Past 12 months has seen a hefty decrease in the value of $TSLA (~50%, it's 60% if you look at just 2022). I've read numerous reports about Tesla quality (fit / finish), the FSD is receiving horrid reviews, and that's not even bringing into the equation Musk and his antics. Can't say I'm surprised to see the stock taking a hit and hope it doesn't dissuade companies from continuing down the EV path.
Tesla is massively profitable. The vagaries of the stock market are just a distraction, what matters is profits, and Tesla has lots of that. Other companies will want some of those sweet profits too.
Past performance is not an indictor of future performance.
VW is on pace to outsell Tesla in a little over a year, they're just one competitor.
I now see just as many Polestars and VW id's as Tesla's in the UK ... it's quite remarkable how much things have changed from Tesla being the only real game in town just a few short years ago.
Musk doesn't exactly strike me as a guy who would not cook the books.
Guy believes in manifestation and self-fulfilling prophecies, fake it till you make it type strategy.
General Electric employed the same strategy too with all its financial engineering but at the end of the day you are still making turbines in the real world and with anything manufacturing you have razor thin margins. Of course we came to know about it only after
Share price reflects expectation of future profits and growth.
When you buy a share you do not care about the profits in the past, you care that the company will generate profits and thus increase its value in the future. The only reason people care about past profitability is in how it can help you predict future profitability.
This is also the reason why companies can be generating losses quarter after quarter and still be gaining value -- as long as there exists expectation of future growth and profit.
And in case of Tesla a lot of this expectation of future profits and growth was based on charisma of its owner and on belief that he is the force behind Tesla's spectacular success.
Starting one successful company is impressive but can be partly attributed to luck. Starting multiple hugely successful global multi-hundred billion dollar companies is not luck at all, especially when you spend a moment learning about Elon's work ethic and his tight grip over everything.
Now, if you are an investor, it seems the owner lost its focus and made a bunch of questionable decisions. This puts a huge question mark on whether he will be as involved and as effective with Tesla in the future.
> in case of Tesla a lot of this expectation of future profits and growth was based on charisma of its owner
Not even a little bit. Musk has a charisma of a bag of potatoes.
What matters is that Tesla had 10 years of 50%+ revenue and unit growth, on average. They performed better than any of the FAANG companies.
With Giga Berlin and Giga Texas ramping up, Cybertruck, refreshing Model 3 for lower cost of production, ramping 4680 battery production, lithium refinery in Texas, Inflation Reduction Act in US => the 50% growth the company is guiding for in the next several years seems to be in the bank.
What charisma is depends on the person. It is defined as ability to induce devotion in others and different people will get moved by different things.
Charisma is not an absolute and objective measure. Some people will find Trump charismatic to them, some people will see him completely opposite.
I personally find Warren Buffett very charismatic, some people will probably see him as an old and wrinkled guy who is boring them with stories they don't care about.
As investors are generally mostly interested in money, ability to get shit done and generate profits reliably IS charisma.
Revenue =|= profits. Now, if you are interested, devide what ever that revenue was by Tesla's profits. Because those credits have a zero cost behind them. And those credits will go away with every EV those other brands build and sell.
If you look at the SEC filing it's 8% of profits. Though Tesla isn't trying to be particularly profitable right now. They've been spending tons of money on new factories so they can scale up production.
Credits aren't pure profit. You have to build and deliver a car to get them, so the 1% number of the parent comment is much more relevant than your 8% number.
And at one time Porsche progits were higher than their revenue (look it up, that was caused by their VW shares exploding in value). Ferrari is more profitable than, say, Hyundai. Different market segmentd have different profit margins, and Toyota actually can build cars with retail prices below 30k.
Tesla has been building out its manufacturing lines during this time, which is extremely capital intensive. Remember when the Model 3 was just being rolled out, and how that almost killed them?
Don't you have to include the shares outstanding in your calculation? Your analysis seems to assume the total shares is the same between the two companies.
Tesla's build quality never seemed to impact stock performance. I think Elon's takeover of Twitter has definitely been a big hit on Tesla stock. The main concern being his focus on all things Tesla, which appears to be shifting to Twitter.
> Tesla's build quality never seemed to impact stock performance.
Tesla for a long time had a lack of serious competition, and a popular hype man at the helm that kept investor's eyes pointed at the future, by making promises such as "Fully self driving in 12-18 months" for a decade plus.
With the age of pop culture hype taking a turn for Musk and Tesla, competition starting to look quite attractive, and the whole sector becoming more mature, attention is beginning to flow back to boring things like build quality.
Why do I care about those things if all I do is drive to town and back and I charge at home? Not everyone is a jet setting Bay Area resident who also drives to wine country every weekend. I would prefer a reliable Toyota over the quality issues plaguing Tesla, plus the poor working conditions at the factory put me off of ever buying a Tesla, for ethical reasons. I don’t care if the model 3 is gold plated and cheap, the company and product quality sucks.
Last time I cared to check a few years ago, there were 3x more injuries at Tesla plants versus UAW plants, feel free to research it. I don’t care to look into it today, Tesla lost my business long ago and I’m going to lunch with my wife, which is more important than arguing with Musk fans on this site.
I think plug in hybrids may be real competition for them.
I had to buy a new car recently, and was thinking about electric and Tesla was one of the potential options.
I ended up buying a RAV 4 Prime instead. I do most of my driving within the EV only range of the vehicle, but it leaves me flexibility for road trips when needed. Eliminates the range and charger infrastructure concerns entirely, but I've also only had to fill up the gas tank once on the vehicle in the last 6 months.
