Guest post by David Middleton
What do Tesla and OPEC have in common? The more they produce, the more they lose.
63,000 people have canceled their Tesla Model 3 orders
Bryan Logan
Aug. 3, 2017
About 63,000 people have canceled their Tesla Model 3 orders in the past year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during the electric-car company’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday.
[…]
Musk took the cancellations in stride, saying that Tesla could drive up the Model 3’s reservation numbers with little effort but that doing so wouldn’t serve the company or its growing legion of potential customers.
“It’s like if you’re a restaurant and you’re serving hamburgers and there’s like an hour-and-a-half wait for hamburgers — do you really want to encourage more people to order more hamburgers?” Musk said. People who put down a deposit for a Model 3 at this point most likely won’t see their cars until the end of 2018, according to most estimates.
[…]
“It’s like if you’re a restaurant and you’re serving hamburgers and there’s like an hour-and-a-half wait for hamburgers — do you really want to encourage more people to order more hamburgers?”
Well… Yes. If you want to actually stay in business… You do want to encourage people to order more hamburgers. A real business will make more money if it sells more hamburgers.
Tesla’s 2016 net loss would have been much deeper had they not cashed in on $122 million in Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) credits (corporate welfare).
Tesla’s Federal tax credits will begin to phase out after they deliver they 200,000th PEV. Based on current forecasts, that will occur in Q3 2018.
When other automakers sell enough EV’s in California, the ZEV welfare checks will go away. Within 1 year of Model 3 full production, the Federal tax credit will start to phase out. Tesla has yet to even come close to generating a annual profit, despite massive corporate welfare. The question is: Will the government allow Tesla to go broke? Or will they get a bailout?
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Once a new boy on the block invokes the Gull Wing fad it’s downhill all the way.
Just ask Bricklin.
Debt free and loving it—-thanks in part to reliable, used gasoline engine vehicles and staying away from Calif. and NY.
Those who peddle green sleaze will eventually get slimed.
I’ve always thought tesla made a huge mistake – they should have created a luxury, small volume, car. This would serve to experiment/demonstrate their technology. Then focus on licensing/manufacturing the tech for other car makers to “convert” their cars using tesla tech. An tesla electric Ford focus, and tesla electric Chevy Malibu, etc.
They would be come a parts supplier with drop in tech to electrify any existing model of vehicle. Let Chevy and Ford worry about the high volume manufacturing – they are very good at it. Tesla would just worry about the perfecting the battery and drive train systems only. plus their other pursuits (soar panels and batteries).
Try to become the AC Delco, not the GM, of the auto world.
And it would have been easy – rather than buying ZEM certificates, the car companies could buy the drive trains and batteries from Tesla, and create their own electric vehicles instantly. And they would never “top out” of the price support – tesla could always move on to another manufacturer.
I don’t like styling of model 3.
Every time I see a silver Model 3, I think of the cheesy robots in the Doctor Who “Pyramids of Mars”
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/corporate2/images/width/live/p0/2x/lb/p02xlb5h.jpg/624
Steviek
Two comments to “I don’t like styling of model 3”:
1) So, don’t buy one.
2) So what?
styling is completely subjective
California will bail out Tesla if it came to that. It’s their virtue signaling company….. high tech, provides supposedly green jobs, first modern automaker outside of Detroit in the US, provides pollution free transportation, lets the world know how committed they are to ‘Climate Change’. What’s not to like for Californians? With a lock on Progressive government who’s to say no? They’ll just tax all their Capitalists.
Isn’t that the place where it rains so much? Except when it doesn’t.
Hell, it rains money if you’re a funny looking kid with a crazy dream!
yes the permanent drought , changed its mind
Haven’t all the Capitalists moved to Texas yet?
No, not remotely the case. But thanks for asking.
I’m going to order one …
just for the pleasure of canceling my order.
Tesla = coal burning car.
Government subsidies MUST end.
