The Truth Is Catching Up with Tesla
wsj.com
wsj.com
I do remember that Musk put it this way: "It's like if you're a restaurant and you're serving hamburgers, and there's like an hour-and-a-half wait for hamburgers — do you really want to encourage more people to order more hamburgers?"
There's a pretty low likelihood that the market will turn on Musk at this point. And they shouldn't. Poor execution on production issues, for a product that maintains high demand, doesn't change the fundamental value of the company, nor its potential for growth and greater market share. All it changes is the timeframe of the company's trajectory.
On the other hand, people ought to be used to Elon Time by now. That'd be a problem if the other car manufacturers were closer to catching up with Tesla, but it doesn't seem like that's the case.
If you are talking about the self-driving car features, I would first state that Tesla doesn't have those either, and their marketing is a huge liability for them. Second, the major car manufacturer's are at least at the same place as Tesla, are further along, but due aren't as aggressive with bringing the tech to market until they have substantial confidence in it.
Judging the cars themselves there are still no real competitors. All of the upcoming cars are 3+ years away and still firmly concepts. The manufacturers speculating about 30-40k prices are banking entirely on a massive drop in battery cost that would affect Tesla too. Nobody is even pretending that they will be able to match Tesla's tech; I haven't seen a concept that expects better efficiency yet.
I'm gonna take special note of the Bolt here: it's an awful car that is totally incomparable to a model 3. First off it's a subcompact compared to a full sedan that weighs less. The bolt goes 0-60 in 6.3 vs 5.1 for the model 3, which is way more spacious and carries more cargo. The car's lead designer said it was "a disaster for aero"[1] and its drag coefficient is 50% worse than a model 3.
The model 3 is better in every way except having 18 miles less range, and I would even take issue with that. At highway speed a model 3 will get farther range every time- the EPA highway range weights towards 55 mph highway driving and gives massive advantages to large cars with awful aerodynamics. RCR hated the Bolt[2].
[1]: http://www.autonews.com/article/20160807/OEM03/160809904/gms...
Meanwhile every 120kW supercharger station I've seen has been doubling capacity and they've been adding stations at a breakneck pace. Heck you can now make the entire loop on the Olympic Peninsula now.
Chevy Bolt is the only reasonable competitor that comes close to Tesla, and Hyundai has a chance, everybody else is selling an overpriced toy. https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i8XLJOMH5GF... (the numbers in that figure do not reflect recent price drops on Model S vehicles)
[Citation needed], as they say on Wikipedia.
Lots of press releases have been issued, but only Chevy has released the Bolt.
Don't get me wrong: I'm a long-term optimist. But the long term may be distressingly long in getting here.
The eGolf is the same deal at the same price, but 52% as much power and 57% as much range. That's terrible! Compare the differences between the model 3 and model S: 85% the range, 68% of the horsepower, 56% of the cost. The model 3's performance is farther removed from the Leaf and eGolf than it is from the model S, but the pricing is totally reversed.
Don't forget Renault Zoe and Nissan Leaf, although they're aiming for the affordable subcompact market rather than luxury cars.
And yeah, the eGolf although I haven't seen any or maybe VW still prefers selling diesel Passats.
I'm still invested. :)
On the other hand - frankly, who cares ? Being late on announced dates, missing revenues targets etc - it doesn't change the big picture in any meaningful way. And the big picture is, that he is revolutionizing several industries and no one is even coming close.
Nissan are aiming to double global Leaf sales to 100,000 plus in 2018. That's just a production-line tweak for them. Then add all the other latecomers piling into the fray.
Being better isn't a substitute for being visible. Ask the average Euro driver to name an electric car that they saw in the last week and the majority will say Leaf or Zoe. Certainly not Model 3 which is due for Europe in 2020.
[0] https://www.wsj.com/video/tesla-delivery-numbers-dont-tell-f...
And some companies have production capacity issues. Especially those experiencing superhigh demand on their products.
Tesla got 0.5mln preorders. With approx 2-3 years of waiting time, people had to pay 1000 USD upfront, out of their pockets. And they did.
Tesla is seeing an extreme demand for their high-priced product. Every entrepreneur and enterprise would love to be in Musk's shoes. Given all that, delayed deliveries and shaking liquidity should be considered only "logistics" issues, not "will he fail?" discussions.