Maybe there will be an EV that will directly out-compete on all those categories, but I think they've got competition coming at them from pretty much all angles.
But I don't care about the superchargers (I have a 2nd non-EV).
If you ignore that feature, the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt are both cheaper and slightly more functional (hatchbacks).
Props to Tesla for pushing the chargers - EVs have benefitted - and now with Superchargers opening up to non-Tesla + other charging stations building out - the distinction will soon be minimal.
The Model Y build quality is really good nowadays. And Tesla cars have great performance and ace all the safety tests. So they are still good cars that are undeserving of all the hate.
People who hate Elon musk, which includes almost all of media, have no qualms about lying about Tesla in order to hurt it/him. In fact they might think is the right thing to do, for the sake of, well whatever.
If you are interested in the ground truth, check the videos by owners, talk to people who use FSD and best of all see if you can rent and drive a Tesla yourself.
Its sad to say, but even in tech we swim in an ocean of ideologically driven BS and not all of us have realized it yet.
It seems that Elon Musk have over-promised and under-delivered repeatedly, including about Tesla; the market acted like it believed that everything he announced was going to happen.
I would not be surprised if the majority of what he said was magical thinking.
Given the actual business performance of Tesla compared to other automakers, what do you believe the stock value should be?
I never tried a Tesla, but I've seen contradicting reports about the build quality and customer satisfaction, I think this is a relatively important heuristic to evaluate the potential of any consumer product.
The biggest question in my mind is whether the electric cars from the traditional auto companies are profitable on their own, or are they being heavily subsidized by their fossil-fuel offerings
Hasn't Tesla been propped up over the years by government subsidies?
What makes you think existing automakers can't have profitable EVs? Wouldn't it be easier for them to be profitable? They have existing supply chains, manufacturing, distribution, etc.
It's funny, 5 years ago everyone was wondering if they would ever actually deliver the Model 3. 10 years ago they were digging themselves out of the e-Lotus hole.
I'm not one to bet on volatile stocks, but if FSD ever becomes a thing, they're the only automaker actually capable of taking advantage of it. From a automotive market capitalisation perspective they're overpriced, but from a high growth tech focused company with their own manufacturing capabilities they really aren't.
Toyota still doesn't have a 100% electric vehicle. VW still makes electric cars using chassis designed for ICEs. Meanwhile Tesla is on their Nth electric chassis/drive iteration. Yes, it's just engineering, but so was Apple vs BlackBerry.
I think the correction in Tesla's prices are coming from increased interest rates and the risk inherent in growth stocks, not due to public sentiment about Musk, Twitter or anything else.
> If FSD ever becomes a thing, they're the only automaker actually capable of taking advantage of it.
How does that follow? The other thread today talks about how catastrophically bad FSD is. Other carmakers have driver assistance tech that's as good or better (but they're not setting expectations sky high with "full self driving" moniker).
> VW still makes electric cars using chassis designed for ICEs.
Yeah, cars still have 4 wheels and a steering wheel.
> Yeah, cars still have 4 wheels and a steering wheel.
That isn't really the issue. The issue is that they tend not to use space as well as purpose built platforms. This leads to either compromising cargo capacity relative to a purpose built platform or the necessity to make it larger and less efficient.
That isn't to say that they are bad cars. IMO, of the people building on ICE platforms, BMW is doing it best right now. The ix is a pretty good compromise all around. Charging is far from class leading, but range is excellent. I bet that is enough to make up for the slower charging for most people.
> Other carmakers have driver assistance tech that's as good or better
Yes, but at what price point? I don't feel like splurging for an S-class just to get highway assist.
> Yeah, cars still have 4 wheels and a steering wheel.
This level of dialogue isn't particularly constructive. There is a material difference in the experience of the end user with a purpose-designed product compared with a square peg jammed into a round hole.
The two largest manufacturers by volume still have no effective answer to BEVs. Everyone agrees BEVs are the future, and Tesla is the market leader for BEVs despite what anybody thinks about their CEO. That is sufficient for their enormous valuation, since it seems nobody else has even bothered to roll out charger infrastructure, for example, even if they did design a competitive vehicle.
> Toyota still doesn't have a 100% electric vehicle.
1. They have the bZ4X.
2. Toyota also has whatever Subaru's E-SUV is, which is just a re-badged bZ4X. (For the rest of time, any Subaru vehicle that isn't an ICE will just be a Toyota vehicle re-badged and decorated for the granola-yuppie-cum-soccer-mom- demo).
3. Toyota's big bet on the plug-in hybrid space is also a smart market position for the next 10+ years. An absolutely MASSIVE percent of non-beater-car-driving Americans have:
3a. short enough commutes/daily trips that they don't need a huge battery to mostly avoid gas usage, as long as they can charge nightly
3b. access to nightly charging via a garage or driveway
3c. still need >500 miles of range often enough that a pure EV is a really expensive proposition for the foreseeable future.
Plug-in hybrids are a great solution for that demo, and it's probably like 2/3rds of the TAM of Americans who will pay $40K+ for a new car (mostly suburbanites who their car on vacations)
Does Toyota even have a reasonably long range PHEV?
The Chevy Volt with it's 53mi electric range was, what I had hoped, would be the harbinger of long electric range cars (say, 100mi electric + 500mi gas).
