[HN Gopher] Tesla 2Q 2021 Quarterly Result
___________________________________________________________________
Tesla 2Q 2021 Quarterly Result
Author : marc__1
Score : 79 points
Date : 2021-07-26 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tesla-cdn.thron.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tesla-cdn.thron.com)
| TekMol wrote:
| Revenue doubled year over year.
|
| Anything else that stands out?
|
| Are there other examples of big tech companies that doubled their
| revenue over the last year?
| brianwawok wrote:
| Regulatory credits down. Critics have continued to say Tesla
| loses money if not for regulatory credits, so seeing those
| shrink while still growing is strong.
| nixass wrote:
| Tesla is big tech company? What tech company are you comparing
| Tesla against? People, get some perspective. It's easy to grow
| from 0.5 to 1 (wow, double) than from 500 to 1000
| new_realist wrote:
| Comparing revenue to a prior quarter when their factory was
| shutdown due to a pandemic is a little disingenuous. Look at
| "same store" sales (same market, like China or Europe) over
| time for the real growth story.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Their market share in China keeps increasing. Europe market
| shares are stagnating because they don't have local
| production capacity (Berlin plant is coming online later this
| year). They had to export MIC cars to Europe only to maintain
| some sales. US demand is off the charts and it makes no sense
| to sell US cars in Europe if the US market wants them now
| (especially as the US market is extremely tight).
|
| You can use sales as an indicator of success if they are
| still production constrained. Read the report, it's well
| explained.
| nickik wrote:
| The operating margin is 11% very high up their in the industry.
| Automotive margin is 25% and that is also very good.
|
| Energy and Solar margin are much worse but at least not negative
| anymore. This is a fast growing market and nobody else in the
| world is set up for it as well as Tesla is, both for home and
| grid. This will just continue to grow every year and there is
| large economics of scale that can be reached.
|
| Something that many people miss is that other car companies make
| a huge amount of money on service, because they have such large
| old fleets that need parts. Tesla does not have this and service
| has been a huge negative for them. This seems to be starting to
| slowly turn. In a few years Tesla service will be a huge cash
| cow, and Tesla will not have to share that money with dealers for
| the most part.
|
| Its the same with the supercharger network, huge investment now,
| hugely negative. But eventually that will be very profitable for
| them. Again, something people miss on the Tesla story. Large
| amounts of super-high margin revenue. Unlike players like
| Electrify America, Tesla builds its own chargers fully vertically
| integrated. Eventually Tesla can open the network to the
| competitors and that will give them high utilization on the
| network, making it very profitable.
|
| They are still not a large car company, their operating margin
| has a chance to be significantly better in another year. More
| local production in Europe and Eastern US, more S/X sales, better
| margin on solar and storage for sure, and profitable Cybertruck.
|
| Model Y/Cybertruck/Semi produced in Texas/Berlin will also use
| their own Tesla internal batteries, the far away most expensive
| part that they had to buy from suppliers. Tesla new manufacturing
| methods should allow them to both remove the profit the supplier
| would have made, and also produce the cells more cheaply. Storage
| should eventually get batteries from those plants as well but
| that might take a while.
|
| Overall pretty happy with the progress.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| More vehicle sales, less cash funds, more superchargers, looks
| like the explosive growth came to a halt. Btw where are all the
| announced vehicles that were supposed to be released after the
| model 3?
| brianwawok wrote:
| They are supply constrained until the Texas factory opens.
| Literally a 3-6 month wait if you go order one today. With
| Texas open they are on track to double sales if demand stays
| strong.
|
| Cybertruck comes next after Texas is pumping out 500k units a
| year, and they have the next battery pack ready to scale. My
| guess is summer-fall 2022 by the slow news on the topic.
| oblio wrote:
| How many factories do they have and how many do they plan to
| open?
|
| Texas, Berlin, something in China?
|
| Also, do we have a time frame for all of them? I'm trying to
| figure out how many vehicles they'd expect to sell per year
| in 5-10 years.
|
| Plus, the really interesting challenge, I wonder if they can
| do it: could they make a cheap compact car for ~20-25k?
