall on all Model 3 cars to put Tesla in a bad place. You can bet that they will be fixing many cars in the not too distant future.

Ask me in about a year

[Okian Warrior]

How do I know if the stock will go up or not? I have no idea. The stock is intrinsically worth about $0 at this point, but it is $291. Tesla has a market capitalization greater than GM. It makes no sense. My point is as an individual stockholder you guys are looking at the wrong thing. You are putting your money at a huge risk with very little additional upside and zero return in your investment until you sell. Do you think Tesla stock will double and go to $600? Then you "made" 100%. What if it goes bankrupt? You lost all your money. Is the risk worth potentially making 100%? That is nuts.

Ask me in about a year - that's my horizon for holding the Tesla stock.

Re:Ask me in about a year

[110010001000]

Ask yourself this: why do you own Tesla stock at all? Why don't you own Nissan stock? They actually produce EVs that normal people can afford. It can't be the Tesla financials: they look terrible. It is almost like you guys are in a cult.

Re:Ask me in about a year

[Anonymous Coward]

More important question: How much potential profit are you losing by holding Tesla for the next year?

Is there any single stock on the entire market that is more likely to provide a return or plausibly provide a greater return?

With the anti-Russia fervor, and the no-buy software list, even investing in US tech like Microsoft is a better bet.

Answering these questions is smart investing.

Re:Ask me in about a year

[Zobeid]

Nissan produce EVs that normal people can afford, but they don't go very fast or very far, don't have a widespread charging network, and their batteries are notorious for degrading over time (due to their inadequate cooling system). I have no comment on the value of Nissan stock, but I wouldn't buy it based on the assumption that the Leaf is going to take over the world.

And as for Tesla's terrible financials Have you checked Ford's debt load?

I made a bundle on Tesla's stock back during the big run-up when the Model S was introduced and started winning awards. I wouldn't touch the stock today. I think the company probably has a bright future, but it's already priced very high. However, the Tesla brand is definitely not going away. The company could go broke tomorrow, and it would just be scooped up by another car maker, or maybe even a tech company like Apple. It would be a bloodbath for Tesla stock and bond holders, but largely a non-event for Tesla customers.

Re:Ask me in about a year

[110010001000]

I wouldn't buy Ford or Nissan or Tesla. The point is, why own Tesla stock at this point? It is a cult. There is no justification for it. The financials are terrible. Their cars aren't "green". They are just expensive tech toys for the 1%. It makes no sense. The only "rational" people are the short sellers as they can potentially make a lot of money if the stock drops. How much higher could Tesla go? It already has a huge unjustified market cap.

Re:Ask me in about a year

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you think Tesla's cars aren't green clearly indicates that you live in a fantasy world. Obviously, they are green. Obviously, exactly how green depends on the power source for the electricity. But obviously, they are much more green than ICE cars irrespective of carbon:
- No noise
- No local emissions
- Much less brake particle dust
- Much longer lasting because far fewer moving parts
- Second-life and then recycling uses for the battery that do not exist for an ICE engine
Maybe you don't give a shit about any of these things. But denying they exist...well, that just proves that SBC is correct to punk the right: you're so fucking dumb you fall for it every fucking time.

Re:Ask me in about a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Note I don't have Tesla short or long or any other car manufacturer for that matter but I do make my living investing.
hopefully you have asked yourself all those questions and somehow come out with a positive risk vs profit ratio (how I don't know but that is besides the point), if you haven't then you are no better then the shorters, actually you are significantly worse as at least they are basing their shorts on a financial analysis where you are purely gambling. Personally I don't see how any non biased person can look at the financial data of Tesla and think it is a good buy, even if they succeed there is simply no upside left in their pricing while the potential downside is huge. This is not a safe stock for investing as too much risk and not a good stock for high risk investing either as the upside is not there.

Re:Ask me in about a year

[Registered Coward v2]

However, the Tesla brand is definitely not going away. The company could go broke tomorrow, and it would just be scooped up by another car maker, or maybe even a tech company like Apple. It would be a bloodbath for Tesla stock and bond holders, but largely a non-event for Tesla customers.

I'm not so sure about the customers. A company could buy the assets but not the liabilities if they wanted the technology. That could leave the car owners with no service network, limited parts availability as existing stocks get depleted, no more charging network, etc.

Pedo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have there been anymore angry pedo accusations out of Elon's mouth this year?

Not that risky

[SuperKendall]

I own some small amount of TSLA.

I don't really consider it risky at all, especially not compared to almost any biotech stock.

Do you seriously think it is riskier than Amazon at this point?

Where is that capital coming from?

*If* they need it, that capital would easily come from these sales figures and market share. The shorts all were betting that Musk would have no access to capital. But if Tesla is meeting or beating delivery forecasts and still has a. good backorder and strong demand, what kind of idiot would not supply that money train with capital? This is what the OP is trying to tell you, with results like these it's obvious Tesla is delivering on promises for real and that opens a lot of doors.

The real reason to own TSLA right now is the amazon potential to reap the product of the short's massive miscalculation.

Re:Not that risky

[110010001000]

Wow. That explains a lot about you "investors". Tesla is MUCH more risky than Amazon. Amazon actually makes...money. Amazon doesn't have $10 billion in debt with bonds at junk status currently trading at 90 cents on the dollar. And no, I wouldn't buy Amazon either!

"*If* they need it, that capital would easily come from these sales figures and market share."

What? That isnt where the money comes from. It comes from convertible bonds (YOU). You should NOT BE INVESTING in individual stocks. You don't even know the basics.

Re:Not that risky

[gravewax]

What the hell? TSLA vs AMZN is night and day. nothing wrong with having a high risk share like tesla but you should understand what you are getting into and why. TSLA has a massive debt and with extremely low credit rating they have to pay a premium on debts and is a single quarters disaster away from insolvency. Yes they may well turn out very profitable long term, but they could just as easily not exist in 6-12 months time at this point or the shares may be significantly diluted to pay for capital investment. Amazon has long since gotten past that high risk time of there existence, they have a good credit rating and don't have mountains of debt or significant near term risks. honestly if you think they are similar you probably should not be investing in the stock market.

Re:Not that risky

[WindBourne]

Kendall, Shush.
Yeah, 1100100001000, you are right. Tesla is going to lose big. I trust that you have lots of shorts on it? You should go ahead and put everything that you own on it. After all, you are just like Montana Skeptic . You just KNOW that Tesla is going to lose big. By all means, put your money on the shorts.

Re:Not that risky

[Anonymous Coward]

By that same token if you are so confident I hope you have nothing but options purchased? or are you a pussy like REI and just buy shares?

Re:Not that risky

[WindBourne]

Actually, capital can come from all sorts of sources. It is just far too many assholes on wall street will only think that the capital MUST come from them. Musk has friends that would KILL to own Tesla and would be happy to either invest, loan, or even perhaps a partnership on a factory in Europe that produces Tesla for them.

Re: Not that risky

[Anonymous Coward]

China has lots of money and would love to buy some technology...
Would Trump let them buy it though...

Re:Not that risky

[Anonymous Coward]

for fucks sake. Take some lessons in economics. If they invest then it dilutes the share values and hence comes out of the shareholders pockets. If they partner then they will be demanding something in exchange, friends or not they are not going to do it for free.

Re:Not that risky

[Anonymous Coward]

WHOLLY CHRIST, I hope you aren't someone that invests in shares with that marvellous knowledge of the stockmarket. FYI, finding an investor is a share dilution, basically in exchange for funding they give a bunch of shares to the investors, those shares come out of existing shareholders pockets. for instance if there were 10 shares of tesla today and they created 2 new shares to sell to the investor then instead of you owning 1/10th of Tesla you now only own 1/12th of Tesla and those 2 new shares will have been given at a considerable discount to provide incentive for the investment. He has done this in the past but this is something to be avoided if at all possible as it undermines existing shareholders equity.

Re:Not that risky

[SuperKendall]

They are not nearly as night and day as you think, and the fact you cannot understand that just goes to show the general level of financial ignorance of Slashdot... Sad.