Instead we have EVs that barely do 250mi range and PHEVs with minuscule electric ranges.
The 2023 Prius PHEV is 40 miles, which is pretty close to the Chevy Volt's 53. So, not really but better than the really tiny numbers of a few years ago.
For me 40 miles is about the optimal amount of electric range -- I either go <20 miles a day or >400 miles a day. It's an interesting optimization regime, though, and very customer-specifc. 40 still seems low for the average US customer, I suspect. I expect there will be more e-range options in future model years.
I think Tesla is so much like Apple. Both sell a product of debatable quality. Both do their utmost to differentiate from competitors - most visibly by using non-standard charging ports for their respective products. Both had a quirky CEO that gathered a cult-like following. Both are headquartered in the SF Bay Area and have very loyal fans.
My biggest concern as a Tesla stockholder would be that lots of Apple's retention power is due to the walled garden and making everything slightly different so users have hard time switching to competing products.
I don't think Tesla has many such technical obstacles to stop customers from selecting a different brand for their next car. They need to compete by being actually better and successfully maintaining a premium image.
iOS software quality has been declining and iPhone hardware is only marginally improving recently, but they still remain better built phones than competition.
And yes they have extremely loyal customers.
Is it comparable with Tesla? I've heard complaints about the build quality. There are better brands I think.
> Both had a quirky CEO that gathered a cult-like following. Both are headquartered in the SF Bay Area and have very loyal fans.
That’s a highly euphemistic way of phrasing things. They were were deeply narcissistic individuals. The difference is that while Jobs was able to mostly hide that side of himself from the public, Musk revels in making it his entire public persona. And while certainly some people are attracted by that, happily many are not. Apple’s fans mostly supported it despite Jobs’ unpleasantness. Musk’s support him because of it.
As it should given the realistic expected future sales potential, joke that is FSD, and increasingly competitive nature of the BEV market. When it falls another 50% it will be fairly priced (roughly on-par with Toyota's market cap).
Agreed. Now that Toyota and every other major auto manufacturer has a good electric vehicle, Tesla is one among many. Their current revenue vs growth potential should be priced accordingly. That likely means a much lower market share than Toyota.
I'd love to know which Toyota EV you are referring to? Ask a 100 people to name an EV, 80 would say Tesla, and 70 could point them out, and 40 name some model. Not so with Toyota
These days I see more plug-in Prius/RAV4 hybrids than Teslas. You can be an EV purist but they're competing for the same customers and plug-in hybrids also qualify for tax credits.
Fair point. What I was thinking of is their line of pluggable hybrids. Where if you keep it plugged in at night it acts as all electric for a 16 mile each way commute.
Prius Prime is their main PHEV but they are also making trucks and SUVs pluggable.
Yes, but Tesla's margins are much higher. This will probably drop if they ever manage to make a 90s Corolla equivalent and go downmarket, but it seems they still sell as much as they can make for the moment.
Toyota weighs the cost of running individual wires (as a part of the harness) when building the Yaris. The margins are that hard at the low end. Adding any small tiny feature is hard due to the cost they are trying to hit.
Can't speak of the Yaris. My 2008 Prius with more than 100kmi runs flawless though. Surely (even accounting for survivor's bias) there would have been ways to cut costs. Methinks there are other motivations in play then just maximizing short term profit. I believe Toyota is in there for the long run. I'm not so sure that Tesla is.
I have had Prii since 2001 (back when it was a sedan). Had good experience with them until recently: 2011 prius with 110K miles had to have it's engine replaced. Decided to do that instead of getting another car because anecdata tells me this was an aberration.
Did you have the EGR valve and cooler cleaned? It's the most notable issue with the 2009-2015 that leads to head gasket issues. Although, some say it's fine until ~140k ish, it could happen earlier if oil changes weren't full synthetic, yearly, or less than 10k miles.
Toyota also sells 10 million vehicles a year, 10x what Tesla does. So yeah, any small change to their model lineup is under scrutiny because it gets multiplied 10 million times over.
I guess. The luxury manufacturers, like Tesla, will just increase the price or add a subscription if they think they can market a feature. There's no money for that on the Yaris, the customers can't afford whatever it is.
The IONIQ5 is also evidence that if Tesla ever did have a lead on "design" of EVs, that lead is now lost. The IONIQ5 looks... cool. When I see one on the street, it stands out, and I want one, even though I don't really care for cars or EVs. Teslas had some of that feeling in the early days, but they seem very pedestrian to me now.
Could just be my brain being weird. Or could be the fact that there are Teslas freakin' everywhere in most of the (non-aggressively-red-to-the-point-of-drinking-gasoline) USA now.
I edited my previous comment but yes. What I wrote is that Tesla isn't anymore in a market where it's the only relevant EV maker and now Porsche, Mercedes and even Korean automakers make much more appealing EVs than what Tesla has in the lineup.
The carmakers are selling every car they make, but that's now because dealers are rebuilding their inventories. The number of cars sitting in dealer inventory has gone up quite a bit over the past few months. GM can count that as a sale, but at some point dealers are going to stop buying cars faster than they are selling them...
At the same time people aren’t as flush with cash. During the pandemic, car dealerships were selling cars sight unseen and months from delivery. Buyers aren’t going to accept that anymore. The dealerships need inventory to show people.
Isnt that due to the chip shortage brought on by covid? Car companies wanted to and had the ability to produce more cars if they had the chips. I dont think that was Tesla's ceiling.
does any Tesla owner have an issue with how long it takes to charge a Tesla? And IIUC it has to be charged more often than a similar Toyota with a full tank.
