They’ve also innovated a fully green business model - selling tax credits as consistent, bonafide revenue.
Tesla was well on its way to profitability, and would have easily been without Corona. They managed to make a little profit anyway because the used credit sales. Even without Credits they would have had impressive results given the global situation.
In Q3 Tesla will make a profit way beyond credits and then this 'lets distract from reality' story-line can die too. And in Q4 people who made this argument will really start to look incredibly dumb.
Tesla is making money because they have really fantastic margin on their cars and have really good ROI but instead of talking about that everybody deflected and made fun of them that they made profit 'only' because of credits.
Then you got the other side that thinks Tesla is a grift. And mention that it appears they've been making a small profit on every unit shipped and those guys lose it on you.
Profit on units shipped is the mark of going business. Means the investors cash is being spent on building out the business not subsidizing a money losing business.
No one wants to discuss, they just want to make a point. It is similar situation with Apple's App Store. You see people, even on HN defending Apple, saying it is Apple's Platform they can do whatever they want. Which is fine as a statement, but without really ever addressing the question raised by the counter party.
It seems like they are externalizing their environmental impact, like a traditional multi-national but with the added business model of selling credits earned from selling electrics.
Or am I wrong? Is the pollution created by these huge batteries being netted out from their credits?
And only because the not so optimized yet supply lines is it even a question.
The thing is, you need to mine nickel/graphite once and then cycle it 5000 times. If you compare this to the equivalent driving distance in gas its not remotely close. Also, all of these batteries will be recycled, so it only needs to be mined once.
The credits he refers to are fuel efficiency standards that manufactures need to have across their fleet.