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If you can't survive long enough to reach the self-sustaining point, it doesn't matter how much (potential) profit margin there is on each unit. Uncounted thousands of businesses have gone under long before their unit profit margin was collectively enough to float the whole boat. Tesla is in precisely that position now and with the rising admission that they can't really build cheaper (== larger volume and market) cars, they may not make it despite this putative acceptable margin on the Model 3's.
They are targeting profitability in Q4 onward, do you think they will fold before then??
They are targeting profitability in Q4 onward, do you think they will fold before then??
Not a clue. Not losing any sleep over it, either. Bought TSLA at IPO; sold off a while ago; not shopping for a new car of any kind. I just get annoyed at the rose-tinted filtering of many evident problems with the company, which we've all seen before when someone thinks tech, tech and more tech will overcome problems that even top-flight heavy industrialists couldn't solve.
It's pretty pointless to argue about the unit profitability of Tesla's cars while they are $11B in debt they have no easy way to pay and can only meet promised production levels with war-emergency efforts and stopgaps. That they won't, and essentially can't build the "affordable" tier of cars is just one of several indicators of how grossly overstretched the company is.
Maybe they'll pull through. Maybe Musk will do a few more stupid things that kick the fragile props out from under the endeavor. I have no horse in the race but prefer rational, big-picture discussion to fanboy seizures over how cool, uber-techy wheel sensors (or whatever) mean they can't fail.
And now Elon's claiming the problem is a severe shortage of car carriers, so they are having to stop and build their own. Funny, no one else in the US seems to know anything about a shortage of carriers, including the auto carrier industry group... and Musk seems unaware that car carriers have to be extensively certified and tested. They're not like, you know, midget submarines, dude.
Next up: "There's a severe shortage of electrons, so we're going to have to halt everything while we design and build an electron factory." ...?
Or, in summary, "We will keep reinventing this damned wheel until we get it PERFECTLY square!"
Amusing to make fun of a startup massively growing their deliveries in the U.S. from ~1,000 / week (earlier THIS year) to ~7,000 / week now. Are you kidding me? Do you realize how insane that growth is?
Have you ever worked in a startup? When you have a disruptive technology, you push for growth and hope their aren't too many negative effects. You simply can't corral all of them in time.
Amusing to make fun of a startup massively growing their deliveries in the U.S. from ~1,000 / week (earlier THIS year) to ~7,000 / week now. Are you kidding me? Do you realize how insane that growth is?
Not when it's finally, and belatedly, coming up to the numbers that were supposed to be achieved from the beginning by Elon's Automated Magic Factory.
Blaming a lack of car carriers is like a manufacturer saying they can't ship anything because there's a shortage of cardboard boxes. Musk is turning into the proverbial 10 pounds of poop in a 5-pound bag, and the ratio is growing. The weed probably helps.
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Have you ever worked in a startup?
Several. Headed one.
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When you have a disruptive technology, you push for growth and hope their aren't too many negative effects. You simply can't corral all of them in time.
That you see Tesla as "a startup" encapsulates everything about why you fail to understand much of anything about what's going on.
It's not. A freakin'. Tech company.
It's a heavy-industry manufacturer.
And amazing tech-ween genius wizardry and sleight of hand aren't worth that poop when it comes to hard-nuts problems of manufacturing and fulfillment. Getting the guys in back to write some car-carrier code is not a solution, oddly enough.
That you see Tesla as "a startup" encapsulates everything about why you fail to understand much of anything about what's going on.
It's not. A freakin'. Tech company.
It's a heavy-industry manufacturer.
Why in the world would you think startups can be only tech companies? That's actually the point, Tesla isn't a (or just a) tech company, it's a manufacturer and thus requires even more capital and time.
You are internally conflicted because you want to push Musk into a tech-bro caricature who's out of his realm in a manufacturing field.
Whereas in reality he's probably both a tech-bro and manufacturing-bro. And for some reason that eats at you inside. Is he a better CEO than you and you can't take it?
Does he make you feel like less of a man? Less of a success?
Why on earth are people against an American startup and rooting for big-business?
Why in the world would you think startups can be only tech companies?