TSLA has a massive debt and with extremely low credit rating

The credit rating was lowered by Moody's (and others) because they could not meet production goals, which they are now meeting. Gee, I wonder what would happen in that case...

Are you truly so stupid you cannot do even the simplest predictions of credit ratings changes? Guess so. Unlike you, I am not looking at what is, I am looking at what will be to certain degree of certainty. The fact that TSLA's credit rating will be upgraded is a certainty and if you can't see that you should probably stick to funds and not speculate on the market that you cannot understand the basics of.

I honestly feel so sorry for you and others here, you guys all need to do some reading. I have been in the market decades and that kind of experience takes a while to build, but there are still ways you can learn that you seem to be ignoring.

Good luck, I'm not going to respond to you further since at the moment you have nothing knowledgeable to talk about.

Re:Not that risky

[gravewax]

They are not nearly as night and day as you think, and the fact you cannot understand that just goes to show the general level of financial ignorance of Slashdot... Sad.

TSLA has a massive debt and with extremely low credit rating

The credit rating was lowered by Moody's (and others) because they could not meet production goals, which they are now meeting.

NO, their credit rating was lowered as they are at risk of default due to significant cash flow issues. Christ, feel free to be a Tesla fan, but that level of financial ignorance makes you look an idiot.

Are you truly so stupid you cannot do even the simplest predictions of credit ratings changes? Guess so. Unlike you, I am not looking at what is, I am looking at what will be to certain degree of certainty.

No you are a delusional fanboy that is unable to separate his love for musk and tesla from financial reality.

The fact that TSLA's credit rating will be upgraded is a certainty and if you can't see that you should probably stick to funds and not speculate on the market that you cannot understand the basics of

Wow lol you really do know nothing about the stock market or financial industry. Their credit rating will ONLY be updated when it is obvious the significant risk of detault has lessoned, at this point we are definitely NOT moving in that direction yet. It may happen but it won't be anytime this quarter.

I honestly feel so sorry for you and others here, you guys all need to do some reading. I have been in the market decades and that kind of experience takes a while to build, but there are still ways you can learn that you seem to be ignoring.

Good luck, I'm not going to respond to you further since at the moment you have nothing knowledgeable to talk about.

I call bullshit, no one with your level of ignorance will have been trading on the market for years let alone decades. and no having a few shares you bought doesn't count.

Re:Not that risky

[Anonymous Coward]

Musk has friends that would KILL to own Tesla and would be happy to either invest, loan, or even perhaps a partnership on a factory in Europe that produces Tesla for them.

You do know what shares are don't you? If they are that desperate to own Tesla they can buy as many shares as they can afford. They're not doing that? In that case you might want to re-evaluate your claim.

not selling - delivering!

[kiviQr]

It is not outselling they are fulfilling long standing orders. Not the same.

Tesla and the competition

[Zobeid]

I've seen this theory going around, that other car makers--the big boys, established companies that have been in business for decades--are just waiting until Tesla has done all the expensive R&D for them and primed the market, then they're all going to pile in with their own electric cars and crush poor, naive Tesla.

Good luck with that. So far I haven't seen any indication that any established car makers have the ability to mass-produce a desirable (in particular, long-range) electric car and sell it at a profit, and I haven't seen any indication that any of them are ramping up for an attempt to do so. A recent poll of auto executives found a solid majority of them still expect battery-electric cars to fail in the marketplace, and quite a few of them still think hydrogen fuel cells are the future. Are these the guys who are going to green-light EV production on a massive scale?

The latest "Tesla killer" to get a lot of buzz was the Jaguar I-Pace. They flew a bunch of reporters out to Portugal to show it off, and the machine seems to have impressed many of them. But how many do Jaguar plan to make? How many are they even able to make? The latest numbers I've seen suggest that Tesla are now out-producing Jaguar. I don't mean they're making more electric cars than Jaguar; I mean they're making more cars that Jaguar's total automotive output.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[110010001000]

"So far I haven't seen any indication that any established car makers have the ability to mass-produce a desirable (in particular, long-range) electric car and sell it at a profit"

Gee, I wonder why that is? Even Tesla can't manage it. Why would the other carmakers be able to? There is no need to mass produce EVs at this point. The market isn't there. Eventually EVs will likely take over the market, but that time isn't now. There is no "secret sauce" to an EV. Tesla is a niche producer of an expensive car line.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a bit of secret sauce. You can't just pull the drive train out of a regular vehicle, drop in electric, and have an EV that performs well. To get near the full advantage in every aspect, especially safety, the vehicle must be designed as electric from scratch. Traditional makers have a lot of rearranging to do, even the major stages of assembly change from a traditional 3 to 2 if you want to compete. Their supply chains will totally change. There are a lot of pluses and minuses for different electric motor designs that are still being worked out.

Those currently planning EV, hybrid, and gas versions of the same models on the same platforms will find that their EV models can't compete against EV-only designs in either profitability or functionality.

But, the biggest change is that they are going to have to carefully reexamine their business model as the scale changes. There will be an initial burst of EV production with the idea of replacing the fleet, but two things are going to hit as they progress - as true autopilot hits, and it will, TaaS will take off and upend the American ownership model. Many more of us will elect not to own a vehicle as TaaS drops under the cost of ownership on a per mile basis. Second, full electric car drive trains, including the battery packs, will prove to have low maintenance lifetimes exceeding that of the rest of the car. Cars will wreck or age out before they wear out.

Thus, the combination of EVs and autopilots (which are EV independent) are going to end up massively reducing the overall size of the consumer vehicle market over the next 30 years. Navigating that change will involve careful preparation for the cutbacks ahead of time. They can't be biting into a lot of debt now if they want to be prepared to downsize and survive.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[AmiMoJo]

Other car makers are selling some great EVs too. The Hyundai Kona is the first affordable, long range model, for example. It's got autopilot, 300 mile range, decent performance etc. Costs $20,000 less than a Model 3 equivalent and is available to buy. Unlimited battery warranty too.

Nissan really screwed up with the latest revision of the Leaf, but the one due later this year might allow them to recover. Should have a similar range to the Kona.

Kia has the Niro due early next year, should be a little lower range (maybe 260) but larger than the Kona.

When they finally get around to releasing the Model 3 SR in Europe it might be an interesting competitor to these cars. It's sportier but of course that means it's also quite squat and less comfortable. But the long range affordable end of the market is already being being served and I think by the time Tesla do start making their affordable model it will actually be kinda expensive compared to the other vehicles on offer, especially since Tesla always charges list price with no-one pays list on all the others.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[ledow]

I don't think it's a theory.

The large car manufacturers are pushing out orders-of-magnitude more cars than Tesla will be able to manage for at least a decade, even with their fantasy growth. They can take the entire market any time they like - how much advertising do they put to that market? Zero. It's just not worth their time at the moment.

But they have R&D and investment and cash-on-hand that Tesla can only dream of, and they can flood the market with a dozen models each in a year or so if they really want to.

The fact is that it's easy to make the car. It's not easy to make it profitable. And Musk's common theme is "throw money at the problem and don't worry about profit". It would take decades to pay back what he's put into SpaceX and the other companies. In some cases, there is literally no "break-even" point on the horizon once you take into account having to pay back investors and himself.

The big companies aren't going to take a huge loss to hit a tiny sliver of a market that's not profitable and is quite unpopular (the biggest estimate for ALL electric cars I've ever seen is about 1-2% of *new* cars, imagine what that means as a percentage of all the cars on the road, entirely).

And big name manufacturers would on a long-term basis. They sell parts, plans, and patents. Tesla don't. Should it prove popular, the big guys will produce a car within a year (if they haven't already) that's cheaper and which they can sell parts for for the next 20 years.

The big-name guys are happily sitting there letting Tesla do what it wants. If it hits on an idea, they can license it (he's already said he's licensing any patents, etc.) and outbuild and crush the company in a year or so. They could literally bury it under the sheer volume of cars and models they could produce in that time, and you can be sure they're working on it.

