I would find that really interesting.
If there is something that bothers me about Tesla it’s their attitude when a crash happens.
The game being played here is: set super ambitious, unrealistic expectations to get people thinking/dreaming/talking about it. Eventually deliver on it.
Again, normally the public/market would punish hard a company that does this. In Tesla’s case I belive the tolerance for delays is greater due to the perceived value of what they’re doing.
For investors, overpromising for hype and underdelivering is a strategy which is likely to wear thin very fast. Especially on things like profitably and independence of new capital needs — production numbers themselves aren't independently inportant.
The flip side is that he also has a good track record of delivering on outlandish promises, even if they’re late. When he says he’s going to build a rocket that makes the Saturn V look like a toy and use it to put humans on Mars by 2024, the specific year is not something to count on but the rest has a pretty good chance of happening.
I think it would be better if he’d stop doing this, but I’d rather have wrong deadlines for amazing stuff that eventually happens than correct deadlines for mundane oversold crap as seems to be the standard procedure for so many.
Well, building car is hardly something that hasn't been done before. They seem to be suffering from extreme NIH caused by the illusion that 100% of the stuff they do has never been done before/need disruption.
That is based on the reports suggesting that Tesla is not failing with its electric powertrain, rather it is failing in traditional part of the car assembly which is sad because the experience in those area are massive, locally and abroad.
So basically, "Is that a bad thing?" Yes, if what I say is true, because it eats the lead that Tesla has to provide no specific benefit. No, if either indeed, there is a hard, never done before, and currently unknown ingredient to Tesla that is going to increase their lead once they get it right.
Or No, because, well competitors are starting to get on the market and Tesla slowing down a bit give them time to catch meaning a more competitive landscape, which is good for everyone on the consumer side.
I don't know. We all know that, as anything, a modern car is very complex by itself and even the simplest modern production line requires far too much expertise to understand if you are not working directly in the field. So, you have to trust reports, which with an overhyped company like Tesla are more likely than not be laughingly biased in one direction or another.
It is a bit annoying that Tesla has such a track record of failing to reach their own objectives. It is bad IMO, because Tesla is not really under any kind of market pressure (no competition, and client queueing for years), their objective are only investors milestones. As an investor, I would really start thinking Musk is either delusional, hired the wrong people or is humouring me because in reality I'm the one lucky enough to be allowed to invest in Tesla and I should be grateful rather than wasting his time with silly metrics.
It only really matters if you are an investor though.
Consumer win both ways: either Tesla is giving the rest of the market a chance, or they are ready to revolutionised car production the same way the Japanese did in the 90's.
I would also argue that building a car is hard, and starting from scratch is insanely hard and was done before maybe a couple of times, 100 years ago. I may be wrong.
So to sum up: I am not surprised by Tesla’s behavior and think that the way they are framing their story may contribute to the success they had / will have.
Elon being so over confident that he ignores reality is the fear/problem. They made 5000 Model 3's a week after going basically -all out-. So yea, there are still issues and we will see how long it'll take to fix and if he'll need to raise again even though he strongly claims he won't need to.
The point is that he’s pushing really hard to make them realistic. And even if he gets 50% of the way there it’s still a massive win compared to being realistic/conservative.
Also, people’s imagination does not respond really well to boring/conservative.
Anyway, I think at this point Elon is fully aware of how hard this is.
First group would predict failure to meet the manufacturing milestones constantly and others would predict success constantly.
Constant failure predictors would win 3 to 1.
Of course, meeting the goal with tent assembly line may dilute the achievement if Tesla manufacturing numbers drop 20-40% in next weeks.
Tesla has 1-2 years but it has very tight timeline to deliver. It probably has to dilute stock and take very high interest loans (and break yet one promise) to survive. Change of ownership for cheap price is also technically survival but not what investors have in mind.
It does not help that next regression might be come within next two years.
One can certainly hope that Tesla keeps up this volume.
There are legitimate reasons to be skeptical of Tesla, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a tidal wave of sudden strong anti-Tesla (and anti-Musk in general) stuff that started hitting social media. For me the "tell" is that a lot of it repeats the same talking points or variations of them or even the same phrases and slogans. You also had obvious astroturf sites like "stop Elon Musk from failing again" popping up around the same time. Shortly after I saw that appear I heard people online (and off!) using that exact phrase and other exact talking points. That is a propaganda campaign. You don't get that organically.
There are companies that will do this for any cause you'd like as long as the payment clears. For a few million you could probably increase belief in the flat Earth by a factor of 10-100. It's a fairly large industry. The human mind is for sale.
But there's also very likely an organized effort to keep negative Tesla stories flowing on a non-stop basis.
Both can be true.
I'm a gigantic Tesla fan. I hope they dominate the auto market. Unfortunately, with that kind of market cap, they quite literally have to. So yeah, there are a lot of people out in the world who are betting against Tesla, which is not a totally crazy thing to do.