Charging at a gen2 supercharger (not even gen3, which are available in the viscinity of where i live as well) goes at a rate between 300-510 miles of charge per hour (depending on the current battery charge) for me.
Charging at my apartment building garage is slow (given it only uses a regular 110v outlet, the same one you would use to charge your phone), but i just leave it overnight, so the speed doesn't matter much in that scenario.
The charger at work is somewhere in-between, but i can easily get about 70-100 miles of charge per hour.
And the costs make it very worth it for me. At the supercharger, my last fill up cost me $16 (i typically drive the car down to 15-20% charge, and then fill it up to 80-90%), and it went up to $20 about twice in my 3 years of ownership (when i was very close to empty). At the apt building and at work, it is free. Meanwhile, even pre-covid (aka before 2019, because that's when I switched cars), my Camry would routinely take about $40-50 to fill up (and I would try to get it filled once I have about 20% of the tank left).
Ah right so there's chargers at work and at home, then you wouldn't notice the charge times. I have heard folks having to drive to and wait at charger locations, that is a hassle. So that's only until the charging infra at apartments and offices catch up.
My apartment has no charging infra, it just has a few regular 110v outlets, the exact same kind people have in their houses.
As for superchargers being busy, I guess there might be some specific one that is busy at a specific time of the day? Because I have about 4 different supercharger locations within 7 miles of where I am, and that's not counting non-Tesla-branded chargers. For context, I am in Seattle area, and as I am looking out of my window overlooking Mercer St, at any given point in time, I can see at least 2-3 Teslas (not even counting other EVs), which tells me that a lot of people find EVs to be very viable in this area.
3 years ago, there was only 1 supercharger location within that same distance. Every other grocery store and a large public location where people park (like IKEA or a movie theater) has charging spots.
My musings aside, overall I agree with you. However, charging infrastructure these days is more viable already than what most people assume. Not everywhere yet, of course, but it is getting there.
Per the GP, Toyota is making twice the total profit. They might have to sell more than twice as many cars to do it, but as you acknowledge, for Tesla to make that much profit, their margin would also likely decline.
Total profit matters more than margins, unless you have reason to believe the margins will hold true at any level.
"Selling every car they make" is what every manufacturer does, and they throttle production to accomplish it. This is not unique to Tesla. Do you think there are graveyards of unsold cars out there?
I agree that Tesla has been overpriced. but comparing Tesla with other Auto makes is not apples to apples comparison. In addition to automake Tesla is in business of battery, AI, solar panel etc business, they are vertically integrated and I would say that why they are far ahead of other automakers and hence market cap bigger than other auto makers.
Toyota (or partners they are heavily invested in) also do all the items you just mentioned, it's why I used them as comparison. Although they may not directly operate all those businesses, they are heavily invested in multiple companies in the space (impacting value).
Their AI so far appears to be a cagey failure. Waymo and Cruise are easily outpacing them in self driving capabilities.
Yes, battery and solar panels are a good additional business. But are they going to make strides better than companies who solely focus on those? Both of those are still high R&D efforts.
The more electric vehicles become commodity the less advantage they have. Tesla started with virtually no competition. Now Toyota and almost every other car manufacturer is a direct competitor.
It seems that Tesla increasingly provides vertically integrated mediocrity.
Also, to GP's vertical integration claim: Cruise is a division of GM!!! GM's choice to not apply their badge to Cruise is very intentional and very smart. Tesla is the naive player here, not the other auto makers.
Hyundai literally owns Boston Dynamic's, and their robots are way more advanced.
Honda's Asimo demo was also like 15 years ago. Their proof of advanced robotics is really old, yet the Tesla Bot can't do anything like the 2008 era demos.
The legacy automakers are a lot smarter than Tesla investors gave them credit for. They've been making the right investments at the right times to capture the right markets at the right times. Tesla is too early and too up-market to win on a 50 year timeframe. The automakers went through this last century and their veteran survivor DNA is starting to show.
> AI, vertically integrated
This is true for most of the traditional auto companies, but they keep their self-driving divisions at arm's length and are more conservative with deployment into consumer vehicles. Tesla is starting to learn why. Just because it's a majority stake in a separate company doesn't mean it isn't vertically integrated.
> solar panel, vertically integrated [with car/AI]
Consumer: Why would I care that my solar panel and home battery are from the same provider as my EV and SDC? This is more like bundling than vertical integration, and it's not a bundling story that makes much sense to me as a consumer.
Biz: There is a solar+charge infra+EV van/truck play but Ford will win. Ford has a more compelling story here, because their Transit vans are best-in-class, the EV F-150 actually exists (and cybertruck will be an F-150 consumer competitor not a F-150 commercial competitor) and Ford has the SMB sales penetration and general knowledge. I don't see Tesla understanding this market before it's too late.
> battery, vertically integrated
This is the competitive advantage, but it's eroding quickly. The clock is ticking.
Batteries are, mainly, Panasonic (initially) and other suppliers. Solar roof is a joke compared to other panel OEMs and is still alive only because Elon used Tesla to bail out his cousin. AI is, generly, overhyped. And if Tesla's FSD is any indicator of Tesla's AI prowness, well, there doesn't seem to be much to it.
And let's not even talk about things like build quality or similar things.
> In addition to automake Tesla is in business of battery, AI, solar panel etc business, they are vertically integrated and I would say that why they are far ahead of other automakers and hence market cap bigger than other auto makers.
