Is it ideology, or just, please forgive me, ignorance? You don't have to answer that

Most of these guys don't daily drive their Porsches, which is why you find them with such low mileage. He has a Boxer with probably 15K on it. He drives it to work maybe once or twice a month, before that he daily drove a Prius

 

This is why Porsche is one of the most reliable brands they are the ultimate pampered garage queens. Only Corvette might match them in the garage queen contest. Treat a Porsche like a Prius well you know the rest.
Apparently I'm not very persuasive should be able to at least get them to drive the car.

 

As of July, the Mach E is 49.2% up YTD (up 16.6% YOY) and for the Lightning it's up 79.1% YTD and 81.8% YOY

 

I asked Grok

 

lose a dollar on every one and make it up in volume.

 

there's a reason ford and gm have market caps of 40-50Bn, tesla has over 700bn, and even byd has 90bn.

ford has 177k employees. gm has 163k employees, and tesla has 100k.
while ford and gm may have more models and even more unit sales, they're not doing power storage products, and a ton of software.

because of the uaw, and the massive cost of pensions, healthcare for employees and retirees, ford and gm are financially trapped and also cannot innovate in automation and reducing staff needs the way tesla and other non-uaw companies can. ford's probably in worse shape than gm because they didn't restructure in the financial collapse as gm filed bankruptcy to jettison mountains of debt. even if ford and gm could innovate and reduce staffing needs they'd likely have to keep on paying the uaw workers to do nothing or pay a fortune to negotiate them out of the companies.

 

Much of it is R&D and capital investment plus the in-progress separation into three business units, so now is the time to capture tax losses and depreciation etc.

 

That's a horrible business model! 🤓

 

I think many of your points here are valid, I just want to add a few more. As I was discussing with another member, there are two main reasons Tesla has been highly successful in building and selling electric vehicles while the other automakers, including the Big Three are struggling to just stop the bleeding: 1) They had a huge head start and took advantage of Federal and State money that was available at the time and 2) coming from a startup culture, they didn't have all the constraints big corporate legacy auto manufacturers have. Tesla was losing money, until it wasn't. The big three are also not risk takers, their investors can't tolerate the losses over a few years, which is what it's going to take to bring EV'S to profitability. Which is why Tesla in 11 years now has a larger Market Cap than the Big Three combined.

Tesla has also done something none of the other legacy automakers could ever dream on their best day, and that's building their own hardware and integrating it inhouse with their own software. Which is why their OTA updates come so fast, make huge improvements, and continue to make the cars better each update.

TBH, not sure how the Big three are going to transition, they are so late in the game

 

I've stepped into the twilight zone.

 

Welcome to Corporate America my friend, I'm Rod Serling, and I'll be your host this evening

Which is why innovation is born in a room with a couple of guys desperately trying to raise money, and ends up in the hands of a giant corporation, where it dies a horrible death...

 

True but every auto maker qualifies for the same funding it's not like Tesla got special treatment. Especially now, Tesla gets the exact opposite of that they are attacked from every angle see Delaware as an example there are many others.

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2) and coming from a startup culture, they didn't have all the constraints big corporate legacy auto manufacturers have.

Start up culture can be very healthy but starting a new auto business is almost impossible never mind making money doing it. Regulations alone are mind boggling I doubt there is a more regulated industry.

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Tesla was losing money, until it wasn't. The big three are also not risk takers, their investors can't tolerate the losses over a few years, which is what it's going to take to bring EV'S to profitability. Which is why Tesla in 11 years now has a larger Market Cap than the Big Three combined.

I'm disappointed in Jim Farley he was saying the right things and appeared to be doing them now he's throwing in the towel.

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Tesla has also done something none of the other legacy automakers could ever dream on their best day, and that's building their own hardware and integrating it inhouse with their own software. Which is why their OTA updates come so fast, make huge improvements, and continue to make the cars better each update.

There is only one reason this happened and is the same reason Tesla is where they are.

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TBH, not sure how the Big three are going to transition, they are so late in the game

First step would be to go all in on hiring a legit software team there is no way to compete when they are using 3rd parties for all their software and modules. What Tesla can do in an hour takes legacy auto weeks or months they have to document needed changes, contact supplier, get new code, push the update. And almost always it can't be done OTA. And that assumes the module can be updated at all. I don't think people realize how bloated code is on a legacy vehicle it's a giant fluster cluck. Not going to name the company but they currently have a software issue that by the looks will never be fixed.

In the broader picture what's a good example of an well established (read old) corporation that successfully transitioned from a legacy business to a high tech one.

 

Look at the record. GM built a highly successful EV, known as the EV1. Their owners loved it. Then GM literally stabbed them in the back and sabotaged their own success story. Did the same thing with the Volt and now the Bolt. We already know the Toyota story, so we'll skip that sad chapter. As far as Jim Farley, he has the vision and I think his intentions are good, but I don't think he has the power to convince Ford investors that long term they are going to lose money and there will eventually be light at the end of the tunnel. It just doesn't work that way when it comes to giant corporate conglomerates like Ford and GM.

Remember when Elon asked Tesla investors for a $55B compensation package? And most said Yes? Tell me what Ford investors would say if Mr. Farley asked for $1B compensation, much less $55B. I don't think he'll be CEO the next day, which means he really doesn't have as much power as people think.

It's not that a big corporation can't make a good electric car, they most definitely can, the Lightning is an amazing example, it's just that they waited until the 1th hour after seeing Tesla's Model 3 and Y not only becoming super popular, but highly profitable. They forget though that it took 5 years to crank out the first Model 3, and the next 3 or 4 years to get the bugs worked out. Companies like GM, Ford and Toyota don't have the patients to wait 5 years for profitability.

Just my take on this

 

Good point. Elon Musk is Tesla he does whatever he wants to the extent he can, Elon doesn't give a toss what short term investors think in fact if he listened to them Tesla would be dead and gone by now.
Tesla BODs gets a lot of crap but I don't understand why, they've let Elon be Elon that is the most important thing you can do. So now that I think about it, Ford et al need leaders that have a so called life or death stake in the company. This isn't Farley or Barra they will retire rich no matter what happens. Mary Barra has a financial incentive in her pay package but gets a huge base salary either way.
Toyota used to plan 20 years into the future are they doing that now?

 

That was kind of my point, they all get pretty good base salaries and will retire rich, even if their companies remain stagnant. Elon on the other hand, whatever one thinks of him, he has a huge stake. If he decides to "burn it all down", he's literally hurting himself. Tesla can't afford stagnation, it's probably one of the most punished stocks I've owned