Its not that I don't believe TSLA has a technological edge over the competition at this time however Volvo Porsche gm and ford have a huge edge on manufacturing side and supply chain auto parts suppliers have been dealing with these companies for 100 years do you think this can be a problem for TSLA
Why isn't Tesla (or Twitter) running out of money?
- Thread starter Pekelo
- Start date
I would go back to a comment earlier in the thread that @Pekelo made about the cloud and Amazon. If you weren't aware, Amazon developed a huge cloud infrastructure to run the Amazon store you are familiar with. They realized that this infrastructure could be used for more than just them running their online empire, and started selling access to it through Amazon Web Services. Since the 2008 timeframe, AWS revenue was the thing that was making Amazon profitable, not selling and delivering stuff. They basically break even on the rest, but the rest requires the huge web infrastructure which enables AWS, so they couldn't do AWS (as effectively) without the rest of Amazon even if it is basically just breaking even.
Tesla is following the same model. It's all about the batteries. Both Telsa cars and SolarCity's (which is now part of Tesla) solar plus storage are in large part about batteries. I maintain one should really think of Tesla as a battery company, with a captive electric car and solar company that allow them to develop the capability to build better, cheaper, higher capacity batteries. Just like Amazon is a cloud company with a captive online store that allows them to build better, cheaper, faster cloud services.
When you look at them through that lense, it becomes silly to compare them to car companies and it's really irrelevant if it costs them a couple extra bucks for a fender over what Ford pays because the car isn't really the product they'll end up making money on. And when it comes to batteries, Tesla definitely has a technological edge not only over the car companies but over pretty much anyone else in the space.
That said, Elon Musk is an anti-Bezos when it comes to operations. Tesla is a complete shitshow when it comes to actually implementing Musk's grand plans, and he is completely uninterested and almost willfully oblivious to operations. It's a massive blindspot on his part, and one that could well see the company sink before what I think is an otherwise very good strategy come to fruition. So I'm not necessarily a Tesla (or Elon) bull, but I think it's important to understand what they're trying to do when evaluating how they're doing.
I agree (about the likelihood of profitability). But at the risk of bringing up too many analogies, think about a biotech firm that has a promising drug that will be worth billions if/when approved, but it's 5 years away from approval. The firm can still have a high valuation, even though it's guaranteed to lose money until the drug is approved, based on the chance of approval and the amount it will be worth if approved. I think Tesla's being viewed in much the same way. Again not saying that's necessarily a wise way to view it, just how people are viewing it and why the resulting valuation.
Amazon reminds me of a guy who started out a lawn mower service in Alaska and while searching for profitability, ended up being a hairdresser. The original idea of selling books online was a financial failure (they never did it with a profit) but eventually they have found their niche, could services. Funny thing is, they could have just bought a shitload of computers/servers and leave out the building of distribution centers.
Tesla is really in the stock selling business. There is nothing special proprietary about them that you won't see in other EVs today or in a few years. Their hugely costly fast charger network could have been a killer IF other automaker embrace the same standard, but in Europe they just came up with their own. The swallowing up of SolarCity had nothing to do with batteries, it was a "saving my cousin's ass" kind of move.
Now if SpaceX actually keeps making money, what if they merge with Tesla and Tesla ends up in the space business? Forget about EVs, they are only good to be shot into space anyway...
But the point of the video is, as long as they don't run out of cash and they still can raise money, the dream will live on.
Tesla is really in the stock selling business. There is nothing special proprietary about them that you won't see in other EVs today or in a few years. Their hugely costly fast charger network could have been a killer IF other automaker embrace the same standard, but in Europe they just came up with their own. The swallowing up of SolarCity had nothing to do with batteries, it was a "saving my cousin's ass" kind of move.
Now if SpaceX actually keeps making money, what if they merge with Tesla and Tesla ends up in the space business? Forget about EVs, they are only good to be shot into space anyway...
But the point of the video is, as long as they don't run out of cash and they still can raise money, the dream will live on.
@pekolo Enron moved things around and had a lot of cousins (off shore ) again I'm just trying to figure it out but I really don't have to lose money either way . my idea was to be short but I can wait . I think if it trades below 300 its going to trade to 230 but that's just my guess (oppinon)
It's not the chargers, it's manufacturing the batteries. I think you're right about them being in the stock selling business as was Amazon. Amazon could never have raised the amount they needed in 1999 to become the leading cloud provider if they sold stock in a cloud service. Tesla could never raise the amount they need selling stock in a battery maker.Amazon reminds me of a guy who started out a lawn mower service in Alaska and while searching for profitability, ended up being a hairdresser. The original idea of selling books online was a financial failure (they never did it with a profit) but eventually they have found their niche, could services. Funny thing is, they could have just bought a shitload of computers/servers and leave out the building of distribution centers.
Tesla is really in the stock selling business. There is nothing special proprietary about them that you won't see in other EVs today or in a few years. Their hugely costly fast charger network could have been a killer IF other automaker embrace the same standard, but in Europe they just came up with their own. The swallowing up of SolarCity had nothing to do with batteries, it was a "saving my cousin's ass" kind of move.
Now if SpaceX actually keeps making money, what if they merge with Tesla and Tesla ends up in the space business? Forget about EVs, they are only good to be shot into space anyway...
But the point of the video is, as long as they don't run out of cash and they still can raise money, the dream will live on.
BTW I grew up in Alaska. What kind of moron tries to start a lawn mowing business where no-one has a lawn and even if you did it would only be visible 5 months a year!
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The CEO of SolarCity, Lyndon Rive, was literally Elon Musk's cousin. Although he lost his job with the merger, so didn't really work out that well for him I guess.