Thanks David Middleton for the John Clarke video on the European Economy. Along with many other Kiwis, I mourn his death about 3 months ago. A Kiwi himself, he came to prominence portraying a cartoon farmer character, Fred Dagg, then shifted to Australia making a business of stirring their politics and those of other countries. Search YouTube for John Clarke. He even made some pithy comments about climate change. If you really want a good laugh, look for the video clip “The Front Fell Off”.
“The Front Fell Off” is my favorite… “It’s not in the environment. They towed it out of the environment”… LOL!
Musk has promised to ship the world’s biggest battery to South Australia (129 MWhr) before year end to bail out SA’s 50% renewables electricity grid. How many Tesla batteries does that equate to?
Some Teslas have 100 kWhr batteries, so that’s about 1,290 Teslas parked side by side and hooked up to the grid – giving, not receiving power.
Alternatively, Tesla Powerwalls being sold to backup home rooftop solar have a capacity of 13.5 kWhr, so the world’s biggest battery simply needs 9,500 Powerwalls lined up side by side.
Or what’s the capacity of a submarine’s batteries? SA is about to start making submarines.
But conventional submarines are the only place a hydrogen fuel cell makes sense.
there has been a quiet revolution in the tech used in submarine batteries…
“Griff August 5, 2017 at 1:22 am”
Reference?
“…giving, not receiving power.”
Son, wronger words have rarely been committed to print.
I suggest you look up the definition of the word “battery”.
Then think again.
I realize more everyday the TARP was the worst possible social/economic president since the New Deal itself. Every credit/central planning excess is now modeled for nationalization by stealth. Certainly healthcare is on the track but junk alternative energy related holds the golden get-out-of-jail card as well.
Tesla is national embarrassment yet I expect them to be untouched by subside cuts. The default process a form of hostage taking.
“Precedent”
Musk a soft crook low enough to pass-off on the esteemed name of true genius Nikola Tesla.
Bah, so they lose a couple of their subsidies. They have like 7 more layers of government handouts they’re sucking on. They’ll be fine.
And I thought the fix was already in to extend the subsidies.
Ye shall be restrained and connected at the one end to a mercury-arc-rectifier and at the other a Tesla coil of no less than 30,000 volts.
If your mind is not ameliorated to the satisfaction of the panel the procedure shall be repeated . . .
Elon Musk fancies himself the real-life Iron Man. That is just hubris. Stan Lee created the character in 1963 before Elon was born and Stan’s inspiration was Howard Hughes. Elon’s real hero is Nikola Tesla, the archetype mad scientist. Here the similarity is obvious except Tesla was also a genius, Elon is just mad
Why all this hatred of Mr Musk. Anyway it wasn’t him, but the original founders, who chose the name “Tesla”.. It is actually highly appropriate because their cars are powered by three phase AC induction motors
Because he’s “staggeringly dumb” and Tesla is a complete failure by his own admission. I give him credit for his honesty here:
they had “no idea what we are doing,” and characterizing their original efforts as “completely clueless,” Musk admitted that he wanted to invest 99 percent of the company’s Series A funding, to avoid having investors and friends lose money on the endeavor.
Musk says that the company was founded in 2003 based on assumptions which “turned out to be staggeringly dumb.”
Musk admitted that the early Roadster “was completely unsafe,” it “broke down all the time,” and it “didn’t really work.”
Musk’s ambitions for increased Tesla production are nearly laughable… The recently-introduced Model X SUV has had so many quality-control problems,
Musk also pointed out that the biggest problem with the Model X—those ridiculous “falconwing” rear doors—hasn’t even been fixed yet.
http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/news/a29378/elon-musk-admits-to-shareholders-that-the-tesla-roadster-was-a-disaster/
That’s all folks! Shall I now talk about his ridiculous plan to colonize Mars? Oh that’s his rocket exploding in a great fireball. Who wants to ride Elon’s bomb? I mean rocket LOL
Dr. Strangelove said: “Because he’s “staggeringly dumb”….
Yeah, a guy who started a breakthrough car company, a rocket company, who is innovating in solar roof tiles, and who co founded Pay Pal, which revolutionized online payments, is staggeringly dumb.
[snip . . . mod]
John Hardy said: “Why all this hatred of Mr Musk.”