It really doesn't matter. The value of a battery business, the value of a solar panel business - are tiny compared to Tesla's current valuation.
The world's #4 battery maker is Panasonic, and their entire business is only worth $20B. The world's #2 battery maker is LG Chem and their entire business is only worth $36B. And both Panasonic and LG Chem do a whole heck of a lot more than make batteries.
The second-biggest solar company in the world, Canadian Solar, has $3.2B in revenue and a market cap of $1.6B.
So if we staple these together:
- Valuing Tesla like Toyota gets us $20B.
- Adding in the world's #2 battery maker plus the entire rest of their chemical business get us $36B.
- Adding in the worlds #2 solar company gets us $1.6B.
That's $57.6B market cap vs Tesla's $500B. So another 90% downside to fair valuation assuming they're able to become as big in batteries as LG Chem and as big in solar as Canadian Solar.
"Vibes" don't make a $500B valuation target in 4% interest rate market. Sorry.
Ok so if you do that it gets you a 50% downside instead of a 90% downside.
I think future growth in Tesla involves significant margin contraction as they move down market, and as more entrenched players enter the EV space we’ll see margins on existing revenue go down too. This is peak value for them based on first mover advantage alone and it won’t last.
So yeah bear case 90% overvalued and bull case 50% overvalued. And this is after a 62.5% drop from peak value.
I think you mean to say legacy automakers have been underpricing.
I haven't heard of a single legacy manufacturer selling their EVs for more than they cost to make (aside from vague predictions about future margin targets).
Before anyone says it: new Chinese EV makers are not "legacy."
Last fiscal year Toyota made $17 billion profit, which was less than $19 billion profit 6 years ago.
Profit growth rate is the crucial part of the info you skipped.
To simplify: market cap is ${CurrentProfit} * ${P/E}.
P/E is a reflection of profit (earnings) growth rate.
Since becoming profitable, Tesla has been growing profits at 50%+. They are the fastest growing large company in the stock market.
That growth is going to continue due to ramp of Giga Berlin, Giga Texas, introduction of cybertruck, Inflation Reduction Act which will turbocharge EV demand in US.
Toyota is not growing earnings at all.
Things are likely to go even worse in the near future. The EV market share is skyrocketing (25% in Europe, 30% in china) but Toyota has only 1 EV currently that isn't selling well.
It's rumored that they are scraping their old EV plans (make EVs based on current platform that was designed for easy manufacturability of both EVs and ICE cars in the same factory) and considering developing a new platform.
Platform that won't be available until 2026.
EV market share is likely to grow 50% YoY and during that time Toyota won't have EVs to sell. That won't end well.
Tesla is severely undervalued based on their forward P/E ratio, which is lower than for companies with much lower growth rate.
Toyota has still grown net profit: 2020 -> $18.7b ; 2021 -> $21b ; 2022 -> $25.4b
> Tesla is severely undervalued based on their forward P/E ratio
You should refrain from making individual stock picks, and buy ETF/index instead, when you're unable to distinguish the difference between gross and net profit.
which is fascinating if you think about just how much information we have at our disposal/fingertips on the topic + how many professionals exist to digest said information and form conclusions
They aren't the same company so those have little to do with eachother. Amazon could start to go up while Tesla could drop another 50%. Time will tell.
If you believe that they will sustain 50% annual unit growth for another 5 years or so, then it probably is.
It certainly seems plausible. People talk of competition, but the competition has been full of mistakes and missteps so far. I don't think its obvious that the next few years will be any different.
Then again, we don't really know Teslas roadmap beyond the CT, other than vague hints. We know something smaller is coming and we know something bigger is coming. That's basically all we know of their roadmap. :)
Amazon's market cap has returned to the level it was when the pandemic started. Tesla's market cap is still around 4 times higher than it was when the pandemic started.
(Meta/Facebook has also returned to its pre-pandemic level.)
When have they ever been a huge player in the car business? They are a tiny percentage of the total number of cars sold. Or did you mean to specify electric cars only?
Well, it's the market value in the current market, which is fluctuating, sure, but Tesla clearly decoupled from the DJ index 2.5mo ago (which has climbed since) and is on a steady decline.
Means nothing? Means that the market believes increasingly less in Tesla.
It's fine to say "prices go up when people buy" - we know that - I think the question we're trying to figure out is whether it's priced in line with comparables in a way that it would at least hold its value moving forward.
> It makes sense because the market wants to buy and sell it at that price.
This sounds like a tautology. Is it literally impossible for the stock market to ever be irrational? Even if the stock price has gone down $250 per share in the past year?
It is impossible for the stock market to be irrational, but individual actors within are often irrational.
Within the game, "the stock market," it is rational. The game is "What do I think other people will pay for this?"
The price of a given stock is always rational under that game.
Your problem is assuming the price is justified based on any particular aspect of any company in question. The answer is almost never "Yes." The price doesn't represent competence, it reflects confidence.
The market is a confidence game, and so the prices are always rational. The game itself is even rational! However, the actors are not always or often rational, and prices are only ever coincidentally (and rarely) aligned with the actual value.
The price going up that much in that short of a time period is very rational, because the price is a function of what others think others are willing to pay for it, rather than trying to reflect anything wider.
> It is impossible for the stock market to be irrational, but individual actors within are often irrational.
