Tesla Returns To Profitability, Smashes Analyst Estimates 230
Rei writes: After two profitable quarters last year, Tesla was hit by a perfect storm of filled U.S. backlog, S/X cannibalization by Model 3, a botched international launch, and price cuts due to U.S. tax credit phaseouts, leading to a very poor Q1 showing. While cashflow went positive in Q2, profits remained elusive, and -- relying on lower-cost Model 3 variants with minimal U.S. tax credits -- expectations for Q3 weren't much better.
Instead, Tesla posted a blowout quarter: $5.3 billion record cash on hand, profits ($143M GAAP, $342M non-GAAP), margins rising from 18.9% to 22.8%, and sizeable growth in both solar and storage. Across the board, the company ran ahead of schedule: volume production of Model Y is pulled forward to next summer; Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai is producing cars and awaiting final sales certification after being built up from a muddy field in 10 months at a third the capital cost per vehicle; Semi (previously suggested as slipping to 2021) is back to 2020 production; and the production version of the solar roof tiles will be launching at an event on Thursday. The new, shipping crate-format Megapack energy storage products start being installed this quarter. As for vehicles, the company continues to be production constrained, with significant wait times on new orders in all markets; annual production and sales guidance of 360-400k was reiterated. Model S/X production is being raised to make up for new demand for the "Raven" update. On the self-driving front, while the company launched Smart Summon at the end of Q3, only $30 million of revenue was recognized because of it; half a billion dollars of unrecognized Full Self Driving (FSD) revenue remains on the books for future quarters. The company reiterated guidance of FSD being "feature complete" (handling all driving from driveway to destination, with supervision) by the end of this year at least as a limited prerelease, and capability for unsupervised driving by the end of next year, limited by the rate of regulatory approvals. Also announced as upcoming in the next few weeks: OTA upgrades for range on new Model S/X vehicles, a 3% OTA performance improvement to S/X, and a 5% performance improvement for Model 3.
During the earnings call, Musk credited the surge in progress in Tesla's non-core divisions to being able to dedicate more engineering and financial resources to them after stabilizing Model 3 production rates and costs. Tesla's stock surged 20% in aftermarket trading, equivalent to the company's second-highest percentage gain ever, and its highest in absolute terms. Electrek, The Financial Times, and CNBC are reporting Tesla's third-quarter earnings.
Instead, Tesla posted a blowout quarter: $5.3 billion record cash on hand, profits ($143M GAAP, $342M non-GAAP), margins rising from 18.9% to 22.8%, and sizeable growth in both solar and storage. Across the board, the company ran ahead of schedule: volume production of Model Y is pulled forward to next summer; Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai is producing cars and awaiting final sales certification after being built up from a muddy field in 10 months at a third the capital cost per vehicle; Semi (previously suggested as slipping to 2021) is back to 2020 production; and the production version of the solar roof tiles will be launching at an event on Thursday. The new, shipping crate-format Megapack energy storage products start being installed this quarter. As for vehicles, the company continues to be production constrained, with significant wait times on new orders in all markets; annual production and sales guidance of 360-400k was reiterated. Model S/X production is being raised to make up for new demand for the "Raven" update. On the self-driving front, while the company launched Smart Summon at the end of Q3, only $30 million of revenue was recognized because of it; half a billion dollars of unrecognized Full Self Driving (FSD) revenue remains on the books for future quarters. The company reiterated guidance of FSD being "feature complete" (handling all driving from driveway to destination, with supervision) by the end of this year at least as a limited prerelease, and capability for unsupervised driving by the end of next year, limited by the rate of regulatory approvals. Also announced as upcoming in the next few weeks: OTA upgrades for range on new Model S/X vehicles, a 3% OTA performance improvement to S/X, and a 5% performance improvement for Model 3.
During the earnings call, Musk credited the surge in progress in Tesla's non-core divisions to being able to dedicate more engineering and financial resources to them after stabilizing Model 3 production rates and costs. Tesla's stock surged 20% in aftermarket trading, equivalent to the company's second-highest percentage gain ever, and its highest in absolute terms. Electrek, The Financial Times, and CNBC are reporting Tesla's third-quarter earnings.
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I think the situation they find themselves in in China is the most positive news. Built a new gigafactory in record time (168 working days), is the first US-only auto manufacturer in China, the Chinese market is on pace to purchase one million EVs this year, and Tesla's new factory will be able to build 150,000 vehicles a year. Basically, they will sell all they can make.
I expect they will announce before too long that they are starting work on a second factory (in addition to the battery factory they've
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...the Chinese market is on pace to purchase one million EVs this year, and Tesla's new factory will be able to build 150,000 vehicles a year. Basically, they will sell all they can make.
At whatever price they want. That's the really big thing.
When demand is that high, profit margins are going to be insane.
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The demand for electric vehicles will be most felt in the collapse of used fossil fuelers, eww, it's going to be ugly and then the fucking hassle of still left open service stations to get fuel. It is coming, still a few more years of hoping from one foot to the other, buy now and pay too much for electric or wait and lose even more on your fossil or hope for a cheap electric conversion, out with the old engine, transmission, and fuel tank and in with batteries (technically the transmission would be replace
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Long story short, your idea that gas will die overnight isn't going to happen.
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Besides, gasoline is used for more than just cars. I doubt we'll see all the lawnmowers and leaf blowers going pure-electric any time soon.
Re:Depreciation and such (Score:4, Informative)
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Sure. I have an electric leaf blower and an electric hedge trimmer, and I think my parents have an electric trimmer mower. But folks who do that for a living have gas-powered leaf blowers, lawn tractors, and so on. Comparing those with the electric equivalents is like comparing a real car to the Tesla Model S For Kids (think Power Wheels). They're a lot more powerful.