Excellent question. He gets trashed for getting deposits and having wait lists – something other companies would do if they could get away with it. Both are common in the very high end car market, he has been able to do that for a mass market car. Bizarre criticism. He’s pulled off starting an extremely capital intensive business from scratch, something that hasn’t been done in 100 years, and he gets pilloried for that. But because he thinks AGW is real, and he’s an advocate of getting off fossil fuels, he gets attacked here on WUWT.
That’s what he said. Call him a liar. Fanatic fool!
Yes we know all that. There’s a thousand other entities more worthy of using that ‘trade mark’ but no one has presumed to because no one would seek to borrow legitimacy in such a manner from such an esteemed name. It’s just opportunistic and Musk should have changed the name upon becoming CEO.
Yes Chris, the operative word is “co-founded” , no sign that he was the intellectual powerhouse or the lucky passenger when it comes to technology.
“I’m personally spending an enormous amount of time on the production line,” said Musk, according to Mashable. “My desk is at the end of the production line. I have a sleeping bag in a conference room adjacent to the production line, which I use quite frequently.”
He’s not camping in for fun. He’s in charge of product design and quality. He prides himself as an engineer, a physicist by education and writes technical papers. He admits many faults despite fans denying it was his fault. Being rich doesn’t make one a great engineer or scientist.
[snip . . . mod]
“Yes Chris, the operative word is “co-founded” , no sign that he was the intellectual powerhouse or the lucky passenger when it comes to technology.”
Oh good grief. Fine, only give him 10% credit for Pay Pal. It doesn’t matter in the slightest. Telsa has jump started the EV market throughout the planet. Before Musk, it was hybrids with EVs an afterthought. And SpaceX. And Solar City. And the solar tiles business. And providing an impetus for Hyperloop.
It absolutely baffles me how people, 99% of whom have very modest personal accomplishments, go out of their way to trash him. The planet has around 7B people. Name me 5 that have done more in the business world in the last 10 years.
Dr Strangelove says
Musk doesn’t have the luxury of decades of experience in the car industry and his electric cars have their own set of issues too. Not only is Musk producing the cars, he’s also putting in the charging stations across the US, a massively capital intensive exercise and he knows he has to do this before he’ll get any sort of acceptance. Its chicken and egg and its expensive.
And he’s building the giga factory for the batteries he needs, another massively capital intensive project. Frankly with only $10B debt, he’s doing far better than most in the US. If you’re especially worried about where the US taxpayer money is going, I’d recommend studying this…
Then consider why your tax dollars should be turning soldiers into millionaires…oh no wait…
” Name me 5 that have done more in the business world in the last 10 years.”
I know you will have some subjective soft measure about genius, innovation (even when other are doing the same) and virtue, but seriously its a business , so based on profit and ROI the most companies in the S&P will do for a start.
yarpos writes
And as a business one might consider its market cap. Particularly in relation to other car manufacturers.
http://ei.marketwatch.com//Multimedia/2017/06/09/Photos/MG/MW-FO167_auto_c_20170609143025_MG.jpg
The key words were “done more” not “most profitable” and you might have forgotten that building assets in the manufacturing plant, giga factory and charging network are not “soft measures”. You might think its all on the back of tax payers but GM was given over 10B dollars in 2009 as its bailout and it wasn’t even as an incentive for strategic direction that electric cars/renewable energy are…
There is so much hate here for Musk and I dont understand it at all. Dont like electric cars? Dont buy one.
““It’s like if you’re a restaurant and you’re serving hamburgers and there’s like an hour-and-a-half wait for hamburgers — do you really want to encourage more people to order more hamburgers?””
Upon reading these words, a notion suddenly popped into my head quite unbidden: Hamburgers are the muscles of dead cows, ground up into a paste, then pressed, then thrown onto a scorchingly hot plate of metal and nearly incinerated, until every protein in the entire dead squishy matrix is denatured and unrecognizable as being what it once was.
And then I decided to do something dramatic!
I leapt up from my comfy sofa and threw a couple of burgers on a plate of scorchingly how metal…same as I always do when I have such gruesome thoughts.
