except ford is spending an order of magnitude more than tesla. it's much easier to spend 100 dollars meaningfully than a 100 billion. I also hope you're willing to level the same charge at Google and Apple.
It is like comparing a spunky startup to an entrenched corporation. Ya, IBM once spent more than Facebook, but Facebook was worth more because it had potential while IBM didn't.
Ford doesn't have any good ideas for the future, they are too busy with the here and now and haven't shown an ability to do anything but incremental improvements with their R&D spending. Like we don't expect much more from IBM, we don't expect much more from Ford, but we do from Tesla.
> Ford doesn't have any good ideas for the future, they are too busy with the here and now
according to who? your average HN reader who basically hates cars? yeah, sure. the guy who hates cars is bearish on ford, shocking.
what about all the people buying raptors and gt350s and fgts and fists and fosts, hand over fist?
do you even know what i'm talking about? do these insanely popular cars even register on your radar?
it sounds like you're not-a-car-guy-but-a-tech-guy which makes up for a huge portion of tesla fans. and you're exposed when you make shit up like "ford doesn't innovate" or whatever your thesis is.
signed,
-not even a ford guy. porsche, there is no substitute.
For what it's worth I'm a (European) tech-guy who would love to buy a Ford Focus RS, the only issue is that I don't have the financial means to do that. And I also love their Ranger line, both the new one and the one from the late '90s - early 2000s, whose models are cheaper than the Hilux and whose engines are just as reliable (the only issue seems to be rust, which inevitably sets in after 250-300,000km).
I will also avoid buying a car connected to the Internet/which has a tablet-like dashboard for as long as I could, and I say that as a guy who has done web-programming for the last 10+ years.
The kind of people who buy raptors and gt350s are a tiny fraction of the market compared to the people who just want to get to work. Tesla isn't interested in car enthusiasts, they want to be the default answer to the question "How do I get from point A to point B for $1?"
OK, sure, the picture becomes a lot more complex if we want to talk about international markets. Anyway the car I see in the Tesla showroom does not say "car for practical people who just want to get from point A and point B." The article claims they're selling to the kind of people who would normally buy a Porsche.
Beijing has a lot of Tesla Model S's these days, up from virtually nil a few years ago. Chalk it up to Beijing separating the plate lottery for EVs, and the people that normally buy Audi aren't going to buy a Chinese EV.
I just bought an Acura ILX this year and I really like it (despite the reviews that it is just a luxury Civic), and I never even considered buying a Tesla.
People misunderstand post car like post PC: it doesn't mean the market is going away, but merely that it is no longer growing. Therefore, WYSIWIG on earnings, because they aren't going to change dramatically. Ya, Ford might have record earnings that are slightly more than last year, but no one sees them doubling before inflation makes that happen naturally.
> do you even know what i'm talking about? do these insanely popular cars even register on your radar?
I have to admit, I prefer Japanese cars and would never consider buying an American brand. I found them unreliable in the past, and got burned more often than not. But I still don't see the Japanese companies pulling a Tesla in the future, they are fairly stable companies with stable market share and profits. They don't change the game.
> -not even a ford guy. porsche, there is no substitute.
German cars break down too much. Ya, you can get one, but after the warranty is up, you are toast. Better to lease instead.
india and africa will be china in 20 years. this is the market that tesla is fighting for a fraction of, not the other way around. you're out of your mind.
people like cars. people will spend an irrational amount of money on their cars. they don't give a shit if it pollutes, or kills people, or doesn't because it drives itself sometimes. the trends show this, decade after decade. guess what? teslas pollute also. how many tons of CO2 was emitted extracting all of the rare earths and other super toxic shit that makes a tesla?
i'm sure tesla will be super successful. the rest of the brands aren't going anywhere either. and toyota was the first tesla. look at the prius figures. someone will do it again with electric cars. it won't just be tesla. you can't be serious if you think that.
Every year is potentially a record breaking year for profits. That's how inflation works!
India and Africa are going to buy Fords?
