The phase out of tax credits begins at 200,000 sales in the US. Tesla has a ways to go before they hit that mark still.

But given their track record on meeting production dates for their vehicles, I think it is safe to say that their credits will begin phasing out before the 3 is released (assuming that Tesla finds…

The Taurus has received a lot more than just a new name and grille since 2005. It got a new name, fenders, and grille for 2008, but also an entirely different powertrain. In 2010 it received a complete restyling as well as additional powertrain options and features. For 2013 it received a new grill again. If it is…

And most of those expenses are capital expenses, not operating expenses. They get written off over their lifetimes, NOT as you expand.

Yes, it is a VERY expensive business to get into, but that does not mean that you use capital investments to justify massive operating losses.

Except that their total bills are well over their total income.

They would be fine if they were anywhere close to a positive operating income. They aren’t. It’s a BIG problem to buy a car with a $700 payment when you’re making $5000 per month and your other bills are $7000 per month. Unless that car will boost your…

At what, 12 -13 years old, only fan boys will refer to them as a startup anymore.

This isn’t that the results aren’t “vastly better than they said it would be” - this is that the company has been missing its guidance on margins, revenues, and now barely makes the very low end of its guidance on sales. In other words, they’re barely making any of the promises they’ve given.

First off, the entire market was down.

Second, Tesla is losing more money and cash than they had predicted a year ago. Last february, they were predicting gross margin expansion and significant revenue growth to about 4.6b annually, along with 50-55k sales. They’ve seen margin contraction, revenue growth nearly $1…

It’s amazing how easily people forget their promises. They did in fact state multiple times they would be profitable by now back when they used cooked non-GAAP methods to claim a quarterly profit.

As for the gigafactory, its cost is a cash flow hit, NOT a profitability hit - how is that so hard for people to…

Their cash burn and profitability were better 5 years ago, too. Scaling up hasn’t helped these issues any.

Preorders really don’t mean much of anything. A preorder for a Model X only cost $5k (a pittance compared to the cost of the vehicle). When you look at the buyers they are getting, putting $5k away on a fully…

Better? Sure - because it isn’t possible to do much worse.

It’s doubtful that they’ll be anywhere near profitable, though, and it is unlikely that cash flow will be positive.

Building a billion dollar factory doesn’t cause you to be unprofitable - because it gets written off against profits over its lifetime - NOT when it is built. It causes you to show negative cash flow, but it does NOT cause you to show massive operating losses.

Not quite the best example there.

A better analogy is if you were making $100,000 per year, but all your living expenses totalled $150,000 per year, and then decided to buy a house on top of it all.

Nope, he’s now five dollar footlong Jesus...

55, 2650, what’s the difference?

5 years is standard for models between redesigns. 4 is becoming increasingly common. 7 is mocked.

Your complaints about when costs and revenues are recorded is a little ridiculous. Other automakers record revenues when they deliver to a dealer because the dealer is an independent…

I meant to say “going into its 6th year” - the 2016 is the fifth model year of production, and there are no significant redesigns planned for the 2017, which will be the 6th model year of the same vehicle. For that I stand corrected. But the existing design is long in the tooth.

As for the gross margins, they ONLY get…

Came here to say exactly this.

Profits? That’s laughable.

Tesla has no profit margin. They make marginal profits on each additional vehicle they sell, but they can’t sell enough vehicles at their extreme price points to offset overhead costs. They’re also using non-GAAP methods to claim these marginal profits on each vehicle.

Their expansion has…

Evidently newer Corollas must have been designed with the caps lock button on, because their low beams are just painfully bright when coming the other direction.

The problem is that Musk may not care about profits - but he can’t continue to rack up massive losses - he NEEDS investors to come in and fund his company, and there are simply not enough people willing to throw their money away on a company that can’t even break even.

Look at Tesla’s balance sheet and you’ll understand why.

Or look at Nissan and how much they’ve lost on EVs by betting big.