Just quoting the facts. Profits is what you have left after expenses. They're just looking at the numbers from the last quarter and if you exclude the regulatory credits and bitcoin gains, the numbers don't look that good. The problem with EV is that it doesn't scale like certain other markets. For instance in software, it costs about the same to develop a software package, but if you double your sales, a large part of that is profits as the incremental sale is mostly profit, it doesn't have a fixed cost per unit like an EV.
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- Thread starter Oildudeny
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I know a little about software, manufacturing and incremental sales. Remember, Teslas use a lot of software.
In manufacturing cars, you typically gain efficiencies of scale with increased production, up to a relevant range, such as factory capacity. And yes, Tesla's problem is lack of factory capacity and resulting distribution problems. Fremont is at cpapcity and continues to expand. Austin and Berlin cannot come up fast enough. Shanghai is contunuing to expand; the world is waiting for the Model 2.
They're not actually blowing past other automakers in terms of volume. Most cars follow a certain trend in sales. The Toyota Camry sells 300-400k cars a year, the Ford F150 sells 700-800k a year. There always seems to be some initial demand so in the first few years, sales boom, then as it ages, people lose interest and sales decline, then a new model comes up and the boom bust continues. Not sure where we are in that cycle and how it will play out with Tesla. You're basically at the beginning of that curve and you can say the sky's the limit. As mentioned earlier, look at what happened with the Prius, initially high sales, then people eventually lost interest. That took years though. Someone at work had one, they eventually got rid of their Prius and ended up in a Subaru.
To be fair I don't think the long term Tesla market is in the US. The rest of the world tax their vehicles and fuel to the max and we in the US will continue to drive cheap SUV and truck with cheap gasoline. The problem with valuing Tesla as Ford is they are completely different. Ford customers aren't interested in a Tesla and the other way is true. Then you also have the legacy union, factories, domain knowledges, economy of scale, and customer base (one wants power for value the other wants technologies for value).
When you have a new player enter the market it is natural for the existing player to lose market share percentage, that's just math. I don't think it make sense for Ford to abandon their own platform to make new EV but Tesla is starting from scratch so they can do all sorts of things like gigacast and new platform. Just the same as Mazda being a smaller company they can use a different platform than larger companies, and focus on a different segments.
I would say Elon is probably the only person who has the charisma and strong will to get Tesla where it is today. Imagine if Jeff Bezos were running Tesla it would probably be a Wu-Ling whatever in China: cheap, low tech, penalty box, making lots of profit but disposable rental fleet. Think Kindle Fire tablet full of bloatware nobody cares about, but a car.
If you want good return and low risk you should invest in Amazon or Walmart instead of Tesla. If you invest in Tesla don't look at the quarter to quarter profit and compare it to Walmart or Amazon. The Chinese would likely be a bigger threat to Tesla than Ford.
When you have a new player enter the market it is natural for the existing player to lose market share percentage, that's just math. I don't think it make sense for Ford to abandon their own platform to make new EV but Tesla is starting from scratch so they can do all sorts of things like gigacast and new platform. Just the same as Mazda being a smaller company they can use a different platform than larger companies, and focus on a different segments.
I would say Elon is probably the only person who has the charisma and strong will to get Tesla where it is today. Imagine if Jeff Bezos were running Tesla it would probably be a Wu-Ling whatever in China: cheap, low tech, penalty box, making lots of profit but disposable rental fleet. Think Kindle Fire tablet full of bloatware nobody cares about, but a car.
If you want good return and low risk you should invest in Amazon or Walmart instead of Tesla. If you invest in Tesla don't look at the quarter to quarter profit and compare it to Walmart or Amazon. The Chinese would likely be a bigger threat to Tesla than Ford.
It's already happening, Tesla's China sales were down 27% last month. But yeah, there's going to be swings, the drawback of the China market is that the government can easily control sentiment and it can quickly shift.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-april-sales-from-china-were-mostly-exports-11620817683
https://markets.businessinsider.com...-shanghai-factory-elon-musk-2021-5-1030415302
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/t...n-after-downbeat-china-sales-data-11620738050
Tesla to me is an "idea" and if you like the idea then invest what you can afford to lose. No different then bitcoin. Pure spec play.