I disagree with your definition of rationality, and I find it a bit bizarre that a group of people acting irrationally, as you admit, can magically become collectively rational... except "by definition", i.e., your definition.
Obama was a nobody in 2005, and the most powerful man by 2008.
Is there anything special about the guy? No, it's just that stuff becomes viral.
Obama became viral in 2007 and Tesla/Musk became viral in 2020.
Don't be fooled by the analysts, prices, earning reports and numbers popping. At the end of the day the stock market is a popularity contest and thus it's subject to stuff going viral
I really am curious how much Elon's rantings are affecting potential buyers of Tesla cars. I used to be a huge fan of Elon, was greatly turned off years ago, but now I actively loath him. Not only would I now never consider buying a Tesla, I wouldn't want my friends to buy one either and would tell them "Buy any EV except for a Tesla".
It's quite likely my sentiment is inconsequential, but it's pretty obvious that some of Tesla's biggest fans (and EV fans in general) were the left-leaning people he now vilifies.
I tend to buy a new car every 5 years, my next one would be coming up in 2023. If you asked me in 2020 I would say a Tesla Model Y, not a chance of that happening now. Lots of great alternatives with less of the social stain.
I tested this one and a lot of others, including the Teslas and polestar 2. The Ionic 5 was the one i was most satisfied with, it’s really spacious, has excellent range, vehicle to grid and even camping mode. With the on-screen rear mirror cameras addon, it’s really hard to beat.
Unfortunately, i had to cancel my booking after the energy crisis became too severe..
I just did: Rivian is going to meet it's target for 25,000 vehicles produced this year, Amazon is continuing to take delivery of its Rivian electric vans, and preholder count continues to grow... The only "negative" is the Mercedes-Benz deal fell apart due to some Biden administration law that passed (dodged that bullet anyway, Mercedes-Benz makes garbage vehicles).
>It's questionable if Rivian is going to exist in 12 months.
Heard this exact quote about Tesla quarter after quarter 8 or so years ago.
TIL there are people who actually make their car-purchasing decisions based on what people on twitter say on entirely unrelated matters.
And yeah, given how widespread Teslas are where I live (if stopped at any traffic light in the city, you will see at least 2 Teslas waiting), I can confirm that absolutely no one cares.
Nope, I always knew it was a thing. Just like there are some people who go full-on FreeBSD or categorically refuse to use non-free software. Richard Stallman exists, after all, and is a celebrity.
And I also knew, for quite a while, that positions analogous to that of Stallman should never be taken at face value as something that the general public would care to even know about, let alone support or follow through. And it isn't because I am jaded or don't have faith in people, quite the opposite. It is because average people as a group tend to be pretty good at (perhaps blindly) filtering things into the "practically matters" and "doesn't ultimately matter" buckets.
In relation to this specific scenario, despite the negative reaction to my initial comment on HN and Elon's public perception trending increasingly negative, recent Tesla car sales numbers (which keep increasing) seem to only support my point. People online might loudly say XYZ, but once you look at the numbers that matter, the reality looks a bit differently.
> And yeah, given how widespread Teslas are where I live (if stopped at any traffic light in the city, you will see at least 2 Teslas waiting), I can confirm that absolutely no one cares.
Well, that's obviously false give the existence proofs in these comments. But more to the point, I only went from "Ugh, Elon is so fucking annoying, I just wish he would STFU" to "I will actively try to convince anyone I know to never do anything that would contribute to his wealth" in the past year with all the Twitter BS. I'm sure the vast, vast majority of Teslas you see on the road now were ordered before then.
> Well, that's obviously false give the existence proofs in these comments
Sorry, I meant in real life, not on HN. If you judge reality by what comments here say, you would believe that the average person thinks of TikTok as the greatest evil and that american big tech is out there to violate their privacy to entrap them for life, which is why everyone and their grandma runs an Arch or Ubuntu distro.
This is what I call a niche flavor of a terminally online take.
Your statement was "I can confirm that absolutely no one cares."
Last I checked, I exist in real life, not just on HN, and I'm guessing many of the responders here do as well.
I agree, I have no idea how common this sentiment is, which is why I said so in my original comment. Still, it's a valid hypothesis that the people most likely to be turned off by Elon to the point of avoiding Tesla are also the people who were (at least previously) most likely to want to buy an EV.
I appreciate your take, I really do. But I feel like you are just hyperfocusing on figures of speech.
Of course, there will be some people in real life who genuinely hold those takes. People on HN are real people after all, just like people on reddit/twitter/etc are (bots and astroturfing aside), and their opinions are real.
When I said "no one in real life", I meant that you wouldn't find that opinion heavily represented outside of those online communities, in a way that you would even know about it in real life. The only comments I got on that purchasing decision (and I got tons of those) were either asking about the charging situation or whether i regret getting white interior (answer: no, i don't, because whichever material they use is extremely resistant to dirt/stain and is very easy to clean/maintain).
It is kind of difficult to imagine many people (at least where I live in PNW) to really care, given that just outside of my window as i was writing this reply, I saw 2 model Ys, 1 model 3, and 1 model X pass by. I don't have the stats on hand, but if someone told me that Teslas were in the top 5 of the most sold new car brands in the state (along with Subaru, of course), I would be able to believe it.
Sidenote: I am very pleasantly impressed with the direction Hyundai is taking with their Ioniq line, and I definitely want to try it out.
> But I feel like you are just hyperfocusing on figures of speech.
