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Definitely Tesla. And I wouldn't give them 5 years either. Elon Musk is a dilettante. He's too busy camping on the roof of his factory and shooting convertibles into space, not to mention playing at being an international playboy.
Tesla is not really a car company, and EV's don't sell well anyway. Other real car companies can make EV's better, and more efficiently, but people really don't want them. Tesla is a novelty/scam.
Chrysler is my definite number one choice. There is absolutely no doubt they will tank yet again. This time we need to make sure the government does not bail them out yet again. Just let them go away already. The have and continue to build some of the most unreliable piles of junk on the road. I will give them a little credit on the Ram trucks. They have improved those some but when you are improving a complete pile of junk some, it really doesn't say that much.
Right now I would not buy anything FCA, GM or Ford are building. Every single one of them are building unreliable junk again like we slipped back into the 80's. Ford ecotech engines and their transmissions have had all sorts of problems. GM insists on putting that crap Active Fuel Management and now direct injection on everything and has led to all kinds of reliability issues. The one thing for sure about GM's AFM is you will without a doubt have lifter failures. FCA just still builds junk like they always have and will continue.
My very close second choice would be Tesla. They will never turn a profit. The adoption rate of EV's will never be significant enough to boost production to levels where a reliable profit margin would be attainable. Another problem is they will have to continue for decades investing heavily into research and development to attempt to get the EV technology to the point where more people would buy in. Yet another problem is that if they were to somehow boost the adoption rate and more people started driving EV's, it would not be long until it would result in electric rates increasing causing a rise in cost of living for everyone. EV's just simply are not a viable business by themselves.
Tesla cars turn a profit. Tesla as a company doesn't because they keep putting money into expansion (like the supercharger network that doesn't make a cent, the Gigafactories which are not online yet and the R&D for the Semi and roadster). But the cars themselves do in fact turn a profit at the prices they sell at.
Saying they don't is like saying that Ford doesn't turn a profit on the new F150 because it cost them a couple billion to develop it so they can't turn a profit yet...
Why Americans want a new American company to fail is beyond me, but the insulting behavior of supposed auto fans is amusing. A scam? The cars are real, they are being delivered and they work. No pyramid scheme ever delivered any actual product, and by definition, can't.
Tesla cars turn a profit. Tesla as a company doesn't because they keep putting money into expansion (like the supercharger network that doesn't make a cent, the Gigafactories which are not online yet and the R&D for the Semi and roadster). But the cars themselves do in fact turn a profit at the prices they sell at.
Saying they don't is like saying that Ford doesn't turn a profit on the new F150 because it cost them a couple billion to develop it so they can't turn a profit yet...
At least someone has a clue what they're talking about.
I expected Tesla to be the #1 answer, due to lack of understanding of finance, especially by the media. No doubt Tesla is highly leveraged, as they are essentially a startup. Startups always require money upfront to build assets before they can start pulling in revenue (and profit). Spending money building valuable assets is not "burning cash". Model S/X are structurally profitable, Tesla could have stopped there and could have been profitable, but would have been a small company / market cap. Instead that money was put into developing the Model 3, (Model Y suv, pickup truck, Semi truck, Energy products, etc...). That's not burning cash, that's creating value. Breakdowns by Germans and Munro are showing Model 3 to be quite profitable.
I.e. Tesla is only not profitable because they keep spending their money on R&D and growing bigger (like Amazon). Their cash position is not scary because they will be able to get more at good rates / or via equity raise as long as investors believe in them (which apparently they very much do).
Tesla's biggest risk is simple short sellers and media trying to create hype and negativity that brings share price down so much that raising money becomes more difficult.
But if you truly believe they are likely to go bankrupt, you would be some money down shorting them. No way I would do that! But FCA? Much more likely to do that...
My very close second choice would be Tesla. They will never turn a profit. The adoption rate of EV's will never be significant enough to boost production to levels where a reliable profit margin would be attainable. Another problem is they will have to continue for decades investing heavily into research and development to attempt to get the EV technology to the point where more people would buy in. Yet another problem is that if they were to somehow boost the adoption rate and more people started driving EV's, it would not be long until it would result in electric rates increasing causing a rise in cost of living for everyone. EV's just simply are not a viable business by themselves.
The adoption rate of EV's is already high enough to boost their production globally.
Why would Tesla have to invest enough to get most people to convert EVs? Are you saying they need to have 90% market share??? I would presume other companys would be taking some of that market share (and have to spend money to get there).
You act as if it would be impossible to add more cheap energy generation to the grid if needed. It wouldn't. And it would still be marginally cheaper than paying for gas.
Tesla was able to raise money by selling stock using tech company valuations rather than auto company valuations. I think that is unlikely to continue. Tesla doesn't have any particularly unique intellectual property. If you don't have IP and you're not profitable, you don't survive. 10 years from now, I think they'll be a footnote as the EV pioneer that vanished.
Bankrupt, or bailed out by their home government, or bought for scraps after stock crashes, you get the idea.
Make a vote, and explain why you think so.
IMO Tesla would be a bad guess, growing very rapidly with high margins, and have financial support from big spenders (including VW apparently) to value them at over 60 billion. But if stock crashes, it could happen.
I would look at ones on sketchy financial ground with sensitive demand for vehicles, or low margins. Fiat Chrysler would be a decent guess.
BMW would be a decent guess as they are smaller size with a target market being directly hit by the newcomer (Tesla) which could punish their margins.
Ford is in a general downtrend, but still hugely profitable on their trucks, but that is really their main business now, so they would be in trouble if that market were to be disrupted (ahem, Tesla pickup). If that happened it wouldn't be for 7-10 years from now though.
I guess I would go with BMW for now. In 5 years.
I don't see BMW going bankrupt in 5 years. This article is from profits from the first half of 2017, so it's a little dated, but it shows BMW is among the more profitable car companies. It's not anywhere near highest in sales, but highest where it counts: profits.
With a fully electric 3 series (based on the new generation coming 2019) coming in 2020, they will be a Tesla competitor in the EV market. BMW has a much better dealer network too.
I think if Tesla doesn't turn a profit in 5 years, it may not get anymore outside financing. It risks getting bought up by another car company (Chinese?) who will want the brand "Tesla".
Definitely Tesla. And I wouldn't give them 5 years either. Elon Musk is a dilettante. He's too busy camping on the roof of his factory and shooting convertibles into space, not to mention playing at being an international playboy.
That word is a synonym for "amateur". Sounds about right with Mr. Musk. My thanks to you for mentioning a word I am not sure I had heard of previously.
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