China has been really nice to Ford, it has kept them afloat while the American market tanked at home, BUT let's not delude ourselves about how Chinese JVs work. Also, China has some weird tax games going on, so its not clear where demand will eventually settle (disclaimer, I lived in Beijing for most of 2016). Other countries have and will follow similar home-grown biases.
You seem to have a bullish outlook on Ford, I don't know. I don't see them as a tech company, they make cars, they always have and always will, nothing will change for them. They aren't aiming for a shot at more greatness than they already have.
> Every year is potentially a record breaking year for profits. That's how inflation works!
do yourself a favor and never own or run a business. record breaking numbers do not happen by accident or because of inflation. you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what is actually going on here.
the analogy you are looking for is "right before the car showed up the record sales of horses looked unstoppable." but you're not putting the pieces together in a coherent manner.
also, ford will make whatever the car is. doesn't matter if it's electric or gas or diesel or bio.
What is this based on? Ford has had record profits over the past few years and has continually improved their vehicles and manufacturing processes, including remaking two assembly plants to make aluminum body F 150s. They also invested a billion dollars in Arvo AI and are making aggressive moves into self driving technology.
Ford's P/E ratio is 9.89.
IBM's P/E ratio is 14.02.
Facebook's P/E ratio is 40.79.
Tesla's P/E ratio is infinity since the E is negative.
I'm sure Ford has done many incremental innovations, I didn't say they didn't. IBM does the same thing, and has "record profits" every few years also. Its just the market isn't expecting the next big thing to come from Ford, while they are expecting that from Tesla.
If you think the market is wrong or too irrational, you can make a killing by shorting Tesla and buying cheap Ford stock.
I don't really like the analogy for several reasons, but what's wrong with IBM? Have you looked at their share price over the past 12 months? As of today, IBM is trading at around $164 billion market cap and paying out a dividend of over 3%. I'd say that's pretty good.
I don't short stocks because I don't believe in trying to time the market. I actually think Tesla could move well north of where it is currently trading. Not because I think they are going to grow to justify the valuation, but because I think lots of people will look at the $45 billion valuation and will incorrectly compare it to Amazon, Facebook (as you just did), Alphabet, and Apple and think $45 billion is low.
However I am long Ford. In fact it comprises the largest percentage of my personal portfolio. I continue to add more to it with every drop and just added more a few days ago. While the value has been dropping over the past couple of years, I've been collecting healthy dividends along the way ($F pays out now over a 5% yield), and am happy to sit and wait to see how long people will wait for Tesla to move beyond a niche auto maker and into the mainstream market.
Edit: One other point- this recent run-up is attributable to Tesla delivering more cars this quarter than expected, not because they just unveiled some new technology the market wasn't previously aware of. TSLA has been extremely volatile whether you've been long or short over the past 2-3 years. All it takes is one missed earnings report and it'll send this stock down at least 25%.
In general people who invest in stock are people who work at big financial institutions. Not 'regular' people trading on their own. For individuals, picking stock in stead of just buying accross the board is really risky. So it doesn't matter what 'lots of people' think, really.
The only thing happening now is that investors seem to be extremely worried of 'missing the boat' on automated driving. See the big investment in Uber, a taxi company with an app that essentially anyone can copy. But they raised billions on the promise of automated driving.
The only thing here is the idea that the organisation that perfects automated driving first will dominate every transport sector. That seems far fetched to me though.
But hey, I'm just a regular person too. So maybe I'm dead wrong.
Tesla is RISKY: it is a bigger gamble, higher volatility, higher upside if it works out, bigger chance of it going completely bust. Put Tesla in your portfolio if you want to add some risk to it. You want stability with a healthy dividend? Well, add some Ford to it.
Shorting is the way you capitalize on a stock that you think is overvalued. It is an advanced maneuver but can be done for the long term as well.
IBM...man, IBM is a tech company that got rid of most of its R&D to focus on consulting and accounting tricks. But ignoring that, IBM has a huge R&D division but has been unable to come up with any breakthroughs for quite some time now, it is the canonical mature tech company that isn't going to have rapid growth like a startup.
