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Transportation Power

Electric-Car Companies Now Comprise Half the Worth of the World's 10 Most Valuable Automakers (bloomberg.com) 159

Posted by BeauHD from the business-disruption dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Electric-car companies are suddenly worth half of the total market capitalization of the world's 10 most valuable automakers. That's because money managers sized up the convergence of government policies and people's preferences combating climate change and made alternative energy their biggest bet. Much was achieved by Tesla Inc., the Palo Alto maker of the S, X, Y and 3 model vehicles, giving it a market capitalization of $539 billion, or more than Japan's Toyota Motor Corp., Germany's Volkswagen AG and Detroit's General Motors Co. combined. Tesla was barely 26% of Toyota's value at this point last year. None of the industry's Top 10 exclusively manufactured EVs in 2015; this year the list included Shanghai-based Nio Inc. and Guangzhou-based XPeng Inc., EV upstarts in the world's largest market.

Tesla and its Chinese competitors accounted for only 8% of the value of the Top 10 in 2019 -- still a huge leap from zero percent in 2016. The three EV makers reported annual sales of $30.5 billion, or about 3% of total sales for the 10 largest companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Commentators and short sellers, who profit when a security's price declines, predict that the companies' shares will plummet before long because the companies' values are far out of proportion to their more modest profits and revenues. Since its initial public offering in June 2010, Tesla revenue increased 241 times as revenue for the rest of the industry rose 19%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Tesla shares appreciated 170 times when the comparable figure was three times for global peers. None of which persuades numerous Tesla detractors, who insist the company will fail as soon as the legacy automakers determine that EVs are profitable. That moment arrives this month when Tesla joins the S&P 500 as its record-breaking largest new member.

In China, where EV incentives are part of the government's goal to become carbon neutral by 2060, Nio's annual revenues have tripled since its September 2018 IPO. Nio shares surged 665% during the same period as global peers were gaining 47%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. XPeng's 2020 third-quarter revenue is 4.4 times the amount during the same period a year ago. After the company's August IPO, the shares rose 269% when global peers gained 29%. These unprecedented valuations come at a point when the fossil fuel industry is reporting record losses, including Exxon Mobil Corp.'s $20 billion write-down this month. The market for zero-emission electric vehicles, meanwhile, is poised to become explosive, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In 2019, 2.1 million cars, or 2.5% of the cars sold worldwide were electric. By 2030, 26 million EVs will be sold, or 28% of total sales worldwide, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. By 2040, 54 million EVs will be sold, or 58% of the global market, the analysts predict.
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Electric-Car Companies Now Comprise Half the Worth of the World's 10 Most Valuable Automakers More

Electric-Car Companies Now Comprise Half the Worth of the World's 10 Most Valuable Automakers

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  • Current adoption does not support this valuation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @10:44PM (#60805634)
    This is pure and simple speculation, with bubble bursting resulting in serious damage to the electric car industry. There are still technical problems to be solve before mass adoption is a possibility in the near future, things like battery production capacity and electric grid integrity. Yes, there will be more electric cars in the future, but nowhere near at the level to justify these numbers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jours ( 663228 )

      Yes, there will be more electric cars in the future, but nowhere near at the level to justify these numbers.

      Agreed, if for no other reason than the grid needs serious upgrades in many areas to support them at that scale (looking at you California...)

      • Agreed, if for no other reason than the grid needs serious upgrades in many areas to support them at that scale (looking at you California...)

        Depends what time they are charged. Sure, the grid is running air conditioners between midnight and 5am, but there's still a lot of excess capacity at those hours to be charging cars.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        1) Grids build out faster than EV factories, excepting sheer incompetence.

        2) This whole article is based on the misleading premise that the parameter of interest is market cap, when it's actually enterprise value. Stockholders own most of the value of said EV companies. Bondholders own most of the value of old-school ICE automakers. The amount left over for stockholders is, consequently, far lower.

        I do agree that, say, NIO is a bubble and Tesla is being squeezed by S&P inclusion (a massive forced buy-an

        • 1) Grids build out faster than EV factories, excepting sheer incompetence.

          I find it amusing how many people fail to notice this big difference in scaling speed.

          Bondholders

          I don't think this will be a normal bubble, if it was it would be ready to pop already but market growth appears to be sustainable in the short term. So I'm waiting to see the double-bubble, when the oversold growth stocks start issuing bonds; and those get oversold, too.

          I don't care personally, I prefer small-cap value stocks.

          The big problem with NIO is that it can't remain listed on US stock exchanges, and that's not a

    • Re:Current adoption does not support this valuatio (Score:5, Insightful)

      by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @11:06PM (#60805688)

      l problems to be solve before mass adoption is a possibility in the near future, things like battery production capacity and electric grid integrity.