Boo-hoo. This is a basically a 10 paragraph horoscope. The market's blend of greed, hope and fear meets reality.
I was really waiting for the semi since the math didn't seem to work out.
Maybe thats what it take to motivate people, know how to sell the BS and make them believe. I have wondered if the math will catch up with them though.
Maybe doing anything big is not profitable or efficient, dump money into until it works.
It actually does- they're going for long range which in the context of trucking is anywhere from 500-800 miles- surprisingly short compared to the 2500+ mile range of a fully gassed semi. Keep in mind that 500 miles is 8 full hours of 65 mph driving though! That covers 80%+ of all commercial driving.
With an aerodynamic cab the drag coefficient of a semi can get to ~.4 with a 115 sqft frontal area. That works out to 132 kW at 70 mph. Including rolling resistance and 90% drivetrain efficiency that comes to 1,200-2,000 kWh for 500-800 miles. That's 5-10 tonnes of batteries at the module level (doesn't include cooling or armor).
The engine, exhaust, transmission and fuel in a semi truck weighs several tonnes- at the lower end of range, converting to batteries could even reduce weight. Even 800 miles of range is a pretty insignificant increase to the weight of the tractor, especially if they can improve on aerodynamics or count range at a lower speed. The cost of all those batteries is 200-300k, which is expensive but not unusual for a semi truck.
In short the numbers actually work out quite well for electric semis. Charging locations and power are an issue that will limit them to set routes for the near future, and even in the long term it will be hard to replace sleeper cabs doing 1200+ mile nonstop trips. However routes like that are very rare indeed.
Truckers do 700 miles days legally. Your talking 10 hours to recharge on super charger for 500 miles of battery vs a few minutes at truck stop for diesel. Might be ok if they can sleep at super charger, going to be a while before that infrastructure is built out. simply not viable for long haul.
>The engine, exhaust, transmission and fuel in a semi truck weighs several tonnes- at the lower end of range, converting to batteries could even reduce weight.
A 15 liter diesel and transmission weighs 2 tons, 300 gallons diesel 1 ton. it will be heavier, meaning less capacity even with only 200-300 miles of range.
>The cost of all those batteries is 200-300k, which is expensive but not unusual for a semi truck.
The whole truck cost 200-300k, now you just doubled it.
> A 15 liter diesel and transmission weighs 2 tons, 300 gallons diesel 1 ton. it will be heavier, meaning less capacity even with only 200-300 miles of range.
Even with those numbers, that would only be a 5% increase in weight. It affects the capacity of fully loaded trucks (very minorly) but it doesn't affect the range whatsoever.
> The whole truck cost 200-300k, now you just doubled it.
Minus the cost of engine etc. Most nice trucks cost less than $200k so it is still easily double the average truck, but that's expected given maintenance and fuel savings. Upfront cost is comparable to some of the really nice European models.
And considering that much of what they do is best categorised as research, I can't really see why one would get angry at dates slipping. Maybe if you're one of their commercial space launch customers–but even then you should've extrapolated from the past and doubled their estimates.
Maybe they could follow Apple's PR lead more closely and only announce products when they're done. But I guess Musk is just too excited not to talk about whatever idea he has on any given day, and they may also rely on pre-orders for financing. They do seem to make it up by creating products that are far more ambitious than Apple, though.
Saying your semi is "long haul" but probably has 200-300 mile range and only good for local delivery.
Now Tesla 3 production 20% of what Musk said it would be, and still no $35,000 versions, more BS.
Tesla still running a loss and behind schedule, Space X maybe breaking even and behind schedule.
Habitually over over promising is what I consider BS.
I hope it still works out because as I said I do believe it to be the right thing and as I said maybe that how it need to get done. Seems more like how a government program is run than a business though.
Musk didn't say that and neither did anyone who works for Tesla.
> Saying your semi is "long haul" but probably has 200-300 mile range and only good for local delivery.
Literally just made up by you, right now.
> Now Tesla 3 production 20% of what Musk said it would be, and still no $35,000 versions, more BS.
The only thing. They should try to be more like other top-tier companies, ones that don't have delays- like Apple[1].
