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by coldtea 2471 days ago
>The model 3 is estimated to have a 30% gross margin

And yet Tesla is always on the verge of shutting down due to lack of funds, so the gross margin doesn't tell the whole story...
1 comments
bryanlarsen 2471 days ago
Tesla has $4B in the bank and their debt levels are tiny compared to VW, Toyota and Ford.
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foepys 2471 days ago
2018 VW made a profit of about 17.7 billion Euro while Tesla lost ~1 billion dollars. Comparing debt alone is a very stupid metric.
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zaroth 2471 days ago
That’s non-GAAP. Google says VW 2018 profit was actually. €13.92 billion, on revenue of €235 billion.

Most of that difference was due to €3 billion in fines for lying about the level of toxic emissions of their Diesel engines.

Apparently they feel like that shouldn’t fully count against them in their annual report. [1] Maybe a company which has demonstrated it is willing to commit fraud to coverup its level of pollution shouldn’t be able to call the fines “one-time” charges, since the likelihood of recidivism is high.

VW shipped 10.8 million vehicles to Tesla’s 245k. So to be sure, Tesla is currently about 2% the size of VW.

[1] - https://annualreport2018.volkswagenag.com/

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bryanlarsen 2471 days ago
And if sales halved? 2008 took out 2 of the big 3; which companies would a similar recession in 2020 take out? Tesla would be vulnerable, but far from alone.
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