Uh-oh Tesla

sickmint79

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i didn't drive it, had a bunch of conference calls, but my bro's buddy rented a model 3 yesterday and brought it over. he is not a tesla nutswinger but he is far more bought into full EV prevalence in the short term compared to me.

in any case i was surprised that after he drove it, and after he drove his car later, he said his was more fun and playful. which is nothing special, a hyundai elantra gt. he said the tesla of course ripped when you got on the accelerator, and he said it handled well too, nonetheless described his car as more fun and playful. i can only guess it is because it has 700 lbs less to toss about.

i asked which one he'd buy right now at 19k vs 36k, if the model 3 was a hatchback (which he really wanted) - he wasn't sure on that one.

Well Tesla stock went up $6.78 a share today so fuck me, who knows what people are thinking when they trade stock

the stock is news cycles and hype trains. the y apparently the market felt disappointing and it dipped down a bit. more speculation than fundamentals in tesla stock going on vs. other car manuf or many other stocks, methinks.
 

Gone_2022

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I think if you are not used to the fact that it doesn’t change gears.... and that the normal 3 is not a sports car it will feel weird. The Elantra has little to no power, so you can floor it around corners, off stop lights and not worry about crashing or going way over the speed limit.

The first thing I noticed about my S was the size of it. It’s a large car. Coming from a Cruze and a volt I was like holy crap. It felt big and cumbersome until I got used to it.
 

sickmint79

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I think if you are not used to the fact that it doesn’t change gears.... and that the normal 3 is not a sports car it will feel weird. The Elantra has little to no power, so you can floor it around corners, off stop lights and not worry about crashing or going way over the speed limit.

The first thing I noticed about my S was the size of it. It’s a large car. Coming from a Cruze and a volt I was like holy crap. It felt big and cumbersome until I got used to it.

for reference he said the one he drove was rwd with 'extended range' - i don't know what the latter means exactly though. i think it may be the 3800 lb boy with a 0-60 of 5.1, which isn't slow, but isn't the stupid fast versions and is def a chunker. he did say it handled well, just that it wasn't playful.

i think he doesn't mind/likes the no gears thing. it was a little wet out, how does a tesla handle if you do get on the 'gas' a bit around a corner and if it is wet? i figured one of the benefits (esp on awd) was that you had such quick and tight control over the wheels where you could have really amazing traction control.
 

Gone_2022

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I’ve never had an issue in rain. I have awd and it works fine and launches pretty much the same in the wet as it does on dry.

The only issue I had this year was some slight understeer in the front this winter during snow. I think it’s more attributed to the lack of weight over the wheels. No big engine up front holding things down. So I kind of had to relearn how I expect a car to handle snow conditions.
 

sickmint79

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it's a lot harder to lose traction though right? i figure same heft and gassy boi vs. tesla going around the same corner with the same gusto, there is a point where the gasser slips and it is up to you to save it, and the lectric boi just catches the slip and fixes it for you, maybe with little for you to even notice as a driver. you actually want some slip on a track so one of the things i assume track mode does is give you a lot more leeway as far as when any traction control intervention like that takes place.
 

Gone_2022

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The car catches itself a lot better then a gas car. It was just the understeer in the heavier snow that caught me off guard.

I am in need of tires already after 20k miles. So I will replace them and retest next season. Sadly the stock tires... while super quiet wear out Instantly
 

Pressure Ratio

....
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The only issue I had this year was some slight understeer in the front this winter during snow. I think it’s more attributed to the lack of weight over the wheels. No big engine up front holding things down. So I kind of had to relearn how I expect a car to handle snow conditions.

The S awd is like 4900 pounds and I think I read has a 47/53 weight bias front to rear. So I don't think the front end would be "lite". Understeer is probably due to other things.

I would imagine Tesla has a type of stability management like all cars now. I'm sure the AWD has additional denifits with being able to manipulate each motor individually.
 

Yaj Yak

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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019...nings-secret-pollution-not-profits-saved-musk

The surprise in the SEC 10-Q filing when no one was supposed to pay attention.

On April 29th, when no one was supposed to pay attention any longer, Tesla filed its quarterly report Form 10-Q with the SEC. Tesla had reported “earnings” on April 24, a doozie of a net loss of $702 million. But today, after the hoopla of its earnings report had died down, Tesla disclosed a slew of things that it hadn’t disclosed last week, including a record amount of sales of pollution credits.

Without those taxpayer-funded pollution credits that Tesla gets from the government and sells to other companies, its loss as automaker and solar-panel company would have been $918 million and its negative cash flow wouldn’t have been a cash drain of $919 million but a cash sinkhole of $1.14 billion

Tesla calls these taxpayer-funded pollution credits – part of the package of rich corporate welfare programs that Corporate America benefits from in numerous ways – “regulatory credits.”

The sales of these regulatory credits are booked as revenue, so they increase revenues by that amount. Since there are no costs associated with them, they also inflate by that amount gross profits, income from operations, net income, and cash flow. In other words, those taxpayer-funded credits are at the core of Tesla’s business model and flow straight from the top line all the way down to the bottom line.

Tesla discloses these “regulatory credits” – when it finally discloses them – in two categories:

Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) credits and

Non-ZEV regulatory credits.

