Tesla Doesn’t Burn Fuel, It Burns Cash | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Doesn’t Burn Fuel, It Burns Cash

bloomberg.com

20 pointsdx03420 comments

For all the discussions and/or criticisms about Tesla, I don't think there are any other better quotes than this:

Tesla’s current price is arguably fair if most cars are powered by electricity in 10 years, if most of these cars are made by Tesla, if Tesla can make those cars with sufficient margin and quality control and can service the cars properly, and if Tesla can raise additional capital sufficient to cover a $3 billion annual cash drain and another billion to service its debt.

Source:

https://www.researchaffiliates.com/en_us/publications/articl...

WTF.

Criticism regarding Teslas prospects, cash flow and viability as a company may all be valid.

But the ridiculous animation and the live cash counter immediately take all credibility away for me. What credible news source would present a financial news article in this way?

Sadly, are thier any credible news sources left? With respects to Bloomberg, there are many articles by 'experts' whom are nothing more than FUD spreading shills by larger corps, seen it many times. I suspect this is one of them.

This is obviously jazzy infographic to entice people into reading boring stuff like prospects, cash flow and viability.

But, they sometimes provide good information too. For example Tesla Model 3 Tracker:

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/

The same sources that often do crappy infographics and poor data displays. (And headlines that verge on or are misleading.) There are a lot of incentives for people who aren't the reporter to spice up the presentation.

I agree with you in this case though. The cutesy animation is 1.) a bridge too far and 2.) even the numbers themselves don't add any intuitive sense. Knowing how much money a company is burning per minute doesn't tell me anything until I multiply it out to a quarter or a year.

I think these articles are the work of their PR. Because they want to paint what they are trying to do to be Impossible.

Even though this might be common knowledge, Elon Musk wants to inspire blind belief aka create a reality distortion field around him. For this, continuously emphasizing the impossibility of what they are trying to achieve is very important..

I agree that the counter makes no sense. There's just no way to put it into any perspective other than "that's a lot of money for me as a person". The graphics I thought was witty though. Lets face it, Musk does a lot of publicity stunts like selling 20 000 flamethrowers, and using them in the graphics I thought was rather witty. That said, I just don't know what to make of Tesla. The deposits schemes, financials etc, I just can't make my mind up if it is doing good or bad. On the other hand, a cult of personality that worships a guy building rockets, electric vehicles and so on seems preferable to many of the other celebrity cults around today. Lets hope a lot of people don't lose a bunch of money on it, I guess.

Goofy splash graphics are Bloomberg.com's style:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-08/inside-ju...

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-hampton-creek-just-m...

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-paul-ford-what-is-co...

They also had one of the best 404 pages, which I would use as an example when teaching HTTP responses (how a server could still serve what seems like a normal page even as its status code was a 404). Sadly, it's now gone, but Internet Archive has a snapshot:

http://web.archive.org/web/20150202030918/http://www.bloombe...

"“Elon Musk is an engineer, and so he treats raising capital as one element that he needs to solve,” said Andrea James, a former analyst"

How is Musk an engineer? Musk has a degree in physics and economics according to Wikipedia. At least where I'm from, you don't call yourself or someone else an engineer if you didn't go to engineering school.

Even if you agree with that how is "treating raising capital as one element that he needs to solve" work any better that the, you know, the other, non-engineer like methods others use to raise capital?

At least where I'm from, you don't call yourself or someone else an engineer if you didn't go to engineering school.

What Musk was doing 25 years ago when he was at university isn't important any more. Are we supposed to just ignore the 25 years of experience he's gained since?

It's very simple: if he does engineering then he is an engineer, regardless of what degree he holds.

> if he does engineering

Does he, though? He's CEO if 4 companies IIRC. I would be very surprised if that leaves you any time at all to do stuff that qualifies as engineering (in the traditional sense; not in the bullshit uptitling sense; "software engineer" is only one step from "ninja rockstar").

So he's not a true Scotsman.. err.. engineer?

https://www.inc.com/ayse-birsel/why-elon-musk-spends-80-perc...

Ouch!!

The word engineer is semantically bankrupt at this point.

A piece of paper doesn't make anyone an Engineer. His work does. Elon's life is full of creating engineering marvel.

Good analysis of this very unusual company. Musk is doing great stuff but investors should be cautious since there is big downside as well.

Methinks Uber should be a close runner up?

Except Uber burns cash and fuel. Lulz.

Oh no! Someone died in a car! How could it be??!!

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