I bought a brand-new car only recently. Literally, every place like Fords do have electric cars and/or hybrids. They're not even sold. Nobody steers you towards them. Nobody cares about selling them. There's no profit there.

And the one thing that Tesla knows is that they aren't making money. They're basically burning through initial investment in the hope of gaining traction enough that they can reduce unit costs - their battery factory is the demo of this - eventually and start to make it profitable. The second that happens, the big guy can swoop in and steal all that profit by doing exactly the same, on ten-to-hundred times the scale.

Of course, they're using him as a guinea pig. They can see exactly what's selling and what's necessary. That the infrastructure to support the car isn't there yet either. That the profitability is zero. That the innovation isn't present... it's all just standard kit and standard batteries bolted together with the one thing that they WOULDN'T want to replicate as he's done it - the automated driving computer. Something they've all got their own versions of because it works no matter the type of car.

They're letting him throw his money away and do their market research for them. They can steal the industry and swamp the market in months if they like. They hold infinitely more weight with places like electric recharge stations and government contacts (thousands and thousands of local jobs all over the world). And when he runs out of steam/money, or pisses off the investors, and still can't make profit, they can probably even snap up the name if they want.

You say it yourself almost - they don't have the desire to. They are ignoring the entire market at the moment except for token "green" gestures. But do you honestly think they aren't watching? Do you think that not just one but EVERY manufacturer is that naive to do a Kodak and think "Ah, digital photography will never take off?". They're watching. They know it's not profitable. So let him make a name for himself and throw his money away, and whether it gets popular, or flops, they'll still be putting out a hundred ti

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

It is worth appreciating that Jaguar is basically a luxury brand. Whilst Tesla have (arguably) occupied that space until the Model 3, it was intended to be able to mass produce as many cars as possible.

The issue of battery vs fuel cell is the same it's always been. Hydrogen 'could' be the ideal energy source for cars. There are three main problems to be solved.

Firstly there needs to be an efficient way to create hydrogen. At the moment, all processes available require generated energy to be used to produce hydrogen. The efficiency of these processes is a factor. On the other hand, simply storing the energy in a battery is relatively efficient.

There is no current hydrogen infrastructure. This obviously could be solved. It needs a company like Tesla to be prepared to pay for the infrastructure, particularly when there is sufficient doubt about it being a good idea (as is currently the case).

Storing the hydrogen safely and efficiently in your vehicle is a problem. If anyone is able to find a cheap (in the sense of power needed) to store a sufficiently large tank of hydrogen in your car, it will help enormously.

As can be seen from above, the main issues are down to efficiency. Whilst hydrogen is more efficient than petrol, it's not more efficient than batteries, at least not at the moment. I actually think that this is a short term vs long term thing. Long term, particularly if we can generate cheap and plentiful electricity, the benefits of hydrogen will overtake the disadvantages. However, that's not going to happen soon. In the short term, we see potential for significant improvements in existing batteries as well as new battery technologies and super capacitors.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why Elon is betting the farm with the model 3.

The "big boys" could compete with Tesla on luxury cars if they really wanted: they have the tech, they won't need to produce that many, and more important, they can afford the initial loses. But with the model 3? No way they could afford to mass-produce something more affordable, on time. It takes them YEARS to introduce a new mass-production model, and Musk knows it.

The "big-boys" are very, very scared (as you can feel by the amount of "fake news" about it). He has the potential to become one of the big (if not the biggest) boys in the short to medium term.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Barsteward]

Yes, it seems Jaguar underestimated how well the I-Pace would do. there are reports of 9-12 months waiting lists

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

That means Musk will have won his battle to replace ICE cars with electric cars. That's why he built Tesla, not just to create yet another car manufacturer.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be right, but the big car companies are making money while Tesla burns cash. At some point, the 'Tesla' brand name momentum will turn, just like it does for every other product, and the competition will be there to make money on their own terms and schedule.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Zobeid]

You make an argument that would be compelling if it was actually, you know, "true". You claim Tesla can't manage to mass-produce and sell their cars at a profit, even though they've been doing so for a while and are now ramping up to even larger scale. You claim "the market isn't there" even though they're selling as many as they can make and have a long waiting list. You can reach any conclusion you want to reach if you start by inventing your own facts.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Other car makers are selling some great EVs too. The Hyundai Kona is the first affordable, long range model, for example. It's got autopilot, 300 mile range, decent performance etc. Costs $20,000 less than a Model 3 equivalent and is available to buy. Unlimited battery warranty too.

I am unable to find a price anywhere. The gas one is out, but the electric one is not for sale yet, and they have not announced the price. and you apparently will only be able to get the extended range battery in the US.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[swillden]

The Hyundai Kona is the first affordable, long range model, for example. It's got autopilot, 300 mile range, decent performance etc. Costs $20,000 less than a Model 3 equivalent and is available to buy.

Where can I buy one? The Hyundai web site allows me to order an ICE version, or sign up for email alerts for "availability and pricing".

Also, other carmakers are lagging Tesla in another area as well: fast charging. I own two EVs (2012 Nissan LEAF and 2014 Tesla Model S 60) so I understand the charging dynamics very well, and for most people there's very little point in more than about 200 miles' range if you don't have a fast charging solution for road trips. For commuting and around town, 200 miles is fine -- heck my 70-mile LEAF is mostly just fine for those purposes -- because the car is full every morning and who drives 200+ miles in a day bopping around town?

I suppose people who live in more densely-populated countries might be able to take a road trip to their destination with a 300-mile range, then charge overnight and return, but in the US road trips normally start at about 500 miles, and 1000+-mile trips aren't uncommon. To do that you need (1) enough range to drive to the next meal or bathroom break using no more than 80% of the battery and (2) a network of fast chargers able to refill that battery in 30 minutes or so. A 300-mile battery is achieves the first, but you need a solution for the second. Actually the second is more important. With enough fast chargers you can get by with a smaller battery. My Model S only has about 200 miles of range, but I can take it most anywhere in the US that's within 70 miles of an Interstate. Charging stops increase travel time by about 20% over the way I'd drive an ICEV on a similar trip, but it's workable.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Zobeid]

I think you badly overestimate the cunning and the ability of the "big boys" to swoop in and take away the market Tesla has pioneered.

quote, "But they ... can flood the market with a dozen models each in a year or so if they really want to." No, they can't. It takes several years to bring a new car from initial concept through design, engineering, testing and production engineering. On top of that, the supply of lithium-ion cells will be a constraining factor for a while. GM or VW or Toyota can't just flip a switch and then suddenly BEVs are rolling off the assembly lines. Getting competitive BEVs into production will require time and commitment.

I think you may also overestimate all the supposedly vast resources that these giant companies could bring to BEV production. They're big, but they aren't growth companies. Even if you had an executive team fired up and ready to commit (which is itself a bit of a stretch), they still have to justify new capital expenditures to corporate boards and stockholders who are conditioned to expect steady dividends from a cash cow, not this kind of unasked-for upheaval.

quote, "And the one thing that Tesla knows is that they aren't making money." But they are, in fact, making money on producing and selling cars. A couple of companies did independent tear-downs of the Model 3 and estimated that Tesla are making around 30% profit margin on it, which is quite good by auto industry standards. Meanwhile, the rumor mill keeps whispering that GM lose thousands on every Chevy Bolt they make. (Which is not crazy, considering that Toyota lost money on their entire first generation of Prius production--something I doubt they have any reason to regret.)

quote, "Do you think that not just one but EVERY manufacturer is that naive to do a Kodak and think "Ah, digital photography will never take off?"" That's not what happened with Kodak. I'm glad you brought it up, though, because the Kodak story is actually quite instructive. Kodak invented the digital camera, and Kodak management were perfectly aware that digital photography was the future, and they had elaborate plans for the transition to it. They even had early success in the market, with Kodak digital cameras briefly outselling Canon's. Then in 2004 it all fell apart. The DSLR fad hit, which was a category of digital camera Kodak didn't expect to become mass-market popular and didn't produce. At the same time, the public "snapped" over to digital photography much more quickly than anybody anticipated, and Kodak's film sales plummeted in a matter of months. Their business still revolved around film and processing, and there was no possible way for them to deal with that.

