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For most of its history, Tesla has become a technology company, a creation of Silicon Valley, where its headquarters are located.
By "technology", I do not speak of "technology". Major automakers have been inundated with technology for more than a century. They are not sitting around Detroit with big hammers hitting rusty pieces of iron.
Rather, I'm talking about the software and culture that permeates Silicon Valley, where multi-billion dollar businesses can be quickly created by companies with a dozen laptops, Amazon server space and a cold brewing system. Tesla has never really been in this industry. Instagram literally weighed nothing until it was acquired by Facebook. Tesla's first viable product, the original Roadster, tipped the scales to 3,000 pounds.
Read more: The real reason Tesla exposes its self-driving technology
For years, a large number of Tesla bulls on Wall Street and relays of the company have been trying to corner the puck of a car manufacturer in the square hole of a software company (or d & # 39; a consumer electronics business, if you like Apple technology). analogy). Their argument, initially weak, struck reality on Wednesday when Tesla announced dreadful profits in the first quarter, losing about $ 700 billion on a significantly reduced business figure of about $ 4.5 billion. (a considerable drop from the previous total of more than $ 7 billion).
Getting cars to customers is harder than it seems
The loss is easy to explain: Tesla built 63,000 Model 3 vehicles in the first quarter (the remaining production of about 12,000 Model S and Model X cars) and because it operates a single assembly plant on the west coast, she brought cars to customers, especially outside the United States.
Tesla is now the leading electric car manufacturer on the planet. This particular challenge should only worsen if demand continues at current levels. Tesla's system of routing cars to its customers is its primary responsibility at this time. In financial terms, this is similar to what happens when major manufacturers suffer a sales collapse (when they can not make deliveries either). In 2005, for example, Ford posted modest earnings in the fourth quarter, but a year later, US automaker No. 2 lost $ 6 billion – and more than $ 12 billion in 2006. The company has not made any profit. did not return to profitability in full year until 2010.
As the auto sector is extremely expensive to operate, there must be compensation for even trying to do it – and that 's the equally impressive amount of money that builders see losing in their operations. Cars are very expensive things. Tesla sells for between $ 40,000 and $ 150,000. Hence the increase in revenues in the second half of 2018 for Tesla.
Of course, if you can not run smoothly in this context – even in the absence of external shock on sales – then when you lose money, you lose a lot of money. Leaders of major auto companies know this and manage their activities accordingly. Musk begins to understand, and that is why he was rather restrained during the conference on Wednesday's results with analysts after the announcement of disappointing numbers. He was a doctoral candidate in physics before becoming Thomas Edison of Silicon Valley – and the laws of physics state that if you can not move a 2 ton machine from California to Europe as soon as possible, you will have to wait until To be paid.
Tesla is not as big as it sounds – but he's starting to experience the real economy of the auto company
In many ways, this situation highlights Tesla's problem as an open society. We forget that Tesla had only raised $ 226 million in its initial public offering, which trades at about $ 20 a year for several years. In about a decade, Tesla has grown from the insignificant to the importance of selling about 250,000 vehicles last year. Meanwhile, its market capitalization has exceeded that of Ford and sometimes even that of General Motors.
This is obviously not the math, but there is one thing to remember: Tesla is eating away at the auto market and making exceptional progress with respect to electric vehicles.
But the larger Tesla's market share, the more economically it will be the car companies. I do not want to diminish the company's software-based technologies – on review, what it does with fully autonomous technology is amazing, as we learned during its dedicated day to investors focused on autonomy this week. But it is clear that the hell of logistics has now supplanted the hell of production as Tesla's biggest hurdle.
Tesla can solve this problem, but it will take a while. Debugging the real world takes a lot of time. On the benefits side, auto companies like Tesla have been doing it for 100 years.
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