Many potential Tesla solar customers (that I know of) have ended up using other solutions as Tesla simply didn’t have stock availability - it’s a novelty product line.
Many “investors” do not know the ground reality and base their decisions on the Twitter feed of an individual.
I order a system from Tesla on Sept 30th, it was installed Nov 3rd, and I received permission to operate on Nov 23rd.
Other quotes I received were targeting installation Jan or Feb 2021.
Unproven insurance model with a 40% potential.
Insane demand causing shortages in solar panels is a great company to give money to.
Remember the goal of investing in the market is to know where the market is going and to get there quickier. You are saying the market is wrong on valuation.. you can't really bet on that only market players reactions.
There is just a ton of money looking for a place to invest, and Tesla is certainly telling a higher growth story than any of the existing car companies.
Tesla has been growing revenues 50% on average for the past 10 years.
Most other car makers are roughly flat. This year ICE cars, globally, are in decline.
Tesla will grow 50% on average for at least next 5 years.
Also, there has been a ton of money looking for a place to invest for the past 20 years. And there are plenty companies that are investable. Just recently we had monster IPOs from DoorDash, AirBnb, Snowflake and others.
At the same time there are many more companies that one could invest in but doesn't so it's lazy to attribute "lost of money available" to outsized successes like Tesla or Snowflake.
- Toyota, $272 billion
- Volkswagen Group, $282 billion
And yes, even compared to Ford, Daimler etc. Tesla's revenues are quite small.
Stock price is usually factored as a PE ratio - Price to Earnings.
Price to Sales also exists, but usually only for emerging companies that have just gone public and are growing rapidly.
If I understand this correctly, they'll be able to write their own checks because they will essentially...
1) Own self-driving and thus, most personal transportation
3) Own / replace a large segment of public utility / power companies
4) Own / replace a large segment of insurance
5) Own / replace transportation power network
Right now, it's silly to think of Tesla as some kind of mega-monopoly across industries. So we invest in them betting on them becoming that. Is that what we want?
My counter-argument is that one of the bigger markets for automobiles, the U.S., is designed around personal choice, personal autonomy, etc. Many people just want a working car to give them freedom, and will buy whatever popular, trusted brand is available. The rest want one of the smaller brands, something that seems different from the mainstream (even if it's really barely skin deep). That has kept quite a few big players in the automotive marketplace, and despite consolidation over time, there's still variety, which buyers want. This argument really only addresses them as a car maker, though... and not at all for their spread across industry lines.
The Renault Zoe is the best selling electric car in Europe in 2020.
It's not like car manufacturers are standing still. They'll be pumping out electric cars year after year. When there's so much choice of EV, what's the reason to choose a Tesla? Europe is choosing the Zoe ahead of all other models right now.
For example, if Honda or Toyota makes any of their mainline models with the simplified/basic interior but just with a well-made EV drivetrain compatible with the Tesla charger network, I'm probably buying instantly.
Although EU nations, until GF Berlin, aren't quite apples to apples in that regard. But my understanding is that they did final assembly of the S and X in Europe to avoid the tariff, it's only the 3 that suffers.
The most sold cars in Europe are models that start around 15~20k€. The cheapest Tesla starts at 51k€; that's about 3 times the price. Even if you only look at electric cars, the best selling one is the Zoe which starts at about half the price of the cheapest Tesla.
> Both Tesla and Apple have that premium brand reputation, and older brands are perceived as legacy.
In other words: overpriced crap vs. tried and tested.
Nokia had Maemo since 2005 and tried to move to MeeGo in 2010. IOS was 2007, Android happened 2008 and Microsoft had almost no success with Windows Mobile, only launching Windows Phone near the end of 2010. Weird definition of well behind.
That said, Windows Phone was widely available in 2010. Whereas Nokia hadn't widely rolled out either Maemo or MeeGo.
The goal for Tesla is to accelerate transition to electric vehicles. Once that is completed Elon will move on to another project similarly to when he transitioned from X.com/Paypal to something else.
If that were true then Tesla would open its chargers for use by all brands of EV.
Teslas can charge on all other charging networks. When will Tesla reciprocate?
Tesla's mission is (from their website): "Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy."
More tunnels would be cool, but I find it hard to believe there's really that much room for improvement over established companies.
I think the hyperloop is even more ludicrous given the technological problems involved in vacuum tubes. But I think Elon realises that which is why all he did is write a memo on it rather than create a company around it.
I feel like the Boring company is what he settled on once it was made clear to him how monumentally stupid hundreds or thousands of miles of near vacuum tube would be in practice. Even if you could actually build a working prototype, it's hyper fragile and will just never be economically viable compared to other solutions.
Ford had an oh-my-God enormous first mover advantage with the production line. Japanese car companies started literally from nowhere, in an economy shattered by war. VW was literally kickstarted quite late into the game.
I don’t think it is right to assume that, even if Tesla makes the first affordable, good range electric cars, then the rest of the market can just fold. Especially since electric cars are simpler than ICEs so surely it’s easier to catch up.
The only pro Tesla argument that I hear is that they are gathering more data. This is entirely fallacious because there are no meaningful milestones for data gathered, and it's not true. Google has orders of magnitude more of driving data from Android, Maps, and Waze.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/21/tesla-s...
Tesla is doing a limited beta of full self driving now which will be widely expanded in just a few months. I don’t understand how anybody but Tesla is poised to have self driving cars in the near future.
Meanwhile Tesla has taken no steps to get approval from regulators (feel free to prove me wrong). Until they start to do so, their self driving program is pure vaporware.
Also, to date they have shipped no features that they are legally allowed to call "self driving" or "autonomous".
