Article: It's becoming increasingly clear Tesla is just another car company -- agree / disagree?

[Arctic_White]

The paranoid and the fan boys have awaken, blaming the MSM and everyone else but Musk when the market is now seeing Tesla unable to flex it's muscle in tech, battery and it's massive data base.

The fact is that Tesla is unable to monetize it's global driving data base. That Tesla was unable to give as much focus and it's strengthen it's proximate categories, solar, battery (mega) packs and offerings to market it for commercial and industrial applications. And then of course FSD, to the point that there are states that may soon sue them for mis-representation or renaming.

Give it time, my friend.

Within the next 7 years, Tesla will be, by far, the biggest company in the world by both revenues as well as profits.

Who is Tesla's competition right now? Who is even close to solving FSD? Which company has better tech than Tesla?

And don't you think Tesla is innovating harder than the rest?

 

[Cybertruckee]

The company with a higher profit margin than other auto manufacturers was less able to monetize?

-Crissa

You could at least have the decency to quote the whole sentence if you want to prove me wrong.

This is the entire sentence:
The fact is that Tesla is unable to monetize it's global driving data base.

And yes, in Tesla's vault are the driving experiences of Tesla users in the US, China, Europe, Australia, etc., Tesla can sell these data to other who are developing their own version of FSD.

And another yes, there is no relation to monetizing their driving data base and their profitability in auto manufacturing. It's unrelated as auto-manufacturing profitability is a function of cheaper material sourcing and efficiency.

Selling or renting out data is not part of the manufacturing or auto-making. The former can only enhance Tesla's revenues and profitability. Nor profitability is related to Tesla being a tech or an auto company. Only if when company's revenue sources is on selling car (hardware) or selling tech services (software).

 

[Ogre]

Tesla is just a normal car company.

Which other “Normal Car Company” has rolled out 2 factories and had 3,000 cars/ week rolling out of each in 2.5 years? In less than 3 years they will likely be producing half a million cars a year. In less than 4 years, a full million a year.

Is that a “Normal Car Company”?

 

[Richard V.]

Tesla is just a normal car company.

Which other “Normal Car Company” has rolled out 2 factories and had 3,000 cars/ week rolling out of each in 2.5 years? In less than 3 years they will likely be producing half a million cars a year. In less than 4 years, a full million a year.

Is that a “Normal Car Company”?

Some say Tesla is an energy battery company which has various platforms for their deployment. Be it various car models, pickups, semis, powerwalls, megapacks, solar panels, charging stations/networks and all the stuff needed to connect these technologies together with the platforms and the infrastructure.

That is saying nothing of the SW, AI and robots. NOT a "normal car company", NOT a car company, ultimately it is NOT even a battery company. It is the mother of innovation company... By 2030 it will be valued at multiple trillions IMO.

 

[Cybertruckee]

Some say Tesla is an energy battery company which has various platforms for their deployment...

Tesla's does not own the company that supplies the battery to its cars.

That's an opportunity present to them when they acquired. And it will be in the development of new tech for batteries with new materials, example, anode.

And further opportunities for solar panels and megapacks for commercial and industrial facilities and complex.

 

[Crissa]

You could at least have the decency to quote the whole sentence if you want to prove me wrong.

This is the entire sentence:
The fact is that Tesla is unable to monetize it's global driving data base.

And yes, in Tesla's vault are the driving experiences of Tesla users in the US, China, Europe, Australia, etc., Tesla can sell these data to other who are developing their own version of FSD.

And another yes, there is no relation to monetizing their driving data base and their profitability in auto manufacturing. It's unrelated as auto-manufacturing profitability is a function of cheaper material sourcing and efficiency.

Selling or renting out data is not part of the manufacturing or auto-making. The former can only enhance Tesla's revenues and profitability. Nor profitability is related to Tesla being a tech or an auto company. Only if when company's revenue sources is on selling car (hardware) or selling tech services (software).

There are reasons that directly monetizing threatens your high seat.

AT&T wasn't broken up because it didn't directly monetize everything.

They're turning all that driving data into AI that can see, recognize, and interact with the world as is.

Tesla's does not own the company that supplies the battery to its cars.

Panasonic does not own the factories the majority of Tesla's US sourced batteries come from. And has not since Giga Nevada came online.

-Crissa

 

[Crissa]

Tesla's does not own the company that supplies the battery to its cars.

Panasonic does not own the factories the majority of Tesla's US sourced batteries come from. And has not since Giga Nevada came online.

-Crissa

 

[Ogre]

Tesla's does not own the company that supplies the battery to its cars.

Tesla bundle cells from various companies into the battery packs they ship with their vehicles. Those battery packs are in fact considered batteries.

Tesla also produces a small but increasing fraction of the cells which they put into those packs.

Regardless of the semantics, it is becoming increasingly obvious that building those packs in an efficient, cost effective manner is non-trivial. Almost every other auto company is attempting with various degrees of success to accomplish this same task and most of them have failed to make a profit doing it.

That is what you call competitive advantage.

 

[Deleted member 12457]

Disagree, for the moment. But I do think legacy auto is catching up at a quicker pace than Elon is claiming.

