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A comment on Tesla's giant battery saved $40M during its first year, report says. Parent comment

Re:Tesla's giant battery saved $40M during its first year, r... by gamblor956 on Thursday December 06, 2018 @04:28PM (#18622428)
The smartest thing Tesla ever did was finance battery manufacturing using luxury vehicle margins (stoking demand with a sexy, desirable brand), and have those customers (including myself) finance the depreciation and capital carrying costs of those battery sleds

Panasonic and Samsung make Tesla's battery cells; Tesla simply assembles them together. For now they're the big kahuna because they've locked up output through contracts but when they don't control the primary input to their "biggest product" they're at the mercy of their suppliers and the market.

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Re:Tesla's giant battery saved $40M during its first year, r... by toomuchtodo on Thursday December 06, 2018 @06:18PM (#18623485)
You continue to be bearish for a company that successfully executes over and over (from Roadster 1.0 to hundreds of millions of dollars in free cash flow). Strange.
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Re:Tesla's giant battery saved $40M during its first year, r... by gamblor956 on Friday December 07, 2018 @02:38AM (#18625801)
Having worked in the accounting industry, what Tesla has cannot properly be called free cash flow and were musk to make such a statement he would face SEC investigation and shareholder lawsuits.

I think we also disagree on Tesla's execution. Tesla has just barely managed to avoid death many times. That's not successful execution unless you define success as not failing.

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Re:Tesla's giant battery saved $40M during its first year, r... by jryle70 on Friday December 07, 2018 @07:04AM (#18626959)
Well, they are not just another new kid in the block. When their goals are to mass produce electric vehicles; to make it a viable option in the market; to move the entire industry in a new direction; to create advanced battery production capability, in my mind they have been nothing but a resounding success.
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