If you're looking for other stable tech-sector companies (mostly supplying corporate infrastructure), FICO and PEGA are good examples; so is Microsoft, for that matter. But why look for them? (They're S&P 500 components with solid dividends, so maybe that's answer enough.)
Sorry I guess. I couldn't find Tesla's P/E ratio on Google like I could for the other companies. It is my understanding that they don't report P/E ratios for companies with negative earnings.
And it makes sense: a high P/E ratio indicates high potential. The lower the earnings, the higher the P/E ratio. But if earnings went negative, then the P/E ratio would automatically go negative (since that is how math works, as you say). So if my stock price is $100, and I earn $1, my P/E ratio is 100...so much potential! If I accidentally lost a dollar instead, my P/E ratio automatically becomes -100 even though not much changed in my earnings.
The interesting thing is that as soon as you go negative, a larger negative P/E is better than a smaller negative P/E, and it's really wonky at earnings close to 0.
Don't try to short Tesla! Shorting depends on the short-term trajectory of the stock after you borrow it, and Tesla's being bought like mad by people who've put their faith in St. Elon, so this is a great way to lose your money.
The likely long-term outcome is for Tesla to be bought out for a pittance (maybe $20-$30 a share? $10 would be surprisingly low, $50 surprisingly high), by a mature automaker interested in the marque; in the meantime, the way to make money off Tesla is to realize that all the people who are zealously pumping their money into Tesla are leaving everything else under-valued.
An aluminum body is exactly the kind of iteration that was being talked about. It is neat, but its not and all new drive train on a totally different tech. Aluminium is a pretty well understood material, while self driving cars are virgin territory.
Tesla is making larger swings and potentially accepting larger risk. Ford is... iterating.
What innovation is Tesla making? Electric cars are not new. In fact the first production car to reach 60mph back in the day was electric. Aluminum in a production car is a lot more innovative that an electric car. (li batteries in a production car though is innovative)
The dunning kruger effect is super prominent in the tech community's discussions of Tesla.
Plenty of other manufactures are doing innovative things with automation, technology, etc. Not to mention most of them can build a higher quality interior/driver experience for far less than what Tesla wants for a Model S
It's 2017 and a $60,000 Audi still won't let you start it up remotely from your phone and run the heater/AC so it's comfortable by the time you leave your house.
Seems like the most basic, obvious, easy to implement feature but they still can't manage it. Apparently because it's "illegal in Germany" to have a car running without an operator behind the wheel. What a joke.
At work I'm parked down the street from the car so the key fob wouldn't reach. But that's beside the point; you can't even do it from the key fob today on a new Audi.
I can do it on a 15 year old chevy impala. I have a hunch that fernstart is verboten in europa because it is a waste of fuel (and emissions.) They have webasto heaters and parked ventilation instead. Aren't all these cars stop/start now?
Electric cars aren't new... if you really want to compare modern vehicles to those it pile batteries. When the roadster came out there was nothing like it.
Electric vehicles prior to the Telsas where research projects and low torque ultralight budget vehicles. Listing the differences between a Telsa and its closest successor, if you could pick one is not an easy task. Listing the difference between an F-150 and and F-150 with and aluminum was already done this sentence the hardest part was spelling aluminum.
You can pick an threshold for choosing what is evolution and revolution, I am just trying to choose a reasonable one.
IIRC, here in sand-land (AZ) you can drive solo in our OHV lanes with a vehicle that has less than four wheels (mainly motorcycles - but if you have the cash for one of those nice 3-wheeled "cars", you're still good).
I wonder if Tesla is contemplating building and selling a half-ton pickup truck to compete against Ford's F-150 (and others)?
That's what I'm kinda waiting for - I don't want a car; I like having a pickup. Ideally, it would be 4WD (and my next pickup will be - right now my off-road vehicle is an Isuzu VehiCROSS that I'm pouring money into). I would love it if my next pickup truck was a self-driving, off-road, 4WD electric beast.
