Right. Not many people can afford a 50k EV, and Tesla has mostly exhausted those in the US market. Musk looked at his model 3 order book and realized he has to lower production cost ASAP.
EV is no doubt the future. My thesis is that every car company from Porsche to Hyundai will have an EV and Tesla won’t have the whole EV market to itself.
Fundamentally the question is: will Tesla master car manufacturing before car manufacturers master EV? My bet is on the latter.
If they stick to luxury cars, they would have to gain 100% of market share to triple in size. The luxury car market isn’t big enough to justify the marker cap.
Why?
Hydrogen fuel cell is a much likelier candidate if gasoline is to be replaced. And I doubt gasoline will be replaced in the next 30 years.
Agreed and that is why the 35k model 3 is so important. Same price as a V6 camry with ~$2k/year in fuel savings.
Actually gasoline will be replaced in 15 years, not 30. Starting with China.
Why? Climate change.
China Is Leading the World to an Electric Car Future
Government wants 20% of every car company’s new cars sold in China to be EV by 2025. Everybody better has EV ready.
Bullish for TSLA, right? Buy now while China economy is in doldrums, once it starts to recover, TSLA will fly. Agree?
Tesla is too expensive. I like the prospect of WB’s BYD better.
BYD? Not Hyundai? Quit making excuses and invest already.
Gasoline is a small contributer to emmissions.
Collectively, cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of all US emissions. So gas is only 10% of the problem. Coal is a much bigger problem. And coal is needed to provide electricity. Heating fuels are also a big problem…Could be solved with geothermal, efficient design and solar…
Even $35k is expensive most for most people. You can get a full size SUV for that not a small economy car. I think whoever hits the $20k price point will dominate the market. Need to get down to the civic, corolla, focus, etc price. Then you have a true mass market car.
IMO, Those Who missed yesterday bottom, lost another opportunity to buy at low.
Tesla Inc. received permission to start selling its Model 3 in Europe, clearing the final hurdle in bringing the electric-car maker’s top seller to the home turf of Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
Deliveries should start in February for the Long Range Battery version of the midsize sedan – the same variant first sold in the U.S. – according to Tesla, after Dutch vehicle authority RDW issued the OK.
Until recently, It was given free to attract customers, hidden cost, included in the price of cars and all the supercharger was busy full always. There has been reports/statements from Musk asking users to limit the usage of super chargers.
Now, car price is reduced, he made the supercharging cost. This is network for long distance driving, many times people test drove LA to NY
supercharger is an investment for long drive like a gas station to fill up gas. Tesla has higher capacity batteries up to 100KW, it will be quickly charged 80% in 30 minutes.
While other commercially available chargers (for BMW, benz etc less capacity) takes same 30 minutes.
Here too Tesla beats others. If they have not built TSLA chargers, it will be handicap for Tesla cars. Musk knew the challenges and created big network across USA. He will build similar in China next.
Off the track How someone played TSLA calls and PUTS
This thread is turning into trash.
Fuel-cells? Seriously?
Anecdotal notes of displeasure with Model 3? LOL
Competition from mainstream auto-manufacturers? Sure, but you do realize they are 5 years behind right? Seriously have you studied their vehicles coming out this year vs old Tesla models?
No doubt there will be competition and downward pressure on margins, but if your valuation model is dependent on Tesla’s financials staying static, your model is silly.
This company is going to grow revenue 50% YoY. There are many products coming out in next few years that again will be way ahead of the competition, so they will sell at least for the next several years. When people value in that sort of earnings potential AND earnings growth, the stock will double / triple. Of course it will be wildly volatile because so much of the valuation is dependent on growth / margin estimates which will be sensitive.
WB bought BYD in 2008 when it was battery manufacturer. BYD is no match to TSLA by any standards. The max capacity of BYD is 164 miles/charge (practically 140 on road) and Still unable to roll out their EV 6 car in USA (Postponed many times).
You asked a basic question of survival for long ! This is not cult praise, but Musk has thought these challenges ahead 10-12 years before and created 3 or 4 page vision document, he answered about this. He has also created company as per his plan with massive capital cost that can challenge all existing car manufacturers.
He visioned the challenges ahead of time, created massive network of high quality super chargers, Giga-factory (highly scalable supply chain) for his high quality battery set, automate factory production cost. All these resulted lowest mass production cost. This resulted huge capital cost and tesla was in debt with it, now coming out of debt-trap. Any one who tries to beat tesla must have same or more investment.
All other car manufacturers (BMW,Mercedes…etc) has to pay dealer’s margin around $3000/car, but Tesla cut short (direct sales).
I repeated many times, Tesla will supersede everyone and not the other way.
As I said previously, I wanted to avoid Tesla updates.
Let me keep quiet from now.
How do you lead from revenue to earnings without considering costs? I didn’t look deeply into TSLA’s financials. Please enlighten. Thanks.
Cars so advanced you can’t even open the trunks in rain. 
Please send a software update to fix this.