I'll start to believe that electric will completely eliminate gasoline in my lifetime when John Deere starts making an electric tractor.
I've got a few friends who do that for a living. (Score:5, Interesting)
And they are replacing their gas powered equipment for electric all over the place. They are both quieter, more powerful, lighter and faster. Battery tech has got too good. Blowers, trimmers, chainsaws, the works. Mower themselves are still gas, but that's changing fast.
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But folks who do that for a living have gas-powered leaf blowers, lawn tractors, and so on
Or they have some spare battery packs charging in their truck.
Re:I've got a few friends who do that for a living (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe riding mowers. I have had an 80v battery push mower for the last two seasons and it's worked out great. One battery does my entire front yard, and if I want to mow up the leaves instead of rake or go bush hogging (I am not gentle with lawn mowers) with it in the back I can use the second battery.
Has more power than my my old craftsman gas mower and is lighter while still being all metal (as opposed to many/most corded electric).
Not having to change oil/change spark plug/drain gas in winter/clean carb. is a major plus too.
I could easily see a market for electric riding mowers when the batteries get a bit cheaper. I could easily envision throwing a cheap inverter and a couple of panels on your shed and charging your mower "off-grid" all week long for use on the weekend.
Re:I've got a few friends who do that for a living (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a 40V (Ryobi) battery push mower (and snowblower) and it's hands down the best mower I've ever used. Like half the weight of a two stroke, and all the maintenance of a cordless drill.
Two batteries are more than enough to do the whole lawn. Since it's got a slot for the spare, I go mowing, and when one dies 5 seconds later I've swapped them and I'm back mowing. One battery onto the charger when I'm done, and sometime later in the week I'll be walking by to the car and remember to swap them. No trips to the gas station, no playing small engine mechanic, no making sure to run it dry or drain it before winter, no plugged carburetors, no pull start not working.....it's seriously amazing.
Plus it's so damn quiet. While I am mowing I can clearly hear when neighbors fire up their gas mowers. They are so much louder. You can actually have a conversation while this mower is running at pretty much a normal volume level.
The batteries aren't quite there yet for a commercial operation. Either the energy density needs to go up or the charge time needs to go down by a good 50%. But they're more than sufficient to replace all suburban gas powered lawn/garden devices.
Re: ... friends who do that for a living. (Score:3)
Mower themselves are still gas, but that's changing fast.Mower themselves are still gas, but that's changing fast.
For a service, yes. For a homeowner, not all mowers are gas and it's been that way for some time. Recent battery improvements, while terrific, weren't necessary for mowers - because the wheeled platform could easily support a heavy battery (which, with an electric motor, added up to a tad less than the weight of an IC engine).
I've had an electric mower for my townhouse for about 20 years now.
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Besides, gasoline is used for more than just cars. I doubt we'll see all the lawnmowers and leaf blowers going pure-electric any time soon.
Long haul trucks aren't going to be electric any time soon either. People might have to take a slightly longer detour to a truck stop, instead of a corner filling station to fill up, but that's a minor inconvenience. There's also electric hybrids for people that want an ICE for long drives and cold weather, while still allowing for an overnight recharge at home for the typical daily commute.
What's likely to become popular should there be a shunning of gasoline burners is a switch to natural gas cars. A n
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I'd figure that, oh, 95% of people would have to be in EVs before people need to start going to a "truck stop" to get gasoline.
They'd not likely get gasoline, they'd likely burn diesel like the big trucks. There are diesel cars available now, though perhaps not all that popular outside of Europe. It's real difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. If there is some kind of economic or societal push to get rid of the gasoline car then it can happen quite quickly, first with people moving to diesel cars and hybrids. Then neighborhood filling stations close or switch from gasoline to electric charge points, natura
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I have heard of cities now banning the use of combustion engines for garden equipment and know the battery driven replacements are available.
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Besides, gasoline is used for more than just cars. I doubt we'll see all the lawnmowers and leaf blowers going pure-electric any time soon.
All of them? No. But it's already to the point where they make much more sense for most personal use. For professional use, or for large properties, charging becomes a limitation.
I keep hoping that $this will be the year of the propane revolution in yard equipment. There have been some propane string trimmers but they keep making pathetic errors in the fuel systems which result in destruction of consumer confidence. Propane is both cleaner and cheaper. It does require either 4-strokes or oil injection, both
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Compared with fossil fuel in ICEs, where the total ener
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Re: Stock (Score:5, Informative)
FWIW - you can charge your car outside and have the charger in your garage. Simply have a charging cable long enough to reach the car and then close the garage door. The cable diameter is small enough to not interfere with the door operation.
Re: Stock (Score:4, Interesting)
You'll ask yourself: "All the neighbors just plug their cars in at night in about 10 seconds, just like I plug in my cell phone. Why do I have to keep going to the damn gas station?"
No, I won't ask myself this question. Neither will many others. This is because they see this as the norm. If they do ask this question, for some odd reason, the answer will likely be, "Because this car is paid for and costs me nothing to keep running."
Once you drive an electric car like the Tesla Model 3, you'll want to get one as soon as you can afford it.
Which I'm sure will pass quickly, because gasoline cars will continue to be very affordable on the used market.
Of course there are counterarguments, like "I commute 200 miles every day in the ice and snow hauling a 5 ton trailer", but those cases are few and far between.