Hamburgers are murder!
Juicy, delicious flame-broiled murder!
Mmmmm…burgers….*slobber/drool*
https://youtu.be/gpQzJe0z5Qk?t=1m1s
Tesla have just announced a price drop on the X and the S. So if you are losing money on each car you produce , you lower the price. I guess you make it up on the volume…..no, wait, umh, never mind
The marginal cost of production for the Model S is reportedly around 33k, well below the sales price. The oft-stated assertion that Tesla loses money on each sale of the Model S is premised on the mistaken calculation of assessing sunk costs (engineering, manufacturing equipment etc) into the cost of each vehicle. These are fine for determining whether to start a venture and the period of recovery, but you can’t use sunk costs to determine the sales price. Drug manufacturers understand this well – it’s why they agree to sell the Canadians their drugs at steeply discounted prices.
It’s all sunk costs? Explain his negative free cash flow then.
And big pharma sells it’s drugs at price controlled prices to Canada and Europe because they know they can recoup their costs in the only major free market on the planet: the US.
Ugh. “its” not it’s. Not enough Dew yet this morning.
<Tsk Tsk writes
Do you know what’s included in the costs? How about the provisioning of the charging network? Or the building of the giga factory? And tooling up for the Model 3 even?
Other car manufacturers have decades of experience with their supply chains. Tesla is experiencing the pains of massive growth.
63,000 cancellations out of 500,000+. I don’t think there is any information that can be teased out of that data. Meh.
Nope, there is not. Other than some people don’t want to wait 2 years to get the car they wanted.
Chris, nobody was misguided here. They all wanted a smaller, cheaper Model S by 2019. I’ve been following this very closely, so here’s my take. They didn’t figure on the competition catching up and the “3” to have the same features as the “S”. Those who have, decided to bail and get another EV earlier.
Somebody said the Cobra was faster? Here’s a Tesla powered Cobra that’s considerably faster. The race follows the stills. – It’s scary!
Is that was fluid filled radiator with an electrically powered cooling fan?
So, does anyone want to guess how long it will be before Musk/Tesla says that nasty word ‘bankruptcy’?
I expect that Tesla will avoid insolvency through M&A or be deemed “too big to fail.”
Musk never will, he has insulated himself with several layers of cutouts and deaddrops so he will appear the squeaky clean choirboy of the Church of Man Caused Globall Warmining, and image he has casrefully crafted.
Sara, David, not noticed Musk is not about collecting money but building an empire. All the reserves are reinvested. There’s little doubt he’s going to be the Google of his field.
The detractors here made fools of themselves over Musk too many times already. It’s getting a bit embarrassing now.
David Middleton links: Tesla’s Projected Earnings Are Sensitive To ZEV Credits – What If They Go Away?
Anton Wahlman
“Tesla got $139 million from this government program [Zero Emissions Vehicle], even if the check comes directly from the other automakers, not from a government treasury. It’s a tax-and-subsidy in everything but name….As it turns out, there is one scenario which would have the potential for California itself to wake up and question the ZEV program. It has to do with California’s non-electric car buyers having to bear the full burden of these huge electric car subsidies that currently are borne by all the other customers of Ford (NYSE:F), General Motors (NYSE:GM) and the other automakers outside of California.”
Oh for a word picture of the Economics of Californians! Wait, here it is:
“In every group of fifty, there’s always that one who does something to drive up the costs for everyone else, without paying the bill himself or herself. He or she drinks half the punch bowl, and then pukes on the carpet. The other forty-nine pay for the damage.
In the automotive world, that one in fifty is California. Despite having the nicest climate in the country, a few cultists have indoctrinated themselves into an obsession with the idea that California has a problem with its weather, temperature, etc. In order to fix this problem with the weather, Californians must be forced to buy electric or hydrogen cars. By 2025, 15.4% of the cars sold in California are mandated to be such cars: here.”
“Think about it. This is usually what happens when one state decides to tax a product. Residents in other states don’t pay another state’s sales tax. Or even an excise tax such as that on a cigarette pack. If one state adds a $4 per pack tax, that means that those people pay – not the people in another state.
