I don’t work in the field but do you know for a fact companies like NSO don’t use memory exploits for their attacks ? Majority of the “published” attacks is probably a better assertion.
NSO absolutely uses memory exploits. I think the person you’re responding to is saying that weaponized exploits of the form that NSO builds are a minority of overall attacks (which is both true, and also not a sufficient reason to discount the severity of memory corruption).
Don't see this attributed but one of the biggest "right to work" initiative called probably had lot to do with this "National Rural Employment Guarantee Act".
I am not sure how this article got past any editorial checks. First they state prices are too low in the US to make any profit, then on the next paragraph goes on to talk about “yet” Americans getting served less. Finally reverting back complaining Americans are not getting a good deal.
author also use gross profit of Walmart, which sells everything from salt to guns, as a measure of profitability for “grocery” stores.
What are the “peddling” here - dark store as a concept ?
Right- I would love to see the numbers compared with something like Kroger, whose main business is groceries. Calling Walmart a grocery store is like calling Target a grocery store-- technically true, since they both sell groceries, but neither of them seems to be especially focused on food.
I certainly don't argue with the idea that our grocery stores suck, though I'm not convinced it's a solely american problem nor that the reasons are those given in the article.
> author also use gross profit of Walmart, which sells everything from salt to guns, as a measure of profitability for “grocery” stores.
The article has an entire paragraph dedicated to this:
> Walmart’s shops are enormous, selling plenty besides groceries. Tesco operates over 4,000 shops, the bulk of which are its smallest. Walmart has only 4,700 shops in total, despite serving a population about five times larger. On average, its supermarkets are ten times larger by floor space than Tesco’s. Bigger stores increase consumer choice. A Walmart supercentre might stock 140,000 different items, compared with just 40,000 at Tesco’s biggest branches. But it also means they may be wasting a lot of space by stocking products that do not sell, adding to costs. American supermarkets sell far less per square foot of shop space than British supermarkets, notes Bryan Roberts, a consultant based in London.
Agreed, I too was surprised to see such a fact-deprived article from the Economist. While reading it I wondered if the Economist had started a public "blog" section or something, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Believe it or not .. casts are carried by Christian [0] and Muslim families converted generations ago .. upper cast by choice and forced on lower cast [1]
Good point. Still trying to figure out who is interested, but I'll probably add a student/educational discount too. (If anybody sees this and wants that, let me know.)
I wish Tesla would cut the crap about self driving tech (which is probably driving up their margins and their stock value) and bring more affordable mass market cars to market. Clearly selling high margin cars is good for business but one can hope.
I strongly suspect that would be a disaster for their stock price.
They remain priced at $837B market cap (even after a dramatic recent rout where Elon sold the top and is now under SEC investigation for doing so), while Toyota has a $300B market cap. Toyota makes ~8M cars per year [1]. Tesla made 400K cars last year [2].
Toyota made 20X more cars and has a market cap just 36% of TSLA.
There's a few ways cultists (err, sorry, investors) justify this valuation gap.
1. Self driving cars.
2. High margins.
If you give up on self-driving and you start making lower-margin cars, you start to look an awful lot like a car company, which would mean you'd have to reduce their stock price to just 10-20% of where it's at right now. From $800 to $80-160. And that's generous, leaving room for some of their fun pet projects like the always-next-year solar roof tile [3].
Tesla seems overpriced when you look at their Solar/EV/battery sales, on the other hand Toyota is still pushing Hydrogen fuel cells which suggests active mismanagement to many investors.
As far as I am concerned the majority of the auto industry is a dumpster fire of incompetence. I don’t think Tesla is a good investment at this point, but a significant growth premium is perfectly reasonable IMO.
Sure a significant growth premium is reasonable, which is why I gave them one when I valued them between $80 and $160 per share.
Without a growth premium they'd be valued at $40.
They're currently valued the same as the entire rest of the auto industry combined. Plus a few utility companies. Plus the battery arm of Panasonic. There's growth premium, then there's fanciful delusions.
