Tesla publishes its financial results for 2023; profit margin shrinks
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As far as I know the video of the robot picking up an egg didn't involve and particular trickery. They are all-in on machine learning for the robots.
I personally think they'll get some pretty neat demos out of them, but at the end of the day the price point and practical considerations are going to make them a market failure. Not unless there is a breakthrough with machine learning. IMHO this has been a big problem with Elon for a long time. He sees OpenAI demos and is totally wowed but has not tried to actually do real work with those tools and discovered the limitations. I suspect he is actually worried about the AI singularity happening in the next few years, and weirdly enough he's working as hard as he can to make it happen.
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Its easy Musk bought twitter, showed himself for what he is, a far-right fascist. Now no self-respecting liberal will be caught dead in a tesla as long as he remains involved in the company, and conservatives won't buy electric cars. So there you go. Oh, did I mention the Battery replacement cost is like $70,000
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Well, DUH. A serial liar is banging their drum, and there are still enough people out there too brain dead to realize it's more about P.T. Barnum's adage about suckers to stop buying the fucking pieces of shit.
Their QC issues are legendary, and they don't meet the study award criteria for JD Powers ranking in overall quality since they refuse to provide numbers of complaints or what's being complained about to any authority that monitors them (as of 2022). EV's as a class have issues with quality, but Tesla's are very much near the bottom, and no were CLOSE to any other major auto maker other than Chevy.
At one time they were huge because they were literally the only other option that had buzz. The buzz has worn off, and reality is setting in. As competition increases, and actually better EV's are out there (by comparison, that is), Tesla will lose that battle, because they have no shits to give about quality. The only reason why their numbers aren't worse with respect to QC is that they're not obligated to report customer complaints, or have deliberately under-reported them to agencies that gather that information.
When you're not "the best", the only thing you can do is sweep the cat shit under the rug and hope the smell doesn't give it away.
If someone ever gifted me with a new Tesla, I'd trade it in even for a new hybrid. With respect to quality, and post-sales issues, hybrids are better than both EV's and ICE's, with them being FAR better than EV's.
The valuation crash will come once reality finally asserts itself. Tesla makes crappy cars, lies about features, deliberately hides issues and doesn't disclose the kind of things investors should be told about. It's all hidden behind NDA's and other legal bullshittery.
Ironically, that kind of shit could potentially be what ousts Musk as CEO, which in turn could alter the makeup of the entire C-level. If it turns out that they're deliberately lying about their status to their investors when they're not making tons of money for their investors, the investors may look to replace the leadership who will take the company in a direction with more realistic expectations.
Or at least fix their fucking QC issues.
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To nitpick I don't think peterford stated his reasons for being against Chinese manufacturers being in the lead on EVs. Therefore you can't really claim that such a statement is irrational. At most you can say that it needs to be supported with reasons.
I can think of a few possible rationales from the sinophobic (Xi = bad or PRC/Russia/NK = bad) to the mercantilistic (one country being able to low-ball all other countries on pretty much everything is not sustainable for a healthy world economy) to the humanistic (China is now a pretty well developed country so would ideally be supporting manufacturing in less well off countries through imports or plants; BYD seems to be doing this a bit by looking at a possible auto plant in Mexico).
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Self-respecting leftists wouldn't be caught dead in one since the get go given his well known anti-union stance.
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Charlie Munger, the recently deceased partner of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway, was an early investor in BYD. Excerpting from this article https://finance.yahoo.com/news/charlie-munger-says-elon-musk-180622253.html :
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Its about time the bubble burst on the Tesla infatuation.
If your a mainstream manufacturer you release a new model then 2yrs in you drop a facelift, then every 3-4yrs you drop a new version. It keeps your buyers coming back and eager for the new car smell.
Todays teslas look pretty much the same for the last 10yrs or more.
If your a mainstream manufacturer you release a new model then 2yrs in you drop a facelift, then every 3-4yrs you drop a new version. It keeps your buyers coming back and eager for the new car smell.
Todays teslas look pretty much the same for the last 10yrs or more.
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Tesla needs to actually start listening to customers, instead of stroking Musk's ego.
Removal of stalks was stupid, and whatever money they saved on that, they immediately blew it on the useless screen in the back console. Ultrasonic sensor removal is equally stupid.
Then there's a lack of CarPlay, and the general outdatedness of their craptacular infotainment system. It was acceptable in 2019, it's not acceptable in 2024.
Even the freaking automatic wipers don't work at all, after nearly 8 years of trying. Admit the failure, and add a $20 infrared rain sensor.