Sure, I agree with that, just meant to point out that at least some people care, we just don't know how many or if it's in any way material to Tesla's overall numbers. Also think it's worth emphasizing that the number of Teslas on the road today isn't a good marker, given that Musk's most alienating behavior has only ramped up in the past year or so.
It's like two days since it was widely reported that Tesla's net approval ratings in consumer polls are now negative (drop from 6% at the start of the year to -1% now).
So clearly the attitudes in real life with real people have changed recently. The number of cars you see on the roads is, incidentally, a trailing indicator. If literally all sales of Teslas stopped now you'd still see them in the wild with the same frequency for years.
Those approval ratings were gathered by Kelley Blue Book, and even they themselves pointed out that other reports disagree. As well as that the recent slippage in brand perception recorded last month had exactly zero negative effects on sales [0].
> The number of cars you see on the roads is, incidentally, a trailing indicator. If literally all sales of Teslas stopped now you'd still see them in the wild with the same frequency for years.
Correct, but their recently posted sales numbers should alleviate that concern.
Perhaps it's less about the judgement of other people, and more about not wanting to contribute to someone they believe to be a bad actor.
At my age, I don't give a wet slap about how people view me, but I have never considered buying a Tesla, and am taking delivery of my second non-Tesla EV this Saturday. It has nothing to do with how people judge me. I mean, I drive a Fiat 500e, people undoubtedly judge me negatively based on that. :-)
There's something near 100,000 employees in multiple continents at Tesla. That's a lot of diverse opinions and social views. Elon Musk is just one person in that sea of people.
And every individual is complex, with many opinions on many issues, including some that are probably contradictory. Still, call one national hero a pedophile, and most of your other opinions are suddenly irrelevant, aren't they?
The conspiracy theorist part of my brain wants to think that he couldn’t figure out a way to get right-wingers to buy electric cars so he’s acting in ways that would turn that around for him. He also wants those tax cuts. The bet is progressives will buy them anyway without enough competition. Unfortunately it turns people like me off entirely and I’ll never buy one now as a singular probably useless datapoint.
It's interesting. My right wing family also now loves him, but they just love Elon. They would never consider a Tesla because it's what the "left" drive in California, neither of which they want to be associated with.
Doing imaginary culture wars was all it took to get conservatives to begin electric vehicle adoption? I feel like this formula could be applied to climate change or other noble efforts. "The woke hivemind virus is trying to keep all of the vegetables to themselves."
And how many of your right wing family is excited about driving an EV? I highly doubt many of the truck drivers who would deliberately drive in front of Teslas "rolling coal" just to be dicks are now thinking "Hey, this Musk guy is great, I need to buy a Tesla".
> I really am curious how much Elon's rantings are affecting potential buyers of Tesla cars. I used to be a huge fan of Elon, was greatly turned off years ago, but now I actively loath him
I wouldn't be surprised if what he's been doing increases sales. He's gaining a larger following and thus has a larger marketing channel. Further, the high end EV crowd is relatively small. You can't support a massive market cap unless you go broad (such as trucking)
Anecdotal, I own a Tesla Model 3 with FSD. I bought a Tesla/EV because the carpool sticker saves me 15 to 20 minutes on my commute. My sticker expires next year and was going to get another Tesla but my wife veto'ed the decision because of the comments Elon made about prosecuting Fauci.
Agreed, but trying to pin it on Fauci and saying he's responsible for Covid is lunatic rantings. Please see https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/29/repeated-... (And, as I always say about these fact-checking sites, you can take the "number of Pinocchios" however you want, but there is very good, detailed information there that provides a much more complete picture than any "prosecute Fauci" nonsense).
Did Musk say Fauci was "responsible for COVID?" Or did he make a tongue-in-cheek joke? Is Fauci above such criticism? He did an okay job during COVID, but is also a pretty good archetype for things that are wrong with public health--the gain of function research, failure to perform cost-benefit analysis in recommending lock downs, initially lying to the public about the efficacy of masks, etc.
To be clear, I'm a longtime Musk/Tesla skeptic. I'm watching quite gleefully as the whole self-driving car thing implodes (for me, it's a two-fer). But perhaps the only folks with less of a sense of humor than Musk fanboys are Fauci fanboys.
"When the Intercept obtained EcoHealth documents in September, seven of 11 scientists who are virologists or work in adjacent fields told the Intercept that the work appeared to meet NIH’s criteria for gain-of-function research"
So majority of scientists are on my side, minority on yours.
But exactly, the point is not to say that there is not gray area here (there is), but that the calls of "Fauci lied" and "prosecute Fauci" is what is bullshit.
If you had measured people arguing in good faith that the CDC needs clearer procedures on banning this type of research, I'm all for it. But you don't, you have people shrieking that Fauci is responsible for the deaths of millions, which is nuts.
Ah yes, you bring up data, only to paint the data that doesn't agree with you as "they're obviously partisan". Not interested in having a conversation with someone who isn't debating in good faith, or who paints all the data that doesn't agree with their preconceived notions as invalid.
I'm in the exact same boat as you. I even vaguely defended it when it was name dropped in Star Trek: Discovery back in 2017. Now I can't stand the Elongated Muskrat or anything it touches.
I think the rantings do cause buyer hesitation, but I think the bigger problem is that the Muskrat is no longer really delivering anything. The Cybertruck is nowhere to be seen while the F-150 Lightning is already out and getting rave reviews. FSD has been perpetually <12 months out for half a decade. Traditional automakers are starting to put out cheaper BEVs with better fit and finish than the Model 3. This is a classic case of over-promising and under-delivering, a strategy that only works for so long before investors catch on.