      Tesla expects to get down to $25k in the next 5 years (near term). Electric Grid Integrity is a non-issue. Almost all EV demand is in the middle of the night which is already a low-demand time of day. EVs can also help grid stability with utility controlled chargers. If 1 Gigawatt of power disappears from the grid from a power plant going offline you have 2 options to maintain grid stability:
      A) Supply side. Replace it with 1 gigawatt of power from a Natural Gas peaker or Battery
      B) Demand side. Reduce 1 Gigawatt of utilization.

      If you have most EVs on a Utility controlled charger you can over the internet just turn off 100,000 cars for 1 Gigawatt of demand in a few seconds. Problem solved. The handful of cars which were desperately low might be able to override the shutoff but you still achieved the goal of balancing demand to supply.

      Once a slow baseline generator comes back online, you can resume charging.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by Fly Swatter ( 30498 )
        So on hot sunny days, don't even bother trying to charge your car.

        And once heat pumps get just a little more efficient and work below freezing, on cold winter nights, don't even bother trying to charge your car.

        • on cold winter nights, don't even bother trying to charge your car.

          Is it really below -40 degrees on "cold winter nights" for you? I know there are some places where that holds true but it's certainly not the norm.

          • Re:Current adoption does not support this valuatio (Score:5, Insightful)

            by AleRunner ( 4556245 ) on Tuesday December 08, 2020 @04:49AM (#60806246)

            What Fly Swatter trying to say is that on hot days you won't be able to charge during the day because everyone will have their air-conditioning on so there won't be spare capacity during the day. Fly Swatter's right, most people will be encouraged to charge at night with very cheap electricity at that time. On the other hand with the "cold winter nights" he's trying to say that there will not be enough power at night. This means you have to charge during the day.

            There's a thing confusing for some people, these sound like there might be a problem since you won't be able to charge at night (due to heating) or during the day (due to cooling) but that doesn't happen in the same place. If it's hot enough that you have a problem charging at night then it's not going to be cool enough at night to cause a problem. In Scandinavia where nights are cold, all workplaces are getting electric charging points.

            That's a great thing about EV charging - you can compensate for the different geographical and seasonal weather changes by adjusting charging times. Even better, with smart chargers, the owners don't even have to remember to do the adjustment.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jbengt ( 874751 )
              Not able to charge at night due to heating loads and not being able to charge in the afternoon due to cooling loads does not really happen in the same locations. Around here the peak electrical demand occurs on hot, sunny, summer afternoons, even though we have pretty cold winters. In colder climates or in places where gas heating is not practical, peak electrical demand might occur on cold nights.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          And once heat pumps get just a little more efficient and work below freezing, on cold winter nights, don't even bother trying to charge your car.

          Heat pumps already work below freezing. You can get heat pumps that provide more than 80% of their rated capacity below -4F / -20C. They do tend to get inefficient much below freezing, mostly due to frost buildup and defrosting cycles. And ground source heat pumps can work just fine in really cold weather.

      • If you have most EVs on a Utility controlled charger you can over the internet just turn off 100,000 cars for 1 Gigawatt of demand in a few seconds.

        That's interesting centralized control of an economic resource, but isn't likely to go over well in capitalistic/free market societies.

        Tesla expects to get down to $25k in the next 5 years (near term).

        How many cars did Tesla ship at $35k before abandoning the price point, and how many years behind schedule were they when they hit.

        • If you have most EVs on a Utility controlled charger you can over the internet just turn off 100,000 cars for 1 Gigawatt of demand in a few seconds.

          That's interesting centralized control of an economic resource, but isn't likely to go over well in capitalistic/free market societies.

          I don't see why not. Just have a lower price for the power supplied to utility controlled chargers, along with QoS guarantees of when and for how long they can cut the power. The utility company can adjust the prices to get sufficient take up for their needs.

          • There's no in-home devices that are utility controlled. At least in the US. Do you think the people who are running around with guns and no masks are going to be okay with the utility shutting off their car?

            • It'll be an opt-it service and you'll be paid for it so if you don't want to be part of the grid for a period of time or longer you'll be able to override it so its not a problem.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Whibla ( 210729 )

              There's no in-home devices that are utility controlled. At least in the US. Do you think the people who are running around with guns and no masks are going to be okay with the utility shutting off their car?

              I'm not sure if you're seeing the distinction between 'top down' utility controlled and 'negotiated' utility control.

              Perhaps you might like to take a look at this video [youtube.com]: the bit that's particularly relevant starts at ~9:38. The video's producer does explain it himself, but you can see for yourself, from the graph, the utility grid 'drawing power' from the homeowner's battery over a 3 hour period, before the 'flow' reverses and the battery is partially recharged from the grid.

              I do appreciate that this specif

            • Re:Current adoption does not support this valuatio (Score:4, Informative)

              by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Tuesday December 08, 2020 @08:10AM (#60806708) Journal

              > There's no in-home devices that are utility controlled. At least in the US. Do you think the people who are running around with guns and no masks are going to be okay with the utility shutting off their car?