On April 24, as I noted at the time, Tesla disclosed merely its $15 million in ZEV credits. But it kept its non-ZEV credits secret, and for a very good reason, with this kind of earnings chart:

US-Tesla-net-income-2019-q1-after-10-Q-.png


On April 29th, in its 10-Q filing, it disclosed what was really going on with one sentence in a note discussing the composition of its revenues under the heading, “Automotive & Services and Other Segment” (I added the bold):

“Additionally, there was an increase of $170.6 million in sales of non-ZEV regulatory credits to $200.6 million in the three months ended March 31, 2019.”


Those regulatory credits in Q1 of $15 million in ZEV credits plus $200.6 million in non-ZEV credits amount to $215.6 million, or 4.8% of the Tesla’s revenues. These disclosures show to what extent it depends on the taxpayer for revenues, profits (well, lower losses), and cash flow.

Without those credits:
Gross profit wouldn’t have been $566 million but merely $350 million.

Net loss wouldn’t have been $702 million but $917.6 million, which would have been its largest loss ever by far.

Operating cash flow wouldn’t have been the whopper of a negative $919.5 million that it disclosed on April 24, but a negative $1.137 billion!

This is the reason Tesla doesn’t disclose these credits fully during its earnings release when the media might jump on it (possibly) but delays the disclosure until it files its quarterly 10-Q with the SEC usually the following week.

Without the revenues from selling those taxpayer-funded credits to other companies, Tesla’s operations as an automaker and a solar-panel maker would look a whole lot worse than they already do. And this comes on top of the enormous benefits Tesla still reaps from the now phasing-out taxpayer-funded credits that buyers of its vehicles obtain from the federal government and from some state governments.
 

Chet Donnelly

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Jesus...that is some brutal cash flow!

Wonder why Tesla holds so much inventory? Seems like they could improve their cash flow if they'd figure out better inventory management....but I don't know the driver behind their inventory.

GM: $9.8B inventory - 2018 sales $147B
Ford: $11.2B inventory - 2018 sales $160B
Tesla: $3.1B inventory - 2018 sales $21B
 

FirstWorldProblems

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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019...nings-secret-pollution-not-profits-saved-musk


Those regulatory credits in Q1 of $15 million in ZEV credits plus $200.6 million in non-ZEV credits amount to $215.6 million, or 4.8% of the Tesla’s revenues. These disclosures show to what extent it depends on the taxpayer for revenues, profits (well, lower losses), and cash flow.

Without those credits:
Gross profit wouldn’t have been $566 million but merely $350 million.

Net loss wouldn’t have been $702 million but $917.6 million, which would have been its largest loss ever by far.

Operating cash flow wouldn’t have been the whopper of a negative $919.5 million that it disclosed on April 24, but a negative $1.137 billion!

This is the reason Tesla doesn’t disclose these credits fully during its earnings release when the media might jump on it (possibly) but delays the disclosure until it files its quarterly 10-Q with the SEC usually the following week.

Without the revenues from selling those taxpayer-funded credits to other companies, Tesla’s operations as an automaker and a solar-panel maker would look a whole lot worse than they already do. And this comes on top of the enormous benefits Tesla still reaps from the now phasing-out taxpayer-funded credits that buyers of its vehicles obtain from the federal government and from some state governments.
I'd really like for a tesla fan to come in and defend this. These credits honestly shouldn't exist, they're a form of corporate welfare, and this is proof that Elon has yet to make electricity financially viable. I wonder if the company would have survived if the credits didn't exist...methinks they wouldn't have.

Interesting that Musk did report the $15 million in ZEV credit sales on the call, but not the $200mil in non-zev credit sales. That's definitely misleading.

[MENTION=396]Mike K[/MENTION] your thoughts?

1047429-1550790382296971.png
 

Yaj Yak

Gladys
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I'd really like for a tesla fan to come in and defend this. These credits honestly shouldn't exist, they're a form of corporate welfare, and this is proof that Elon has yet to make electricity financially viable. I wonder if the company would have survived if the credits didn't exist...methinks they wouldn't have.

Interesting that Musk did report the $15 million in ZEV credit sales on the call, but not the $200mil in non-zev credit sales. That's definitely misleading.

[MENTION=396]Mike K[/MENTION] your thoughts?

1047429-1550790382296971.png

[MENTION=11218]lastls1[/MENTION]
[MENTION=71]ZOOMER[/MENTION]
[MENTION=1848]MikeyLikesIt[/MENTION]
[MENTION=396]Mike K[/MENTION]
 

Gone_2022

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Sep 4, 2013
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You can’t really get mad at them for taking the credits though. They didn’t make them up the government did. Other companies can also take advantage of it, its just so large for them because they only deal with ZEV Vehicles.

I agree as these cars become more mainstream it probably shouldn’t exist anymore.

But regardless of credits, and financial data, and smoking on podcasts..... Elon and Tesla have moved the auto world forward in leaps and bounds.
 

Gone_2022

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I don’t want to see them fail, not only as an owner, but just for what they have given the auto industry. I’m excited for what is next to come..... but I fear if Tesla folds, it will take us a lot longer to get there than if they stayed in business.
 

FirstWorldProblems

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You can’t really get mad at them for taking the credits though. They didn’t make them up the government did. Other companies can also take advantage of it, its just so large for them because they only deal with ZEV Vehicles.

I agree as these cars become more mainstream it probably shouldn’t exist anymore.

But regardless of credits, and financial data, and smoking on podcasts..... Elon and Tesla have moved the auto world forward in leaps and bounds.

I'm not "mad" at anything, but it's concerning that 7 years after first offering the model S, they're still reporting huge net losses even in quarters where they receive $200+ million in revenue from what are essentially government subsidies.

And they're not even forthcoming about it
 
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