| servercobra wrote:
| Elon already promised a ~$25k "Model 2" car within 3 years
| about a year ago, and the icon at Battery Day made it look
| like a compact car.
|
| Though with Elon-time maybe tack on another year.
| sovreign wrote:
| Elon mentioned that they are targeting 20 million vehicles
| (per year) by 2030. See the Battery Day presentation for
| more context.
| opinion-is-bad wrote:
| The fact that cheap sedans have such a low profit share in
| the industry, and already get great mileage, probably means
| that will be one of the last ICE segments to get eroded.
| coenhyde wrote:
| I hope they are close to deciding where the next few
| factories will go. They probably need to start building those
| as soon as Texas and Berlin begin production.
| brianwawok wrote:
| For US at least, the Texas site is real big. Like I think
| they could double capacity a few times. So may be a matter
| of scaling it up for a bit before needing to add another
| brand new factory.
| avelis wrote:
| They are constructing two factories at the same time. Berlin, &
| Austin. That's where all the cash is going.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Both of them are much bigger than the existing ones (Fremont
| and Shanghai). They're also converting Tillburg (Netherlands
| assembly plant) to an energy manufacturing plant. And they're
| planning on building a plant in India.
| slownews45 wrote:
| Uhh - aren't they shipping these things as fast as they can
| make them? Two factories under construction should help.
| They've been raising prices too I think a bit but could
| probably charge more in short run. I hope new factories do
| Model 3 / Model Y vs cybertruck.
|
| When you say growth has ended do you mean that there is no more
| demand or they just can't build and ship these $30K+ items fast
| enough?
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| > looks like the explosive growth came to a halt
|
| 128% YoY growth in gross profit
|
| 998% YoY growth in GAAP Net Income
|
| 920% YoY growth in GAAP EPS
|
| 151% YoY growth in production
|
| 120% YoY growth in deliveries
|
| All the while building out two more factories and going through
| a global pandemic and supply shortage.
|
| Yup. Definitely looks like it's come to a halt.
| samfisher83 wrote:
| Made over a billion in profit, and margins are close to 25% which
| are great.
| new_realist wrote:
| Operating margin is 11%. It's the first time Tesla has been
| GAAP profitable without regulatory credit sales (pollution
| credits that delay other automakers' EV programs) included,
| which is significant. They never should have sold a single
| pollution credit; that's a violation of their supposed mission
| statement. Every Tesla you buy allows a big polluting gas
| guzzler to be sold elsewhere, so there's no environmental
| benefit.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >They never should have sold a single pollution credit;
| that's a violation of their supposed mission statement. Every
| Tesla you buy allows a big polluting gas guzzler to be sold
| elsewhere, so there's no environmental benefit.
|
| These credits allowed Tesla to build the factories that are
| now pumping out EVs. If they had not sold these credits, the
| other manufacturers would sold less ICE, and without a
| successful EV markers to convince politicians that EV are
| viable, ICE makers would have proved to regulators that
| penalties are killing jobs and hurting the economy... for
| nothing. Credits would have been canceled and we would have
| more big polluting gas guzzlers around a handful of aging
| Tesla roadsters for billionaires.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| This may be an overly naive take on my behalf, but if it was
| 25% on a Model 3 specifically that means each one costs them
| $30K~ to build at a $40K price (and frankly 25% is likely too
| optimistic for their lowest margin vehicle).
|
| That makes me think we're many, many years away from seeing
| $25K~ EVs. You can cut some things off of the Model 3, but
| battery reduction in particular is a headache since you risk
| damaging your reputation/EV's reputations if you make it too
| weak (particularly with normal degradation).
|
| I know this is proprietary/secret, but I'd love to see a pie
| chart of where each dollar on a Model 3 goes. In particular how
| much is pure battery/drive system, and basically the whole rest
| of the car.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| When we can have $40K F-150 Lightning's and Cybertrucks, with
| their massive batteries, I think $25K electric econo-boxes
| will also be possible. The $70K F-150 Lightnings and
| Cybertrucks are coming next year, the $40K ones will take a
| little longer.
| nickik wrote:
| What you are missing is that a $25K would be quite a bit
| smaller then the Model 3, just as the Model 3 is quite a bit
| smaller then the Model S.