But I don't see that happening any time soon - at least not before I get to the point of replacing my current truck.
Being innovative at small details of existing concepts isn't likely to produce huge gains in stock value, as opposed to being innovative at entire categories of new industry- and infrastructure-disrupting products. Ford does the former, Tesla does the latter, and the market is valuing them accordingly.
The market could be wrong, Tesla could fail to achieve their vision, Ford and other existing big companies could somehow turn themselves into organizations that aggressively pursue ambitious new visions.. but the market is betting not. You're welcome to make an opposing bet.
>Tesla does the latter, and the market is valuing them accordingly.
Suddenly we believe in a rational market when it comes to Tesla? Everytime I ask basic valuation questions in these threads, I get touchy-feely answers about "potential". And HackerNews is supposed to be a data/tech place. Imagine what average Joe thinks?
> The market could be wrong, Tesla could fail to achieve their vision, Ford and other existing big companies could somehow turn themselves into organizations that aggressively pursue ambitious new visions.. but the market is betting not. You're welcome to make an opposing bet.
I don't know about 'we', but I don't believe in an irrational market - the market may well be wrong, but it's not usually wrong for unreasonable reasons. And potential is all investors ever care about: they're looking to put their money where it has the most potential to turn into more money. Predicting the future is necessarily uncertain and involves ambiguous judgment; you can call that touchy-feely if you want to be dismissive, but there is no such thing as data on things that haven't happened yet.
We could quibble about the meaning of "irrational", but I do agree that markets can be mistaken for longer than most people can financially back their conviction that it's mistaken.
In the case of Tesla vs Ford, there is probably a sense in which the longer the market is 'irrationally' convinced of the value of Tesla, the less irrational it actually is - it's a bet on Tesla's viability and vision, and the longer it seems like a good bet to most people, the more likely it is that it is a rational bet to have made.
Maybe that's part of it. I'm sure another part of it is that Ford is already big enough, that there isn't a lot of growth potential there.
That said, it's not like they are exactly just making small refinements to gasoline engines, while SV companies are the only real innovators, chasing electric and self-serving vehicles. We just tend not to talk about it as much on HN (compared to Tesla, for example):
Ford doesn't have much room to grow because they are a mature company in a mature field. Tesla is creating new fields. Ford doesn't know how to create new fields, therefore they're stuck making small improvements to existing things, and, once someone like Tesla makes it very clear that a new field exists and is viable, Ford will reluctantly follow the market trend.
Ford does normal science [0], Tesla does revolutionary science [1].
Pretty much everyone who wants a Ford has one, or could buy one. There's not a lot of growth left for Ford. Their only hope is to steal a few customers from the other automakers, but those other automakers will steal a few back. It's unlikely that large numbers of people who don't currently own a Ford are going to buy one any time soon.
Tesla on the other hand, has millions of potential customers who would and will buy one once they become a little more affordable and the charging infrastructure becomes more built out. We already saw how fast the pre-sales for the Model 3 went. And that was just people who were willing to put down money on a car that wasn't even available yet.
It's not just about innovation or not. Tesla has a lot of room left to grow. Ford is about as big as it's ever going to get.
> Pretty much everyone who wants a Ford has one, or could buy one.
Yeah but it's not like people buy one car, and never buy one again. Ford sells over 800,000 units of just the F150 every single year.
Now it's true that they don't have as much potential for growth because they've reached a sort of stable place in the market. Maybe sales can grow a few percentage points year over year but Ford is unlikely to jump by 20% the way Tesla can.
But that's not really saying much as Ford is a mature company with a complete lineup and Tesla is only on its 4th model of car.
I don't understand this argument. Tesla is currently trading at a higher valuation than Ford. Ford has saturated the North American market. Tesla could eventually grow to saturate the North American market but is just a fledgling auto maker right now full of potential but not many sales.
But they are already trading at a higher valuation than Ford.
So unless you think that Tesla can command much higher margins than Ford does, then shouldn't Tesla only trade at a similar valuation when they are making similar amounts of cash?