Like Toyota, I am still not convinced that our battery Tech is really there. We are starting to see more and more horror stories about Tesla battery Replacement costs on used vehicles, and recalls from major manufacturers.
The Resell value of battery cars may drop to Zero if very purchase is a $20,000 gamble if you will have have to replace the battery.
Personally I think hydrogen fuel cells is the better long term tech, but more than Toyota will need to adopt it
There are two different issues here. Assuming it’s a random risk you would expect car dealerships to offer some from of insurance/extended battery warranty.
However, if the batteries need to be replaced every say 12 years spending 16,500$ onto replace a 75kWh battery is less than gas prices over that time span. Further the labor is only 2,300 to replace a battery so falling battery prices could easily make that a pricey but expected repair that’s worth doing once.
Of course that’s assuming a full replacement is needed, the other option is to add capacity to adjust for reduced range. A 75kWh battery that lost 40% capacity only needs an additional 30kWh of batteries to be back to full capacity. An initial design leaving a void and appropriate hookups largely solves the problem of battery degradation.
> "Further the labor is only 2,300 to replace a battery"
Why so much? Almost three working days at $100/hour?? Here[1] for example is a video of a Nio ES6 electric car in China with a battery swap station you can book on a smartphone, drive into, and it robotically swaps the discharged battery for a charged one in ~8 minutes, with possibly one person working there dealing with paperwork (of all things).
https://youtu.be/DPVrraVbEIM?t=82 shows me that removing a Tesla Model 3 battery needs the front and rear seats, center console, and all the carpet and interior bits removed, because there are bolts going down to the battery pack. That explains the price.
I didn’t mean that 2300 was low, rather that labor is often equally or more expensive than the part but in this case it’s (only) 14%. Which means if the battery price drops by half you will see a replacement costs drop to 9,400.
>>if the batteries need to be replaced every say 12 years spending 16,500$ onto replace a 75kWh battery is less than gas prices over that time span.
That is a far too simplistic way to look at the issue, and one that is at odds with how the majority of people budget their lives. So even if technically correct (and I have not done the math to confirm) it has little relvance to the resell value of the car.
Reality does not often matter, for example certain model of cars have become known for being "trash" simply because of a 1% failure rate of a part. Most people will never have the failure but the resell value of that model takes a HUGE impact because of the perception.
If electric vehicles are PERCEIVED by the public as being unreliable past 10 years old, the resell value of older battery electrics will approach zero. You need this resell market to support new sales. The exception to this is normally the "luxury" market which is somewhat insulated by resell value because the owners typically do not care. This is also why most of the battery electrics are in that market.
But if you want to replace the Camry, or the F150, Resell value is Critical as most people only keep their car for 5-6 years, and the typical car is sold 3-4 times in it life.
As it stands right now, the battery powered car needs at least 1 full replacement to get the same life of a typical ICE car. That replacement, is more expensive than an engine for an ICE, and it typically more than the car is worth, that makes these cars a ticking time bomb to most used car purchasers. Even if the cost of gas is more over the 12-15 life. That plays no part in the metric of used car value
You say that yet EV sales and used EV sales aren’t facing that issue. A low mileage 2012 Model S is still worth ~37k, and 2013 are selling around 39k. It’s easy enough to see why, a 250 mile range * 1,000 charge cycles ~= 250,000 miles.
As to the underlying perception, I expect people will see old EV’s as being a great long term investment because they have vastly fewer bits that need to be replaced. People will be talking about slapping a new battery into an EV with 250k miles, and spend less on gas and repairs as you aim for 500k miles. Especially after a few more battery price drops.
Primary reason for that is battery issue has not reached the wider market, Tesla's are still a novelty, and owning one is an aspirational desire for many people, it is not a utilitarian car like a Camry.
Also you talking about a Car, when new in 2012 Dollars was $93,000 (that is $114,000 in today;s dollars), that is an EXTREME deprecation rate.
