[AMG Power]

Tesla is a Mom and Pop shop with Elon being the pop and no mum around. In a situation where there is no Elon there will in all probability be no Tesla. Elon is a visionary and a technocrat, not necessarily a good businessman.

In the best case scenario, Tesla without Musk may drift like Apple without Steve Jobs - no major breakthroughs, slight modifications to existing products, no launches that will shake the industry. However Apple has a history of being in the industry for long, profitability on its side and sufficient reserves to see it through the not so good times. Tesla doesn't have any of that.

The more one looks at it, Tesla has a huge single point failure in Elon. Think of a Mercedes being run by an individual like Elon Musk and the huge vulnerability to continuity that would bring on the organisation.

It is not a question of whether Tesla will survive in its present state - that will never happen.

It's only a question of when Tesla will be bought out by another company, merged with another, or it's good bits cherry picked by another larger organisation.

If it's lucky to last that long.

[deetjohn]

Tesla is not just losing money, but key personnel as well. There are many reports stating the factory floor is a living hell.

Elon is a visionary! But it will be tough for people like that to plan and manage a supplychain. That needs a lot of elbow grease. He could get away with those fancy doors, cost and delay on the Model X as the production volume was very low.

Model 3 is a different ball game. The product is good and there are customers. But they need to figure out how to get these out of the factory doors quick and bring the money in. Model 3 will have to make money for Tesla to survive. The tax credit of 7500 USD by the US govt. on each car sold is also ending soon. And the waiting customers will have many electric cars to choose from in 2019.

It still is a fixable problem. Elon should step aside and get someone with authority and freedom to manage the production. I don't think he will be able to do this balancing act for long. Raising money to cover losses and expenses is easy for Tesla. But that cannot go on and on. Time is running out.

Besides, we shouldn't forget it is not just Tesla occupying Elon's bandwidth. There is SpaceX, Hyperloop, Neuralink, The Boring Company to name a few.

[MalluDude]

Originally Posted by AMG Power

When asked what percentage of customers who had reserved a Model 3 had configured options for their cars – a signal of how much profit the firm could make on each vehicle – Musk responded: “These questions are so dry. They’re killing me.”

Tesla shares fell by 5% wiping out £1.47 billion of the value of the company during a conference call by Elon Musk.

Lol, nothing crashes the market quicker than when a leader cannot answer questions!
There's only so much that a company can survive by talking about innovation and saving the world. At the end of the day, it's the cash that counts. Major players are already getting serious in the electric front, and Tesla's USP will no longer hold strong. As someone mentioned earlier, a Chinese take-over doesn't look far-fetched.

[Steeroid]

Tesla needs some creative accounting, like @ Jio. That will fix all these pesky problems.

Jio shows wonderful profits after charging deep discounted rates in spite of investing some really big amounts (borrowed, of course). And people are busy idolizing them instead of looking into what they're actually doing.

Tesla needs an Ambani.

[ritz3645]

How Elon Musk is fixing Tesla Model 3 production problems: More humans
https://mashable.com/2018/04/14/elon...s-more-humans/

Tesla’s Production Problems Spawn a Legion of Model 3 Stalkers
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...del-3-stalkers

Drone Footage of the Tesla Factory

https://youtu.be/DgreVHE9Wa0

[libranof1987]

Tesla, reminds me of Amazon. It is the "promise" of tomorrow that sustains these businesses and encourages investors to hand over their money, even when the profits don't show.

Who knows; Tesla wouldn't be Tesla if a shrewd businessman was at the helm. There has to be that eccentric fellow at the top to back unusual technological advances. Look at where Ford, Nissan and Chevrolet are with their Fusion, Leaf and Volt; and where Tesla cars are.

Agree; scalability and reliability have been spoiling Musk's party and that needs to be fixed really soon. But is Tesla under threat from the big boys? I'm willing to bet, not just yet.

Never say never but Tesla selling out to a bigger corporation or playing second fiddle by being a vendor, just seems implausible.

My money is on Musk pulling a rabbit. I keep thinking, I should have bought some Tesla stock.

Oh, and here's a little something:

Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk is putting some money where his trash-talking mouth is.

The chief executive officer bought about $9.85 million worth of Tesla shares on Monday, his biggest purchase since March 2017, according to a regulatory filing. Musk, 46, already was Tesla’s largest shareholder, and his stake is now approaching 20 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...aunting-shorts

[charanreddy]

In my view there are far too many, too big, professionally managed companies that are struggling to reinvent themselves.. they look stable in the short term with manageable growth numbers, lower operational problems..because they are not doing anything radical enough and any small tweak or step goes in the name of innovation furthered by the persistent drone of internal company PR.. too many senior middle managers looking to grow personally at any cost rot the company from with in.. per my view the Tesla s of the world are going to be the real game changers as they cut the bullshit right out
. Folks say Musk may be Tesla's one big risk.. I think he is the one that will make it happen for Tesla and that Tesla's core values are an extension of his personality.. So he is 'Tesla'..

[sri_tesla]

I may sound like a fanboy with my username but here are my thoughts on Tesla (cars, batteries, stock and financials):

• Tesla cannot be fully compared with other traditional car makers. Tesla may be losing a ton of money each quarter but that is because they are in growth mode that too at early stage of it. They need to be expanding and their shareholders expect them to keep doing that.

• The moment Tesla slows expansion, like slowing down on new Model Y development, Tesla semi production etc... their investors will be worried and share will fall.

• Its similar to Amazon rather than other car companies like Ford. Amazon revenue in 2017 was $177 billion but their net profit is just $3 billion. More than two thirds of their profit is coming from Amazon cloud platform. Despite huge revenue from their e-commerce they hardly making any profits. That's because they have are continuously expanding for the last 24 years.