Ford also signed a deal with Blackberry's automotive division and will be making their own software platform based on QNX.
Sounds like they may be trying to compete with Android, Apple, and Tesla on the software side. And QNX has a good microkernel architecture for an automotive OS.
Sorry but this is like Nokia saying they are spending all this money to make their phones and manufacturing processes awesome, all the while when a iPhone is getting designed somewhere.
Incremental changes is what most senior management folks at places like Ford can do because that is what they teach at MBA schools using linear growth graphs.
Self driving tech is really novelty thing now. And nobody expects it to work anytime soon.
The real deal now is mind-blowing battery tech. Batteries that are rugged, can charge quickly and a car that can give a big range on a charge.
Meanwhile talking of how efficiently somebody can build an ICE based car is really like someone talking about how quickly they can produce horse carriages. Doesn't really matter because that disruption is happening else where.
That all sounds good in theory, but where are the numbers to back it up?
Apple was making billions in profit on the iPhone at launch. Tesla has never made a profit and sold 70k vehicles last year. Companies like Ford and GM have huge numbers of loyal customers and move millions of vehicles a year and quite profitably. So while it sounds great to pretend that the automobile industry is dying and Tesla is capturing their market share by sheer innovation, the numbers tell a different story.
It's based on nothing other than the weird contempt you see for large, established corporations in the SV crowd. Big established corporation = big established rule book and management hierarchy = stifled innovation. Nevermind the fact that most of the major technological breakthroughs of the past 100 years were developed by the research wings of big corporations (Bell Labs, defense contractors).
I'm not the parent poster, but I'd offer one reason why some people feel this way - Ford is a car company, while Tesla is a software company. Big difference in expectations, capital expenditures, etc.
Based on committed capital, I think this is at least partially correct.
If Tesla is a 'software company', the last thing I'd ever want to do is buy a car from them.
As anyone who has every used software will attest to: Most of the time, we can count our lucky stars if our commercial software 'works' for a year and a half.
Cue all the: "If Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook/Snapchat made cars" jokes.
I'm kinda with @iamatworknow on this, too (thus right there with ya too).
I've contemplated the idea of my next pickup being a commercial vehicle, if I can get one (as a single unit and not a fleet sale) - which I probably won't be able to, but I can dream.
It seems like that's the only way (except for going used) that I'm going to be able to get what I want: A standard-cab, short-bed pickup, ideally 4WD.
I don't have kids, and won't have kids. I have no need for four doors and an extended cab. I don't need a long bed. I want a short wheelbase. So far, it's either buy a used pickup (back when they made and sold these kinds of trucks) or go with a commercial vehicle (where you can still sometimes find them - sometimes).
The other perk about a commercial version is that they are stripped down to the bone. Nothing fancy in the cab, just the bare basics for a radio, cloth interior, non-electric controls for windows and seats. Basically, eliminate all the fru-fru stuff to make that much more reliable for work-based usage.
In other words, I want a truck to be a truck - not some fancy "I only go to the mall to show off" substitute for a minivan. Add in some basic 4WD with manual hubs (again - nothing to break) - and there ya go. That's my dream truck (ok - if there were a Raptor version of it that'd be nice, too - but I can't afford that, so who really cares).
I actually had very similar thoughts on the pickup truck market when I was last looking for a new vehicle. I thought maybe a small pickup because I live in rough winter territory so the ruggedness, ground clearance, and 4WD would be good. Plus if I move homes soon like I plan to, it would be cheaper to just rent a trailer than a U-Haul for my one bedroom apartment worth of stuff.
But you're right -- there are no Chevy S10 or Ford Ranger type pickups anymore. The closest you'll find is probably the Toyota Tacoma, which has more than I would want or need.
So I just got another Corolla. It does have some fancy features I enjoy, but luckily they aren't reliant on the internet to function. And it's cheap.
Definitely agree with you there. We're already seeing some of the more unpleasant idiosyncrasies of the software world with Tesla.
