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by bredren 3365 days ago
What kind of company would you call it?
4 comments

TSLA behaves mostly like 3 X Musk Tweets Bull ETF.
Now now, don't give Direxion any ideas
Every company these days is a tech company in some respects, but I don't think Tesla fits the bill in the general sense. Tesla is a green energy manufacturing company.

The only reason I think this matters is their finances are a lot different than a tech company. You are correct that Tesla is currently priced like a tech company though, so maybe I'm way off!

..so what is a tech company then?
A battery/renewable energy company.
I think the key distinction is hard costs. Tech companies have server costs. Tesla has manufacturing and contractor expenses.
Exactly. Tesla is a tech company like GE is a tech company. It's modern manufacturing.

(This only matters for valuation sake, a classic tech play can achieve profit margins far higher than a manufacturing firm.)

The word "tech" apparently has changed meaning in some circles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology:

"Technology ("science of craft", from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia) is the collection of techniques, skills, methods and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation. Technology can be the knowledge of techniques, processes, and the like, or it can be embedded in machines which can be operated without detailed knowledge of their workings."

You can argue that that isn't accurate, but I don't see how you can argue that the categorical statement "tech companies have server costs" follows from it (I can't even find the word "server" on that page, or on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech)

Tesla has plenty of server architecture, their cars are constantly talking to it for data collection and updates.
I thought panasonic was their white label battery supplier/partner?
Yes, but even they can't keep up with the projected demand for batteries which is why Tesla is building out its own factory [1] in partnership with Panasonic [2] to manufacture batteries.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/gigafactory

[2] https://www.tesla.com/blog/panasonic-and-tesla-sign-agreemen...

A car company.