Whatever. I saw a YouTube video of an electric car driver that lived somewhere around Chicago. He talked about how he managed driving for his daily commute and to make the occasional visit to his parents' home. First he had to convince the apartment building to install a charger for his car. That alone will kill electric cars for many in urban and suburban areas. Then he had only enough "juice" in a single charge to make his daily commute twice, assuming good weather. On cold days he'd have to keep the car cold, wearing a parka while he drove, to make sure he had enough range. To visit his parents meant having to stay long enough to recharge there. This left out the possibility of weekend day trips that so many enjoy now, unless the destination happens to have a place to charge. It also leaves people like this extremely vulnerable to power outages, no matter how rare or short lived. One power outage, like those in California right now, will certainly stick in people's minds when making a choice for a car purchase.
Electric cars are still largely suited for two car families. They'll have an electric car for the daily commute and a gas burner. The gas burner might be a truck for the 5 ton trailer, a mini-van for the kids to visit grandma and grandpa, or a hybrid so they can feel good about plugging in at home instead of needing to fill up with gas every week, but still feel comforted in that they can still get groceries or whatever if there's an extended power outage.
What I see as far more likely for the people that want to avoid going to a filling station is natural gas. A pump can be installed in the home, getting fuel from the municipal natural gas line. It allows for a short refill at a properly equipped filling station, which are becoming more common. It allows for a 200 mile daily commute, in the snow (without needing to wear a parka while driving), and even while pulling a 5 ton trailer. And it does this while producing far less noxious fumes, lower CO2 emissions, and is cheap to run.
The changeover to EVs will happen faster than you think.
My guess is it won't happen at all. At least not while anyone reading this today is alive. Time will tell who is correct.
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Whatever. I saw a YouTube video of an electric car driver that lived somewhere around Chicago. He talked about how he managed driving for his daily commute and to make the occasional visit to his parents' home. First he had to convince the apartment building to install a charger for his car. That alone will kill electric cars for many in urban and suburban areas. Then he had only enough "juice" in a single charge to make his daily commute twice, assuming good weather. On cold days he'd have to keep the car cold, wearing a parka while he drove, to make sure he had enough range. To visit his parents meant having to stay long enough to recharge there. This left out the possibility of weekend day trips that so many enjoy now, unless the destination happens to have a place to charge. It also leaves people like this extremely vulnerable to power outages, no matter how rare or short lived. One power outage, like those in California right now, will certainly stick in people's minds when making a choice for a car purchase.
The Technology Connections guy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
His commute is 70 miles and he had more than half of battery left after driving in cold weather. It'd be better not to worry about charging at all of course but that's perfectly fine.
My guess is it won't happen at all. At least not while anyone reading this today is alive. Time will tell who is correct.
That's a very bold claim! Once batteries get a bit cheaper and more power dense, there's really no advantage to ICEs any more outside of niche cases like lightweight sportscars or long-range trucks. It'll take a long time to replace the majority of cars on the roa
Re: Stock (Score:5, Funny)
I just want to see if Oregon passes a law making it illegal to pump your own electricity.
Re: Stock (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people here are tech guys who thinks that everyone lives in a suburban house with solar and a recharge station. They are completely delusional about the current lifestyle of the average car owner.
Re: Stock (Score:4, Interesting)
"Because this car is paid for and costs me nothing to keep running."
Nobody's saying send your perfectly good car to the scrapyard and buy an EV.
People love to focus on the challenges for EVs - and I say challenges because they're all addressable. Fast charging is getting faster. It's now to the point that you can add 200 miles of range in 10-15 minutes (@250 kW). Battery R&D has brought down prices dramatically and enhanced lifetime and performance. Yesterday's tech can get you nearly a 400 mile range (Model S) or 300 mile for Model 3. A 500 mile range is a few tweaks away and a 1000 mile (lithium metal battery) range looks very much possible as the physics of reactions in the battery is better understood. Reputable researchers (Jeff Dahn of Dalhousie University among others) have announced batteries that will last 1 million miles. True story: I actually had a guy tell me I needed to run my EV down so the battery didn't suffer a memory effect. The technology is improving and has room to improve. Keep up.
Charging at home is just a perk, not THE perk of EVS. The drivetrain is simply superior. It's perfectly responsive. No rough idle or idle at all. No gas smell on a cold start before the cat can start working. No torque band all over the place as you climb through gears. Pull out in traffic or merge with confidence, not worrying if/when your trans will downshift or turbos kick in. They truly are superior and you have to drive them to understand.
Did Slashdoters leave or just get old? We used to joke about screaming "get off my lawn", but now that's the tone of most highly rated comments.
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Charging at home is just a perk, not THE perk of EVS.
Natural gas vehicles offer this too. I considered a natural gas vehicle as I thought the idea of filling up at home, with a natural gas pump installed in the garage, would be quite convenient. I then found out that a lack of filling stations would severely limit the places I could go, and dual fuel options (allowing the car to run from natural gas or gasoline) was not something I could find. This has since changed.
Hybrids also allow for this. The ability to run from an electric charge on daily commutes
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Your neighbors will stare at you and make grimacing faces when they see you driving down the street in your old ICE jalopy. They'll act like you're directly harming them and their children with the air pollution you spew out.
You're delusional.
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I'm all for electric cars but let me know when I can buy a $2k electric beater car for driving to work.
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1. I don't care what my neighbors think about me.
2. When my current car(s) are at end of life, I will consider EV if it meets my needs. Currently, the need to travel 300+ miles without stopping for fuel is nice to have, but not essential. Hopefully range will improve before my car(s) are EOL.
3. Charging. There needs to be a massive charging infrastructure so I don't have to plan my routes like I'm a general aviation pilot. If I wanted to look at charts, I'd get my license and buy a plane. :)
Re: Stock (Score:5, Interesting)
I've now got a couple friends with electric cars, and #3 is kind-of flipped on its head.
