GM is still around Chrysler is still around (albeit as part of Fiat) Tesla lost $5.79 per share over the last four quarters, or about a billion dollars. Uber and Lyft are each still around despite the fact that they each also lose about a billion dollars per year.
Honestly I have a hard time comprehending what could be so bad that it could take Tesla down. Their single biggest asset isn't the gigafactories or the supercharger network; it's the Tesla brand, which is extremely strong. = - = - = In any case, there was a much stronger case against Tesla in 2008. Their only car, the Roadster, had been delayed for more than a year, and Tesla was trying to sell 2-seater electric vehicles at a cost of $100,000 each at the same time the "Great Recession" was hitting. This was before they had a supercharger network; heck it was before they had cars that could supercharge. Most of their funding came from one guy: Elon Musk, and he was going broke in part because he was also trying to start a rocket company which was competing, not with other companies, but with other *nations*. Many, many people who were looking into the details of all this were thinking amongst themselves, wow, this is going to be one of the most spectacular failures ever. *But damn, this is a really fun car to drive*. I was one of those people. I look at Tesla and I wonder, how the hell can this possibly turn out well? After 10 years, I still won't bet on Tesla as a company... but I sure as hell don't bet against them. I just mentally put Tesla in a class of companies where the rules, for whatever reason, don't apply. It's like seeing an Anvil outside of my third-floor window, just floating there. I know it should fall, but it's been 10 years and it hasn't. Unlike a floating Anvil, the case for Tesla's survival is much better now than it was 10 or even 5 years ago. There are other companies where revenues are going up but profits are not, and maybe they give a better feel for what the hell is going in with Tesla: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-why-it-works (Note that article is from 2014, when Amazon, then 20 years old, still hand't turned a decent profit.) = - = - = On Thu, May 23, 2019 at 8:26 AM Damon Henry via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: > I'm a big Tesla fan and they have been mentioned in a couple of the recent > ongoing threads quite a bit. Personally I do not see how they can last. I > will be surprised if they are still in business in 5 years. Their business > model seems to be try to build enough hype to keep drawing in investors and > don't worry about the fact that we are losing hundreds of millions of > dollars a quarter year after year. The Model 3 bump gave them a couple of > quarters of profits and now they are right back where they started and > likely worse. > > I wonder what happens to the software updates and supercharger network > when they are gone... > > They have sold a lot of really great cars and forever changed the > automotive marketplace. I just don't see how they can last as a company. > > If they do fail, there will surely be Tesla DIY internet resources that > dwarf anything the EVDL has ever been 🙂 > > Damon > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20190523/3f1291c8/attachment.html > > > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA ( > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20190523/2cb625b2/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
