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by s3000 1279 days ago
I have seen two arguments:

1. Tesla has heavily invested in robotics. They will be able to build cars much cheaper than their competitors.

2. Tesla has long-term lithium delivery contracts. They will be able to pay far less for their batteries while the prices for their competitors will massively increase

I have not verified those claims but that would make Tesla's valuation more reasonable.

There is also the self-driving car race. Whoever wins that will take almost all profits. With Twitter, Musk doesn't look too good in the software department right now. However, if you ignore Google, then Tesla still has a chance to win.

2 comments

> 1. Tesla has heavily invested in robotics. They will be able to build cars much cheaper than their competitors.

Wasn't this proven wrong a bunch of times? Especially back with the Model 3 delivery issues and the "build in a tent" thing? There was an entire period where their delivery woes were blamed on them trying to automate stuff that wasn't worth it or couldn't really be made reliable.

And by the way, if you think Toyota isn't investing in robotics and hasn't been for decades, I have a bridge in Bucharest to sell you ;-)

> 2. Tesla has long-term lithium delivery contracts. They will be able to pay far less for their batteries while the prices for their competitors will massively increase

This would be interesting to read about, do you happen to have a link?

> There is also the self-driving car race. Whoever wins that will take almost all profits. With Twitter, Musk doesn't look too good in the software department right now. However, if you ignore Google, then Tesla still has a chance to win.

Let's discount self-driving cars for the next decade when evaluating any company, I'd say. The tech just isn't there yet.

Every car manufacturer invests heavily in robotics, take a look at Magna Steyer, Toyota, and a number of the new Chinese EVs coming out