You don't need to wonder how much other companies spend per hour. Take their quarterly expenses and divide by 2190. GM, for example, spends $9.7m. Ford spends $2.25m. It's perhaps more useful to look at net income - Despite spending $9.7m per hour, GM profits $2.4m per hour. If you're General Motors, you're profiting $663 per second. If you're Tesla, you're losing $42 per second. There's a $700 delta there and it's heavily in GM's favor... But Tesla is "worth" $52 billion dollars while GM is worth $62b.
I'm a bit fascinated by this. It's like watching the local favorite football team (which I don't care annoy myself) down by 13 with six minutes left in the fourth quarter of the championship game. Either they pull it off and it's hard not to be excited, or they fail and it's amusing watching the train wreck.Basically, Tesla really needs to find a way to start cranking out Model 3s.
The argument against Tesla is that they aren't required to play by the rules. Touchdowns, for example, count for 28 points. Taking a knee puts the ball at the 50 yard line. Field goals count for 2 points if the ball happens to cross the end zone; getting it between the poles is irrelevant.
And they have 20 people on the field with their fans saying how great it is to see them shaking up the sport norms. I wish them well, too. My complaint is mostly with the fans who don't understand they're playing by different rules. But being in the electric power industry, electric cars are good for me, and I want one.
I built two between my Freshman and Sophomore year of college, and was involved in three hybrids back in '94. From a performance automotive perspective electric motors are the way to go because that whole "peak torque at 0 rpm" thing is sooper nice. I guess I can be shallow enough to admit this: I'd like Tesla a lot more if they weren't so demonstrably joyless. They're fuggly and unimaginative and they firmly adhere to the maxim that anything that can be done via touchscreen should be done via touchscreen, despite the fact that touchscreens are the worst UI innovation in the history of ergonomics and are downright dangerous in a moving vehicle. And, really, every electric vehicle or hybrid is basically an uglier, more touch-screeny version of the cooler car it's derived from. So far, electric/hybrid vehicles are either made for people who hate cars Or people who shit money. Teslas? Teslas are made for people who hate cars and shit money.
It's important when you look at their revenue and cash on hand. They got a fat wad but they aren't bringing it in near as fast as they are sending it out. What happened to all that battery money they were going to take in? I thought the whole scheme was to sell batteries? At least that's what people kept telling me when I'd bring up the idea that building profitable cars is hard for companies that have done it for decades and Tesla doesn't have a big track record in lower margin consumer widget manufacturing, let alone cars.
A few articles above this one is Aston Martin Expected to Achieve First Profit Since 2010 Even with large cash reserves on hand and generous loans, it's sometimes hard to imagine how these big companies are able to stay afloat for long periods of time and it often seems that their only avenue to continue to exist is to be bought out by other companies. See Aston Martin again with this great tidbit "Aston Martin was often financially troubled. In 1972 David Brown paid off all its debts, said to be £5 million or more, and handed it for £101 to Company Developments, a Birmingham-based investment bank consortium chaired by accountant William Willson" or Chrysler in recent years. Tesla? Who'd buy that? What's their IP worth? Their physical assets? The brand name? I dunno man. I know they're trying to innovate, but what makes them worth buying when other companies are starting to do what they're doing? When it comes to electric cars, you have cars like the Chevrolet Volt and Bolt, the Nissan Leaf, and BMW's i marque making more than considerable ground and I don't think any of them use Tesla's batteries or charging stations or nothing. When it comes to self driving cars, everyone is getting into the game, from Ford to Volvo to Toyota. Honestly, I think if Tesla can't deliver, they're not gonna survive at all. Edited: Added additional thought about self driving cars.
Holy fucking shit that Aston Martin article is insane. So 2.2m pounds is not $29 million, it's $2.9m. $2.9m over 3330 cars is $870.87 per car. This is an Aston Martin DB11. It starts at $211,995. This is an iPhone X. It starts at $999. Aston Martin makes about $871 on that car. Apple makes $642 on that phone.In the first nine months of the year, Aston recorded a pre-tax profit of 2.2 million pounds, or roughly $29 million. It sold 3,330 cars, an increase of 65 percent. It lost 124 million pounds during the first nine months of 2016.
They're spending $480k an hour. They're earning $331k an hour. Therefore, they're losing about $150k an hour. Let's say they continue to lose $150k an hour until August 6 2018. Let's further assume they make $5k on every Model 3. If they can build 30 Model 3s an hour they're golden. Unfortunately that's 260,000 model 3s per year. Tesla's own goals are 100k per year. Meanwhile, Tesla claims they're making 25% on every Model 3, while UBS thinks they'll lose $6k on each and every one. 100,000 model 3s at $6k loss each is a $600m loss. 100,000 model 3s at 25% profit is an $875m profit. There's a fair amount of slop in there, which is why Tesla stock is so volatile. You don't need to wonder how much other companies spend per hour. Take their quarterly expenses and divide by 2190. GM, for example, spends $9.7m. Ford spends $2.25m. It's perhaps more useful to look at net income - Despite spending $9.7m per hour, GM profits $2.4m per hour. If you're General Motors, you're profiting $663 per second. If you're Tesla, you're losing $42 per second. There's a $700 delta there and it's heavily in GM's favor... But Tesla is "worth" $52 billion dollars while GM is worth $62b. Thus the Tesla hate.