|
| The advantage there will come from a number of places over
| the current Model 3.
|
| Structural battery will make the car lighter, cheaper and of
| course efficient. The perspective $25K car will also likely
| use a cheaper battery chemistry produced by Tesla themselves
| and a much smaller overall pack. The range should be the same
| or slightly only slightly less.
|
| Put those things together, smaller, lighter, lower production
| cost and slightly lower margin (15%) makes this very much
| possible. Of course this car would have upgrades to, in the
| car industry the base model has much worse margin then the
| upgrade models.
|
| > I know this is proprietary/secret, but I'd love to see a
| pie chart of where each dollar on a Model 3 goes. In
| particular how much is pure battery/drive system, and
| basically the whole rest of the car.
|
| You can go to Munro & Associates and they will sell you a
| report with a detailed break down of the cost for literally
| every screw and how much it cost to screw it in. You can even
| get reports on the difference between China/US and so on.
|
| They also have a lot of video very you can learn about this.
| They don't show all the numbers of course but they do show a
| lot of interesting numbers.
|
| See: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj--iMtToRO_cGG_fpmP5XQ
|
| (Currently they are working on Ford Mach-E)
|
| If you are more interested in EV in general, not just Model
| 3, they have actually made their report of the BMW i3 almost
| free. You can literally get a report that used to be $50k for
| $10.
|
| See here:
|
| https://munrolive.com/support-%2F-store/ols/products/bmw-i3-.
| ..
|
| You can go and build your own BMW i3.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| If the total cost of ownership is lower with an EV, you can
| drag the payments out longer with lower interest financing
| because the vehicle will last longer. The upfront cost is
| higher, but you hack around it with financial engineering. I
| don't mind an 84 month auto loan at <2% interest, as long as
| it's cheap to drive (EVs are half the cost per mile as
| combustion vehicles) and retains enough value to defend
| against negative equity as the loan balance and vehicle value
| decline roughly at the same rate.
|
| You might not see $25K new EVs, but you'll see used versions
| around that price with 100k+ miles on them that still drive
| like they're new (there are Model S and X vehicles with
| hundreds of thousands of miles on their drivetrain still
| going strong).
|
| TLDR We're financially engineering our way out of combustion
| based transportation.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > If the total cost of ownership is lower with an EV, you
| can drag the payments out longer with lower interest
| financing because the vehicle will last longer.
|
| An EV is much less convenient than a conventional vehicle,
| it needs to have a lower CoO just to offset _that_. Once
| electric vehicles can charge in comparable times to gas for
| comparable miles, then we can talk, in the meantime you 're
| gaining lower ownership cost for more hassle (and that's
| ok, but you cannot double-dip it).
|
| > I don't mind an 84 month auto loan at <2% interest
|
| That's available on gas vehicles too (and even better
| interest rates in some cases), largely offsetting whatever
| edge you're trying to argue.
|
| > You might not see $25K EVs, but you'll see used versions
| around that price with 100k+ miles on them that still drive
| like they're new
|
| Drive like? Yes. Range? Unlikely. Just look at the costs of
| a full battery module replacement, it would eat up over 50%
| of that $25K price. Plus the rate of technological
| advancement may hurt old EVs worse than gas vehicles,
| because one is advancing more rapidly than the other.
|
| I suspect a lot of people care that electric sedans costs
| almost $15K more than hybrid sedans, and I suspect you'll
| see sales explode if a "Model 2" that cost $25K~ were ever
| produced (with a few disclaimers on range, seat capacity,
| etc).
| mason55 wrote:
| > _An EV is much less convenient than a conventional
| vehicle_
|
| Probably not true for a lot of people. I'd hit range
| limits maybe one or two days a year. In exchange I can
| have my car "full" all the time. It cuts out a lot of
| trips to the gas station, which aren't always convenient.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > An EV is much less convenient than a conventional
| vehicle... Once electric vehicles can charge in
| comparable times to gas for comparable miles, then we can
| talk...
|
| I wish this argument would just die. It's so ignorant and
| assine. The convenience is different, not less.
