Tesla hugely exceeded expectations last quarter | Hacker News Reader

Tesla hugely exceeded expectations last quarter

arstechnica.com

22 pointsextraterra14 comments

The truth is probably in the middle, which no one wants to write. They probably do need to raise cash, and the stock is probably a little over valued, but they will make it. It is possible to goose cash flow for a quarter, but it will be more persuasive if they can do it over a series of quarters. But if they do need to raise money there is good reason to believe they can.

One of the effects of getting news in a click bait format is that every story is X will change the world, X will take over the world, X is going bankrupt. There's no story in X will be a normal company.

Even if Tesla achieved as expected, it's very far from being just a normal company. As a person who suffers from air pollution every day, I'm really thankful for Tesla employees for working on decreasing this constant suffering in the future. In my view Tesla is changing the world.

You bring up a phenomenal point.

Even though modern gasoline especially in California burns quite clean, it's easy to forget that every bus and truck out there is burning horrendous diesel.

I was in the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal for a few hours the other day and it just felt toxic, I felt so bad for people who spend time there every single work day of their lives.

Let alone the vast majority of the world's population whose streets are completely choked up with buses and completely dirty fuels. It'll take a while but you're right this is going to seriously change lives at grand scale.

Even though modern gasoline especially in California burns quite clean, it's easy to forget that every bus and truck out there is burning horrendous diesel.

The NY MTA has been running natural gas buses and hybrid-electric buses since before Tesla was a twinkle in its original founders' eyes. It hasn't fully converted it's entire fleet yet (the process began in 2000!) but it's one of the largest alternative fuel fleets in the world.

LA Metro's fleet has been almost 90% clean air for years, and has been testing EV buses for almost a decade.

Let's give Tesla some credit for making EVs fashionable, but public transit systems have been going green for much longer and Tesla's never been part of that conversation.

I was wondering if somebody could explain for me: are electric cars really that much cleaner? I live in a place where almost all of our energy comes from coal for example. It isn't completely obvious to me how driving a Tesla helps air quality in a case like this, but I'd like to understand.

Well, I hope power generation at your location isn't coal-fired.

Ars technica even has an article about sudden EV-charging power demand may force electricity company to fire up coal-plants for the load, which causes even more pollution. If they have a set schedule and not cause a shock load, then the power company can stick with more of the renewables.

It isn't the silver bullet that everyone claims it to be - don't look too hard at the manufacturing either.

I am not saying it is a normal company. I agree what it has done is amazing. In my lifetime and before it many, many companies (Kaiser Steel!) tried to become viable auto manufacturers and almost all failed. Tesla did this and convinced everyone that electric cars were viable. That happened, which makes people interested in Tesla as they are interested in Apple, Amazon, etc.

I am saying there is a huge bias for news that is they are going bankrupt, they are killing people, they are going to destroy all other car companies.. etc. because that is what gets the clicks.

They could probably say "Tesla is gonna be a normal company-here's why" and everyone would still click by reflex.

Nothing strikes as particularly normal about Tesla. We're looking at brilliant execaution here of a growth business at massive scale in an industry that hasn't been disrupted like this since Japanese companies entered the game.

Disruptions normally result from a newcomer finding a new way to do things that legacy companies can't keep up with or compete with. A problem for Tesla is that many of the big car makers are joining in on the "disruption" and doing so very well, making it more of an industry evolution than disruption.

Another problem for Tesla is having only 5 quarters of positive cashflow out of 35. A single quarter hints at a turn around but there needs to be several positive quarters in a row to prove that it's not just an accounting trick (e.g. by counting more income in the quarter and delaying payments & write downs).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-Tesla, but living in Oslo I see a lot of electric cars and Teslas are no longer the majority. Plus the Tesla repair workshop near me is always full, which isn't a great sign!

What are the other EV’s you’re seeing?

You can spot electric vehicles here as they have different license plate prefixes, so easy to get a view of what's electric without knowing the models.

That I can recognise I see a LOT of Nissan Leafs and good number of Hyundai Ioniq, Kia Soul, VW e-Golf, BMW i3 and for businesses the Nissan e-NV200 and Renault Kangoo vans. There are other models out there, Oslo being a good market for electrics.

It's common here for people who were early to order a popular electirc car (like the Ioniq or Opel Ampere) to be able to sell it as 'used' for more than you can buy one new from the dealership that you have to wait months for.

In my very expensive part of LA, I see a number of Hyundai Ioniq, a lot of BMW i3s, even a number of Jaguar i-PACEs, but one or two Tesla Model 3. There used to be more Teslas in the neighborhood when they had no competition from other automakers but a lot of the local owners (including several good friends) jumped to other automakers as soon as they could.

This is why I've been extremely bearish on Tesla in my HN posts. I've seen firsthand their place in their target market suffer as the competition heats up.

Moreover, visiting friends back in the Midwest (Chicago and Cleveland)--they're almost all BMWs, Nissans, and Chevys. A few guys have the high-end Tesla Model 3s to show off at events, but they use their i3s for daily commuting.

Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18295942

Reply on news.ycombinator.com