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Comment by idiot_stick | Hacker News Reader

>Parent post is about why using numbers is not necessarily correct because those numbers are based on assumptions that are not valid in Tesla's case.

And my post is about how these things are just said, without any evidence. I thought this is a forum of critical thinkers? And yet we have people saying that "well, it's not really a car company" or "but Elon!" trumps actual data.

>so expecting Tesla to follow the trajectory of existing car manufacturers is quite imperceptive

This isn't about the path to get there. At the end of the day, cars are cars, and Tesla isn't the only one building EVs now. To think that they are going to, somehow, have margins in the multiples of existing companies in both the automobile, solar or battery business requires explanation. "Elon is unpredictable" isn't one.

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Tesla is not only a car company anymore.

The commenter above is right on this one and it is not a subjective statement. This is a fact.

Tesla is as much a car company as GM, BMW, Honda, and Toyota. >90% of Tesla's revenue is from selling cars. They certainly have aspirations to be more, but they aren't there yet.

>Tesla is as much a car company as GM, BMW, Honda, and Toyota

It often feels like the people discussing Tesla have zero experience with some of these other companies.

You're not wrong; but you are not right either.

Of course, most of the revenue today is generated from selling cars. But we were talking about the value of the company. And this includes expected _future_ returns. And, obviously, Tesla has more than just aspirations. They have built a large part of the Gigafactory already.

Honda certainly is not a car company - but much more than this as well. This was not a good example for your case. Same with GM. I am not sure if your intention was to list companies that are much more than car companies? You were just making my case.

> Of course, most of the revenue today is generated from selling cars. But we were talking about the value of the company.

You were talking about what Tesla is. Despite its aspirations, Tesla is a car company right now.

> I am not sure if your intention was to list companies that are much more than car companies?

That was my intention. The discussion was about how we can't compare Tesla to GM or Honda because Tesla "isn't a car company". My point is that those other companies are not either, and so that is not an argument to reject the comparisons out-of-hand.

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