|
| I haven't had to stop at a gas station to fuel up either
| of my cars since Nov 2018. I haven't used a charger
| outside of my home since last August to charge my Nissan
| Leaf, and in 2020 I only used chargers twice. That's 2
| times since Nov of 2019 on a vehicle with an 80 mile
| range.
|
| Our Model 3 was driven across country and kept time with
| a box truck moving all of our belongings.
|
| I plug my cars in when I need a charge at home. I don't
| have to run out for gas the night before a trip or on the
| way. I don't have to make planned or unplanned stops at
| gas stations. I don't have to go to gas stations at all.
|
| But EVs are less convenient because you can imagine
| scenarios in your head.
| Smashure wrote:
| As someone who owns an EV and an ICE I'm not sure where
| you're getting ICE being more convenient.
|
| Ymmv buy in my experience my EV is way more convenient
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Why do you assume they'll drive like new? It's wear and
| tear that makes a car feel old, and Tesla isn't known for
| high quality.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I have ridden in Teslas with hundreds of thousands of
| miles on them, and am able to compare between that and my
| own Teslas and their (lower) mileage.
| MajorBee wrote:
| It's interesting (to me) that Model S/X units are only about 1%
| of all vehicles produced/delivered. Makes sense since those cars
| are much more expensive than Model 3/Y, but still.
| new_realist wrote:
| Sales of these models have been collapsing for several years
| now, because they're at the end of their cycle and in need of
| an exterior redesign.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Musk mentioned on one of their earnings calls they're made
| for sentimental reasons [1]. The new Plaid S looks good
| inside (imho, having sat in one). Based on their revenue
| numbers, I'm inclined to believe they don't need S/X halo
| cars to sell 3s and Ys (and soon, Cybertruck and Semi). The
| brand has been built, Plaid is for bragging rights against
| legacy automakers (Porsche Taycan). Stationary storage has
| huge demand and should not be discounted, every cell
| manufactured is being sold in a product.
|
| [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-making-model-s-x-
| for-s...
|
| (disclosure: no TSLA exposure, but keep my ear to the ground,
| also for sentimental reasons)
| virtuallynathan wrote:
| This quarter isn't representative, they only started deliveries
| of the new Model S at the very end of the quarter. Historically
| it's about 10%.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| That's only because they stopped production fully in Q1 for the
| refresh. Most likely the numbers will catch up to be just under
| 10% - at least until more factories open up and M3/Y production
| increases again.
| aequitas wrote:
| In our country the incentives for electric vehicles where being
| lowered just around the same time the Model 3 came around.
| Before that, you would be a fool for not buying a Model S (as
| business/contractor) as adding up all incentives and tax breaks
| would almost half the price. I believe other European countries
| follow a similar trend.
| umeshunni wrote:
| I suspect the margins on those cars are significantly higher
| and their contribution to profitability is higher than 1%
| cobookman wrote:
| I find that the model S doesn't have enough 'premium' to be
| justified over a model 3.
|
| That is unless you're looking at the model S plaid, but I can't
| envision huge demand for a car starting at 129k.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Everything that is premium in the Plaid is included in the
| new Model S. The whole line has been refreshed (and the X
| will too, soon).
| rkalla wrote:
| This - before the update to Model S that included the rear
| screen, it was getting REALLY hard to figure out why you
| would want to pay 2x for an electric car unless you wanted
| the... ventilated seats? marginal range improvement?
|
| If 500+ mile range becomes an S/X exclusive for a few years,
| feels like they need to do more to differentiate.
| jtlisi wrote:
| How much did they rake in from selling FSD vaporware?
| octopaulus wrote:
| Many $ from happy customers, many autonomous kilometers driven,
| have fun in your Ford focus
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| This vaporware recently drove 95%+ of a 2000 mile road trip for
| me. If only other vaporware was like this ...
| kensai wrote:
| Each and every modern car has a driving assistive system. It
| is vaporware since it is still no autonomous drive as touted
| for, but simply an assistance to the driver which requires
| his permanent attention.
|
| I have been much more impressed with HUDs in common cars
| lately. Now that, although definitely not related to
| autonomous is a huge help to offset the cognitive load.
| mperham wrote:
| Both your POVs can be true.
