Musk endeavours

[odysseus2000]

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/01/hertz-is-selling-20000-used-evs-due-to-high-repair-costs/

At the end of Q3 2023, Hertz told investors that significant price cutting during the year had "resulted in lower EV residual values, increasing vehicle depreciation expense and negatively impacting salvage cost." Additionally, its rental EVs were damaged or crashed more often, and the much higher cost of repairs for Tesla vehicles—on average about 20 percent higher than other EVs—has meant that Hertz's Teslas earn it less money per vehicle than its other rentals.

doolally

Hertz news is quite old, decision to sell is great for those who want a bev as it will lower prices.

Regards,

[doolally]

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/01/hertz-is-selling-20000-used-evs-due-to-high-repair-costs/


doolally

Hertz news is quite old, decision to sell is great for those who want a bev as it will lower prices.

Regards,

But isn't the significantly higher repair cost for Teslas concerning? Why is it higher than other BEV manufacturers?
doolally

[odysseus2000]

Hertz news is quite old, decision to sell is great for those who want a bev as it will lower prices.

Regards,

But isn't the significantly higher repair cost for Teslas concerning? Why is it higher than other BEV manufacturers?
doolally

It is a long and complicated story that comes in part from one company with limited repair sites and a dislike of using 3 rd party repairers. In the by and by as more repair centres are used the extra costs associated with such constraints should fall away and Tesla, who are now an insurer, have to get the costs down to keep their insurance competitive.

There is also the lack of care that folk renting a car have compared to one that they own making them more likely to engage in more aggressive driving.

However, none of this seems to bother buyers with deliveries up substantially in the latest Tesla reports. Whether this has been achieved by murdering margins should be revealed in the next Tesla report on the 24th of this month.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

This graphic gives a clear indication of the trouble legacy auto are in:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/174546433 ... DCpgdbFBxg

Regards,

[Howard]

This graphic gives a clear indication of the trouble legacy auto are in:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/174546433 ... DCpgdbFBxg

Regards,

It's too easy to find clickbait theories.

Where is the data for the premium manufacturers who are doing so well at the moment?

You are comparing Tesla with low margin manufacturers like Ford and GM whose problems pre-dated Tesla. Isn't it misleading to pick two or three problem companies? Where is the detailed analysis?

regards

Howard

[odysseus2000]

This graphic gives a clear indication of the trouble legacy auto are in:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/174546433 ... DCpgdbFBxg

Regards,

It's too easy to find clickbait theories.

Where is the data for the premium manufacturers who are doing so well at the moment?

You are comparing Tesla with low margin manufacturers like Ford and GM whose problems pre-dated Tesla. Isn't it misleading to pick two or three problem companies? Where is the detailed analysis?

regards

Howard

I am giving you condensed information. If you want more detail then you have to do what I do, that is follow lots of auto industry folk, listen to conference calls from competitors & then make logical deductions as to what is happening, not what folk say is happening.

If you look at stuff on Twitter the community notes feature works wel in exposing false or misleading information so you have additional corrections & validations.

You may dismiss Ford & GM has not relevant with pre existing problems, but they are both volume manufacturers & they are losing sales. You can go & look at who ever you want & analyse them & you may find someone who is doing well, but if Tesla & BYD sales are as stated then those sales are coming from other makers.

According to the graphic only 6 companies have grown sales & of these Tesla has grown sales more than the other 5 combined

This is super significant for the whole auto market & shows how strong Tesla is.

Imagine being the ceo of a business losing sales & the pressure he or she is under.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

So the hidden dagger at the heart of Tesla has been pulled out:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/174699948 ... DCpgdbFBxg

This can very ugly for Tesla stock very quickly:

Regards,

[Howard]

New model 3 launched in US:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos- ... 024-01-10/

Quite amazing how quickly Tesla are producing new models. As noted Tesla production lines are so flexible that new models can be quickly brought into production with minimal impact on existing production giving a smooth transition between models. This is in stark contrast to what has traditionally happened in legacy auto.

Regards,

Not sure you are right. Legacy manufacturers smoothly launch facelifts of models all the time. They are also canny enough, generally speaking, to charge more for the face lifted model.

Tesla cut the price of the revamped Model 3 in China within a month or two of its launch. Is this because it isn't selling as well as expected? This is reported to be another reason for the recent share price drops.

