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Comment by krasin | Hacker News Reader

GM revenue in Q2 2021 was $34.2 billion ([1]). Tesla Q3 2021 revenue is $13.7 billion ([2]). Tesla is still smaller, but it's in the same order of magnitude with GM.

1. https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content...

2. https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-q3-2021-earnings-result...

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I suppose parent's argument is in relation to number of units produced, not revenue. From a comment below, Toyota sold about 7-8 times as many cars as Tesla on the US market. _Almost_ an order of magnitude, I'd argue.

That's a fair point. Let's compare:

GM sold 7.72 million vehicles in 2019 ([1]), which was before shortages. Tesla will likely ship around 0.9 million of vehicles in 2021.

So, yes, the point is correct. There's still an order of magnitude gap between GM and Tesla in regards to number of cars sold. Thank you.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/225326/amount-of-cars-so...

but still, given the size of Toyota and GM that’s remarkable volume. certainly firmly in the mass manufacturing territory. and then you look at their upcoming additional production capacity - this is still not their end game.

The fact that Tesla has more revenue per car, higher profit margin per car, and less debt are all benefits -- they can more readily "buy" their way out of supply chain problems compared to others. Combined with more agility, you have a hell of a positive feedback loop.

The goal isn't revenue per se. It's kinda like Apple taking 75% of smartphone market's profits despite selling fewer handsets that Samsung.

Not having to pay dealers $5000/unit for “advertising” also helps Tesla’s bottom line.

With no shortages, GM would be be shipping >2m vehicles / quarter, so it’s about 10x larger. But fair point - Tesla has grown a lot

Before shortages, GM revenue in Q3 2019 was $35.5 billion. A bit more than $34.2 billion in Q2 2021, but very close.

Edit. You're right. By the number of cars, there's still an order of magnitude gap (see my other comment). Thank you.

1. https://investor.gm.com/news-releases/news-release-details/g...

Then compare it to BMW, Geely or other manufactures that are more comparable.

Thanks for providing this context, good to know.

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