|
| It's not "full" if it's missing the 5%. In that sense, it's
| vaporware.
| bambax wrote:
| You're lucky to still be alive.
| nixass wrote:
| I too use my adaptive cruise control on German Autobahn and
| barely touch any commands while on it, I'd say it covers 95%
| of my needs too (it's not Tesla). And I call it as it is,
| adaptive cruise control, not the FSD
| pedrocr wrote:
| Adaptive cruise control doesn't steer the car. That plus
| "Lane Keep Assist" is mostly what Tesla "Autopilot" does.
| "FSD" does a bit more right now but not nearly as much as
| has been promised.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| This is adaptive cruise control to you?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYW75nKPMoY
| orourkek wrote:
| For that figure to be true you would have to ignore the
| requirement that you maintain awareness and control of the
| vehicle at all times. Autopilot !== FSD. Your car did not
| "drive itself," you were in control of the car 100% of the
| time -- at least I hope so...
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| In terms of workload, there is a huge difference between
| monitoring a system as opposed to hyper-focus and constant
| micro-adjustments for hours on end. The car stays in the
| lane as if on rails, passes other cars and takes exits. It
| also stops at traffic lights off highway and then continues
| as it turns green (if following a lead car).
|
| I know what I paid for. And I am getting my money's worth
| given how much it has kept improving. The new FSD Beta
| looks even more promising. It's swiftly reaching the point
| where it is a question of liability and regulatory
| approval.
| typon wrote:
| I have a Lexus with lane-keeping assist and adaptive cruise,
| on a 9 hour trip on Canadian highways, I have had to
| disengage only when I am exiting the highway to make pit
| stop. Should Lexus market their "Full Self Driving"
| capability too?
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Sure, as soon as your Lexus does that with just an OTA
| update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD_mF0OLJPs
| bob33212 wrote:
| I bought at 48k car in Q1 partially because of the autonomy
| potential. If FSD doesn't meet your expectations then don't buy
| it.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Tesla is performing great. Unfortunately, people have already
| priced that into the stock.
| [deleted]
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Not at all. P/E just dropped by half. Given the growing
| economies of scale and the two giant factories being built in
| Europe and Texas and more soon, the sky is the limit. You can
| ignore FSD and still easily project a $4,000 target by 2026. I
| highly recommend this short thread
| https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-valuation-base...
| (by a TMC member who's been highly reliable over the years).
| Disclosure: have been invested in TSLA for more than a decade
| now.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| P/E dropping sharply to a number that is still "normal" or
| higher is what is meant by good numbers being priced in.
| adventured wrote:
| Easily project a ~$4.3 trillion market cap in five years for
| an automaker that's already comically overvalued and has
| typical auto industry margins and nowhere near enough growth
| to get there. Fascinating.
|
| Plotting ~$60 billion in earnings and a 70+ PE ratio in five
| years.
|
| To do that they'll merely need $500b-$600b in sales (a couple
| trillion in sales across the next five years). And everyone
| in the developed world has to buy a Tesla within the next
| five years.
|
| Hilarious. All from the Model 3, which is the only thing they
| have to carry the entire company to those levels. The Model S
| and Model X certainly aren't going to move the $633b market
| cap needle beyond where it's already at, nor will solar (look
| at what the top solar companies are worth), nor will
| batteries (look at what the world's largest battery
| businesses are worth), nor will the big rig (look at what the
| top big rig segments are worth to other automakers).
|
| The article has some gigantic caveats given the obscene
| forecast, like this one: "the Cybertruck launch will need to
| go well" - understatement of the century. The Cybertruck is
| going to flop, after it initially sells well. Ford and the
| other traditional truck manufacturers will dominate electric
| trucks, because they're going to sell their customers the
| trucks those customers actually want to buy, not impractical
| gimmicks. Musk already knows it's going to ultimately flop,
| he has begun preparing the market for that outcome.