• Tesla most likely will be expanding for the next decade. After Model Y will require even more money for development and production lines as the shift towards SUVs, Model 3 new production lines, Tesla Semi truck, new battery giga factories, etc...

• Many people in this thread are expecting the traditional automakers to leapfrog Tesla easily. But the truth is most of them don't have concrete plans. All their road maps start mostly from 2020 that too with 1 or 2 vehicles. Likes of Jaguar, Audi, Mercedes have few products for next 1-2 years but they will be in very limited production.

• Each and every Tesla car (except limited production Roadster) are selling very well and growing at rapid pace in major markets like US, China. Model S is the best selling luxury car (not SUV) in its segment in US for the last 3 years ahead of all Mercedes, BMW and Audi models.

• Model 3 is already doing very well with limited production (see below chart for comparison). As the production increases over next few months, it will be leapfrogging all other cars in its price range.

• Tesla's energy business (power walls and power packs) is also growing at a rapid pace. With increasing solar and wind plant installations, this business will keep growing for years to come.

[PratikPatel]

I don't understand the scepticism people have for Tesla. Tesla is a game changer and a market disruption force. Yes it has production problems, but that will be sorted out. Do not forget that they had to create a EV ecosystem from scratch with virtually nothing in hand. Musk went up against the powerful car dealers lobby to set up his own distribution network. Why? Because he knew that the EV concept will need a different approach to selling it successfully. Where big car makers talked big but did not have the guts to put their money and R&D on the table, Musk has done so with great success. Let's admit it, all of us were skeptics when he first announced plans for EVs. Musk has succeeded where no one had dared to go before i.e private space launch vehicles. Space X has made new ground breaking matrices which are bench marks for other companies. If the man has mastered rocket science, surely he can master the science of mass production.

[ritz3645]

Tesla

'Building a car that reduces carbon emissions and aligns with 21st century energy ambitions is one thing. Building a car that is so beautiful and high-performance that those who don’t care about carbon emissions still line up to buy is truly something else. It is one of the purest examples of “better for me/better for the world” that exists. The amount of brand awareness it has built in one short decade is staggering for a company of its complexity.'

Source :
http://www.collaborativefund.com/blo...public-stocks/

[satishv1987]

Originally Posted by Steeroid

Tesla needs some creative accounting, like @ Jio. That will fix all these pesky problems.

Jio shows wonderful profits after charging deep discounted rates in spite of investing some really big amounts (borrowed, of course). And people are busy idolizing them instead of looking into what they're actually doing.

Tesla needs an Ambani.

Hypothetically if Ambani were to buy Tesla, he could do to EVs what he did to 4G. That is not a bad thing.

[ARAY]

Here's my thought. Consider Tesla to be a software giant instead of a car manufacturer. The basics of EVs have been conquered by Tesla long back. Yes production cycle , upgradation its all part of the game. But the way Tesla is and would be dealing with would be far different from conventional automobile manufacturers. Trend has shown in software market headstarteres do have an advantage but how Tesla uses that by either acquiring or collaborating only time can tell.

[Maddy3008]

I did a quick search and found the following:

1. It has a positive gross margin (EBIDTA), hence the products are making a profit. The net profit number is subject to many assumptions and hence can be safely ignored

2. It has adopted to selling more cars in the cash segment instead of leasing, hence, will be less dependent on external financing for growth

3. Tesla may have a negative free cash flow (EBIDTA - Interest - Tax - Capex - WC change) but this will not last forever. This will continue until new products are developed and new capacity is added.

Based on these three accounts based pointers, I will give the company a second chance at subjective evaluation of its competitive advantage and whether other companies can catch-up to them.

Comments and feedback welcome !

[carmayogi]

Originally Posted by The Brutailer

Honestly, I believe Tesla has the technology but doesn’t have the profound experience and skills to manage it, something the German and Japanese giants have in hordes. Also, Elon Musk seems a tad bit immature, which is not necessarily a bad thing but he’d be better off collaborating with companies like Mercedes-Benz or maybe Toyota (whichever country he prefers) like he has done with Virgin on the Hyperloop project.

Musk is a visionary like Steve Jobs. Unlike Jobs though, he’s not a shrewd businessman.

I couldn't have put it better. The difference between Jobs and Musk is in a few details. Jobs was a visionary for a product or products that are inherently easy to produce. Furthermore, production was already in place before launches in most instances. Building a car is ridiculously more complicated than building a phone or computer.

The immaturity part is what really scares me. Sure, there's every chance that profitability will happen, but there's also every chance that his pride and hubris will lead them down a wormhole.

Personally, I want Tesla to succeed, not as a fan of them or Musk but as a fan of electric propulsion. I think that internal combustion should be reserved for sports cars and race cars. Your daily driver doesn't need to be setting fire to liters of fuel in the pursuit of motion. It's such an archaic concept.

[Bhatman510]

Originally Posted by carmayogi

Personally, I want Tesla to succeed, not as a fan of them or Musk but as a fan of electric propulsion. I think that internal combustion should be reserved for sports cars and race cars. Your daily driver doesn't need to be setting fire to liters of fuel in the pursuit of motion. It's such an archaic concept.

Problem is not the car. Its the culture and the company. When im older I would love to own a Model S 100kW RWD. Why? Because I helped build it.

Back in 2012 till 2014 the people who worked there cared about building a car. Creating a vehicle that could change the landscape of the automotive industry. All those people now either are in upper management or engineering and dont really bother since there sitting on shares or they left to do bigger EV things in the automotive/motorcycle landscape. Tesla will keep chugging along because the industry feeds off of it. Haters will hate but the car will keep being around and its parts as well.