What California is doing with the ZEV mandate is effectively imposing a tax on the people who don’t buy an electric (or hydrogen) car. It’s a tax in all but name. The difference is that California is getting away with consumers across all other geographies paying for it! It ought to be obvious that this is insanely unfair, economically as well as politically. I’m surprised that the automakers have given California a free pass on this – thus far.
The same thing goes for all other goods in society. If California imposes some law that makes it more expensive to build a house there, the guy who is building a house in Wyoming doesn’t suffer.
If the automakers don’t act on this, the consumers around the country have a case to bring against California. Why should they pay for subsidized luxury car consumption by hippies and billionaires in San Francisco?”
~~~
So the “credit” is really a check from people who bought gas engine cars and trucks, and the “market” for EVs is really a California government mandate. There ought to be a reversal of this, where you pay me back my check and also a fee for tormenting the English language like that.
Melon has ‘first mover’ advantage, at the present time. When the other cars Co’s start ramping up their product line it will be a different story. No money(subsidy) no honey(sales.)
http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-sales-stopped-in-hong-kong-tax-break-for-electric-cars-scrapped-2017-7?IR=T
regards
Anybody who sets out to criticise Tesla is a communist. Tesla started production with 1,000 workers. By 2013, this had risen to 3,000, and to 6,000 people in June 2016. Anyone who wants to see Tesla fail in its production and sale of state-of-the-art electric vehicles wants to see the livelihoods of its American automobile workers taken away and an increased burden put on the state via social security payments. Why are commentators here not applauding the decision of Elon Musk, Tesla’s founder and CEO, to produce American cars with American workers? What a bunch of Reds.
Outside of the Communist world, businesses don’t exist for the purpose of creating jobs. Businesses exist for the purpose of make a profit.
Despite massive infusions of corporate welfare, Tesla has never generated an annual profit. It’s not a matter of anyone wanting Tesla to succeed or fail. Tesla is nothing but “an experimental financial services company”…
http://devonshireresearch.com/research/Devonshire%20Research%20Group%20-%20Tesla%20Motors%20-%20TSLA%20-%20Public%20Release%20-%20Part%20II.pdf
Business exist for making a profit and creating jobs but we can argue this until the cows come home.
I looked at this report. The Devonshire Research Group seem to be a rather obscure, contrarian research outfit based in Boston. This is an article by Forbes magazine which I think is rather better known for its business-related research and opinion:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/09/01/teslas-business-model-highlights-what-the-shift-to-electric-means-for-the-auto-industry/#56bfa1e13523
Businesses do not exist for the purpose of creating jobs. That’s simply an indisputable fact.
Tesla only stays in business through massive infusions of OPM (other people’s money)…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-02/tesla-burns-through-record-cash-as-musk-brings-model-3-to-market
“Outside of the Communist world, businesses don’t exist for the purpose of creating jobs. Businesses exist for the purpose of make a profit.”
Amazon has proven the inaccuracy of that statement for the last 20 years. In the early years they lost money, then barely broke even. It is only now, in roughly year 20, that they are making any profit at all – and that is still quite small as a % of their total revenues. I agree that companies do not exist for the sole purpose of job creation, but the vehemence of the attacks on Musk, who has created thousands of good paying jobs in America, is astounding and shameful.
Bezos made his money off stock appreciation, not dividends. He was willing to go for market share, and investors in Amazon agreed with his strategy.
Alnost all businesses start out unprofitable and most new startups fail because they never generate sufficient cash flow (something all businesses have to so ibefore they become profitable. Amazon succeeded. Tesla hasn’t generated positive cash flow or a profit on an annual basis.
The purpose of business is to make a profit, not to create jobs. Only a Marxisr or an idiot could fail to grasp this fact.
Tesla has been dead a very long time. Cacth up, buttercup.