Tesla on the other-hand is MAKING money with self driving technology already.
What something is called doesn't really matter, I bet on the company that has 100ks to millions of cars with advanced self-driving computers and hardware on the road in daily use over a company that has a couple 100 cars in Arizona any day.
The complexity of self driving is in the complexity of the road network in the real world. The only way to solve it is to have millions of cars learning all the complexity and finding the corner cases.
The real money in self driving is not offering ride-share in small geo-locked areas.
"Yes. Autopilot is a hands-on driver assistance system that is intended to be used only with a fully attentive driver. It does not turn a Tesla into a self-driving car nor does it make a car autonomous."
And you fail to respond to my actual point.
If you compare Tesla to the other companies working on self driving, the only meaningful milestone where Tesla leads is the number of fatalities. The reason why Cruise and Waymo have not been as aggressive as Tesla in rolling out features to the general public is caution.
When it comes to gauging self-driving progress the most meaningful metric to look at is progress towards regulatory approval in more markets. It doesn't matter how _capable_ they are, if they can't demonstrate to regulators that they're able to safely operate then they won't be in the market. Tesla needs to step up and start making progress towards legally operating actual self-driving vehicles.
Saying that having a single car that is approved for self driving in a single geographic are is far more advanced then millions of cars that can drive with incredibly advanced driver assists literally all over the world is just an incredibly terrible way to measure progress towards the eventual full solution.
Its simply not a way of measuring progress that I is reasonable.
> aggressive as Tesla in rolling out features to the general public is caution
Its because they have a technology platform that simply can't be sold commercially as they are specialized vehicles. Plus these are not system that have been developed to work with a driver, its simply a totally different process of development.
- Waymo seems to be ahead in some targeted ring fenced areas given active service.
- Tesla seems to be more ready for nationwide rollout due to already collecting nationwide driver data + cars.
The question is which one is more likely to result in a broad scale market first, or other significant market revenue generating position.
It seems likely Tesla could roll out taxis to a ringfenced area in Phoenix (or similar ideal area) relatively easily. While Waymo is a long way from offering a nationwide service compared to Tesla. This in my mind puts Tesla ahead but there probably a bunch of other factors known and unknown too.
Not legally.
Nobody takes this into account. They just claim: "Tesla has this and that potential", "this and that market could be huge". Okay, this should give the stock price a significant boost, but not 10x. It's a bit like crypto speculation.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketcapitalization.as...
> doesn't take into account any other factors such as projections, profitability or debt
You seem to confuse a few things here.
Explain how Amazon could ever be worth more than zero for most of its existence, then?
Price of stock is largely dependent on people willing to buy it and sell it. When more people want to buy it, the stock price generally goes up.
Why do people want to buy more than sell? Generally, it's when they think the future price will be higher. Projections, sort of.
Similar to how Apple thinks of itself as a hardware company, but also created iOS/macOS to sell those hardware.
In the coming years there will be so much competition in this space.
And then you have Elon snubbing California, one of the largest consumer markets in the space.
I'd short.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/investing/tesla-short-sellers...
TSLA has famously bad QA issues, etc etc I don't need to go on. Few (including some of those who are holding TSLA stock right now) would say that there is meaningful justification for the current valuation.
And then you look at them as one of the few American brands absolutely killing it in China right now. Not as simple as it seems.
> I'd short.
Everyone who has done this so far as lost their shirt.
There's a good chance that "old" manufacturers with decades-old processes will have a harder time adjusting to an electric world than the hard time Tesla will have figuring out the rest.
Also, Tesla isn't just a car company, they're also a energy storage company. Which I suspect is a massive market too.
Toyota for example is set to introduce prototypes with solid state batteries in 2021.
Most consumers will opt for their familiar and reliable Camry that happens to run on batteries.
Tesla will need something new to entice consumers. But, I just don't see much more innovation outside battery tech happening.
This is where I feel the self driving part will come in.
1) First to market and length of lag for other manufactures there.
Imagine there 2 car companies with working self-driving 10+ years before others can catch-up. That will shift the market for domestic and commercial.
2) Self-driving safety stats - this is going to become huge when there are self driving choices.
If one company can say 'we are half as likely to have an accident' type marketing, this is going to become a new and significant factor in vehicle purchase, more so than safety rating are today (I believe anyway) as we are taking out the 'Im in control of my experience' factor.
3) Self driving will flow to other innovation. Cars will no-longer need to be 4 seats facing forward. Huge opportunity to re-think transport once you dont need a driver seat.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Can you link to some sources, please?
The only one that actually seems like it might be going into Volume production is the VW ID.3. There are plenty of articles from 2019 talking about how they'll be building TONS in 2020... but there are no articles in 2020 talking about how many they've built.
No other auto maker has any EV on the books they plan to actually mass produce, they're all just "limited volume".
Volkswagen’s ID.3 Leapfrogs Tesla, Renault In October European EV Sales Charts
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2020/11/26/volksw...
How many are they now building per month? - find my an article that answers that question please.
A model s has a footprint of about 4m^2. In ideal conditions that would net you maybe 800W during daylight hours... 6.4kWh over the day. That would give you around 30 miles of driving range. Solar on personal vehicles will never be anything more than a gimmick.
1) If they win the self driving race that will be incredible value beyond just manufacturing cars.
2) Battery manufacturing in general is huge on its own.
3) The roof top combined with domestic battery side is potentially significant in replacing (full or part?) domestic power companies
4) Insurance - Musk said this could grow into 30-40% of their business
5) Super charger network gives them a first advantage to replace petrol stations to a degree.
6) Elon factor of what's next.
And dont get me wrong, I do feel its gone beyond reasonable value, but there is more than a car company there.