For comparison lets look at the Most popular vehicle in 2012, the F150. The most expensive F150 that year was the Harley Davidson Edition @ $53,000, That same truck 10 years later sells for $28,000 or 53% of its original value
The Tesla Model S Performance at a Original Price of $93,000 selling for $37,000 or 40% of its original price. Another Key factor here as well that tips this even more to the F150, is that the majority of F150s on the market from 2012 have 150,000+ miles on them, where the majority of 2012 Model S on the market have 1/2 that or less.
The Tesla Resell value is value is already in the tank compared to ICE, and that is with its cult like status symbol. Other Battery vehicles that do not have this cult like status are FAR FAR worse, and Tesla's will at some point see a similar fate if they ever become the next Honda or Toyota
A 9 year old BMW model 7 which ran 74+k new with 78k miles is only 20k, that’s at best retaining 27% of it’s value after 9 years. A 10 year old 150k mile BMW model 7 is down at 15k that’s down to 20% of it’s purchased price.
Depreciation is simply higher on more expensive cars, look at a wider selection of cars and 40% after 10 years is quite good especially on a 100k car. That said anything unusual such as the F150 Harley Davidson you looked at tends to retain it’s value much better.
BMW is hardly the example I would use to defend your stance, BMW are also widely known for their expensive maintenance costs as they age, that is the reason why they are soo poorly valued.
That is the trend Tesla is going towards, and it is not a trend to defend your position that Battery cars can / should replace ICE
The market can not bear every car having a resell value like BMW's
This is the problem with your argumentation or rather we seem to be having 2 different conversation
The topic here, I thought, was the problem with Electrics replacing the common car, highlight luxury example is not the point and I am not sure how you believe that refute the idea that batteries will be a liability for resell value
So far you are just tossing out example of vehicle resell with out explaining how or why this refutes my position that selling used electric vehicle will be increasing hard, thus lowering their resell value, if the uncerntiy of battery replacement costs loom in the future buyers mind.
no one is going to buy a 10 year ICE car if they think the engine will need to be replaced in 2 years, like wise no one is going to buy a 10 year old electric car if they think the battery (@$15,000) will need to be replaced in 2 years.
This fact will hurt the electric car adoption, and could / will prevent it from being anything more than a luxury item for rich people, who instead of being able to sell it to a less well off person, will have to sell it for scrap making our waste problem even worse
Ok, sure let’s step away from actual data and work in theory.
> lowering resale value, if the uncertainty of battery replacement costs loom in the future buyers mind.
Saying batteries are a liability for resale value is no different than saying engines are a liability for resale value. High mileage cars have lower value than low mileage cars because they face more mechanical issues. The question is just how much.
> no one is going to buy a 10 year old electric car if they think the battery (@$15,000) will need to be replaced in 2 years.
This breaks down you you start running the numbers. Look at it this way, people are going to buy an EV that will last another 5 years before needing a battery at some price let’s call it 15k. Take an otherwise identical car and say it needs a 15k new battery right now is it worth 0$? No it’s worth more than that because after replacing the battery you have a car that’s going to last longer than 5 years. It’s also going to have the full range of a new car etc.
Essentially, it’s only a bad idea to replace the battery when a car with a new battery would be worth less than the cost to replace that battery. Of course the random factor could also play a role, but that’s down to design or manufacturing defects not some inherent issue with EV’s. Put another way some ICE cars had huge issues with head gasket replacement etc, but people singled out specific makes and models with issues rather than saying the ICE was simply an unworkable design.
PS: Saying it needs a replacement at some fixed point isn’t generally true. Battery’s rarely just fail, it’s normally a steady degradation such that someone can say range will be at least X miles for N years if I drive 13k miles per year but someone that doesn’t need as long a range or drives fewer miles could go much longer without replacing the battery. Presumably the market will do some filtering so people with lower range requirements will be getting great deals.
A majority of Americans cannot afford an unexpected expense of $1,000, let alone $16,500. The fact that its cheaper than the amount of gas you'd pay over that lifetime is irrelevant considering most Americans are not rich enough to shop comparatively like that. It's expensive to be poor.