Frankly, who cares. Buy whatever car you want. Tesla's are still fine, except for the FSD (Fools Self Driving) scam.
I couldn't care less if anyone else is still buying a Tesla, if they want one, good for them. People still drive Volkswagens (VW) today despite their founder being Adolf Hitler. I won't stop them from buying a VW car.
As for Tesla stock, I think it is time for many to admit that the valuation of Tesla stock has been massively inflated with the entire stock market and was already priced in a year ago as I said before. [0]
No one cares that their friend has a porsche, but everyone in a porsche imagines other people noticing them at the stoplight and the ego boost is a non-zero contributor to their purchase decision. Ditto for any upmarket car.
The F-150 isn't America's most popular vehicle because so many Americans need a truck...
Sure, people give their two cents all the time. But that's different from caring what decision the person makes at the end of the day. I can't imagine telling a friend that I care what car they buy.
There was a quote from Richard Branson that often comes to mind when I think of Elon: "Make a fool of yourself". The context of the quote is that if you don't have the money (or are unwilling to pay) for marketing then you can get free publicity by associating yourself personally with your company's brand and then doing PR stunts that keep you in the media.
I'm not sure if that is what Elon has done intentionally but I agree with your sentiment; I wouldn't consider buying a Tesla because the/his brand has become toxic.
People in my circle drive Teslas and I would have bought one in the past. But left or right, I dislike culture war shit kickers.
The number one rule for a salesman is that people need to like you because no one wants to give money to someone they don't like. People may admire and respect Elon but polls show he has become less likable and that's not good for Tesla.
I've got one in my garage, and a shitload of TSLA in my portfolio.
They're an engineering marvel, and I'm proud of the employees of Tesla that pulled it off, and I'm happy its a product of American manufacturing.
But its an easy choice to go with another manufacturer with Musk at the head of the company - lots of other great options emerging without the downsides of whatever he's trying to accomplish.
It's astonishing. Tesla had such a huge advantage among the wealthy left-leaning individuals that were most likely to spend extra on electric cars. They had a whole untapped market of people who weren't "car people" at their fingertips.
I'm only one data point, but yeah, I ended up cancelling my reservation and buying something else.
I think it's more the combination of a) viable alternatives and b) negative approval rating as well as c) Tesla has failed to innovate in the past several years and improve their offering.
Yes, the Model Y is a fantastic looking car and performs amazing, but Tesla hasn't really provided any new products or features that are eye popping. FSD is a bust.
I had a cybertruck order that I placed 2 years ago and cancelled 6 months ago because it was clear I wouldn't get it at the price I wanted for at least another 3 years - if I even got it at the price I wanted.
All Elon had to do was just shutup and stay behind the scenes, like in the good Musk days. He has started so many great companies and I very much used to admire him. But now it's like watching a trainwreck in slow motion. He was eccentric from the beginning, but it just feels like things have gotten so much worse.
I agree with you. Buy any EV except for Tesla would be my recommendation too.
I purchased a Model X (spent well over $100k) back in 2019. I (up until this past week) had a reservation for a maxed-out Cybertruck that I was planning to purchase, as well as a 100k+ solar + battery install.
This past week I couldn't stand the thought of giving Elon any more money and canceled all those purchases -- I'd be SHOCKED if Tesla and his other companies don't end up suffering based on his complete 180 flip over the last few years.
My personal theory is that just it's not as hard to build an electric car now as it was in 2012.
Remember that back when the Model S was newly released, Tesla seemed like they'd done something impossible. Not only had they released a practical electric car, but it was good. They'd solved a ton of hard technical problems that other companies hadn't been able to: Fast charging, liquid battery cooling, ultrasonically welded fuses on every cell, OTA software updates, permanent magnet synchronous reluctance motors, you name it. It looked like pure magic to investors. As soon as it became clear that the company would survive, the stock price went vertical.
Over time, though, this niche problem space has become well understood. Legacy automakers have shown that not only can they solve the same set of problems, but they can also apply a hundred years of manufacturing experience, support, and brand loyalty. Electric cars also tend to be even simpler to build, with a smaller BOM and fewer precision-made components.
In the meantime, it seems like Tesla hasn't been able to shore up their quality control issues. Tesla's remaining moat is in their software, as well as a series of longshot bets that (to me, anyway) seem less likely to pay off: Full self-driving, in-house cell manufacturing, rooftop solar, humanoid robots.
At one point, I would have figured Tesla's secret sauce applied to just about any problem. Now, I'm not so sure. In retrospect, it looks like it just applied to a series of discrete engineering and industrial design problems. What once looked like Apple levels of product leadership maybe now looks more like Blackberry: An early entrant to a huge market, but ultimately not able to fend off the legacy players.
The reason Tesla did so well (other than some amazing engineering) was due to the innovator's dilemma.
Legacy manufacturers were dependent on ICE supply chain and profits. Not to mention the dealership and auto parts/repair feedback loops.
All of these would be disrupted by Tesla, who had to play difficult mode (replacing gas stations with superchargers and home chargers, fighting the dealership incumbency, and the stigma of "range anxiety").
Always invest in an industry index and not in individual companies as you can't pick the winners. This is investment 101. EVs will become mainstream eventually but the likelihood of Tesla to dominate the market is low. Their only possible redeeming strategy is building a robot but it can also backfire (see Meta).
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