Right now you already "plan your route" probably 1-2 times a week to refuel. Sure, it might be just a 5 minute pop off the road, refill, and pop back on, but you're still wasting 10 minutes a week on time and brain power, 40 minutes a month. You've also got a couple of oil changes a year to plan for, and then all the unexpected things that ICE vehicles can have go wrong that BEVs don't have at all. (Transmission, cooling system, exhaust system, plugs and wires, etc.)
If you go on a single trip over 200 miles in a given month in your BEV, you're going to in total be spending less time "planning your route like a general aviation pilot" than you currently do just in your day-to-day driving. For everyone I know with an electric car, they start the day full and 99% of the time they're not coming anywhere near 200+ miles in a day, so they don't think about refueling.
Their view is that it's like using a cordless drill where it sits on the charger until you need to use it. No real maintenance to think about, and no concern about it running out of battery unless you're undertaking a massive construction project. Pull it out, hang some shelves, pop it back on the charger. Two weeks later pull it out and fix some loose gutters, pop it back on the charger. Decide that you're going to build a deck? Now we need some planning.
That's their daily driving experience.
If your 200+ mile drive is a routine one, to see relatives or go to the family cabin, you really only need to plan it out once. For one friend, they have their "lunchtime stop" on the ~300 mile drive between their house and the parents' house. Drive 200 miles, stop for lunch, and fill up at the supercharger. Drive 100 miles, trickle charge on the 120V at the parents' house overnight, and they've got the range to get back to the lunch stop with the supercharger. For them, stopping for lunch for an hour while they recharge breaks up the long drive, and is still less planning than the weekly fill-ups, the twice a year oil changes, and other assorted ICE maintenance issues to be dealt with.
No mode of transport other than a private driver is going to be plan-free. It all comes down to whether you are ok with a few more critical bits of planning a year or a couple of small ones every week, plus more major ones a couple times a year.
Re: Stock (Score:5, Interesting)
Plenty of demand, and that will only increase while prices for EVs with good range continue to drop.
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And my Prius is a very ex-radicchio car.
Re:Stock (Score:4, Insightful)
Until Uncle Xi demands the brand be re-named Te-Zha in memory of the Chinese who invented the electric motor and integration of the car's cameras with the state security facial recognition network...
But seriously, what's to prevent the Chinese from seeing Tesla's success there and coming up with a way to squeeze them somehow?
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Re:Stock (Score:5, Interesting)
They profit off of Tesla, in terms of taxes, supply chains, employment, etc. More importantly, though, it helps them achieve their goal of electrification of their vehicle fleets.
So far, China has had great success using a carrot-and-stick approach; after Tesla, the largest EV makers in the world are in China (BYD is #2). But the (large) carrots have grown financially unsustainable; the domestic manufacturers have been making cars at a loss and relying on subsidies to prop them up. Tesla, while only having a minority of the Chinese market historically, has remained competitive despite A) not receiving the "carrots", benefiting only from the ICE-punitive "sticks"; B) not benefiting from lower Chinese production costs; and C) having to pay import tariffs. Manufacturers who can produce EVs profitably without incentives are what China needs to continue its path toward 100% electrification. It's also expected to light a fire under its domestic manufacturers, to up their competitive game.
At the same time, everyone knows that domestic manufacturers will use it as an opportunity to - if not outright steal tech (which they already do) - to leach Tesla employees in China, who take with them the knowledge of their work at their previous job. Everyone knows this will happen, including Tesla. But Tesla is so unfazed by this that they're outright opening an engineering office in China (although I wouldn't be surprised if this was part of the deal with the Chinese government). Tesla credits its success not to having some sort of "tech moat", but to being able to iterate quickly. Hence it doesn't fear people copying its designs, because by the time any copycat goes to production, Tesla will have moved on.
A good case of this was back when news broke in Germany (in Manager Magazin, if I remember right) that VW Group engineers had imported and dissected a number of Model 3s, were surprised to discover that that Tesla was way further ahead than they had thought (they had expected more evolutionary from S rather than revolutionary), and delayed their next-gen platforms to try to reengineer them to be more competitive. They were most impressed with the battery pack in particular. Musk responded that it was only logical of them to tear down competing products, and that they're free to copy the design, but he wouldn't recommend it because Tesla is already moving on from it.
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At the same time, everyone knows that domestic manufacturers will use it as an opportunity to - if not outright steal tech (which they already do) - to leach Tesla employees in China, who take with them the knowledge of their work at their previous job. Everyone knows this will happen, including Tesla. But Tesla is so unfazed by this that they're outright opening an engineering office in China (although I wouldn't be surprised if this was part of the deal with the Chinese government). Tesla credits its succ
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Elon does not care if one steals 6month old technology while he is already again 9month ahead in research and about to implement a 3 - 5 month improvement in the current production lines.
He basically cares more about saving the planet and moving technology forward instead of selling the same old crap with out improvements because the traditional market goes that (american) way.
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I think it might boil down to this: Tesla can choose to make their cars in China and be aware that their intellectual property will be examined, proliferated and loal competitor companies will spring up and develop clones. Go look at that Top Gear episode made in China for real-world proof of this. Or on the other hand, decline to build a Tesla factory in China and have the nation throw up every po
Re:Stock (Score:5, Interesting)
But seriously, what's to prevent the Chinese from seeing Tesla's success there and coming up with a way to squeeze them somehow?
That's what Musk wants.
Seriously, have you missed the entire point of Tesla?