Will something similar happen in cars? It can't happen exactly the same way, because cars are a very different industry that operates on a different scale and different time frames. However, it's definitely possible for existing car makers to be put under a huge amount of stress if the market shifts under their feet much more suddenly than they had planned for. They are big but not that nimble.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Because other car companies are actually profitable and selling cars that people want to buy and not feel good tree huggers.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[AmiMoJo]

Sales go live in Europe on the 2nd. Orders placed then are due for delivery in September. They have been delivering in Korea for a while, I don't know about the US because I didn't look.

The thing with having 300 miles range is that charging is much easier. You can fit it around your more human needs like bathroom breaks and eating. If a charger is occupied or whatever just drive on to the next. It's not like the old 24kWh cars where for distance driving you have maybe a couple of suitable chargers on your route to avoid big delays or too much risk.

The Kona doesn't charge as fast as a Tesla, but it also costs $20,000 less than the MR LR + AP. And it does charge at 450 kph, so half an hour of charging gets you a solid 2 hours of highway driving. So basically you can arrive a little earlier on your occasional 800km+ trip for an extra $20,000.

Actually the Kona should be significantly faster than your Model S over distance. It's more efficient and gets better range. But then I hear that CCS charging in the US is not very good, especially compared to Europe where the network is pretty comprehensive and reliable.

Of course there are other more practical reasons to prefer one or the other, such as the shape or wanting a particular type of car.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

>But they have R&D and investment and cash-on-hand that Tesla can only dream of, and they can flood the market with a dozen models each in a year or so
>it's all just standard kit and standard batteries bolted together

A very good argument, but based on the assumption that making an electric car that people will buy is very easy, and what Tesla has done is also very easy for any car manufacturer to do.

>The second that happens, the big guy can swoop in and steal all that profit by doing exactly the same, on ten-to-hundred times the scale
I'm sure they're just going to set those battery factories up instantaneously too, and the money will just come rolling in -- it's easy right?

I guess I just don't understand the amount of cash and power Ford and Chevy have. Seems like this electric car thing will be old hat for them.

I suppose we'll get the real story with the iPace. As you said the company sells "orders of magnitude" more cars than Tesla. So this electric car thing should be easy for them to get going.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[BostonPilot]

I watched the MIT Club "Are Electric Vehicles at a Tipping Point?" video... towards the end a (rather rude I thought) Tesla owner challenged the Daimler Benz guy, Fred Kim, about why a little tiny manufacturer (Tesla) was cleaning Daimler Benz's clock, why D.B. hadn't done more, etc. Like I said, I didn't think he asked it in a very nice way.

But Fred's answer was pretty interesting... Basically acknowledging that it's hard for a huge existing company to turn on a dime. Not only do they have existing product lines they can't just walk away from overnight, but there's a built in bias / inertia in their existing workforce that has to be overcome.

We see this plenty of times... why a small company like Microsoft can steal a market from a behemoth like IBM. Parent mentioned Kodak and digital photography which is a similar example.

There's no question that Tesla has a difficult road ahead and may ultimately fail, but I agree with many people who point out that they've already achieved their mission statement - if it wasn't for Tesla you can make a good argument that there STILL wouldn't be any good EVs for sale. The entrenched manufacturers were happy to sit on ICE technology forever.

I don't think any of the existing companies can turn on a dime and overwhelm Tesla. They can slowly, incrementally, add BEV vehicles to their product roadmap, but that won't transition into an immediate huge sales volume. Look at the problems they'll have getting their dealerships to push EVs! How long will it take to turn the bias against BEVs around at each dealership? Especially if BEVs end up cutting profits of the service center?

Tesla is far from out of the woods, but I think it's naive to think that the big ICE manufacturers can turn on a dime and crush Tesla anytime they want.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to make a bold prediction that neither the Kona or the Model3 are actually available to buy. No, I don't consider the 30-40 thousand dollar EV being available at the $60,000 price point as being available.

If people want to make the tradeoff for an economy class car in a luxury market that's OK, but lets not pretend that "economic EV's" are currently available.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[drew_kime]

That the innovation isn't present... it's all just standard kit and standard batteries bolted together with the one thing that they WOULDN'T want to replicate as he's done it - the automated driving computer.

I guess you've missed the multiple battery tear-down articles going back 4 years.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

"So far I haven't seen any indication that any established car makers have the ability to mass-produce a desirable (in particular, long-range) electric car and sell it at a profit, and I haven't seen any indication that any of them are ramping up for an attempt to do so."

You can't have been looking too hard.

Porsche Taycan comes out in early 2020, with production around 20k/year. This will compete with Tesla's current bread and butter Model S.

JLR is building the i-pace to compete with the Tesla Model X. (Yes, I know you tried to handwave this). Jaguar will make enough to meet demand, as many as they want (They're built in a facility that has capacity for 200,000 cars/year, spread over 4 models, they can adjust resources between models to match demand), smells like apples to oranges.

The Hyundai Kona Electric is muscling in on the compact SUV segment. It competes with the Tesla 3 in price, but it's a compact SUV vs sedan, in keeping with buying preference over the last few years. Hyundai plans to build ~ 30k/year atm (In addition to other electric vehicles)

The Nissan Leaf have successfully captured the cheaper end of the market, and has good enough range for a large amount of the market. It has 300k units sold in 8 years, and currently sells around 45k/year.

IMHO Tesla is starting to see some real competition in the electric car space, but they haven't yet managed to establish dominance. I think they wasted too much time trying to reinvent manufacturing to keep an outlandish CEO boast, and have largely squandered their first mover advantage. They're increasingly becoming boxed in by larger players.

I think even if Tesla ramps production, they're already too late. If they're lucky they may be able to carve out a niche as a largely US centric lifestyle halo brand.

Re:Tesla and the competition

[Anonymous Coward]

You are making a bunch of assumptions that *may not* be true.

Remove 600 lbs of engine & transmission, 40-70 lbs of exhaust, catalytic converters & hardware, fuel tank and plumbing and replace with battery and electric motor?

VERY feasable. GM should make a kit that bolts-in for rwd v8 platforms. Motor could directly turn driveshaft.

Amazon is different

[SethJohnson]

Besides, Amazon didn't turn a profit until very recently.

I share your enthusiasm and hope for Tesla to be a successful American auto maker.

Please don't conflate Tesla with Amazon, however. Jeff Bezo could have flipped the switch on profitability 10 years ago. He dragged the shareholders through this long process while building out infrastructure with all revenue brought in. Kind of like in the movie, "There will be blood" where the guy is buying up all the land around the town and nobody knows why, then he starts pumping oil out of all that property and nobody can negotiate a sale of property on the newly-realized value. In the case of Amazon, Bezos wanted to absolutely pave an immense footprint before being held to profitability on a quarterly basis by the shareholders. Now he's got an fairly diversified company that dominates in many sectors (public cloud, online retail, digital media readers, echo).

Re:Amazon is different

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that different from Tesla? Their debt is also about building out infrastructure. They're also pursuing diverse markets. The recent German tear-down showed their cars are comfortably profitable, even the lowest-priced models.

Re:Amazon is different

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is Amazon are long past that part of their lifecycle, yes they definitely were a considerable risk 3 or 4 years ago, but they had a huge cash flow to sustain their growth. I still think Amazon is considerably overpriced but compared to Tesla they are a low risk option. Amazon bonds are not rated as junk, they don't have huge cash flow issues and they aren't up to their eyeballs in expensive debt coming due in the next 6 months and have no potential rivals on the horizon to have any significant risk to their marketshare.

Re:Amazon is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Bezos didn't bail out his other failing company. And Musk cannot show profits even if his life depended on it.

So, the Model 3 is a luxury car now?

[Anonymous Coward]

âoeTesla would have a 23% share of the small and midsize luxury car marketâ
I thought we were told the Model 3 would be a car for everyone. $35,000 with a range of over 300 miles. Instead they are selling a car for almost $49K, but pretending it costs only $39K.

