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Tesla delivers Q3 profit


fuzzymoomoo

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Nope. They booked $139M in revenue from tax credit sales. Without that government program, they'd lose money this quarter. Their only profitable quarters have been due to the sale of ZEV credits.

^^^^^THIS^^^^ I can't wait till this bubble explodes. I really think they are trying to position themselves to be bought. You can't live on investor money forever. Lutz is correct about their faithful too!

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Nope. They booked $139M in revenue from tax credit sales. Without that government program, they'd lose money this quarter. Their only profitable quarters have been due to the sale of ZEV credits.

 

Out of $2.2B total revenue, the ZEV credits count for 6.3% of their revenue. If you're going to say you have to take that program out of the equation (keep in mind, this isn't government money, this is money from the likes of FCA or other automakers who aren't yet meeting ZEV requirements with their own EVs) then I would say we should also subtract any investment Tesla is making to grow from a 25,000 car a year company to a 300,000 car a year company, because that's also something that most other automakers don't deal with.

 

Or should Tesla hold onto those ZEV credits so that they can sell gas-powered pickup trucks to make a profit on? I haven't ever seen you make any suggestions for what Tesla should be doing differently other than going away.

 

All that said, I'm almost certain they'll go back to losses until the Model 3 ramps up, assuming they can get there. But I'm just saying:

1. ZEV credits are a good system

2. Tesla investing everything they earn and then some into scaling up is a much smarter move than remaining a small volume manufacturer, and it's been their plan from the start.

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I would say we should also subtract any investment Tesla is making to grow from a 25,000 car a year company to a 300,000 car a year company

 

First of all, that investment, such as it is, is coming from share floats, so it really, really, really doesn't count.

 

Secondly, they spent very little on cap ex last quarter, about in line with other quarters, which means they haven't started to spend the money needed to build this putative Model X.

 

I haven't had time to take a deep dive into their financials, but I expect them to be as murky and questionable as they have been ever since I started observing them.

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Forced on them by the gov't.......

 

 

Are you saying the government shouldn't be doing that? Some automakers, including Ford, are coping quite well with their own plug-in vehicle sales. What's wrong with a system that lets the slackers just pay a price to the companies that are going beyond the minimum requirement? Seems like a pretty good way to push industry in a direction that benefits everyone without using any tax payer dollars.

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Are you saying the government shouldn't be doing that? Some automakers, including Ford, are coping quite well with their own plug-in vehicle sales. What's wrong with a system that lets the slackers just pay a price to the companies that are going beyond the minimum requirement? Seems like a pretty good way to push industry in a direction that benefits everyone without using any tax payer dollars.

 

Because I am the one paying higher costs for all the other cars. No real proof of any benefit to everyone..........

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Because I am the one paying higher costs for all the other cars. No real proof of any benefit to everyone..........

 

 

I'm sensing some lingering skepticism about human-cause climate change, so in that case, how about urban air quality and respiratory problems? Maybe you don't live in a place where air quality's an issue, but this is a discussion about California's ZEV credit system...

 

http://www.autoblog.com/2016/10/28/dirty-car-emissions-cost-10-zev-states-37-billion-a-year/

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