Shortly after Tesla held a press conference Wednesday morning touting its $250 million planned plant in San Jose, Calif., Tesla chairman Elon Musk presented his vision of Tesla’s leadership role in the auto industry at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference. Musk said that Tesla has the ability to accelerate the auto industry’s progress toward the adoption of electric vehicles by 5 to 10 years. Lighting even that small fire could be very important if you consider what a decade of delay can do for climate change, he said.
Musk could have retired 100 times over with the money he had. This was never about making more for him.
Re:Stock (Score:5, Informative)
All of the companies you mention have been squeezed and sqeezed hard in China. A good fairly recent and well documented example would be GM, which had its vehicle designs not just stolen, but made in a factory almost next door to its own and then sold competing with its own cars. It was so unusually egregious, that even by Chinese standards, they actually had a chance of winning in court. So they sued.
What followed was a great example of how China works. GM had a legal case. They had the money and people to pursue it. But they were foreigners in China, suing locals. Sure, the locals openly stole from them, and then used stolen goods to compete against them. But they were foreigners in China suing locals.
So the company being sued did exactly what Chinese do when they are facing an actual workable threat in China. They made a point to the population that GM didn't respect Chinese people or culture, since it was clearly bullying a Chinese company. A few dosen burned cars, beaten up employees and one massive call for boycott, and GM didn't just drop the suit.
It issued an official apology to the thieves for suing them and promised to not be such a disgustingly insensitive foreigner in China ever again.
And all of the other companies on your list have similar stories, just less publicized. Stories in plural, because if you're a foreigner in China, you get those kinds of experiences very quickly.
Re:Stock (Score:5, Insightful)
This. I've said it before, but that massive Chinese market is a complete illusion to western companies. China will tolerate their presence just as long as it takes to copy and displace the original company. These people don't respect human rights. What makes anyone think they'd respect the rule of law?
There are a few short term examples, like Apple. But they exist in the Chinese market because they're a luxury brand, seen as a status symbol. They also pump a lot of money into the Chinese economy with all their manufactured exports. GM doesn't have that sort of influence. The Chinese would just as soon buy their own brand with identical technology and save all that R&D cost.
Tesla will likely make a good bit of money for the next five to ten years, but eventually, there will be a Chinese Tesla clone, and they'll get pushed out of the market over there, just like everyone else.
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Good. If the Chinese can make a cheaper Tesla clone, that's what the world needs ASAP.
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China just puts them together from parts. They hardly make any money from it [cbsnews.com]. (they do get some useful employment out of it however).
All the export dollars from an iphone has to be measured against all the imports used in making it. Not much is actually made in China.
re: Tesla clone (Score:2)
The thing is though? Tesla themselves fully expect someone to come along with a "better mousetrap" -- selling a better alternative to Tesla's vehicle offerings.
A good 5-10 year long run in China is probably everything they ever wanted out of putting manufacturing there.
The odd thing about Tesla is, they're not really focused on an "end goal" of selling people cars. All of this is viewed as a temporary stepping stone for them. If anything, I think Elon Musk has taken a lot of interest in the challenge of ach
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why would they bother producing clones
I'm not the one who originally posted it, but China does seem to love copying everything. They even make fake iPhones, which have made for some slightly amusing YouTube videos from people who buy them (on purpose) to review them. Chinese clones have actually gotten pretty good at replicating the physical appearance of the phone, but the actual functionality still leaves a lot to be desired.
I suppose if they made a Tesla clone along the same lines, it would probably look a lot like a real Tesla, but have a
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why would they bother producing clones, they are ahead with the number of local manufacturers creating EVs and selling them in larger numbers.
They're ahead in building shitboxes that nobody wants outside of China, and even inside of China everybody wants something better. That's why Tesla has been able to sell cars to China even with tariffs on them.
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Hopefully by then they've fixed the problem with cheap Chinese lithium ion batteries catching fire (think Hoverboards...).
American batteries will deflagrate if overcharged, too. Hoverboard fires were caused mostly by garbage chargers overcharging those cheap batteries. One could say that they should have had internal BMS, and there is some merit to that argument, but just not shipping terrible chargers with them would have done as well.
Tesla doesn't care if China copies their tech. They'll have new tech by the time they start spitting out copies. Remember when Musk offered Tesla's patents up for free? Their business doesn't ev
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That is typical of how foreign companies are treated in the US.
Re: Stock (Score:2)
Re:Stock (Score:5, Interesting)
What model are you referring to? Googling the only example that comes up is from 2004 with the Matiz, which itself was licenced from Daewoo. Wikipeida doesn't mention any issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In fact Wikipedia only mentions that they are in a successful partnership with two Chinese companies under the Baojun brand, producing low cost vehicles for that market. Nothing about this lawsuit or the second factory or the intimidation.
Having said that it wouldn't be that unusual, e.g. Samsung got screwed in the same way in the US with the infamous spat with Apple over rounded corners.
I'm sure you can quickly clear this one up with a link to a story about it.
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Toyota Prius (Score:2)
Okay I don't want to defend the Chinese, as you're certainly not exaggerating how corrupt and dodgy they are, but I seem to recall a certain other country where Toyota was doing rather well with its leading edge hybrid technology. Then suddenly there was a spate of Prius' that suffered from this mysterious 'unintended acceleration' problem. Of course this problem wasn't as bad as the car blowing up and engulfing its occupants in a ball of flames when rear ended at a low speed (Ford Pinto) but this unintende
Re:Stock (Score:4, Informative)
The Chinese continued building plane based Boeing's designs and engineering on equipment made for and used by Boeing. (That was the start of the Chinese aircraft industry.) This was well documented in the trade publications when this happened.