|
| If Tesla owned the entire auto market globally in five years,
| it wouldn't be worth half that $4.3t forecast. That's every
| car, truck and big rig sold everywhere on earth. Add up the
| value of all other automakers, now or five years ago, or ten
| years ago. The fantasy projection dissolves instantly when
| you shine light on it. It'll be a small miracle if Tesla is
| able to maintain their present valuation while pushing
| earnings up to $20b in five years, that will require
| extraordinary market-conquering continued growth across all
| product lines. They have to become akin to another Toyota in
| five years just to do that.
|
| I'll bookmark this ridiculous forecast and we can revisit it
| in a few years.
| [deleted]
| nickik wrote:
| > The Cybertruck is going to flop, after it initially sells
| well. Ford and the other traditional truck manufacturers
| will dominate electric trucks, because they're going to
| sell their customers the trucks those customers actually
| want to buy, not impractical gimmicks.
|
| Complete nonsense. Ford or GM do not have supply of
| batteries to produce all those trucks you believe they will
| make. Specially not when also attempting to ramp many of
| their normal cars.
|
| The claim that Tesla vehicles will drop of in sales after
| early adopters has been wrong every single time.
| Cyblertruck has more pre-orders then any vehicle ever.
| Every single analysis on interest in the truck show
| gigantic interest.
|
| > Musk already knows it's going to ultimately flop, he has
| begun preparing the market for that outcome.
|
| This statement is literally wrong. Musk actually did the
| exact opposite. Musk says its the best product they have
| ever designed. And they are building a gigantic factory
| specifically for that product, a factory that cost
| billions.
|
| Solar, EV, Battery, Grid Battery, Semis are all in
| exponential growth. Saying 'look at the currently biggest
| battery company' is an dumb measure. That like saying 'look
| at what the largest airplane company is worth in 1920,
| therefore no large airplane company in 1940 can that big'.
|
| I haven't look at that specific forecast, it might well be
| optimistic. But there is no question that all of those
| markets are gone grow exponentially and its no question
| that Tesla is incredibly well placed to take advantage of
| those growth curves.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| You make good points, but I still wouldn't take that side
| of the bet. TSLA price has been divorced from reality for
| years and it's entirely unpredictable when and how that
| will end.
| adventured wrote:
| There's a bit divorced from reality, and there's
| implausible.
|
| Amazon was a bit divorced from reality as well for most
| of its history. They had extraordinary continued sales
| growth to fuel that divorce, to underpin those high
| expectations, along with a quasi segment monopoly. That
| held up for a time. However it began to stall as online
| retail growth rates began to falter (look at Amazon's
| stock from 2011-2015, nice but nothing crazy while still
| carrying a ridiculous multiple; that's the result of
| retail profit & margin reality setting in). And then they
| started publishing AWS results and its software-like
| margins, and eventually the hyper margin ad business;
| kaboom goes the stock, due to that earnings growth and
| its forward expectations.
|
| What's the Tesla AWS / Ad explosion? There isn't one.
| They don't have a business like that, where they'll get
| to print monopoly-like software profits. Amazon blazed a
| new path with AWS that they got to own as they went.
| Tesla has to take auto share from companies like BMW,
| Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Daimler, VW, Ford, GM, etc. as
| they go (to say nothing of the Chinese EV makers that
| will eventually dominate that domestic market and
| gradually push outward globally). Entirely different
| context.
|
| Tesla is an increasingly boring automaker, nothing more.
| EVs are just vehicles, they don't come with 4x or 6x the
| margins of ICE vehicles that Mercedes or BMW produce. The
| best case scenario, realistically, is that Tesla becomes
| Toyota or Daimler. That will be an astounding outcome, to
| get there and then hold that ground against that much
| competition. There's no AWS business coming to save their
| valuation. Batteries are not a stellar business, the
| solar business sucks big time (just look at the solar
| companies, their earnings and their market values), and
| the big rig business is also not at all spectacular.
|
| Tesla also is not going to own the luxury market, they're
| horrible at making luxury vehicles. Daimler & Co will
| continue to dominate luxury vehicles. Tesla had its shot,
| a huge headstart, at conquering luxury EVs and entirely
| failed to put a big enough stake into the ground, they're
| out of time (look at what their high-end segment of sales
| is worth today or yesterday, it's a pittance despite the
| huge headstart; they've done a terrible job there).
|
| The Cybertruck isn't going to take over the truck market.
