[Verdi]

Right now Tesla are winning. BMW needs to adapt.

[Almaretto]

Originally Posted by Verdi

Right now Tesla are winning. BMW needs to adapt.

Winning what? Sure, if they like books like Uber.

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by Verdi

Right now Tesla are winning. BMW needs to adapt.

Tesla is not winning what is happening is people who have no clues on battery cars are buying Tesla. It's sheep following sheep.

How can a company losing money on every car it builds be ahead of BMW. Their cars have been a poorly built but you don't hear much about this as Tesla owners are embarrassed.

[Verdi]

Originally Posted by Almaretto

Winning what? Sure, if they like books like Uber.

It's the future. For sure. You might not see or understand that just yet. My feeling is that the US will be the last area to understand and adapt. Voting Trump to office was very unfortunate for you as that will further delay the inevitable.

[Verdi]

Originally Posted by Kiwi

Tesla is not winning what is happening is people who have no clues on battery cars are buying Tesla. It's sheep following sheep.

How can a company losing money on every car it builds be ahead of BMW. Their cars have been a poorly built but you don't hear much about this as Tesla owners are embarrassed.

Do you have a source on them losing money on their cars?

They are however investing all the money they can get their hands on to enhance their edge. Securing battery supply with their own factories, enhancing their supercharger network etc etc.

Which electric car do you recommend me to buy instead which is full size, good performance and got a supercharger network fully functional already? There are NO alternatives. NONE whatsoever. I wish there were.

[///Motivated]

Dude, that's the point. Tesla offers all those things for a "reasonable" price. Good for the consumer. They are also hemorrhaging cash. The things they are selling for a reasonable price need to be MUCH more expensive to be viable. The established OEMs are unwilling to make/sell competing products because they are unwilling to stomach the losses. That might be right or that might be wrong long term, but the only people winning are the ones that own Tesla stock and sell before a correction (if there is one).

[///Motivated]

This is in response to afadeev, and as required, without the emotions. There is a seekingalpha article that went through the math. Tesla reports gross margin without R&D which is different than most other car companies. They went through four years worth of annual reports for other companies and calculated margins with and without R&D and found Tesla was near the top in that category, but not at it. Once R&D was considered the comparison looks pretty bad for Tesla; margin drops to 10% and was lower than all eight other companies in the comparison. Even more damning is the sales, general and administrative expenses which were so high they alone wiped out all the profit not even accounting for R&D. Even worse, the SG&A has scaled up linearly with volume so Tesla has not been able to take advantage of economies of scale. They cannot be profitable, or even begin to compete with the profitability of established OEMs, even if they weren't spending money in other areas.

Cheap cars get to be cheap by removing content. Unfortunately for EVs a cheap car still needs a big battery, motor and drive system to get the range, so it's not like an entry level Model 3 can suddenly be so much cheaper than a Model S at the same range. It will end up meaning even worse margins.

As far as the autonomous stuff, it's hard to argue since data is not available. I have seen the autonomous tech from the OEMs and suppliers and it is every bit as good and likely better than Tesla's; however, there is no way in hell that any OEMS will roll out tech that kills people. They would get sued to no end by every two-bit lawyer in the country. Tesla can get by without the scrutiny because they don't have the deep pockets. Right now car accidents are the fault of the driver. If autonomous they are the fault of the manufacturer and that is a massive liability to accept. For now they are choosing to let things mature.

[Almaretto]

Originally Posted by Verdi

It's the future. For sure. You might not see or understand that just yet. My feeling is that the US will be the last area to understand and adapt. Voting Trump to office was very unfortunate for you as that will further delay the inevitable.

Arguments like that only get one response- my stock portfolio looks pretty good.

[afadeev]

Originally Posted by Verdi

Do you have a source on them losing money on their cars?

Neah, he doesn't.
Just another Tesla hater troll...

Originally Posted by Verdi

They are however investing all the money they can get their hands on to enhance their edge. Securing battery supply with their own factories, enhancing their supercharger network etc etc.

Bingo!
Tesla sells Model S's at ~25% gross margin, reinvesting profits into PP&E. Smart move.

Originally Posted by Verdi

Which electric car do you recommend me to buy instead which is full size, good performance and got a supercharger network fully functional already? There are NO alternatives. NONE whatsoever. I wish there were.

Tesla Model S is a great full-size luxury sedan. Nothing wrong with buying one!

I test drove it, loved it, just don't have any need for a car of that size in my garage. Model 3, on the other hand, will likely be a perfect replacement for my i3 the next years or so, when 4WD performance version of Model 3 comes out. I will need to test drive it first, for sure, but on paper, it looks great.

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