Regards

Howard

[odysseus2000]

New model 3 launched in US:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos- ... 024-01-10/

Quite amazing how quickly Tesla are producing new models. As noted Tesla production lines are so flexible that new models can be quickly brought into production with minimal impact on existing production giving a smooth transition between models. This is in stark contrast to what has traditionally happened in legacy auto.

Regards,

Not sure you are right. Legacy manufacturers smoothly launch facelifts of models all the time. They are also canny enough, generally speaking, to charge more for the face lifted model.

Tesla cut the price of the revamped Model 3 in China within a month or two of its launch. Is this because it isn't selling as well as expected? This is reported to be another reason for the recent share price drops.

Regards

Howard

Legacy auto create a road map for each model, with changes at pre-planned times & they sell for whatever they can get, adjusting prices by incentives etc as needed.

Tesla move faster & continually change car specs as cost & different ways of making come along & they too adjust price to demand. The ability of Tesla to change specs as needed & to do so with out substantial line shut downs is something legacy can only dream of.

Regards,

[Howard]

Not sure you are right. Legacy manufacturers smoothly launch facelifts of models all the time. They are also canny enough, generally speaking, to charge more for the face lifted model.

Tesla cut the price of the revamped Model 3 in China within a month or two of its launch. Is this because it isn't selling as well as expected? This is reported to be another reason for the recent share price drops.

Regards

Howard

Legacy auto create a road map for each model, with changes at pre-planned times & they sell for whatever they can get, adjusting prices by incentives etc as needed.

Tesla move faster & continually change car specs as cost & different ways of making come along & they too adjust price to demand. The ability of Tesla to change specs as needed & to do so with out substantial line shut downs is something legacy can only dream of.

Regards,

I don’t think you are correct. In recent years I’ve ordered new cars from different manufacturers and discussed the spec with salesmen who have advised me on improvements/trim changes to expect compared with the new models in their showroom. No doubt they'd call it continuous improvement.

The last two cars were factory orders placed months in advance and they included improvements on the new demonstrators I test drove. Mrs H’s BMW PHEV model was improved rapidly after initial launch. And its list price increased regularly.

Tesla’s expertise at launching a brand new model in volume after years of planning is a bit laughable at the moment. How many Cybertrucks have they sold?

regards

Howard

[odysseus2000]

Legacy auto create a road map for each model, with changes at pre-planned times & they sell for whatever they can get, adjusting prices by incentives etc as needed.

Tesla move faster & continually change car specs as cost & different ways of making come along & they too adjust price to demand. The ability of Tesla to change specs as needed & to do so with out substantial line shut downs is something legacy can only dream of.

Regards,

I don’t think you are correct. In recent years I’ve ordered new cars from different manufacturers and discussed the spec with salesmen who have advised me on improvements/trim changes to expect compared with the new models in their showroom. No doubt they'd call it continuous improvement.

The last two cars were factory orders placed months in advance and they included improvements on the new demonstrators I test drove. Mrs H’s BMW PHEV model was improved rapidly after initial launch. And its list price increased regularly.

Tesla’s expertise at launching a brand new model in volume after years of planning is a bit laughable at the moment. How many Cybertrucks have they sold?

regards

Howard

You are confirming what I said. Legacy auto plan a model from launch to withdrawal, so of course sales folk know what is coming.

You are focused too much on your specific experience. Overall most legacy manufacturers are selling fewer cars & that is murdering their inventory & production.

As to launching new cars, all legacy have had huge trouble making BEV & that is part of the reason their sales are down & what BEV they do make are often at negative margin.

The cyber truck is an entirely new concept, only light truck with stainless steel, 48 volt electrical systems, steer by wire etc etc.One should be amazed they have managed to develop all of this while still maintaining positive margins in the rest of their business.

There is nothing to like about legacy makers & a lot to like about Tesla, unless Musk leaves in which case Tesla are worth a lot less, maybe less than half their current valuation.

Diess understood what VW had to do,but they booted him, Farley at Ford understands what is needed but his engineers are not delivering, Mary Barra at GM is unfathomable, either deluded or simple putting lippy on pigs.

Regards,

[Howard]

I don’t think you are correct. In recent years I’ve ordered new cars from different manufacturers and discussed the spec with salesmen who have advised me on improvements/trim changes to expect compared with the new models in their showroom. No doubt they'd call it continuous improvement.

