Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

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If you don't like this then I'm sure you'll hate the eventual, "Where did we go wrong with the electric car," articles after Tesla fails to deliver a $20,000 EV before going bankrupt. If the government pulls its corporate welfare, which it probably will under a GOP administration, Tesla is going to die a quick death.

Elon can't bring Li-Ion down to any level for compete with ICE cars, has terrible financials, and there's something very off putting politically about hard-working middle-class families subsidizing ultra-sports cars for the wealthy.

The title of this article is amusing because it seems to suggest that SpaceX is Elon's side bet and Tesla is some grand vision. Its not. If anything SpaceX is the great success here and if I was a betting man I'd say Tesla will become a footnote in history when SpaceX succeeds. I just wish he wasn't so anti-AI and anti-robot. I'm assuming he really needs to sell the public on human, not robotic, spaceflight for his company to succeed.

Only a very small part of income car is based on ZEV credits and if those were to go away they'd still have a ~20% profit margin which is well above most traditional auto companies. Their negative income has to do with the rapid expansion they are doing right now.

There always seems to be this ZOMG government bailout around Tesla when that's not really the case when you look at the entire picture.

They have a 22.6% GAAP gross margin excluding ZEV credits, BUT unlike every other car manufacturer Tesla doesn't account for R&D and engineering expenses as a fraction of COGS (that's why Elon can claim they are up there with Porsche and Audi, but that's a blatant lie). Just examine their 10-K. Sometimes Tesla can be so opaque and impervious to questioning.

>and there's something very off putting politically about hard-working middle-class families subsidizing ultra-sports cars for the wealthy.

Never thought of that actually. I agree with you, Tesla's going to bomb and the only benefit it made was to entertain the 1% for a while.

>there's something very off putting politically about hard-working middle-class families subsidizing ultra-sports cars for the wealthy.

It seemed to work out for our current President, who subsidized auto manufacturers through bailouts and "Cash for Clunkers" to buy electoral votes in OH and MI.

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