I, for one, kinda like driving a car that doesn't require an internet connection, doesn't have forced OTA updates, doesn't send analytics data back to base, and won't potentially be bricked if someday the manufacturer goes out of business. Other manufactuers are starting to do the same thing but I'm going to enjoy my "dumb car" for as long as it lasts. Hopefully when fully electric vehicles become more mainstream and affordable there will still be an option to get a "dumb" version.
> Ford is a car company, while Tesla is a software company.
How? Uber has passed as a software company by making its drivers pay for capital and depreciation. Tesla currently sells physical cars to individual people. They may be aiming for "self-driving," but if they ever get there, there's still the question of who pays to build and maintain the cars. Compared to that, the value of the controlling software seems fairly small.
"Ford doesn't have any good ideas for the future..."
I think you just don't read about it because you don't care about Ford, but you read about it for Tesla. And it's not entirely your fault; there is definitely publication bias as well.
Truth. I sat down with Ford exec group last week (Fontinalis is an investor in the company I work for) and they explained all their ideas. Most of them are excellent, very few of them are related directly to cars, and I don't expect they will start talking about them for quite some time. Long Ford. :)
On on side, Ford, and most other companies in the automobile industry, are big corporation. The bigger it gets, the more difficult it is to change. And all the sub-contracting done in the industry might lead to even more difficulties to move things around.
However changing from petrol to electricity doesn't seem to be a drastic change. An important part of car making is changed (engine and energy), but it's not a radical shift (the rest of the car is still the same).
Today, Tesla represents a very small fraction of the number of cars produced in the world. There are still quite expensive, even Model 3, and there are not as convenient as current gas cars (long recharge time and lower autonomy). EV are definitely interesting but they are still in their infancy.
It's still to early for big car markers to shift completely. But the shift will come in 5 to 10 years, then it will be an interesting moment, we will see which companies have prepared enough to jump in the good wagon, and which companies will die.
As a side note, cars, either gas or electric have always amazed me, and not in a good way, from an energy and ecology standpoint. A 1500Kg vehicle to move on average 1.5 persons or 120Kg seems a huge waste of energy.
I do see their usefulness in low density environments such as rural areas as it's a system that doesn't require a complex infrastructure. But in dense environments like cities, transports needs could be far more efficiently provided by public transport and coherent urban planning. I truly hope that cars will not be as common in the second half of the XXI century as there are today.
Also ford is investing in on-demand shuttles service, offered at low cost, and expanding to 8 cities this year. Executed well this could become very popular.
Ford bet $1 billion on Argo.ai to build self-driving cars, and they also acquired Chariot. They are planning on using these to roll out self-driving vans in 2021 to compete with Uber, Lyft, etc.
> it's much easier to spend 100 dollars meaningfully than a 100 billion
Is that true? $100 is such a small amount of money that you're completely at the mercy of the supply chain. When you have $100B to spend, you are the supply chain (or at least a major part of it). Big money always makes the rules. They're either making money off of you now or planning to in the future.
Now you might say, "but wait, plenty of products/companies have done poorly because I wouldn't give them that $100." But that's not true. In reality, product success is always in terms of big money -- it's just spread out over enough consumers who individually have the $100 buy/don't-buy option.
Another objection: "yeah, but I always hear about big money wasting $30M (for example) on something stupid." Maybe so, but remember the scale. $30M waste on $100B is the same as $0.03 on $100. Moreover, the stupid thing they're wasting money on may not be that stupid -- you just might not be privy to all the details.
All that may sound like it's bad, but I think it's pretty great system. I sell my products at a markup to get small money, then have the discretion to buy or not buy somebody else's stuff with the money I made. En masse, I form a part of the "big money" consumer group at Home Depot, Amazon, etc. that has power over the more centralized big money.
You're talking about power, oculusthrift is talking about capacity. Of course big money has the power. But spending that big money in a non-wasteful way is a very hard job. What would you do if you were the head of Ford and had $100B to spend? Build more plants to manufacture more cars? You won't have who to sell them to. Easiest way out is to buy other companies, which is what big money usually do.