BTW, it is easy to proclaim you are selling lots of cars in a quarter when you stack up the customers for years, and then tell them order now, or lose your place in line.

Now, letâ(TM)s see all those happy model 3 drivers in their $35K cars, and enjoying the $7500 tax credit. When will those $35K Model 3s be delivered?

Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Anonymous Coward]

Model 3: 16,000/20,000 in July goes to the US market? Seems a bit high.
Both the BMW 3-series, and the Mercedes C-class produce 30,000-40,000 per month worldwide.
Which beats Model 3 handily if both sell 80% of their output in the US.

Re:Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Anonymous Coward]

Also Tesla only averaged 10,000/month (Model 3) in the second quarter, 16,000+/month in July is WindBourne taking the big Shahan in the ass.

Re:Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Anonymous Coward]

Also Tesla only averaged 10,000/month (Model 3) in the second quarter, 16,000+/month in July is WindBourne taking the big Shahan in the ass.
v1

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you expect German car companies to sell 80% of their worldwide output to the US ? The US is a big marked, but I am almost certain they sell more in the EU, not even counting China and other markets.

Re:Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Barsteward]

why don't you research it and find out for sure rather that postulate guess work.

Re:Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. This article compares Tesla's worldwide sales with some US-only sales. Why is this marked as troll?

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[jellomizer]

While 80% seems a bit big. Americans do love their Cars and use them a lot more then other countries. The nations infrastructure was build behind the idea that everyone has a car so if you are without one in most areas of the US (Exception of major urban areas) you are out of luck.
America is also the richest nation in the world with the 3rd largest population. And German Automotive (With the exception of Volkswagen) has been considered a class symbol to show that you had made it in life.

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[dehachel12]

USA's GDP is about 15-20% of the worlds GDP, so 80% is certainly too high.

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[angel'o'sphere]

America is also the richest nation in the world with the 3rd largest population.
What are you smoking?

The richest nation on the world is San Marino, according to GDP per Person:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Regardless what metric you use, US is in no way rich. Well, you could count the milionairs and billionairs ... probably then they win.

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Hognoxious]

I'm failing to see why per capita GDP would have any relevance to total sales of expensive things (which is what he was talking about).

Re:Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Anonymous Coward]

why don't you take the big Shahan out of WindBourne's ass, and stick it in yours?

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[angel'o'sphere]

Because a country where the majourity of the population is poor, is not a rich country, and most certainly not the richest country on earth.

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[WindBourne]

let see.
Top 10. Well above most all of Europe esp. Germany and France, and China is still inefficient.
Top 5 in average wealth per adult, though we do drop #24 on mean wealth.
Certainly not the wealthiest, or even close to the poor.

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Hognoxious]

That might be a nice answer. I'd love, out of a kind of morbid curiosity, to know what post it was aimed at.

Because it's got fuck-all to do with mine.

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[dcw3]

And to go by mean and median, Americans drop down to 4th and 25th place

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Anonymous Coward]

Model 3: 16,000/20,000 in July goes to the US market? Seems a bit high.
Both the BMW 3-series, and the Mercedes C-class produce 30,000-40,000 per month worldwide.
Which beats Model 3 handily if both sell 80% of their output in the US.
v1

Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his cock

[Anonymous Coward]

Model 3: 16,000/20,000 in July goes to the US market? Seems a bit high.
Both the BMW 3-series, and the Mercedes C-class produce 30,000-40,000 per month worldwide.
Which beats Model 3 handily if both sell 80% of their output in the US.
v2

Why make shit up as always

[Anonymous Coward]

Pull your head out of your arse Windy. No one is going to bail out any shorters. Why just make shit up?

Hi WindBourne, Zachary Shahan here...*wink*

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Windy, I have some lube for your sore anus that I forgot to apply prior to you taking the big Shahan.

Tesla sold more cars than X.

[Anonymous Coward]

Suppose there is a market where 100 companies have 10 models of a product each. That's 1000 models in total. Now if each of these sells up to 100 each, with an average of 50, about 50000 of these products will be sold. Now a new company steps in and has only ONE model. They manage to grab a 0.24% market share..... So these guys are selling 120 products where all the others sell "up to 100". So you can say they outsold all of the other models. Still their market-share is very, very small.

In reality 10 models each is a lot and 100 car companies even more so. So my example is a bit more extreme than in reality. But saying that Tesla model 3 outsold BMW x, Mercedes Y and Ford Z indicates that the others combined still outsell Tesla....

leave it to forbes...

[Anonymous Coward]

to shill for tesla by comparing its sales to a specific few low-volume mercedes and bmw models. wonder how much elon paid for this fluff.

how nice

[slashmydots]

Isn't it great that they're selling overprices luxury cars to rich former Prius owners so they can sniff their own farts over how great they are to offload their gasoline burning for the coal burning plant down the street. We need a real solution. Electric cars + renewable localized sources or better yet renewable mass energy distribution. Electric cars by themselves do nothing and Tesla especially does nothing with those prices. It'll be something closer to a Chevy Volt that actually changes things, if the electricity doesn't come from fossil fuels at the plant that is.

Very Impressive Numbers... But

[BBF_BBF]

Definitely very impressive numbers.

It took a lot of hard work by many many people to get to this point. Definitely a HUGE achievement by all the workers at Tesla.

However, one winning quarter cannot be always extrapolated per dot-com-boom hockey stick exponential estimates.

If Tesla can keep these sales percentage numbers this high indefinitely, then they're definitely worth what they're valued at today.

So far Tesla is roughly following the same pattern as as Space-X. One successful landing of a first stage was a HUGE accomplishment, but is not as disruptive as SEVERAL successful landings in a row... Space-X has now accomplished multiple successful launches of reused first stages and is NO DOUBT leading the even the established conglomerates with reliable, low cost launch vehicles. Tesla is not at that stage yet, and it is not 100% certain that it will dominate, but it certainly has a chance, much better today than x months ago which is itself a great achievement.

That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, I think it's nice that Tesla is doing so well, but to me this car is just a let down.
Musk originally talked about it like it was an affordable electric car for the masses, but instead it's just another luxury car.
On top of that, from what I've seen of this car, it isn't worth that kind of money.

Shouldn't Tesla just move ?

[DrYak]

the rapidly shrinking passenger car slice of the US market. Ford, for instance, will make only Mustangs and Focus crossovers in 2019; all other passenger cars are gone from the Ford lineup. Fiat Chrysler and GM aren't far behind, phasing out or scaling back production of most passenger car models

Given the weird shift of interest in the US, shouldn't Tesla just move to Europe ?
Say, buy the left-over factories from the Saab chinese buyout, and retool them for EV ?

On our side of the ocean we aren't that much interested into giant over-compensating penis substitutes.

Re:Shouldn't Tesla just move ?

[Anonymous Coward]

On our side of the ocean we aren't that much interested into giant over-compensating penis substitutes.

I appreciate the humor, but I bet when you look outside your window you see a completely different world.

When I look outside, I see the bridge over the brook washed out. My truck will climb down the bank, through up to 3' of water, up the other bank, then take us 2.5 hours to the nearest town. My Yaris will not make it. (Speaking of penis-shaped cars were we?) My wife's Volt would probably have the torque to do it, if it had better tires, but I would suspect submerging it in the stream is a seriously bad idea.

I think a diesel-hybrid would be great. That is what trains do after all. A pure EV just wouldn't have the range I need. I believe the Army experimented with a hybrid Hummer years ago. It already had a big diesel, they put a generator and 4 hub motors then snuck up behind the reporters during the press release. If I recall it could only do 5 miles in EV mode, but the other benefit was a fairly capable mobile generator. That would be excellent as mentioned about the future Tesla pickup. It is fairly silly to have 2 large diesel engines- one for the welder etc and one just to get to the jobsite.

share price update

[ishmaelflood]

Your shares that you bought at ~$260 rose to $380 and are down to $290. JP Morgan reckon $180 by the end of the year. Do you have a strategy with these shares, or did you just buy them because in some strange way you feel it supports your idol? For myself, I buy shares that are in growing businesses, that pay substantial dividends. Hence I tend to towards buy and hold. I get about 9% return on my portfolio. I could probably bump that up a little if I actively traded, but I don't have the time.