I don't. However, 99% of what are called 'startups' are tech based. You rarely see the term applied to a new company that does not have a solid focus on tech, if not being completely network/cloud/app-based.
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That's actually the point, Tesla isn't a (or just a) tech company, it's a manufacturer and thus requires even more capital and time.
Yes, it is the point. Good of you to notice. However, you have it backwards: Musk/Tesla is a nearly wholly tech-focused entity trying to play in a heavy industry. They (mostly their fearless leader) keep making Apple/Microsoft/IBM/Facebook style decisions about nuts and bolts and stamping presses and assembly lines, because, you know, EFFIN' TECH!
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You are internally conflicted because you want to push Musk into a tech-bro caricature who's out of his realm in a manufacturing field.
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And for some reason that eats at you inside. Is he a better CEO than you and you can't take it?
Does he make you feel like less of a man? Less of a success?
Don't f*cking psychoanalyze me, "bro," you have no idea who you're dealing with. And Musk is the absolute poster boy of what you describe so accurately. That's become more and more clear in the last several months as he almost hysterically whines about heavy-industry problems he didn't foresee and how his magical tech thinking is going to fix things... and those are damn near verbatim quotes from the man. He's not just in over his head, he's drowning at the bottom of the pool because the thought the water didn't matter.
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Whereas in reality he's probably both a tech-bro and manufacturing-bro.
No, he and adoring fanboys like you think he's the latter. He's utterly failing to prove the point.
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Why on earth are people against an American startup and rooting for big-business?
Ah. And you probably bought nothing but Macs because they came from a warm, fuzzy little people-caring company instead of those big mean industrial computer makers, too.
Only a few idiots here are "against an American startup." The rest of us, with some experience and historical acumen, can see that the company has barely cleared the last few hedgerows and is headed for a line of trees, and is only going to get sufficient altitude if the very breath of god catches its wings. Which anyone who actually had auto or other heavy industry experience would have foreseen, and made very different choices with a greater chance of success.
Auto-making is big business and can be nothing else, excluding makers who turn out microscopic numbers of hand-built specialty cars. Musk wants to play with the big boys, but is, like many before him, convinced that some other approach will somehow topple a century-old, continually-adaptable industry that has survived wars, depressions, booms and radical tech and regulation change. Riiiiight. Tech rules, because, you know, apps!
Don't f*cking psychoanalyze me, "bro," you have no idea who you're dealing with. And Musk is the absolute poster boy of what you describe so accurately. That's become more and more clear in the last several months as he almost hysterically whines about heavy-industry problems he didn't foresee and how his magical tech thinking is going to fix things... and those are damn near verbatim quotes from the man. He's not just in over his head, he's drowning at the bottom of the pool because the thought the water didn't matter.
Don't own Apple stuff. Don't care about your anecdotal B.S. I'm a Bayesian. I got priors but update based on new evidence. The evidence so far points to Musk being able to manufacture competently.
Key data: SpaceX (or is that a facade?)
Key data: Tesla over 50% YoY growth.
If you are wrong, we will probably find out relatively soon (within 9 months). And trust me it will be okay. Don't beat yourself up too much over it.
Don't own Apple stuff. Don't care about your anecdotal B.S. I'm a Bayesian. I got priors but update based on new evidence. The evidence so far points to Musk being able to manufacture competently.
Key data: SpaceX (or is that a facade?)
Key data: Tesla over 50% YoY growth.
If you are wrong, we will probably find out relatively soon (within 9 months). And trust me it will be okay. Don't beat yourself up too much over it.
I hate SpaceX as well for a multitude of reasons, but I will say they actually hired executives from the industry and if you notice, SpaceX has done it's best when Elon is not around. Elon actually has a COO running day to day operations.
How many members of the board of directors at Tesla actually have automotive manufacturing experience?
The reason Tesla makes a lot of noobie mistakes in the industry, is because they insist on learning everything the hard way. It's not by pure genius that Tesla is still around, it's by pure luck and blind investor optimism (which now appears to be drying up coincidently after they started mass volume production). Look at Tesla's stock growth this year vs previous years.
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