No they aren't. It's all smoke and mirrors by European and American car manufacturers. Chinese car manufacturers are actually building and selling EVs and if there wasn't a 25% tariff on Chinese imports, GM definitely would be gone and Ford would be greatly reduced, only selling trucks. We already know European car manufacturers can't convert quickly enough. All of them were blinded by businesses like BI who said EVs would never work. If car manufacturers had looked at what Tesla was doing even five years ago, they might have something to sell but they kept putting things off and now they're trying to catch up with no money to do it.

Once I saw who the article was from, I didn't even bother reading it. Business Insider is just another shill for the Stock Market (especially short sellers) and car manufacturers who love to advertise.

 

[charliemagpie]

Yes, Tesla is just another car company which built a supercomputer by accident.

 

[Ogre]

Yes, Tesla is just another car company which built a supercomputer by accident.

And a droid. Accidental droid.

 

[CyberCFP]

Tesla is just a normal car company.

Which other “Normal Car Company” has rolled out 2 factories and had 3,000 cars/ week rolling out of each in 2.5 years? In less than 3 years they will likely be producing half a million cars a year. In less than 4 years, a full million a year.

Is that a “Normal Car Company”?

I don’t think I follow. Ford sold 1.8million cars last year.

 

[Ogre]

I don’t think I follow. Ford sold 1.8million cars last year.

How many did they sell in 2015? How many factories have they built in the past 20 years?

The point isn’t how many Tesla is selling. It is the fact that they were able to more than double production in 18 months. Ford, scrambling at top speed was able to produce 15,000 Lightnings last year. Tesla is producing 3,000 Model Ys per week in less time than that. Mach E production is less than 40,000 cars/ year after 2 years of selling them and ?? Years of planning.

 

[tidmutt]

You could at least have the decency to quote the whole sentence if you want to prove me wrong.

This is the entire sentence:
The fact is that Tesla is unable to monetize it's global driving data base.

And yes, in Tesla's vault are the driving experiences of Tesla users in the US, China, Europe, Australia, etc., Tesla can sell these data to other who are developing their own version of FSD.

And another yes, there is no relation to monetizing their driving data base and their profitability in auto manufacturing. It's unrelated as auto-manufacturing profitability is a function of cheaper material sourcing and efficiency.

Selling or renting out data is not part of the manufacturing or auto-making. The former can only enhance Tesla's revenues and profitability. Nor profitability is related to Tesla being a tech or an auto company. Only if when company's revenue sources is on selling car (hardware) or selling tech services (software).

Firstly, selling driving data would likely be focusing on the short term and giving up a competitive advantage. Likely a better idea to develop FSD and then license that tech. Tesla doesn't follow the well trodden path that many financial analysts would like them to. Sell that Data!!! Monetize!!! No, Tesla utilizes that data to improve the product (battery charging optimizations, range optimization, performance enhancements). Sometimes this is value-add to the product to make it more competitive and hence sell more units. Sometimes it's a direct additional revenue source (FSD, performance upgrades and so on).

Secondly, many users may not be comfortable with the idea of Tesla selling driving data no matter if it's anonymized. It's one thing for someone to give Tesla permission to use that data, it's another thing to give permission for them to sell it to the highest bidder. No thanks.

So I don't agree with "Selling or renting out data is not part of the manufacturing or auto-making. The former can only enhance Tesla's revenues and profitability", that's a somewhat myopic, short term view.

 

[tidmutt]

How many did they sell in 2015? How many factories have they built in the past 20 years?

The point isn’t how many Tesla is selling. It is the fact that they were able to more than double production in 18 months. Ford, scrambling at top speed was able to produce 15,000 Lightnings last year. Tesla is producing 3,000 Model Ys per week in less time than that. Mach E production is less than 40,000 cars/ year after 2 years of selling them and ?? Years of planning.

This ^^.

It's the vertical integration, focus on manufacturing optimization and simplicity, and obsession with supply chain that means Tesla is better positioned than anyone else (except maybe BYD?). Tesla can make millions of EVs plus powerwalls plus megapacks plus Semi's. They say they have enough supply for all areas of the business. Not to say there isn't challenges, I believe we're going to run into more headwinds around 2025 with some minerals, but the other manufacturers just aren't this deep yet.

The evidence of this is in the way they are all scrambling to copy Tesla's approach. Munro says more of them are switching to large castings, they talk more about vertical integration, they are pulling software inhouse, or trying to... which leads us to Tesla's biggest competitive advantage I suspect, their software team. If you ask me, Tesla is a software and hardware platform company, they are indeed somewhat like Apple in this respect, but perhaps more vertically integrated and manufacture much more complex machines. Look at their products, EVs, FSD, Powerwalls, Megabacks, Solar Roof, all of them have software at their heart. Powerwalls, Megapacks, Solar Roof, are all compelling thanks to, in part, their software. For example, VPP is software. VPP represents a massive opportunity. Who else can do this? Who else has done it?

Evolving into a software shop is frankly, almost impossible. VW poured billions into a Chinese software company and pretty much failed, Ford is trying it and struggling.