I don't know if there's some organized attempt to depress the stock, but I can imagine that there are a lot of traders who are pulling their hair out as to why the stock is valued the way it is. To me this explains why there is a decent amount of anti-telsa sentiment online, looking to point out anything bad they perceive out of the company.
1.) Software Skills - Autonomous driving, over the air updates, giant screen + app, future possibility of ride sharing network. Most people see the legacy automakers as very deficient in software.
2.) Semi-Truck Project - This can go a lot of places.
3.) Supercharger network. It’s sort of like also owning the gas stations. They already have a huge lead in DC fast charging.
4.) Expertise in batteries/packs/Gigafactory. This is pretty much the entire game going forward.
5.) Ancillary battery products, Powerwall and Powerpack. Battery storage is expected to be a gigantic industry by itself.
6.) Solar Roof - Also expected to be a gigantic industry by itself.
I'll grant you they could have an edge here, but would listen to arguments the other way. Plenty of talented software people out there, and Tesla has no monopoly
Semi-Truck Project
They were not the first, and are behind other companies right now. No capital to manufacture it.
Supercharger network
You're right, it's like owning the gas stations. And gas station owners will do the same. Installing chargers isn't hard. Very shallow moat.
Expertise in batteries/packs/Gigafactory
Most of which is Panasonic, but they do have some high tech pack management systems. Probably an advantage at this point.
Ancillary battery products, Powerwall and Powerpack.
Low margin, competitive space.
Solar Roof
Solar City bail out is complete and the company is being written off internally. Does the Solar Roof even exist? Last I heard it was still "in testing".
At the end of the day Tesla makes cars. Good, innovative, expensive cars. It's also a low margin, competitive space where companies operate at sometimes single-digit multiples of earnings.
The consensus on autonomous driving is that Waymo is in first, GM is a somewhat distant second, and everyone else (including Tesla) is in the dust. The other bits of software don't really matter if you believe that autonomous driving is the imminent future and manufacturer-owned autonomous ridesharing is going to be the future market.
> 3.) Supercharger network. It’s sort of like also owning the gas stations. They already have a huge lead in DC fast charging.
Gas stations, that famous category of thin margin retail? Tesla has been attempting to go a lock-in route of incompatible chargers, which dents the viability of a charging network if their vehicles don't pan out as well.
> 6.) Solar Roof - Also expected to be a gigantic industry by itself.
There's already a glut of solar panel manufacturing, and Tesla's solar arm has already distinguished itself by mostly being a failure.
Imagine your idea of a dream car is something like an Audi RS6 and that you lust after the four exhaust pipes and the noise they make.
Imagine that you have bought a few cars and worked somewhere in the auto trade for one of the big three. You would then sneer at this production volume and consider Tesla to be amateurs, nothing but a side show.
Imagine that you dropped out of doing something for society and have been rent-seeking for many years and no longer think of the collective good but just for yourself. You really would not care about the bigger ideas of moving to a carbon neutral world.
Imagine that you are baby boomer generation and simply do not think electrification of vehicles is a practical reality in your lifetime or your great grandchild's lifetime. For you the world is made of compromises and you were quite happy to gas children with lead in petrol for most of your life without questioning it.
Imagine that you gamble on the stock market or ponzi-coins and only think of opportunities to make money that way rather than creating something of value by actually investing in companies you believe in.
Imagine that you have a narcissistic personality and cannot for the life of you express an opinion that is positive about something you like. With such emotional limitations you could only criticise and point out failings.
Imagine that you work in the media and have the Western Media Mindset that is best described as passive aggressive. If you had to write stories then by definition, because you only work in the media and have never made a car or a component for a car in your life then you could only make stories about failures. Bad news sells papers, idle speculation gives likes and views that can be monetised.
There are lots of people in the world that have these traits and because Tesla are doing something a bit special it attracts them. They write nasty things and say nasty things. They also do not have anything better to do.
This is not to say that everything in Tesla world is perfect but the people with valid criticisms get drowned out by the empty vessels who are not quite empty as they are full of greed and other emotions best left in the playground.
We also live in a bubble and there are only so many places one can put one's money. Many things including everyone's houses are somewhat over-valued right now. Tesla's valuation is not over exceptional. The naysayers also lack the time to study their history and many successful manufacturers started out with massive backlogs and production difficulties. Citroen is one name that comes to mind.
I see Tesla problems as more akin to software engineering. It is easy to criticise a software product and see the many fixes that could be implemented easily but that is not how it works. This we all know on HN but pundits on the news don't.
Why are the people who are short the evil ones, but the people who are long the stock are never pumping it for selfish reasons?
People that go long still make money out of thin air, but at least their incentives are aligned with innovation and economic growth.