The last two cars were factory orders placed months in advance and they included improvements on the new demonstrators I test drove. Mrs H’s BMW PHEV model was improved rapidly after initial launch. And its list price increased regularly.

Tesla’s expertise at launching a brand new model in volume after years of planning is a bit laughable at the moment. How many Cybertrucks have they sold?

regards

Howard

You are confirming what I said. Legacy auto plan a model from launch to withdrawal, so of course sales folk know what is coming.

You are focused too much on your specific experience. Overall most legacy manufacturers are selling fewer cars & that is murdering their inventory & production.

As to launching new cars, all legacy have had huge trouble making BEV & that is part of the reason their sales are down & what BEV they do make are often at negative margin.

The cyber truck is an entirely new concept, only light truck with stainless steel, 48 volt electrical systems, steer by wire etc etc.One should be amazed they have managed to develop all of this while still maintaining positive margins in the rest of their business.

There is nothing to like about legacy makers & a lot to like about Tesla, unless Musk leaves in which case Tesla are worth a lot less, maybe less than half their current valuation.

Diess understood what VW had to do,but they booted him, Farley at Ford understands what is needed but his engineers are not delivering, Mary Barra at GM is unfathomable, either deluded or simple putting lippy on pigs.

Regards,

It isn't sensible to compare Teslas with cheaper brands. As you know, Ford and GM went virtually bankrupt just before Tesla launched and had to be rescued by the US government. Surely not the best comparators?

From an investor's viewpoint, to prosper long term Tesla, (who admittedly have been selling cars helped by substantial government subsidies across world markets), should be competing on margin, profitability and ROCE with premium brands which appear to be selling all the cars they can make at the moment at increasing prices. And, of course, Tesla also need to compete with the newer faster growing EV market leaders - BYD. A company that at the moment demonstrably know how to successfully launch a whole range of new models.

regards

Howard

[odysseus2000]

You are confirming what I said. Legacy auto plan a model from launch to withdrawal, so of course sales folk know what is coming.

You are focused too much on your specific experience. Overall most legacy manufacturers are selling fewer cars & that is murdering their inventory & production.

As to launching new cars, all legacy have had huge trouble making BEV & that is part of the reason their sales are down & what BEV they do make are often at negative margin.

The cyber truck is an entirely new concept, only light truck with stainless steel, 48 volt electrical systems, steer by wire etc etc.One should be amazed they have managed to develop all of this while still maintaining positive margins in the rest of their business.

There is nothing to like about legacy makers & a lot to like about Tesla, unless Musk leaves in which case Tesla are worth a lot less, maybe less than half their current valuation.

Diess understood what VW had to do,but they booted him, Farley at Ford understands what is needed but his engineers are not delivering, Mary Barra at GM is unfathomable, either deluded or simple putting lippy on pigs.

Regards,

It isn't sensible to compare Teslas with cheaper brands. As you know, Ford and GM went virtually bankrupt just before Tesla launched and had to be rescued by the US government. Surely not the best comparators?

From an investor's viewpoint, to prosper long term Tesla, (who admittedly have been selling cars helped by substantial government subsidies across world markets), should be competing on margin, profitability and ROCE with premium brands which appear to be selling all the cars they can make at the moment at increasing prices. And, of course, Tesla also need to compete with the newer faster growing EV market leaders - BYD. A company that at the moment demonstrably know how to successfully launch a whole range of new models.

regards

Howard

GM went bankrupt and had to be rescued, Ford didn't.

Tesla are preparing to enter the compact car market with a competitively priced car.

Tesla have better margins than most competitors while developing new models, upgrading older ones, working on FSD and Optimus. Tesla have grown sales faster than their five closest competitors, every one else has lost sales.

BYD have poorer crash results and their fsd is not even close to Tesla and we don't know if or how well they will sell in Western markets.

Regards,

[Adamski]

Byd's Dolphin ev retails for £13k in China but marked up to £25k in the UK. There's lots of scope there for them to drop their selling price and capture market share of the EV market here. Byd have a price advantage on mass producing ev batteries, the most expensive component. Not sure ppl will be happy with cheap evs with limited range and take ages charging. However if govt is intent on pushing us into owning them. And Labour are big advocates. Then they'll be a lot of cheap, Chinese EVs on the road, very soon.