Removal of stalks was stupid, and whatever money they saved on that, they immediately blew it on the useless screen in the back console. Ultrasonic sensor removal is equally stupid.
Then there's a lack of CarPlay, and the general outdatedness of their craptacular infotainment system. It was acceptable in 2019, it's not acceptable in 2024.
Even the freaking automatic wipers don't work at all, after nearly 8 years of trying. Admit the failure, and add a $20 infrared rain sensor.
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Broadly speaking, I want to Tesla to continue to succeed just because we need EVs replacing ICE vehicles as fast as possible, and everybody else (outside of China) is still small potatoes by volume.
Climate change being an existential threat to human civilization and all. Once others ramp up volume, Tesla matters much less. But right now...
But their margins dropping and investors feeling disinterested, so that Musk's options devalue and he gets all the feels and goes on sobbing rants on twitter? That happening at the same time is even better!
Climate change being an existential threat to human civilization and all. Once others ramp up volume, Tesla matters much less. But right now...
But their margins dropping and investors feeling disinterested, so that Musk's options devalue and he gets all the feels and goes on sobbing rants on twitter? That happening at the same time is even better!
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I thought Elon doesn't criticize China because of the whole capitalists line up with fascists to temporarily make more money line. Is that not true?
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Snarky Robot
Ars Legatus Legionis
I can’t say with any certainty that the egg video was faked. But the more recent one, folding a t-shirt, appears to show the robot being controlled by someone: their movements correspond directly to what the robot does.
That’s not just making grandiose claims, it’s actively pretending that your robot is capable of things, when the reality is that it has all the sophistication of a remote control car.
I’ve said it before, but I think it’s worth noting again: the beginning is the easy part. Give me $5 billion and I, who has no deep knowledge of AI or robotics, could go a long way. Hire the bottom 25% of Boston Dynamics employees and I’ve got a nice start. They’ll know enough to make the earlier parts simple. Their seniors learned lessons and passed them down. The solutions are ready for me to recreate. Add cheap, recently graduated folks and I have extra workers. Getting from 0 to 75% would be a breeze. Not because I’m brilliant but because I’m recreating things. I have decades of lessons learned to go by. My cheap workers and the dregs of other companies will get me a long way.
But the hard part is there around the corner. Not only recreating solutions to REALLY HARD PROBLEMS, but trying to solve problems that nobody else has. That’s when you can show you actually have a product worth bragging about. Tesla has shown: a man in a costume, two robots that were embarrassingly behind the times, and a couple of promo videos at least one of which was almost certainly faked.
Which is exactly the sort of thing you’d see if you were able to get to 75% really quickly. Iterate rapidly on the stuff that’s old hat but regress when you get to the hard stuff, let alone pushing forward into new ground. Tesla hasn’t shown any signs of being at those points yet. They’ve shown they’ll lie about their progress though.
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follow up information after that video freely said it was being remote controlled - it was to test the motor responsiveness and sensitivity.
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Let’s not call them (retail “investors”) investors. They are speculators.
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Scary Devil Monastery
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Myeah, the fact that old Elon tends to cheer loudly to rhetoric right out of Mein Kampf is pretty telling. That's not flirting, it's pillow talk.
That said, there's a similar amount of mean things to say about China. If there's a choice, support neither.
Which, mind, becomes a bit of a chore when I can't think of many consumer grade electronics which don't have chinese-made chipsets in them these days.
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Scary Devil Monastery
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Oh how I wish I had footage of the post-conference dinner among the rest of the stakeholders. I bet there was champagne.
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Scary Devil Monastery
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Well, he's suing jewish people left and right for calling him a nazi. That's something?
I mean, the nerve of these k___s! Just because Saint Musk heartily approved of the Great Replacement Theory from Mein Kampf is no grounds for calling that wholesome white boy a nazi...
/s...and I hate to the depths that in these days of Poe an /s is still needed for shit like this...
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There will be around 125 electric car models on sale in Canada by next year, there are 50 right now, Tesla barely makes the top 10 for cheapest.
https://www.cargurus.ca/Cars/articles/cheapest-electric-cars-canada
https://www.cargurus.ca/Cars/articles/cheapest-electric-cars-canada
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The first two are fine EVs but they'll be discontinued by the manufacturer.
The 3rd should have been discontinued. Friends don't let friends buy EVs with ChaDeMo and above all no thermal management.
4th has a really small range. So has the 7th.
So it's more like Tesla barely makes it into the top 5 cheapest.
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The test was to evaluate the motor responsiveness and sensitivity. The video was to try and convince people that the robot could do that itself, without a remote control operator, without outright lying about it.