Re: share price update

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought them at $118 and sold them at $335. I then bought two Model S with the profits, and enjoy it daily.

You, on the other hand, are struggling to pay the mortgage you had to take out to cover your short, while your wife is off fucking someone else because she doesn't want to be stuck with a loser. Thanks for funding my cars, faggot.

Re:share price update

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought shares of Bitcoin at zero dollars and shares of Dogecoin also at zero dollars. And by following my links you can do the same, FOR FREE, every 60 minutes!

Re:share price update

[Rei]

I bought shares with no intent to sell them until late Q4 at the earliest, most likely Q1-Q2 of next year. I'm not a day trader (fees here on US stocks are too high for that!). I'm in this for the Model 3 rampup period. It's a simple wager: Tesla proves that they can mass produce Model 3s profitably and that they have a sustained market for them, or they don't. I say yes, you say no. I put my money in when the shorts made an opportunity for me. I take it out at the end of the rampup, or when it's at least clear that the shorts have given up on their hypothesis. It's very simple.

Re:share price update

[Anonymous Coward]

funny, day trader is the only type of trader that Tesla really makes sense for. any other type of traders die very fast if they make brain dead investments like Tesla, high risk with low upside and huge downside, why would anyone choose Tesla over the many other shares with similar potential returns without the downside, or the ones with massively better potential returns with similar downside. Nothing wrong with high risk choices if you know what you are betting on, but the Tesla one makes no fucking sense in any aspect, the only people it makes sense too is day traders who can make good money on the volatility, even Musk admits the current share price isn't really justifiable.

Re:share price update

[Rei]

funny, day trader is the only type of trader that Tesla really makes sense for. any other type of traders die very fast if they make brain dead investments like Tesla

People keep asserting that.
Said people keep being proven wrong and losing their shirt.

Re:share price update

[Anonymous Coward]

really? what people have lost their shirt? Do you mean the day traders that have made billions? or the shorters that have likewise made billions? or perhaps you mean the investors who thus far this year have lost billions by holding Tesla stock or options as they have declined against a rising market? Their is no denying that until last year Tesla did really well price wise, but that year has gone and the stock price has no where to go, do you suddenly expect Tesla to become a 100 billion or 200 billion dollar company? and if so on what basis given their current market niche? and in what timeframe? given their current revenue growth models how many years out to do realistically see that happening? I like Tesla but seriously the current stock pricing makes no sense and investment in it likewise doesn't make sense when their are better stocks to place your money.

Re: share price update

[reanjr]

Fair market rate for a mature TSLA simply based on Ford is about $200. But if TSLA is more profitable than Ford (which absolutely seems to be the case) then the fair market value could be much higher. So the plan is to benefit in the short term from a short squeeze which could send the price above $500. And if the squeeze doesn't happen, the plan is to hold for future growth and cheaper taxes.

Short TSLA? Re: Regular orders or filling back or

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post reads like you're seriously short TSLA. Vaguely negative, zero data, some guy I know...

Real trucks don't have spark plugs (Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live on the border of tech land and country land. A lot of the 'real' pickups (F-350 4x4 super-duty diesel dualie, vs F-150 2WD) have 'real trucks don't have spark plugs' bumper stickers on em. Oh the irony to have that sticker on a tesla truck with gun rack and confederate flag.

Full disclosure : prius AND Silverado 2500 4x4 owner. Gonna line up for a model 3 and ditch the prius once tesla sorts their production issues. It'll take me a LOT longer to replace the truck.

Brand loyalty for trucks (Re: Trucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Truck people like their truck brands. Primarily Ford vs Chevy. That demographic might be changing with the introduction of suburban trucks (2WD, short bed, leather, no towing capacity), but unlike the luxury sedan, I predict a long slog to get fiercely brand loyal owners in despicable / fly-over states buyin a tesla truck.

Why aren't hybrid or ev pickups a thing yet?

[sjbe]

When electric pickups do hit the market, they are going to have to ban them from tractor pulls. Otherwise, a lot of sensitive folks will be real embarrassed.

There is truth to this. I own a Chevy Bolt and I also own a V6 pickup. The Chevy Bolt has more torque than my pickup does and is smoother and nicer to drive even if you disregard the handling (which is no contest). Having driven an EV for a while now I'm firmly convinced ICEs are living on borrowed time. My Bolt has enough range to drive from Detroit to Cleveland without stopping, performs like some of the fastest hot hatches, and is much more pleasant to drive. I actually do need a pickup but the moment there is a decent EV or hybrid pickup available my ICE powered pickup is getting sold.

You'll see the way non-hybrid, non-EV gas or diesel trucks are advertised change overnight. They will never talk about their towing power again.

Probably true as well. I have no idea why hybrid pickup trucks (or EV) are not already a thing. Have the wheels being driven by electric motors and if necessary charged by a diesel or gas engine for range extension is a total win. Huge battery pack to power tools for skilled trades. Tons of torque for towing. Better fuel economy and a better ride. (electric motors are SO much nicer to drive than ICE) Aside from cost there really is no performance downside and given the hefty profit margins on pickups obviously people don't mind paying a premium for them at least in the US. I would replace my current pickup with a hybrid or EV version in a heartbeat if one were available.

Re:Why aren't hybrid or ev pickups a thing yet?

[drinkypoo]

I have no idea why hybrid pickup trucks (or EV) are not already a thing.

It's the cost. There was a hybrid Durango for a moment, it started at ~$85k. FCA is about to bring out mild hybrid RAMs, though, because that stuff is finally getting cheap enough to stuff into a pickup truck.

Don't be deceived by the fact that automakers are selling very expensive pickups; they still need to have cheap models in order to be viable. The cheap ones are sold to fleets and tradesmen and inflate the sales numbers. People want to buy vehicles which are sold in large numbers, especially pickup trucks, which are likely to be damaged during use and require repairs. Only the ultra-wealthy have any business buying limited production vehicles. Audi has discontinued the rear suspension bushes on my 98 A8 Quattro, because to the Germans, "flagship" apparently means "disposable". Mercedes has been discontinuing parts for my W126 300SD as well, including stuff which is garbage but necessary like the ignition lock. I wound up with a Febi/Bilstein part which, by the quality level, appears to be neither Febi nor Bilstein. I'm going back to Subarus next. They share parts with other Japanese manufacturers.

Re:Why aren't hybrid or ev pickups a thing yet?

[RhettLivingston]

Have the wheels being driven by electric motors and if necessary charged by a diesel or gas engine for range extension is a total win.

The perfect example is the "diesel" locomotive which is actually almost universally diesel electric today. Low-end torque is more important in this app than almost any other, and that is why they are hybrids. Even the few that aren't diesel electric are not pure diesel. They are diesel hydraulic or diesel steam. None has a clutch/mechanical transmission type of mechanism.

Pickups and other work vehicles are just getting onto the winning team late because the low-end torque wasn't quite as important to them.

Towing with EVs

[sjbe]

Long distance towing at highway speed is too much for the currently available Li-on battery packs.

Unsurprisingly Tesla doesn't seem to agree with you on this point. They seem to be working on a pickup which I'm personally quite curious about.

For the Model X, towing 3500 lbs at 60 mph will probably cut your range by 40-60% depending on road condition & weather

Towing doesn't do wonders for the range of ICE powered vehicles either. And frankly I'm not convinced this is a serious issue. There are a considerable number of use cases for towing where even a big hit to range would still be well within the single charge distance of of a Tesla. I'd wager to say that aside from people moving and vacation RV use, most instances of towing are less than 100 miles. And it's not as if the technology doesn't exist to extend the range of an EV. There are fast charge stations in many places. Even if we ignore plug in hybrids you could simply put a ICE on the trailer itself and thereby charge the EV for long trips by turning into a de-facto hybrid when necessary. Best of both worlds. Access to the gasoline refueling stations for long trips but don't have to carry around the ICE when you don't need it which is most of the time.