> A majority of Americans cannot afford an unexpected expense of $1,000
1. Those statistics typically use a very misleading definition of 'afford'.
2. It would be the exact opposite of unexpected, and even if you procrastinate you just get reduced range and the car keeps working.
And you could probably get a monthly payment plan for an electric car battery.
> The fact that its cheaper than the amount of gas you'd pay over that lifetime is irrelevant considering most Americans are not rich enough to shop comparatively like that. It's expensive to be poor.
You'd pay the new battery money after saving on gas for 12 years. Replacement batteries are not an "expensive to be poor" problem.
>>You'd pay the new battery money after saving on gas for 12 years.
How do you figure? For example lets look at my buying pattern
Some One leases a new Vehicle... 3-4 years later they return it, that is when I come in, I buy a Lease Return almost every time. I keep that for 5-6 years. At which point I sell or trade for another lease return. the car is typically about 9-10 years old at that point. Someone Buys this from me or the dealer then 2 years later is hit with a $16,000-$20,000 bill
People do not normally keep a car for 12 years... So you would not have "saved" for 12 years
>Those statistics typically use a very misleading definition of 'afford'.
It is not really, as it is based on cash savings of a person to incur the expense with out using debt. If we are talking about a $16-20,000 expense on a 12 year old car, it is unlikely anyone will finance that expense has it would exceed the cars resell value. No lender is going to give you a loan to replace the battery. This problem exists today with many hybrids.
> it is based on cash savings of a person to incur the expense with out using debt
When you use debt every day, it doesn't matter very much whether you put an unexpected expense on debt. What matters is how fast you'd pay that off. If it will be gone in a couple months, that's afforded. And that's a lot of people when it comes to sudden hundreds-of-dollars expenses.
> No lender is going to give you a loan to replace the battery.
You can get a loan to buy a car, why not a battery for a car? I expect it to become possible as these things become more common.
> it is unlikely anyone will finance that expense has it would exceed the cars resell value.
Once you put in a new battery pack, won't the value go up a lot?
And basically every new car becomes worth significantly less than the loan value in the first week. This isn't a new problem.
> the car is typically about 9-10 years old at that point. Someone Buys this from me or the dealer then 2 years later is hit with a $16,000-$20,000 bill
If they've only had the car for 2 years then they've barely lost any capacity. Would they even need to replace it so soon?
But if we look at it in simple terms and say the battery is 80% dead, then shouldn't the part of the car's value represented by the battery be reduced by $14k when they buy it? Either way the answer is to consider 80% of a battery as part of the price, just like any other worn out parts a used car might have.
>And basically every new car becomes worth significantly less than the loan value in the first week. This isn't a new problem.
Actually it is, that is why most lenders require you to have Gap Insurance in addition to liability on a new Car Loan
Now i suppose "battery" insurance could also emerge as a new product, but hat really do not change my position any
>If they've only had the car for 2 years then they've barely lost any capacity. Would they even need to replace it so soon?
Are you not following the conversation? Or do you believe every time the car is resold the battery is going to be replaced?
In my hypothetical, a person buys a 10Year old car, then 2 years later they need a battery replacement costing more than the car is worth. They have only had the car for 2 years, but the battery did not magically become new when the car was resold.
> Either way the answer is to consider 80% of a battery as part of the price
The open question is if this can be accurately predicted, sure if you can pull up a report and with 99% percent accuracy show the wear level of the battery that may not be an issue.
My understanding however that this is a "best guess" and is not very accurate and predicting when a battery will actually fail, the health monitor of battery pack far from being as exact as you seem to make it out to be.
> Actually it is, that is why most lenders require you to have Gap Insurance in addition to liability on a new Car Loan
Actually it is... what?
I said it's not a new problem.
And you can use the same solution: get $3k of gap insurance on your new battery.
> but hat really do not change my position any
Why doesn't that change your position? You're saying it's hard to save up that much money, but if you can finance it like a car purchase then you don't need to save up that much money.
> Are you not following the conversation? Or do you believe every time the car is resold the battery is going to be replaced?