The Red Chinese will beg, borrow, steal anything!
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When you examine these claims in detail they usually fall apart pretty fast. For example, the CJ-1000A engine is supposed to be a clone of the French/Canadian LEAP engine, except that it was first announced and prototypes shown before the LEAP was public.
Similarly the aircraft it is designed for, the Comac C919, is claimed to be a clone of various different western aircraft. Actually they simply bought in some parts from western manufacturers in the same way that Boeing doesn't make every part of its aircra
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When you examine these claims in detail they usually fall apart pretty fast. For example, the CJ-1000A engine is supposed to be a clone of the French/Canadian LEAP engine, except that it was first announced and prototypes shown before the LEAP was public.
You could achieve that through industrial espionage, which isn't a new thing. I don't know that they did, only that your argument isn't counter-proof.
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I guess it's possible, but then you could also argue that the LEAP was just a rip-off of the CJ-1000A via espionage and no-one would be able to prove otherwise.
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Any project that can take advantage of China's phenomenal ability to Just Fucking Build It has a headstart on anything that is mired in the politics of the US or EU.
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Any project that can take advantage of China's phenomenal ability to Just Fucking Build It has a headstart on anything that is mired in the politics of the US or EU.
Well at least the EU is not clinging on to coal, gas and diesel as the way of the future like the US is doing.
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EU countries like Italy have clung to 100% coal. Germany has put the most effort and budget into going carbon free:
https://www.cleanenergywire.or... [cleanenergywire.org]
but as shown by the second chart, the expanding use of wind and sun are still not doing more than nibbling into the baseload sources ("mineral oil" and below). In fcat, a lot of the nuclear has now turned into coal and gas, meaning increased net carbon.
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do you mean Poland which has the heaviest reliance on coal? Even they are reducing that with renwables
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EU countries like Italy have clung to 100% coal. Germany has put the most effort and budget into going carbon free: https://www.cleanenergywire.or... [www.cleanenergywire.or] [cleanenergywire.org] but as shown by the second chart, the expanding use of wind and sun are still not doing more than nibbling into the baseload sources ("mineral oil" and below). In fcat, a lot of the nuclear has now turned into coal and gas, meaning increased net carbon.
Italy's electric energy generation uses mainly natural gas (60%) and hydro (20%). Coal comes in as a distant third with 16%.
... which in turn means that coal in Italy has been overtaken by renewables who now produce 17% of consumed energy. It's almost amusing how these conservative 'lone wolves' that troll this place with anti climate change propaganda have gone from bogus arguments, links to crackpot blogs and cherrypicked data to outright boldfaced lies.
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EU countries like Italy have clung to 100% coal. Germany has put the most effort and budget into going carbon free:
https://www.cleanenergywire.or... [www.cleanenergywire.or]
but as shown by the second chart, the expanding use of wind and sun are still not doing more than nibbling into the baseload sources ("mineral oil" and below). In fcat, a lot of the nuclear has now turned into coal and gas, meaning increased net carbon.
Well, it's obvious that the entire global problem of harmful levels of CO2 emissions is almost entirely the fault of the US, the UK, and capitalism. It was the US, UK, and capitalism that enabled pushing the limits so far in science, technology, agriculture, and industrialization that the rest of the world had to industrialize and modernize to economically compete, retain relevance on the global stage, and remain secure. Without the horrors of capitalism wrought in the US & UK large portions of the plan
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The US is the #2 producer of renewable power on the planet. You know nothing.
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It's really astounding how fast new projects can happen over there. It'll be interesting to contrast GF3 in Shanghai with GF4 in Europe (location to be announced later this year) - construction in Europe famously being heavy on red tape. GF3 was even built in a particularly difficult location - a veritable swamp, reclaimed seabed in a poulder. It took the first several months just to shore up the ground.
This has been a serious ad for China's ability to get large projects done quickly.
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Some nonsense in there (Score:2, Interesting)
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why does someone who doesn't own a Tesla care so much about all things Tesla?
I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, I really want them to succeed because electric cars are better in many ways. Even if you don't think global warming is a problem (and I don't), the reduced particulate matter is a huge win by itself, not to mention the poisonous gases like CO (and there are more in car exhaust).
Secondly, if electric cars become popular, then it will solve a lot of geo-political problems. Suddenly there are enough resources for everyone.
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Secondly, if electric cars become popular, then it will solve a lot of geo-political problems. Suddenly there are enough resources for everyone.
It causes a lot of geopolitical problems as well (ignoring that there's never enough resources for everyone) because there are a lot of countries highly dependent on oil or petroleum product exports. Some a small nations of only a few million people and if they don't see the writing on the wall they deserve what they get, but others are already larger countries that already have a lot of instability and losing a double-digit portion of your GDP isn't going to make the situation better.
However, we're stil
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Secondly, if electric cars become popular, then it will solve a lot of geo-political problems. Suddenly there are enough resources for everyone.
How? How would electric cars being more popular solve a lot of geopolitical problems? It might free the USA from some international entanglements over resources but only replace them with others. What releases the USA from such resource wars is producing the resources locally, no matter what they are.
What has left the USA largely free from oil price manipulation from the 1970s? The ability to produce much of the oil needed in the USA from within the USA and from far more stable nations within the Americ
Re:Some nonsense in there (Score:5, Interesting)
Emissions standards are really important for this. Honda just announced that all its EU models will be at least hybrids by 2022, with some full electrics (Honda e due next summer). They did it because it's the only way to meet EU emissions standards.
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Re: you should be happy (Score:3)
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That's also why the $35k Model 3 was cancelled, without the subsidy it just wasn't possible to build it.
