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Comment by jc_811 | Hacker News Reader

I will never understand why Elon decided to go all in on the Cybertruck. Did anyone, at any point, think this was a good idea besides himself?

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It's a very very stupid idea. But the idea itself is not really the problem here.

If they did deliver the truck they announced, with the price they announced, I think it may sell well - only in the US, but still.

The problem is, that they delivered a truck with 1/2 the range, 2x the price and that's very clearly not yet finished.

I have this theory, that Tesla is going to need to raise a lot of capital very soon or it will go belly up, and hence Musk is trying every trick he has available to sell some kind of futuristic vision, so that investors turn a blind eye to their actual business.

I suggest reading their audited reports and understand their financials instead of guessing (a guess that is completely wrong).

https://ir.tesla.com/sec-filings

https://ir.tesla.com/_flysystem/s3/sec/000162828024002390/ts...

This website offers nice breakdowns and history of the financials:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/long-te...

It would be great if someone could summarise this or point us to some sensible summary.

Net income is the amount of money they pocket. These are obviously very big numbers trending in the right direction.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/net-inc...

Net margin is profit margin, which is also already very healthy and obviously trending in the right direction:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/profit-...

Under assets and liabilities, you can also see cash on hand with very large numbers and trending in the right direction, and long term debt with relatively low numbers compared to profit and revenue.

Tesla has a lot of money and makes a lot of money.

I did read them, thanks.

I can't articulate it properly without sounding like a conspiracy theory, so I won't.

Here is a point of view that's similar to mine:

https://bradmunchen.substack.com/p/could-tesla-go-bankrupt-t...

On the first point about the "aging models," the Model Y is currently the best-selling car in the world, outselling much cheaper cars. It doesn't seem like it's in dire need of a refresh.

The Model 3 isn't far behind, and actually did just get a major refresh. The new version is much more refined. Something similar is in the works for the Y, probably about a year out. The article seems unaware of this, saying Tesla should "fully remodel the Models 3 and Y" over "the next four years."

From a glance at their financials, they have $29 billion in cash, $9.5 billion in debt, and positive cash flow of $4 billion annually. Why would they go belly up?

They are a growth company that has stopped growing. Hence the stock. So the underpaid staff will start bailing as layoffs continue and their stock compensation is worthless.

Other than the cyber truck, which is stupid, the entire lineup is aging. The cars all look like the 2024 equivalent of 2004 Camrys. Nice cars, but the competition is much more robust than it had been. Market headwinds with rates is driving costs down.

Elon lost his mojo here. He’s busy fucking around on Twitter and took eyes off ball.

Worldcom ($100bn assets at bankruptcy) have entered the chat, and are requesting someone to hold their beer…

Is there any evidence that Tesla is committing fraud in its financial statements?

If not, what is the purpose of your comment?

The point is that claiming that having billions of dollars in assets can be meaningless when there are other circumstances at play.

Worldcom was great right up until it turned out it wasn’t.

I’m not claiming that there’s any actual fraud going on at Tesla (although it’s been accused of many such things), but there wasn’t any at Worldcom either, until there was.

Elon came up with the Cybertruck when Tesla was deep in production problems. It's basically the result of Elon solving production problems at day, and dreaming of an easier to make car at night. That's why the bodywork looks like you could make it by just taking a big sheet of metal, put a couple of straight bends in it, weld like 4 seams and you're done. The rest of the car follows a similar design philosophy of making it stupid easy to manufacture and assemble, and leaving as much as possible to software.

Turns out they didn't execute that idea very well. They should have probably spent a couple more months testing prototypes. Or maybe the design philosophy just doesn't make for very good cars, it's hard to tell.

It’s not hard to tell: it’s an absolutely atrocious idea with nearly zero public (ie market) appeal.

The fact the execution is separately so awful is just icing on top.

Did they actually go all in? Or did they just execute something shoddily thrown together? Not that it wasn't waste of time and resources...

Trucks are very high margin and he has a chance to take over a top selling segment in the US. If the gen2 version hits it's stride it could be a multi-billion dollar win that pays out over decades.

I won't buy it for multiple reasons though: 1/ it's a truck, 2/ Elon Musk, 3/ build quality, 4/ UX.

It was easier to make than a new roadster and gets just as much press

Isn't the Roadster hard to make only because Elon keeps saying dumb things about it, like that it'll come with rocket boosters that maybe even allow it to fly[1]?

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1005577738332172289

Had to look for the April 1 date stamp there.

I think cars are the exception to the rule: "there's no such thing as bad press".

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