I am following.
I was suggesting that batteries don't usually outright fail. If you start with a vehicle at 75% of original range, you don't care as much that it dropped to 70% of original, and you could continue to ride that battery down the slope.
> The open question is if this can be accurately predicted, sure if you can pull up a report and with 99% percent accuracy show the wear level of the battery that may not be an issue.
If batteries are completely failing without much warning then that's probably a job for insurance? But you need enough people to start having that problem before that product will exist. I doubt we'll reach a point where it's a widespread problem and no insurance is available either.
But even if you can't measure the specific battery, if they've used it an average amount for 10 years, and most batteries last 12 at that use, then it should still cause a huge discount.
The stock market doesn't value a company solely by what it's doing today, but also by what people think it could do tomorrow.
Toyota is rock solid and stable. In 10 years you can bet they'll be making the same number of low margin cars they do today (same as 10 and 20 years ago) and making the same amount of money. (again, same as 10 and 20 years ago)
Their stock price is reflective of that - there is essentially no plan or path to "growth".
Tesla is growing MASSIVELY. It's basically a certainty they'll be making 2+ Million high margin cars by 2023, likely up to 5 Million in the next 5-10 years. The stock price reflects that massive growth.
It's gambling, and people are betting that Tesla is going to grow massively, and that Toyota is going to stay more-or-less constant.
> Tesla is growing MASSIVELY. It's basically a certainty they'll be making 2+ Million high margin cars by 2023, likely up to 5 Million in the next 5-10 years. The stock price reflects that massive growth.
So 5-10 years from now they'll still produce half as many cars as Toyota. Assuming they can do so without reducing their margins, and that in the interceding decade, not a single other mainstream automaker will produce a competitive vehicle. That's quite an assumption.
Based on their growth trajectories, they won't reach Toyota's production rate until about 10 years from now - in spite of being valued the same as the entire rest of the auto industry put together today.
It's like if the odds of a horse to win are 1:10 but you're betting 100:1. It's irrational and has no basis when compared to other similar companies.
They're not betting that the "company will do great in the future" - that's not really how this works - they're betting number go up.
There's a lot of ways for number to go up, some to do with the underlying business, and some to do with short-term price action gambling. The difference is the former is sustainable over time - positive sum even - the latter is not, and the market will usually drain the latter out.
Tesla is a good company. But Toyota can't really grow much more because most of humanity has ridden or owned or knows someone who owns a Toyota. Short of selling Toyotas to alien civilizations, "GROWTH" here comes off as a weak shill for TLSA stock.
Well, 300k a quarter is 3x as much as 400k per year, so if you keep everything else the same it turns your estimate into $240-480 a share and that would be a much more survivable drop.
3. Growth. It makes sense to value Tesla at 3 times Toyota if starting three years from now Tesla is selling four times as many cars as Toyota at the same margin. Might not happen, but I think that's what a lot of investors were betting on. Not to say there aren't a lot of cultists too...
The other auto makers are also in self driving '.they are only doing quiet R&D, but if you are betting on automation Tesla isn't the best long term bet even before you look at potential upside.
Yeah, Uber had this realization a few years ago too. If you recall, they were also developing self-driving technology in hopes of reducing their cost basis. However, they abandoned the project after an internal report leaked indicating that it wouldn't get them more than, IIRC, a 5% uplift - for exactly the reason you say. Once one company has it, the rest will not be far behind.
Self driving is a marketing side show, they are really just focused on manufacturing scaling right now and opening factories ASAP to meet demand. And because they are having a hard time meeting demand, they have no need at the time to make cheaper market versions, which will make their demand problem worse. They announced recently that they are not focusing on new models this year, just scaling. They are in mega scaling mode.
IMO the key competitive advantage they have in the us/can market is their supercharger network and how they are ahead tech wise, making them %20 better cars than current competitors.
Why would they do that? Being a luxury brand has a lot of advantages. No reason for them to dilute it with cheap offerings - others could pick up that market, if they want to.