The thing is, Chris, is that Musk didn’t create those jobs, taxpayers did. Listen to what this old Democrat said about people like Musk:
Sure, that explains Tesla’s stock at an all time high, buttercup.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/another-analyst-joins-the-tesla-bulls-upgrading-the-stock-to-buy-2017-08-08
Capitalistroader, subsidies have been part of American (and global) business for centuries. What makes you single out Musk? GE gets subsidies, as does Boeing, as do oil and gas companies, and farmers, etc.
Don’t know who capitalistroader is, Vladimir’s Cousin, ivankinsman, said Tesla started a car company selling Model 3s. Neat trick for a man long dead.
I wouldn’t put your money where your mouth is daffodil:
https://www.benzinga.com/trading-ideas/long-ideas/17/07/9682817/tesla-why-short-sellers-wont-recoup-their-losses
Pinhead? Tesla is dead, been dead. You should have said Musk. Ya know, the conman sucking up American tax dollars while running an international swindle.
Jesus, get a life you numbskull. Don’t reply to any more of my posts – fed up with your witless tripe.
Really? You are the *snip* (be nice, be professional – Mod) who wants to shutdown human energy production, agriculture and industry over a lie. Tell us again how humans are destroying the climate, that is some funny shite!
Read this – instead of just churning out anti global warming doggerel like this “shutdown human energy production, agriculture and industry over a lie” which means nothing to no-one, try to read up on the issue – do you ever to any of your own research? It doesn’t look like it:
HOW EXTREME HEAT COULD LEAVE SWATHS OF THE PLANET UNINHABITABLE
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/extreme-heat-global-warming
You keep perpetuating the lies of Man Caused Globall Warmining, and yet you refuse to stop benefiting from coal fired electric generation plants, natural gas, petroleum products or any of the myriad of other offshoots from high energy, modern society. Talk about a hypocrite, and then you pretend to know something about economics, that is a special kind of stupid.
Lies? What lies? Where is your evidence that they are lies?
Chris, not quite centuries, no. Close, though. Lincoln shoveled lots of taxpayer money at various intercontinental railroad corporations, all of which went broke, like Solyndra.
Tesla will go broke too. And what makes you single out GE, Boeing, and oil and gas companies? Big Wind is by far the largest recipient of taxpayer dollars. Without taxpayers propping it up, wind makes no sense:
If you own Tesla stock, sell it. Now.
Jesus there are some hypocrites on this site when it comes to the environment. Let’s all attack Elon Musk for trying to sell electric vehicles and receiving subsidies for doing it because it is a pro-environment initiative. But let’s not attack the subsidies paid to the fossil fuel industries because, as we are all very well aware, fossil fuel is not good for the environment. But I bet you that if they were at all linked with being pro-environment they would be in for criticism here. Read this and stop attacking wind and electric vehicles for receiving subsidies and not including fossil fuels as well. I suggest you stop being so completely biased in your viewpoints on green technology being subsidised:
Fossil fuel subsidies are a staggering $5 tn per year – per year
A new study finds 6.5% of global GDP goes to subsidizing dirty fossil fuels
“…fossil fuels are expensive. Much of their costs are hidden, however, as subsidies. If people knew how large their subsidies were, there would be a backlash against them from so-called financial conservatives.” (but oh no, not on this site).
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/aug/07/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-a-staggering-5-tn-per-year?CMP=share_btn_fb.
The greent@rds at the World Bank are adding in mythical numbers to come up with $5 T in subsidies.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/08/09/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-still-total-5-trillion-annually/
Real numbers:
Using the EIA’s numbers…
The authors organized results by geographical region and found that the top three subsidizers of fossil fuels are China, USA, and Russia, respectively.
Get with the program man. How often do you have to be told that the job creation is happening in the green energy sector. If the US insists on sticking with Big Oil and King Coal then its global competitors – e..g India and China – are going to be ahead on the technological curve, getting their products to market whilst the US desperately keeps on subsidizing the fossil fuel industry to keep prices competitive. It’s so f****ng obvious but not to some dinosaurs commenting here.
Job creation is not the purpose of the energy industry. If it was, everyone would just hire someone with a hand-cranked generator.
Coal industry employees are 215 times as productive as solar industry employees.