|
| What's left? The Model 3 has to conquer planet Earth in
| four to five years. Everyone has to buy one. It's not
| going to happen.
|
| I defended Tesla for most of a decade on this forum. When
| a lot of people here said Tesla would never produce the
| Model 3 at scale, I argued against that skepticism across
| numerous threads over and over again; it was obvious it
| could be done. There's a difference between recognizing
| Tesla wasn't going to go bankrupt a few years ago for
| example (an easy argument I took up across numerous
| threads), and buying into really really crazy forecasts
| that are well outside of the realm of believable. There's
| being objective about what's actually likely, plausible,
| and just frothing at the mouth on bubble kool-aid.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| But you're forgetting their solar roof industry! As they
| improve, the number of roof fires they cause are sure to
| decrease. If they don't, Tesla could instead turn a profit
| here by selling fire insurance. /s
| hermannj314 wrote:
| Way to go to TSLA.
|
| I was a naysayer through 2020 and I lost a lot of money
| personally betting against this company ("but what about
| regulatory credits", ugh); however, with over one billion in net
| income in a single quarter and growing revenues and declining
| reg. credits , I will admit that I couldn't have been more wrong.
| bob33212 wrote:
| Thanks for being honest, far too many people cannot admit they
| are wrong and double down and call Tesla a fraud only making
| them look worse in the future. I've certainly been wrong about
| companies before. I shorted AAPL for a week in 2002.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I could have seen people doing that during the time before
| Jobs' return. By 2002, OS X had been released, and the wave
| of iMacs and what not had been around.
|
| What happened during that week in 2002 that I'm not
| remembering?
| bob33212 wrote:
| I was in college and it seemed that the first IPOD was
| overpriced and just a "cool" thing to buy. There were other
| MP3 players that were cheaper coming on the market. But I
| quickly realized the risk is too high if AAPL continues to
| be popular even if their hardware is overpriced.
| pstuart wrote:
| The famous ipod review by CmdrTaco (creator of Slashdot):
|
| > No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
| nazka wrote:
| But with the market cap it's at now it is really hard to
| phantom. I mean it's the most valued car manufacturer in the
| world and beat Toyota by so much..! Even by being a bullish for
| a long long time. It's hard to see a reasonable spot to enter
| now.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Read this: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-
| valuation-base...
| nazka wrote:
| Thanks! Will do.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| NB: this excludes robotaxi, so any revenues from an
| autonomous fleet would be cherry on top (it could double
| the profit, still).
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| I've noticed the number of Tesla cars on the road in SV is
| around 4%, possibly more. It surprising how quickly they've
| become commonplace, even on their home turf.
| spullara wrote:
| Our entire neighborhood seems to have at least 1, sometimes 2
| each in Cupertino/Los Altos.
| bilal4hmed wrote:
| Im in the suburbs of Houston, TX and I easily see that here
| too if not more.
| slownews45 wrote:
| I've always been bullish tesla and a lot of the arguments
| against them ignore the underlying ideas (will electric
| vehicles, power storage and solar be major areas?). I think the
| power storage piece is also going to just be huge and would
| love if they let their cars feed into a transfer switch etc.
|
| The stock price does seem very high though even if you DO buy
| into their story (which I do) - but a lot of the stock market
| feels high - just a lot of money sloshing around these days.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > would love if they let their cars feed into a transfer
| switch etc
|
| I have to imagine that's a non trivial task that would
| require Permission To Operate from your power company.
|
| When you have solar/batteries installed, you have to be
| inspected and receive PTO from your energy provider.
|
| They only just opened up their Beta to allow your Powerwall
| to backfeed power to the grid on demand.
|
| If and when they allow vehicles to supply power to the grid,
| it is going to require the vehicle owner to have their setup
| inspected and PTO granted. I have a feeling this will
| dissuade people who don't already have solar/batteries from
| participating.
| slownews45 wrote:
| I'm looking more for a replacement for the generator, you
| can usually get a generator + transfer switch without too
| much difficulty because you are not backfeeding grid, but
| you would be backfeeding your house.
|
| The capacity in these vehicles is actually relatively good
| relative to household loads.
|
| Their powerwall stuff with grid support / virtual power
| plant obviously has much bigger grid impacts / risks (ie,
| how do workers lock out feed to grid when working on lines
| etc).