[Brabant]

What seem's to be missed a lot here are the import tariffs, in Europe at least the tariffs on US cars is over twice that for Chinese. That said the EU is currently investigating the cost of Chinese ev imports (to protect German car manufacturers even more?). There is a reason Tesla built a gigafactory in Berlin and it's all about import tariffs. Give it a few years and I can see the relatively cheap prices for Sino ev's being negated by internal market protectionism. How this will pan out in the UK I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if they align with the EU at some point.

[odysseus2000]

It is very difficult to guess what the politicians will do.

The precedent set by the Japanese is that their cars were better than European & American models & this led to large sales & pain for the domestic makers & the politicians didn’t do enough to stop this & before long the Japanese were building car plants in Europe & US.

Chinese penetration may go the same way, but as of now there are two limits to the adoption of Battery cars as a mass consumer product. One is limited supply of batteries which is slowly being fixed & folk are reluctantly accepting that 300 miles ish is enough range. Second is that the expansion of generation & smart grids is slow & so there are limits to how many battery cars can be charged. At some point this will get addressed, but for now it is a limitation that can potentially slow the rollout of any battery cars.

As of now the battery car market is beginning to look like a split between Tesla & Byd with many other runners who are struggling to transition from hydro carbon to electric with these latter folk creating as much anti-electric propaganda as possible, rather than addressing the real issue which is that internal combustion is an ugly pollutting & expensive technology that needs to live only in history books.

There will likely be all manner of shenanigans from the politicians, but the history of technology is that better technology replaces inferior technology & the companies that bring the better technology to the market in a form that is safe, reliable & cost effective win big. It looks to me that barring some catastrophic event that the electric car wave is unstoppable & that the leading companies will proper & that the laggards will vanish.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

FSD version 12.1.2 is very impressive ( 30 minutes):

https://youtu.be/N9bJLDAAQxc?si=uvDZoDI5KnHm7egS

Still not super human, but getting there. If nothing seriously bad happen it seems highly likely to me that Tesla stock will rocket when Wall Street begins to realise that the promise of FSD has become a practical reality.

Regards,

[Adamski]

likely to me that Tesla stock will rocket when Wall Street begins to realise that the promise of FSD has become a practical reality.

Depends. I'd say with a PE of 67 the good news is already priced in, so is already valued as a tech company, and will have to grow into its valuation.

I guess time will tell. Whether it becomes an Amazon, or a Google, or if becomes a Pets.com or a Yahoo.

I've got a VW and find lane assist annoying. You swerve to avoid a pothole and it drags you back into your lane. But maybe thats just me

[odysseus2000]

likely to me that Tesla stock will rocket when Wall Street begins to realise that the promise of FSD has become a practical reality.

Depends. I'd say with a PE of 67 the good news is already priced in, so is already valued as a tech company, and will have to grow into its valuation.

I guess time will tell. Whether it becomes an Amazon, or a Google, or if becomes a Pets.com or a Yahoo.

I've got a VW and find lane assist annoying. You swerve to avoid a pothole and it drags you back into your lane. But maybe thats just me

If this works then earnings at Tesla will increase dramatically, first from more people buying the option, second from robo taxi operations.

In both cases, earnings will go up dragging the current pe down to a very low figure & causing the share price to increase till the pe is again large.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

2023 earnings & call accessible here:

https://ir.tesla.com/#quarterly-disclosure

A simple summary might be: Steady as she goes. Margins are up a little as as the cost of materials as fallen & they still see scope for reductions. According to Elon a 1% cost cut leads to $1b increase in revenues.

The balance sheet cash has grown to over $29b which is amazing given the spend on research for the next platform (code name Redwood) that is believed to be a low cost car being designed to be produced with new manufacturing machines & method. They expect production to start in q3 of 2025.

Cybertruck is still production constrained, loads of orders & slow ramp.

Model y is the best selling car in the world by volume, outselling much lower cost cars.

4680 production is ramping & Tesla are still also buying from battery makers: Panasonic, Catl, Byd etc while hugely expanding their lines, with a potential doubling from 4 to 8 lines.

There is a load more stuff in the call & release that are worth listening to.

All in all this report will likely put Tesla out of favor & the shares sold off on the release. Tesla may become a free fire zone for shorts, but there is the danger that if Tesla do show FSD is ready there will be intense buying, but the other catalysts are some ways off which may cause equity under performance for a considerable (say 12 months+) period.

Regards,