Number of employees required to generate 1 million tonnes of oil equivalent worth of energy:
Coal 111
Oil & Gas 142
Wind 2,016
Solar 23,810
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/30/what-npr-misses-about-energy-jobs-in-america/
Forbes: Solar Employs More People In U.S. Electricity Generation Than Oil, Coal And Gas Combined
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/01/25/u-s-solar-energy-employs-more-people-than-oil-coal-and-gas-combined-infographic/#4dbe3f632800
Fortune.com: Renewable Energy Is Creating Jobs 12 Times Faster Than the Rest of the Economy
http://fortune.com/2017/01/27/solar-wind-renewable-jobs/
The purpose of the energy industry isn’t to create jobs. It’s purpose is to make a profit by producing energy resources.
Only a Marxist or someone who has never had a real job could fail to grasp this basic concept.
Coal industry employees are 215 times as productive as solar industry employees.
Number of employees required to generate 1 million tonnes of oil equivalent worth of energy:
Coal 111
Oil & Gas 142
Wind 2,016
Solar 23,810
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/30/what-npr-misses-about-energy-jobs-in-america/
A farm without tractors will create more jobs than a farm with tractors. The farm with tractors will grow more food per employee than the farm without tractors.
The purpose of a farm is not to employ farmers. The purpose of a farm is to make a profit by growing food.
Let’s get this very clear. Companies don’t hire workers unless they are making money and have the orders that need to be fulfilled as they want to make even more profit. Economics doesn’t seem to be your strong point.
Have you ever had a job? Worked for a company of any kind?
When company is formed, it has no employees, no revenue, no earnings. Someone or a group of people invest money into or loan money to a prospective business because they think they will earn a profit from it.
The owners of that company hire people to conduct the company’s business. If the company generates positive cash flow and becomes profitable, the company stays in business. If it expands, it can hire more people so the company can make even more money.
If the company never generates positive cash flow and never becomes profitable, the investors eventually stop putting money into it. At which point the company either goes out of business or is sold to a different group of investors and most, if not all, of the employees lose their jobs.
Do you understand why ExxonMobil has a higher credit rating than Ford? And why Ford has a higher credit rating than Tesla?
If Tesla fails to generate positive cash flow from the Model 3 very quickly, Elon Musk’s hype will no longer be sufficient for investors to keep throwing money at him.
The Model 3 will make or break Tesla.
You can take a short term bearish perspective on a longer term bullish perspective. Elin Musk is a game changer and SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR who set up PayPal so he has a strong business record. Technology investors have a different approach to traditional automobile investors. Let’s see if he pulls it off or not – daytraders et. al. can short Tesla stoc but may very well get their fingers burnt as his is a solid product.
Musk is a veritable Tony Stark.
Yep as a successful businessman deserves a lot more confidence than the dodgy real estate salesman from Queens who relies on illicit Russian financing to prop up his crumbling property empire. Whoops – shouldn’t have said that.
DM? You got to use a #sarc tag, Vladimir’s Cousin ain’t intelligent enough to figure it out.
Oil and gas companies actually provide a product that is needed by ALL citizens, Musk sells overpriced toys that no one needs. Get it?
And those posts I put up negate this. Since when have Americans bought products just based on ‘need’. Enough of the dimwit comments.
Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! Yea, people only buy things they don’t need, Vladimir’s Cousin! Talk about a dimwit.
No idea what you are talking about here. Light up another one man and one day you will see the light – but with you it is going to take a vveeeerrrryyy lllloooonnnngggg tttiiiimmmmmeee.
Tesla’s HQ is in the Palo Alto Hills, one of the most expensive areas in the USA. Tesla’s manufacturing plant is in the SF Bay Area (South Bay, about 15 miles from Apple’s Spaceship HQ). One of the highest cost-of-living areas in the USA. Few profitable companies manufacture anything in the greater Bay Area, let alone California — with the highest tax burden in the USA.
Therefore, the odds of Tesla ever making money when the subsidies end are very slim. BUT, the California State Gov’t is so radical leftist, so fiscally insolvent, they’re no doubt will to raise taxes to save the company. Then, they willl secede from the USA and become Greece!