Re:Towing with EVs

[haruchai]

"Unsurprisingly Tesla doesn't seem to agree [tesla.com] with you on this point. They seem to be working on a pickup which I'm personally quite curious about"
I'm curious about it too. I did note they haven't talked about a price range for such a beast whereas the Model 3 base prices was floated to be $25k-40k back when it was still called the BlueStar.
Tesla was talking 8500 lbs towing capacity less than a year before Model X was launched but that quickly get cut to 5000 lbs on 18 inch wheels and 3500 lbs on 20 inch.
"Towing doesn't do wonders for the range of ICE powered vehicles either. And frankly I'm not convinced this is a serious issue"
It becomes a tradeoff of money vs time. The EV cost less to charge that the typical ICE costs to fill but it takes much, much longer.
So a long distance heavy towing use ICE means more stops of 10-15 min to fill up while doing it by EV means more cheap or free charging stops of 45-90 min

That said some ICE trucks have pretty big tanks so stops to fill up may be not so frequent, Or they may be carrying supplemental fuel which won't cause much loss to payload capacity even if it could be dangerous in a collision.

The Edmunds review of a 500 mile tow inside California at a max of 55 mph needed 14.69 HOURS charging out of a total travel time of 40 hrs

https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/...

A comment from 500rwhp made the following claim:

"Sadly this shows how far battery powered vehicles have to go. I can drive 450 miles towing an 8000lb trailer in my truck before getting gas, and a Tesla takes 2 days to do this, with a fair amount of anxiety. The 36 gallon tank in a towing vehicle is hard to beat"

Well DUH!

[p51d007]

Mid size autos? Watch the traffic and you'll see no one really drives "autos" in America. Everyone drives those stupid SUV's. So much so that Ford is foolishly DROPPING everything except the Mustang & Focus from their lineup soon.

Yes Tesla is risky

[sjbe]

I don't really consider it risky at all, especially not compared to almost any biotech stock.

If you don't think it's a risky investment given it's ludicrously high valuation and huge debt load then you may not be understanding the meaning of the word risk. Even Elon Musk has admitted the stock is priced "higher than we have any right to deserve".

Do you seriously think it is riskier than Amazon at this point?

Hell yes Tesla is riskier than Amazon. FAR riskier. Not even a question.

*If* they need it, that capital would easily come from these sales figures and market share.

Market share doesn't equal cash if you are selling at a loss. You can have huge market share selling $2 bills for $1 but you'll be out of business faster than you can say "Chapter 11 Bankruptcy".

But if Tesla is meeting or beating delivery forecasts

When has Tesla EVER beaten a delivery forecast? Come on. Good products but Musk is almost legendary for missing delivery deadlines.

The shorts all were betting that Musk would have no access to capital.

That's not an unreasonable bet. They have $10 billion in debt and the debt servicing on that isn't to be laughed at, even by Elon Musk. At some point even Musk would have a hard time convincing the market that Tesla can service the debt it already owes. And given how much trouble Tesla has had getting the Model 3 up to full production it's perfectly reasonable to question whether they can bring in enough revenue fast enough to service the debt. I hope Tesla succeeds but they wouldn't be the first company to fail due to cash flow issues if that were to happen.

The real reason to own TSLA right now is the amazon potential to reap the product of the short's massive miscalculation.

That's a fancy way of saying that you bought an overpriced stock and are hoping that a short squeeze will send it even higher. Tesla is a fine company and I really want them to succeed but there is no objectively justifiable reason for the company to be worth more than General Motors at this time with a tiny fraction of the sales and zero profits to date. The stock price is hugely overvalued and there is no reasonable case to be made that Tesla is going to generate enough profits in the next 5 years to make a reasonable ROI for anyone who buys at the current price.

P/E versus expectations

[sjbe]

An obsession over P/E ratios isn't healthy. P/E is a past-looking metric. It is not predictive.

No but it does provide some sense of where the current price of a company is compared to similar companies and whether it might over or under valued. You are right that it's not a replacement for a serious deep dive analysis but there is nothing about Tesla's situation that should lead one to expect they are going to be making massive high margin profits in the near future. Tesla isn't super unique among manufacturing companies and the cost models for them are well understood. Other companies make automobiles and we have a pretty good idea what they are worth and what sort of profit margins to expect and we know how the market values them. Even under the most generous assumptions about their prospects, Tesla's current valuation is highly irrational and not justified by any reasonable near term expectations of free cash flows. Someday they may be worth more than GM based on objective financial results but that day is years away.

Basically Tesla may succeed and it may even someday be worth it's current market cap. But right now, today, expecting a reasonable ROI on the TSLA stock is betting on the Greater Fool theory.

Re:P/E versus expectations

[Rei]

No but it does provide some sense of where the current price of a company is compared to similar companies and whether it might over or under valued

Yes, if the company's CEO is Benjamin Button and it travels backwards in time.

Value today

[sjbe]

"Tesla has a market capitalization greater than GM. It makes no sense. " - considering GM went bust quite recently and your taxes bailed it out at a billion dollar loss, it makes perfect sense

Your analysis is both flawed and biased. GM went bust a decade ago because they didn't have access to cash to cover their debt obligations. Tesla only survived during the same period by borrowing $465 million from the federal government. Tesla has substantial debt obligations and their near term cash flow is still a question. Tesla is a FAR riskier investment TODAY than GM is. What happened 10 years ago is irrelevant to the discussion. Currently GM is very profitable and Tesla is decidedly not. Tesla's market cap does not accurately reflect even the most optimistic assumptions about their business prospects in the next 5-10 years.

Meanwhile...

[sycodon]

...Pickup Trucks are crushing all of them put together.

Musk is nuts

[DogDude]

If you think that a CEO that is fucking a teenager and calling people "pedo"'s can make good business decisions, then go right ahead. Personally, I think the guy has gone off his rocker (recently or long ago, I don't know), and I wouldn't trust him to work in an ice cream truck.

Electrification of trucks

[sjbe]

It's the cost. There was a hybrid Durango for a moment, it started at ~$85k.

If they can do a passenger sedan like the Volt it doesn't compute that they couldn't do it for a truck. I realize cost is a factor but I don't think that is the full story. I think for trucks they are simply afraid to tinker with a successful formula given that EVs and hybrids tend to have a bit of an (unjustified) hippie vibe to them thanks to econoboxes like the Prius. I think it's probably more of a marketing problem than an engineering issue.

FCA has never taken EVs seriously and their late CEO basically said publicly not many years ago they were only doing enough to meet legal requirements. I'm aware they are working on some hybrid stuff (including the Ram and reportedly the Wrangler) but I'm not convinced FCA is really taking them electrification seriously yet. I want a pickup with at least 50 miles of all electric range - not so half hearted mild hybrid.

Don't be deceived by the fact that automakers are selling very expensive pickups; they still need to have cheap models in order to be viable.

That doesn't have anything to do with the fact that they could offer a hybrid power train in the high end models. There are estimates that Ford averages as much as $13K in profit per F150 sold. The real number is probably a lower but it's a big number for sure. There is no doubt that it's the biggest driver in Ford's profits. Certainly there is margin there to be experimenting with power train options. Ford made $7.6 billion in profit last year. That's almost as much profit as Tesla had revenue.

Re:Electrification of trucks

[drinkypoo]

FCA has never taken EVs seriously and their late CEO basically said publicly not many years ago they were only doing enough to meet legal requirements.

FCA can't afford to take EVs seriously. They are barely staying afloat. If it weren't for Jeep, they'd probably be down the toilet already.

I'm aware they are working on some hybrid stuff (including the Ram and reportedly the Wrangler) but I'm not convinced FCA is really taking them electrification seriously yet. I want a pickup with at least 50 miles of all electric range - not so half hearted mild hybrid.

It's not about how much heart they've got, it's about how much money they've got. They don't have to spend anything to develop a mild hybrid system, only to integrate it. There are now multiple suppliers who can simply sell you the whole system. In the bargain, it eliminates enough other components that it substantially reduces the price. Those other components are unreliable enough that it also improves reliability.