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If posts like this represent what their marketing bots can do, then I won't hold my breath.
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Because educated, critically thinking people tend to lean left and will eventually see through the kind of bullshit posturing that people like him put on. Right-wingers and libertarian types by their very nature see what they want to see, so he learned which side his bread is buttered on to feed his ego.
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This kind of makes sense. Here in the US BEV manufacturers haven't been very competitive with Tesla with prices as high or higher. Obviously the price cuts Tesla has made are an attempt to avoid what's being reported here.
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The minivan market seems like it could be a good fit for Tesla expanding the lineup. Not VW Buzz size but full Honda Odyssey/ Toyota sienna competitor.
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Snarky Robot
Ars Legatus Legionis
I don’t recall them actually note that in any version I saw. Nor do I imagine that this was the first time trying this particular activity, which makes it less of a “test”. So I’m curious if this “follow-up information” explained why they chose to frame the shot (or edit the shot) to remove the puppeteer.
Because otherwise? No, the most likely explanation was that it was test of who’d buy into their hype and cover story.
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There’s a reason no one is making new minivan models and it isn’t because it’s a growth sector poised to take-off. It’s a niche dead end.
Tesla needs to make more SUVs, CUVs and maybe a small pickup. Or a regular pickup if the Cybertruck goes nowhere (Honda tweaked the pickup and was savaged by the market for a very good vehicle).
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Charging is a rounding error for Tesla. The margins took a shit because they slashed prices to the bone. There's not much they can do to make the things cheaper to make. Hard to recover from that without jacking prices back up.
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The Ridgeline touched a nerve when it was introduced because it was so obviously the pickup most buyers actually needed, and they hated it because they knew, on some level, that it was calling bullshit on their F-150s and Silveradissimos.
I think the market has moved on enough, with the Maverick and others, that a non-bullshit unibody EV pickup of moderate size could be successful.
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I would argue that nobody actually believed Tesla was credibly valued like a tech company, and that it's basically an NFT, or a package of subprime home loans, with an attached car manufacturing arm - an over-valued speculative asset which investors are keeping their money in while its value remains high and are betting they can offload to some other chump when the music stops.
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Official Chinese quality rankings say there are 21 brands above Tesla's quality in China. Their quality is poor everywhere.
Chinese new energy vehicle brand quality ranking
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While I doubt an IR rain sensor actually has a BOM cost of even $20 at scale, the real secret is that you don't need an automated rain sensor of any description in the first place. If you feel the rain drops are obscuring your vision, you can just...push a wiper stalk! (Though I guess if the purpose is to reduce costs not to improve the UX, it's understandable that Tesla deletes the physical interface, too...)
Do people legitimately prefer this kind of automation, or is it simply a gee-whiz fancy gizmo that impresses people the first time they see it and then slowly frustrates them as they discover its shortcomings ever after?
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I like the automatic wipers on my Avalon, especially since they'll start going faster if it starts raining harder. It tends to work pretty damn good, with a tendency to go a little faster that I would generally prefer. Toyota figured this out over 14 years ago. The fact that Tesla can't figure it out speaks volumes to their engineering. Obviously it's something I could easily do without, but it's nice to have, much like the RFID keys and push button start
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Don't worry, by 2018-ish they'll have fully self driving better than humans and it will skyrocket!
...I wonder how they can miss claim after claim and still stay high?
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OrangeCream
Ars Legatus Legionis
The wise investor would know about margins, capital costs, liabilities, and legal responsibilities, and realize there is no way Tesla can be worth that much.
But the world isn’t full of wise investors. Some people believe he can change the world without considering how much that costs and what the ROI is. They think he will achieve an unprecedented new cash flow with his self driving cars as tireless 24x7 delivery, chauffeur, and commute services, or something. It’s all daft, but either they believe it or they are desperately trying to convince other people to believe it.
It’s a lot like BitCoin or NFT, as you alluded to.
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Thank you! Was going to post this if no one else did. It’s one of those core financial acronyms that should be correct in articles discussing financial performance. It’d be like calling RAM Random Ass Memory in a technical article.
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When your wiper is 3x as long as a normal one and costs 5x as much to replace, maybe it becomes a good idea not to take personal responsibility for operating it
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Celery Man
Ars Legatus Legionis
Inflation is down, job market is great, wages are on the rise. Don’t spread this FUD that the economy isn’t doing well, because it is. The only “uncertainty” comes from the wealthy who are butthurt interest rates are up and they can’t get free money anymore.
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