People in the UK who believed Musk when he said it would be $35k before subsidies were expecting to buy one for £27k, and got a bit of a shock when it launched for over £40k.
Re:Some nonsense in there (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure why this bothers you, its normal for creating/accelerating a new market. What should bother you is why the fossil fuel industry is still being subsidised after 100 years in the business and has not been a new market for decades.
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"I'm just not a big fan of giving people subsidies/tax breaks to buy EVs (why should my tax dollars go towards people who are already wealthy enough to buy a brand new car?)" Not sure why this bothers you, its normal for creating/accelerating a new market. What should bother you is why the fossil fuel industry is still being subsidised after 100 years in the business and has not been a new market for decades.
Speaking of which, [nytimes.com] $18 billion would fund a lot of EV tax credits. Fracking also seems to be very dependent on low interest rates [upenn.edu]. If subsidies are reduced and / or rates rise, an EV could become very economical even without subsidies.
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Second, why does someone who doesn't own a Tesla care so much about all things Tesla?
Short sellers were supposedly making a lot of money as the stock declined. This article claims that Tesla short sellers had netted a $2.03 billion year-to-date mark-to-market profit: Yahoo Finance - Tesla Is By Far The Most Profitable Short Trade Of 2019 [yahoo.com]
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Re:Some nonsense in there (Score:5, Interesting)
If you ordered it this quarter, you didn't. Wait times for the US [tesla.com] are 6-10 weeks for non-performance, and 6-8 weeks for performance. In Europe - let's pick Norway [tesla.com] - new orders don't get delivered until December.
These are the longest wait times Tesla has had for Model 3 since they filled the initial backlog.
By all means, don't take my take on the quarterly result - look at the stock market's take.
It would be more believable if we hadn't heard the exact same "competition is coming soon" mantra every day for Tesla's entire existence. "Oh, whenever the others decide to actually compete, then Tesla will be toast!" As just a random example, Nissan had spent $5,6 billion dollars [greencarreports.com] on EVs by 2011 alone . If that's not "really trying" money, then what on Earth is?
I largely agree with that, but from the perspective that it'll be a 6-7 year old used car by then. Akin to comparing a 2012 Model S to a 2019 Taycan.
Words vs. practice.
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Oh, and if you don't trust Tesla's website about wait times, you can search Twitter, where you'll find people grumbling about wait times. Or you can look at how exhausted supply is in the EU [eu-evs.com]. Click "NL+NO+SP", then "Brand QoQ" for Tesla. Each quarter follows this exponential curve because Tesla stops sending ships at the end of each quarter, then resumes at the start of the quarter, so the rate of deliveries at the start of the quarter reflects how few vehicles are left on the continent. Compare the red li
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Words vs. practice.
Tesla has no practical 'autonomous vehicle' and neither does anyone else. It's pure bullshit. The difference with Tesla is what they are doing is dangerous.
Re:Some nonsense in there (Score:5, Insightful)
dangerous? lol. Tesla vehicles operating on autopilot are NINE TIMES LESS LIKELY TO GET INTO AN ACCIDENT than the average human.
ant-Tesla FUD is completely out of control. glad you'll be bankrupted in the morning.
From their latest financial update letter:
"During Q3, we registered one accident for every 4.34 million miles driven in which
drivers had Autopilot engaged. This compares to the national average of one accident for every 0.5 million miles based on NHTSA's most recent US data."
This is consistent with pretty much all previous quarters.
Humans are bad at lots of stuff, including realizing when they're bad at stuff.
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dangerous? lol. Tesla vehicles operating on autopilot are NINE TIMES LESS LIKELY TO GET INTO AN ACCIDENT than the average human.
I'm afraid believing words that come out of Saint Elon's mouth will not make it true. There is *nothing* that backs this crap up apart from Tesla saying so. There have, however, been a number of actual deaths while Autopilot has been on not to mention footage of drivers believing that they can fall asleep along highways while the system is on. The problem with this system is that it is making humans believe it is doing something it is not and humans are still vitally important in the chain.
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The problem with this system is that it is making humans believe it is doing something it is not
Nobody is "making" them do anything except their own stupidity.
Re:Some nonsense in there (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, and meanwhile, people commute every day in Navigate on Autopilot, and there've been over a million Smart Summons in the past couple weeks. On mass-produced, anyone-can-buy vehicles. Name another manufacturer who's at that stage.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a pessimist... about the timing for unsupervised driving. Feature-complete, though? Yeah, they may well get that by the end of the year. If not, shortly thereafter.
IMHO, one of the things Tesla does best is visualization. It boggles the mind that most manufacturers haven't grasped the importance of visualization of your self-driving system. When you put a car in charge of the driving, you take on the role of a manager. Trying to manage a vehicle that you don't know what it sees / is thinking / is planning, that's an immense handicap, and IMHO outright dangerous. And it only gets worse with city driving. E.g.: does the car plan to stop for this upcoming stop sign? I don't know, does it even see the stop sign? Does it see the car on the road that it's intersecting? These sorts of things are absolutely critical to know if having a human supervisor is to do any good.
I IMHO kind of suspect that there may be an intermediary phase between "feature complete, but supervision required" and "no supervision". I could picture there being for example a system that's gotten far enough along that it can be trusted to make all split-second emergency maneuvers, but still might occasionally get itself into confusing situations or have to deal with unexpected things that it doesn't know how handle. In that sort of case, you could still launch a robotaxi network if you had remote human "backup drivers" in driving simulators who could take over from vehicles in such edge cases, get them back on track, and then disconnect.
I guess time will tell.
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Ed: that should be 8-10 weeks for performance, not 6-8 weeks.