Doing a real hybrid is expensive because they don't build batteries like Tesla does. To me, that is their primary advantage. Sure, they have massive brand recognition, but so do all the entrenched automakers. But they can make EVs so much cheaper because they are building their own batteries that they can actually make them profitable.

I expect the major automakers to go down the same road sooner or later, but they are all waiting for batteries to continue to get cheaper. I do suspect that this will turn out to be a bad decision, because they are waiting long enough that Tesla will have a good chance to become profitable (and thus self-sustaining) before they go all in. If they had instead gone the same route themselves, then I suspect Tesla would have been a footnote — sooner than later.

Certainly there is margin there to be experimenting with power train options. Ford made $7.6 billion in profit last year. That's almost as much profit as Tesla had revenue.

Pickup truck buyers tend to expect a traditional vehicle, so I think the market is going to have to go through all the phases. Making a decent hybrid requires making a purpose-built chassis. There's actually no good place to bolt up a big battery pack on a typical pickup truck, but fitting a mild hybrid battery in someplace is trivial. That's why Dodge has done a hybrid Durango but not a hybrid RAM... battery positioning.

Economies of scale

[sjbe]

FCA can't afford to take EVs seriously.

True dat. Though honestly they can't afford to not take them seriously either. Tough place to be I think.

Doing a real hybrid is expensive because they don't build batteries like Tesla does.

Tesla doesn't build batteries either. Panasonic is doing the heavy lifting there. Tesla has a supply advantage but they don't really seem to have a cost advantage (yet) on their batteries. People call it Tesla's gigafactory but really it's Panasonic's. Tesla is just the sexier brand so they pretend they are the majority partner in that venture.

But they can make EVs so much cheaper because they are building their own batteries that they can actually make them profitable.

That might be true eventually but it isn't true yet. Honestly it's not clear that Tesla has any sort of substantial cost advantage at present. I think you are right about the direction of their strategy but that's going to take a while to really pay dividends if it really pans out. In the mean time there are a LOT of other battery companies working pretty hard on the problem and I don't see why companies like Ford or GM or Toyota couldn't partner with them (or buy them) and reap similar benefits as long as they don't wait too long.

Pickup truck buyers tend to expect a traditional vehicle, so I think the market is going to have to go through all the phases.

Agreed on the traditional vehicle but that's kind of my point. It's more of a marketing than a technical or economic problem. I think if Tesla hits the market with a drool worthy electric pickup that should finally start to move things along once some of the good old boys can see it perform in the real world. Similar to how the Model S is wrecking all the supercars on the drag strip.

There's actually no good place to bolt up a big battery pack on a typical pickup truck, but fitting a mild hybrid battery in someplace is trivial.

Sure there is. Right in the floor of the bed. And if you actually electrify the wheels you don't need big driveshafts and transmissions taking up ludicrous amounts of space underneath. Actually my pickup (Honda Ridgeline) has a giant space under the bed where you could put a huge battery pack without any serious modifications. Right now they store a spare tire in it and have an empty in bed trunk. Perfect place for a battery and/or electric motors.

Re:Economies of scale

[drinkypoo]

So your Honda is the fwd model? People doing work with trucks get rwd or 4wd models, and there needs to be room for the driveshaft to travel into. You can't put it directly beneath the bed in case someone loses a heavy load while trying to load it in. It's a viable option for toy vehicles, though.

Less offensive subject

[Huge_UID]

Why would you think BMW and Mercedes sell 80% of their output in the US?

https://www.statista.com/stati...
"The statistic gives a regional breakdown of BMW Group's worldwide automobile sales in the fiscal year of 2017. That year, BMW Group sold some 14.4 percent of its vehicles to customers in the United States."

https://www.statista.com/stati...
"Mercedes-Benz Car's vehicle sales in FY 2017, by major country (in 1,000 units)
China 619
US 388
Germany 320"

Guesswork from 1reddrop puts Tesla's US sales at 48.6%.
https://1reddrop.com/2018/06/16/tesla-sales-by-country/

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his coc

[Anonymous Coward]

All the European luxury cars sell more in China than America. To expect 80% American is absurd.

Brain dead stupid and safety hazard

[knorthern knight]

> Wait and see how many companies come up
> with full-screen display-only electric vehicles...

So taking your eyes off the road for texting while driving is dangerous and you get a ticket + fine + traffic demerit points, but taking your eyes off the road to adjust the temperature or select a different radio station or do whatever else, is safe ?!?!?!?

Mercedez or Tesla hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Because these are totally the same.

Re: Zachary Shahan said WindBourne sucked his coc

[Anonymous Coward]

Top 5 average and dropping to 24 for median,proves the point you must have a lot of poor dragging down the median.

The Oil Giants

[iq145]

If electric cars become a bigger seller than gasoline powered ones, the executives of oil companies will take action to sabotage the electric car industry!

Could explain the ongoing sabotage...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.newser.com/story/26...

World out of the window.

[DrYak]

I appreciate the humor, but I bet when you look outside your window you see a completely different world.

The thing is, a lot of people happen to seen the same world as I out of our windows (the people who all live in more densely populate urban and sub-urban areas) than you see out the wooden frame left over after the latest of Nature's calamities trashed your windows yet again.

Yes, I fully understand that there exist people who *actually do* need off-terrain vehicle, specifically *for* their off-terrain ability. Like you do (given your description), and case in point - even on our side of the ocean - a friend's family who had their vehicle constantly covered in fresh mud and stinking awfully of dead animals, because every other week-end they drove it out deep in forest and mountains to go hunting.

But, to me, it looks like out of every batch of SUVs, pick-ups, etc. a small number go to people like you who actually need them for their capabilities, and biggest chunk remaining ends up doing simple commutes between suburbs and in-city work place. Always immaculate clean "off-road capable" vehicles.
Mostly because people like to have big card for some weird perception of safety (you know all these people getting afraid of driving inside a Smart because of what would happen if it crashed into a huge SUV ?)
(The split it self makes sense. There's more population living in the suburbs and commuting to city work, than people deep in the more wild area. Therefor they'll represent a bigger chunk of anything, including of SUVs bought).

From our side of the ocean it seems that this effect is even more pronounced in the US. Though it appears here around in Europe too, specially in the big capital cities of richest European countries. (Which make even less sense : being very old, lots of European cities tend to have small tortuous streets which are way easier to navigate using smaller cars).

But at least Europe seems to still prefer small cars form factors (mostly for the in-city maneuverability mentioned above. And also because of high price at the pump making gas guzzling monster less economically sane).
Hence my joke : if the US seems to be over-taken by a big "i need a super-giant car" mania, to the point that several US brands seems to be entirely dropping normal cars, and some people think that this would jeopardize potential market for Tesla, maybe they should move to the part of worlds where sedan car are still comparatively more popular.

Meanwhile, given your unusual needs, of course you'ld be needing big cars. I you would be driving one of the very few (on scale of all sold) that are constantly completely covered in fresh mud.

When I look outside, I see the bridge over the brook washed out.

Now, all joking aside, I hope the local weather catastrophe didn't hit you and your folks too hard and you didn't lose too much. Seriously.

then take us 2.5 hours to the nearest town.

Water problems aside, EV technology is slowly progressing.
Lots of EV here around start to pack battery packs large enough for ~250km (in my experience, I can usually get even more than the rated range, people with more aggressive style could get less) - that's about ~150 miles.
I've seen recently a Renault Zoe boasting about some brand new battery bringing up to 400km.

All these are smaller more in-city cars, Tesla's giant range monsters are far better than that.

Battery tech is getting better over time. We'll eventually reach the point where it covers your range needs.

My wife's Volt would probably have the torque to do it, if it had better tires, but I would suspect submerging it in the stream is a seriously bad idea.

Actually, Lithium batteries being extremely sensitive, manufacturers tend to pay a insane big amount of attention to make sure to correctly isolate them.
To the point that trying to salvage drowned Teslas seem to be

Still making fuck all difference

[CaffeinatedBacon]

Check the numbers. Transport CO2 in America, Tesla biggest market, has increased the last few years,and will increase again this year.