Let’s face it : traditional taxi companies operating under high regulation and paying high license fees in many locations don’t stand a chance to survive when they have to compete against Uber and Lyft who face nearly no regulation and have next to no license/medallion fees.

A couple stickers and an ugly front end. Should have stuck with just the stickers.

The incredible thing about the Mazda5 as they discontinue it in the states: Average sales price (adjusted for equipment) has INCREASED as they burn through remaining inventory. That’s right... normally cars get cheaper as they dump the few remaining leftovers from prior years, especially if the model is discontinued.…

I forgot that they were rebadging Mazdas for this... I took one look at the photo and immediately thought “nice way to rip off Mazda’s design and throw an ugly Toyota fascia on it”

They are expensive. But I give them a lot of credit... I’ve bought simplehuman cans and look-a-likes. The look-a-likes seem to break somewhat more often, at which point you have to buy new.. and they seem to tarnish/rust/deteriorate much faster, at which point you have to buy new. Buy I’ve had zero issues with…

They are expensive. But I give them a lot of credit... I’ve bought simplehuman cans and look-a-likes. The…

I agree - I just don’t think that their business plan is enough to solve their losses. The gigafactory *should* cut costs for them - their target per kWh in the near term is actually about what GM currently charges for a Volt battery per kWh. That tells me that the target is reachable, because what automaker ever sold…

You’re assuming that they need to talk to each other. Autonomous vehicles will likely come in phases - first will come vehicles that can drive in traffic with non-autonomous vehicles. These will be more like AGVs in plants - they have a mission and are strictly watching the environment. They don’t communicate directly…

Tesla would not be profitable if they stopped all expansion - they aren’t selling enough cars to offset their SG&A expenses. Shifting support costs from costs of production to SG&A doesn’t make your production profitable. Yes, they pull a marginal profit on each additional vehicle, but their total profits from each…

I do.

I’d actually prefer large scale convenient mass transportation as the predominant mode of travel - its the most cost-efficient solution overall. But if we’re going to have individual cars, we should still strive for efficiency. Human drivers are extremely lousy operators, racking up small fortunes in costs every…

You’re ignoring that you cannot shift expenses from cost of goods to SG&A and claim that your gross margins are higher than competitors who don’t do the same nonsense just because you’ve done such a stunt (and yes, it is accounting voodoo). You also can’t ignore that SG&A and R&D expenses cannot actually go to zero -…

That would be a great analogy - if, and it is a HUGE IF, the investment would boost your profits - remember, if in your analogy your $300k investment boosts your income from $100k to $200k per year, that investment only helps if your costs go up by less than $100k per year. It doesn’t help you if your expenses go from…

It wouldn’t surprise me, either - because Tesla has admitted booking the revenue from leases upfront, which is taboo everywhere else. They pretty clearly are booking ongoing support costs associated with vehicles in SG&A expenses as opposed to under the cost of the vehicle as other makers do - that boosts “gross…

Tesla doesnt pay for everything in advance - NO company does that anymore. Their WIP is extremely low.

But you have to BUILD and OPEN the house factory before you begin to depreciate it.

Their ROI on equipment isn’t even CLOSE to 50%. That would be many, many times the industry normal. The fact that you believe that shows how out of touch you are.

And as I pointed out, Tesla grossly inflates their gross profit by voodoo…

Except Tesla isn’t building inventory, so your example fails.

Tesla is making capital investments, which hit cash flow not profitability (ok, they make a minor impact). It would be like buying hammer-making machines. But your investment there doesn’t show up as an operating loss. It shows up as negative cash flow.

Tesla’…

That’s a much worse example.

Tesla isn’t making an operating profit - so their income is already below their living expenses. And their investment in new facilities and product lines isn’t returning 50%, either - their losses simply are continuing to grow.

So it’s like earning $100k with $130k in living expenses, then…

The reinvestment is mostly capital expense, NOT operating.

If they were pulling an operating profit and had large cash burns because they were expanding, then you would have a point. You’ll find investors willing to bet on a company that has proven they can make a profit to pay back the investment.

If you’re pulling a…

The investments that are their costs are capital costs, not operating costs.

They’re losing quite a bit of money building cars - even though they do have a marginal profit on each additional vehicle sold.

You’re not really correct.

Each additional vehicle they sell is marginally profitable, but they aren’t selling enough vehicles to make any operating profit.

Hell, back in the day Ford would sell Escorts at a $100 marginal profit per vehicle. The problem was that they would sink $1 billion into design and production…

For now, yes. It doesn’t look like it will ever be cheaper.

And that business plan is GREAT so long as the cash burns and operating losses in step 1 and 2 are controlled. When you’re turning constant operating losses, you don’t have the revenues from one step to fund the development of the next ones.