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Storage is flat to modestly in decline. Battery storage is a
| competitive, commodity business. Not sure how huge it will
| be.
| nickik wrote:
| No it isn't. Look at year over year. They have massive
| demand they can't deliver. Quarter over Quarter grid
| storage is very depended on when project finish.
|
| > Battery storage is a competitive, commodity business.
|
| No isn't. There is really not that much Li-Ion grid storage
| being deployed right now and not by that many companies.
| That market is growing fast.
|
| > Not sure how huge it will be.
|
| The amount of needed grid storage is gigantic.
|
| Edit: Elon just said on the call that they are massively
| limited on production. Partly because of the chip issue,
| same chips are used in the cars and the cars have higher
| margin. But cell supply is also limited. So the demand is
| growing but they can't increase production as fast.
| marvin wrote:
| Assuming that the world will eventually transition to
| 100% renewable energy, it's not unreasonable to estimate
| the eventual total market size to be higher than the
| world's nightly power consumption.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I wonder how many more orders of magnitude are required to solve
| self driving...
|
| do we need 10 or 100M more vehicles streaming data, or do we need
| to use 1000x more transistors daily for the AI annealing? 10,000x
| the number of parameters?
|
| Maybe things have to be a billion times better before we get real
| FSD?
| ska wrote:
| > Maybe things have to be a billion times better before we get
| real FSD?
|
| One problem with this kind of estimation is that it's not
| actually clear that we can get there from "here" using current
| approaches. If it turn we can't, estimation is pretty hopeless
| if history tells us anything about putting a timeline on
| breakthroughs...
| jowday wrote:
| The "fleet learning" pipeline Elon described at Autonomy Day
| doesn't actually exist in practice. They have some hardcoded
| heuristic triggers that capture snippets of data to be
| annotated by human labelers to train perception models off of.
| The bottleneck is labeling/engineering.
|
| Autonomous vehicles by and large aren't a data problem anyways
| - it's a robotics problem conditioned on the output of ML
| models for perception and prediction. The majority of the work
| is just implementing all of the bizarre edge cases inside of
| the robotics stack.
|
| The idea of tackling this with an e2e ML model is a pipe dream
| touted by people that aren't familiar with the space or trying
| to hype up their approach. Whenever this approach is attempted
| teams will very quickly realize how untenable it is and return
| to implementing individual robotics modules.
|
| tl;dr there's nothing special about Tesla's approach to AVs or
| machine learning and you shouldn't expect them to leapfrog the
| competition because of some nebulous ML-based advantage.
|
| Coming from someone who has seen the interiors of both the FSD
| beta and the stack at an actual AV company.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >The idea of tackling this with an e2e ML model is a pipe
| dream touted by people that aren't familiar with the space or
| trying to hype up their approach. Whenever this approach is
| attempted teams will very quickly realize how untenable it is
| and return to implementing individual robotics modules.
|
| Except Andrej Karpathy. Why dumb down if they know it isn't
| working, now that they have all the financial resources to
| pivot and overtake the other manufacturers (who have not
| achieve anything anyway)? It makes no sense, unless Karpathy
| does not know what he's doing.
|
| Edit: the argument that others don't agree is not convincing
| because Tesla should not have succeeded by others' standards
| either.
| lowdose wrote:
| Record driving behavior off all cars coupled with their number
| plates and let the AI decide what to do next.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| "the AI." You know this doesn't exist, right?
| dylan604 wrote:
| I think there's a whole lot of people that would be upset
| to find out you don't think they exist. I mean, come on,
| people have a hard enough time with eternal questions like
| "who am I?" and you come along and tell them they don't
| exist? I now understand why Marvin the robot was in the
| mood he was. Why bother?
| andyxor wrote:
| What's needed is qualitative not quantitative change, AI needs
| a fundamental breakthrough to mimic natural cognition to some
| minimal degree, but it's all pseudo-science at this point
| unfortunately.
|
| The current deep learning approach is a dead end.
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