> Tesla still running a loss and behind schedule, Space X maybe breaking even and behind schedule.
And yet both are still leagues ahead of their competitors.
> Habitually over over promising is what I consider BS.
He tweets out updates on development. They aren't promises. He missed guidance on the first month of production on a totally new product line that required billions in investments. It happens.
> Seems more like how a government program is run than a business though.
Yeah well the government built the rails, the roads, the internet and put a man on the moon. The government beats private industry on overhead and cost. The government does just fine.
[1]: https://9to5mac.com/2017/09/20/iphone-x-production-delay-oct...
"It's looking quite promising that a solar roof will actually cost less than a normal roof before you even take the value of electricity into account," Musk said at the event. [1]
> Literally just made up by you, right now.
No [2], and if you know anything about lithium cost and weight its pretty obvious. To match the range of a normal long haul semi with 300 gallons of diesel your looking at a million dollar battery that is basically the size of the trailer with no cargo capacity.
> And yet both are still leagues ahead of their competitors.
Space competitors are running at more than 10% profit margins [3]. Boeing might also beat them to Mars [4].
>Yeah well the government built the rails, the roads, the internet and put a man on the moon. The government beats private industry on overhead and cost. The government does just fine.
I agree, it wasn't meant as a disparagement of the government approach. I just don't like it being held up as some example of a good business and the stretching of the truth constantly annoys me. No one can seem to accept the government running a deficit to do big things, but Musk, take my money.
[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-tesla-solar-roof-cos...
[2]: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-trucking-exclusive/e...
[3]: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/05/how-profitable-is-...
[4]: http://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-spacex-mars-elon-musk-...
Other manufacturers do, you can see them here: https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
The numbers for Tesla on that page are monthly estimates which are trued-up every quarter.
I don't understand why people put up wsj links on HN. If you're a wsj subscriber, you've probably read it already. If you're not, you can't, unless someone puts up an alternative link.
At the least, someone who puts up a wsj link ought to include an alternative link.
Because the WSJ does a lot of reporting that can't be found anywhere else.
Furthermore, a lot of people also decry the way advertising has distorted the web and media orgs. There are two major ways to pay for news: ads and subscriptions. People who don't like the former ought to like the latter.
Before someone points this out, let me say that I'd love to see micro-payments work out but we have not seen this work yet even after twenty years of prognostication on the topic.
I agree entirely about the problem with advertising, and the need for something micro-payments.
Because it appears as if people think the future of journalism is hundreds of high-quality, independent, investigative newspapers. Who each have one subscriber who summarises the articles for their ad-free blog.
When will investors punish Tesla for this constant non-sense. Anyone else would have been ejected by the board by now and shareholders would be gnashing their teeth for some accountability, but not the holy Musk.
Perhaps it's for the best that Elon seems an indispensable part of Tesla's success. Ejecting CEOs and shuffling the boardroom because value will be realized - shock, horror - a few weeks later is akin to corporate dowsing: questionable actions with dubious results.
Shares can be sold. The idea that holding stocks of a company make one some kind of philosopher-king who need not deign themselves with concepts of patience and time horizons needs to go away.
Investment in shares is risk in hope of return, not a whip.
Besides, shareholders bought shares of a company whose stated purpose is "to accelerate the advent of sustainable mobility", not "maximize profit for shareholders".
Specifically because of Tesla's $59 billion market cap and the extraordinary return Musk has produced for shareholders. That sweet thousand percent return over the last five years. Yeah, shareholders are just chomping at the bit to get rid of Musk.
Objectively, the stock is overhyped, and somebody will retire nicely from shorting it fairly soon.
Subjectively, the house tiles and batteries were never meant to take off, SpaceX had rockets to orbit before they ever got a NASA contract, the subsidies on the car were negligible in the scheme of things, and also available to anybody else.
$14000 in Ontario.
The board's on it! They'll replace Musk the second they find anyone else capable of creating both a profitable orbital launch company and a profitable electric supercar company, simultaneously.
Of course Musk is a controlling stakeholder on those boards. And while he's really going to get to fire himself any day now, it does appear as if it may take a day or two more than anticipated. But once these last kinks are taken care off, it'll be a revolutionary rethinking of what it means to be fired. Order now!