Tesla has nothing more of a product then any other automaker and its selling at 579 times earnings.
Now in the 560 range down from its high of 880 only 5 months ago.
In just a few years the market will be saturated with EV's from GM and Ford. Im just not sure how much of a spec play Tesla can be, but then again, I dont know anything about the company and dont follow it.
Alll I do know is GM sells for 7 times earnings ... vs Tesla 579 ... it just seems to be one of those media darlings to me, nothing more.Unless of course you invested a while back.. if so I think I would move on ...
Tesla has nothing more of a product then any other automaker and its selling at 579 times earnings.
Now in the 560 range down from its high of 880 only 5 months ago.
In just a few years the market will be saturated with EV's from GM and Ford. Im just not sure how much of a spec play Tesla can be, but then again, I dont know anything about the company and dont follow it.
Alll I do know is GM sells for 7 times earnings ... vs Tesla 579 ... it just seems to be one of those media darlings to me, nothing more.Unless of course you invested a while back.. if so I think I would move on ...
Am I the only one who cringes when I see an article talk about how it's the roaring 20's again, as the pandemic wraps up and the economy booms? Then and now are not quite the same, and the economy is cyclic, but whenever I see that reference I always shudder.
Housing and stocks are behaving like the roaring 20s in that they don’t reflect reality and you “can’t loose”
Lots of borrowed money floating around
The earnings are 100% based on inflationary issues in that there is no where else to drop money and expect any return.
The difference is the real output of the economy hasn’t been “booming” since the 90’s. Systemic unemployment (real unemployment based on workforce engagement not the fake one)
has been permanently higher after 2 jobless recoveries.
hours per job is lower, percentage of people working multiple jobs is higher.
very bad all around
What will the numbers be now that Stellantis isn't buying Tesla's CO2 credits anymore?
BTC down 20% today..... down 40% from peak in April .....ETH down 30 % today
Right, it's not the same, but after the 1918 pandemic, you had the roaring 20's and it didn't stop til the 30's so if it's the 20's again, it could go on for a while.
True, true. It’s the 10 years of depression that worries me!
No crystal ball can be had, and so much has changed since then. But I’d be lying if I wasn’t worried about the next crash. It’s inevitable, it’s part of life, but... I would not care if I didn’t invest in the market, but since I do, it’s become a care.
Just be conservative with your investments and don’t worry....
Thats what I do. Markets could drop 30-40% and I won’t lose any sleep.
I'm not sure everything is inevitable, depends if we can learn from history or not. Lots of things done in the 30s that wouldn't be done today that made things worse, not better.
I'm trying to make up for lost time. I can't shovel more in as I have to get by (family at home plus a mortgage) so I have to leave it risky. Mostly in growth funds at the moment, going to leave it there until I'm less than 10 years out from retirement--then I'll rebalance and slowly get some portion into lower risk (not all, just enough for a few years of living).
On the plus side I have 20 years until retirement--22 until full social security, but if I get lucky maybe I can quit before then. On the minus side I still have 28 years left on the mortgage. Wife says she'll start working again a couple of years so at that point we might focus on the mortgage. But still.
You are on a great track. It seems many people wait until their 50's (or later) to learn your wise words.
I can show you many people who made incredible salaries and got options in the Silicon Valley explosion starting in the 1980's who have little to show for it. And others who did not make as much, but lived more frugally and saved what they could. They are on easy street.
Good luck to you, but I don't think you will need it.
I just switched up the allocations for one of my 401k accounts to go from 10% bonds to 25% bonds. I took that 15% from a high growth fund that has been doing great. I'm just at my limit of comfort for risk on that right now. I want to hedge it a little bit, plus the current prices for that bond fund were looking like a good discount right now with how the bond market has been doing. I've got a good 30+ years though to make up for it if I just made a huge mistake.
Just continue contributing to your 401K and IRA through good and bad times in any economy and you’ll be OK. Study after study shows consistent contributions grow substantially over a 2 decade timeframe similar to what Wolf and Astro had previously posted. At my job I’ve met a couple 401K millionaires but they were always contributing from each paycheck.
This is Vanguard’s 2020 comprehensive look at their retail investors. Lots of great info and research.
https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/how-america-invests-2020.pdf
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