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fwiw, I bought a model 3 a few weeks ago, right off the lot. same day sale. yes, this was bay area and I was able to drive to fremont where its made, but there was NO waiting. many models are just there, sitting on the lot, ready to be bought.
and fwiw, the one thing that really convinced me: THE AMAZING TORQUE the thing has. truly supercar performance. you're suddently one of the fastest cars (no, *quickest*) on the road. those that never drove one, will need to experience it directly to understand fu
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Inventory vehicle sale is not only normal, what Tesla salesman pull all sorts of shit in this. "That config you are asking for is on a truck to Arizona. If you order withing two hours, I can stop the unloading and make it come to New Mexico,
Re:Some nonsense in there (Score:5, Informative)
"Few weeks ago" was around EoQ. Try that again right now ;)
Tense. Were just sitting there. Tesla hasn't made any new inventory for the US for weeks.
Due to (for the moment) only having a factory in the US, Tesla is extremely effected by the quarterly cycle. At the start of each quarter, they focus all their production on filling up ships to Europe and China (and increasingly now, other places), with domestic sales relying on residual inventory. They then switch to a mix. During the last 3-4 weeks or so, they switch to pure domestic - first prioritizing the east coast, then the west coast - destinations increasingly close to Fremont. This minimizes the amount of in-transit inventory at the end of the quarter. Whatever's left in a given market while waiting for supply to resume is all they have to go on.
If you want to see where production is going right now, pop over to Pier 80 in San Francisco ;)
EoQ Q3 exhausted global inventories heavily. There's some left, but not bloody much. Europe in particular went down to almost nothing. The US had some left, mainly east coast, but it's by and large gone now, and the odds of being able to be matched up with a particular order in a particular region are low.
I know, right?? I actually laughed out loud when I heard they're planning an OTA update for 5% more power, due to new powertrain optimizations. It's just nuts.
so much for the environment (Score:2)
being built up from a muddy field
We call that a 'natural habitat' in these parts.
Stop with the greenfield fucking development.
Stringing profitable quarters together is key (Score:2)
Sure they're making capital investments due to growth but they ultimately need to be profitable daily to maintain heir cash position. Otherwise, the first time there's a contraction in the economy they may find themselves in trouble.
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Scam companies don't like short sellers. For example, Enron, WorldCom, Tycho all hated short sellers and called them "Unamerican" and "vultures". But they are the only ones looking at the regulatory filings critically. With Musk there is a cult element who believes that he is the true savior that is going to take them to techo bliss.
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Meanwhile, in the real world, Tesla sales were at a record this quarter, with the EU in particular showing massive growth. They left the quarter with about 10k orders backlogged because they couldn't produce them fast enough GF3 will help with that) - in Q2 they had run down inventory, but they had no excess inventory to run down this time - yet still beat Q2. Revenue is slightly down, but that's because last year they were selling only expensive cars (making use of a backlog and $7500 US tax credits), wh
Re:Revenue is down (Score:5, Informative)
You wrote, "Global EV sales are declining." First off, that's false (based on cherry-picked start-and-end points), but more importantly, Tesla sales are up - which is the topic at hand.
The 10-Q offers nuance, but it cannot materially alter such a major ER. The "Let me dig through the 10-Q to find out the cheat, there must be some sort of cheat in there somewhere!" crowd just reeks of desperation.
No, but thanks for the straw man!
Used to? Were, are, and will continue to! Mass producing EVs at higher margins than almost everyone produces ICEs, while almost everyone either loses money on EVs or is around breakeven? Profiting at dramatically lower ASPs than last year, due to massive YoY COGS reductions? The world's largest EV producer, by far the world's largest BEV producer, and by even further in terms of battery capacity? They're eating everyone else's lunch.
Again, holy straw men Batman!
I think you're confusing some argument you were in with someone else vs. an argument you were in with me. I'm a no-supervision-FSD pessimist, and always have been. I've been warming up over time, but I'm highly dubious that it'll be to that point by the end of next year (feature-complete with supervision around the end of this year, though, I can generally get behind that)
First off, this would be a silly metric to begin with:
1) Tesla is far more vertically integrated than most manufacturers, to the point of even making their own seats. The more you vertically integrate, the more employees, capital cost, etc you'll have per unit, but the more of the profits you retain. Heck, just try adding all of the employees from dealerships alone to various automakers' employee counts.
2) Higher-ASP vehicles almost always embody more labour per vehicle; ultimately, all cost for all products comes down to human labour.
3) Tesla has significant non-automotive divisions, and a large number of employees are needed simply for the sheer rate of production expansion.
But beyond it being a silly metric... it's also false. Tesla has 45k employees. At present, fremont has capacity of 360k Model 3s per year and 90k Model Ss (450k vehicles/yr). 10 vehicles per employee. Just to pick a random competitor - say, Porsche - they have 24,5k employees and 250k vehicles per year. Same ratio as Tesla. Except that they don't fit (1), (2) and (3) above. Or to compare specific plants - Fremont has 10k of Tesla's employees, so 45 vehicles per employee at Fremont. Porsche has 13k employees at Zuffenhausen alone - and that factory doesn't produce all of their vehicles.
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You are in a cult. I own an EV myself and I love it. Yeah, you work in the Bay Area so you see a lot of EVs. Wow. Imagine that. So do I. It means nothing. I also see lots of $3 million houses. You guys are so short sighted. The facts are: revenue is down, sales are down, margins are down. The whole "growth story" is over. The results aren't out yet, but most likely the "profit" was cashing in Z credits, reducing capex and pulling revenue recognition into this quarter. Nothing illegal, just short term financ