              My utility - and many others - offer various incentives to restrict charging to certain times of day. In my case, my EVSE collects data on charging times and power, and after deliberately setting up the EVSE to report this data to the utility, I get ~30% discount on the electricity I use to charge my vehicle between 11PM and 6AM.

              While not quite "utility controlled" there is a fairly strong incentive to cooperate, especially since it's easy to do so and poses no inconvenience whatsoever.

              (Also, the people "running around with guns and no masks" are likely to be the LAST people who will get an EV...)
              =Smidge=

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jbengt ( 874751 )

              There's no in-home devices that are utility controlled. At least in the US.

              There are such devices in the US. They might not be widely utilized, but they are widely available and being promoted by the utilities.

        • If you have most EVs on a Utility controlled charger you can over the internet just turn off 100,000 cars for 1 Gigawatt of demand in a few seconds.

          That's interesting centralized control of an economic resource, but isn't likely to go over well in capitalistic/free market societies.

          There's a whole load of this Chinese and Russian anti-capitalist / anti-freedom propaganda going around recently. Free people can't show discipline; free people are incapable of coming together; free people are incapable of tackling disease etc. I really don't get it. In multiple wars over years and years it's been absolutely clear that free people coming together with democratic decisions can be much more firmly fixed in their direction of travel and capitalistic markets can be used as a tool in that. D

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          That's interesting centralized control of an economic resource, but isn't likely to go over well in capitalistic/free market societies.

          Funny, then, because that's already an option many utilities offer to their customers, and customers that can tolerate interruptions are able to save money that way.

      • Electric Grid Integrity is a non-issue. Almost all EV demand is in the middle of the night which is already a low-demand time of day. EVs can also help grid stability with utility controlled chargers.

        Err no, not quite. While the majority of EVs do charge in the middle of the night the reality is basically no one goes home goes about their evening and then decides before sleep to go out and plug their car in. EV's hit the grid at the same time people cook, heat, watch TV and have their lights on. Peak hourly demand for electricty without EVs is around 6pm and EVs hit the grid around this time too.

        It's a solvable problem, but it's far from a "non-issue" in fact it's an issue that will need to be addressed

        • With the current EVs, you plug in when you get home and you configure your car (or home charger) to only operate at the times you want it to charge.

      • Most power systems already have demand control. You just set the chargers ramp down charge rates as you drop between 0.5- ~2.2Hz frequency on the grid. No need for any smart tech.

        What will be even better is to have symmetrical frequency sensitive modes so that cars not only ramp down charge rates but actually discharge into the grid during a low frequency condition. This gives you massive amounts of demand control without having to build independent battery systems.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          Most power systems already have demand control. You just set the chargers ramp down charge rates as you drop between 0.5- ~2.2Hz frequency on the grid. No need for any smart tech.

          What will be even better is to have symmetrical frequency sensitive modes so that cars not only ramp down charge rates but actually discharge into the grid during a low frequency condition. This gives you massive amounts of demand control without having to build independent battery systems.

          It would be better from a grid management perspective, maybe, but not better from the perspective of a car owner whose battery has limited charge cycles. It's one thing to have V2G for powering your house in the event of an outage. It's quite another to burn up a $20,000 battery in five years because PG&E or whoever was too cheap to build enough peaker plants.

    • Not even speculation based in rational thought (Score:5, Insightful)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @11:46PM (#60805760) Journal

      Quoting the fine summary:
      [Tesla's stock price is] "$539 billion, or more than Japan's Toyota Motor Corp., Germany's Volkswagen AG and Detroit's General Motors Co. combined."

      Someone might reasonably expect that 20 years from now Tesla might be as big as Toyota. They'd have to be a *little* nervous knowing that the company is led by a guy who is kinda weird. Awesome in some ways, but definitely weird. The kinda guy who likes to like at the SEC for fun.

      If you think that 20 years from now Tesla will be the world's largest automaker, and you are 80% sure that'll happen, that would justify buying the stock at 10X revenue, or a valuation of $80 billion. Keep in mind that's not just assuming all the buyers switch to EVs. That's assuming the buyers switch to EVs AND none of the car companies notice that, that the auto companies don't ever sell EVs, they just quietly go out of business and let Tesla grow to be the big car company.

      So anyway, if we assume that, if we assume that GM, Toyota, Volkswagen and all of the other car companies don't smush Tesla under their thumb, and we assume Elon Musk doesn't do anything crazy, and we assume Tesla doesn't make any mistakes, then we can figure Tesla might get huge and in that basis we could buy the stock at a valuation of $80 billion.

      Musk has said repeatedly that the stock is way over-valued. Well yeah the stock price currently values the company at $539 billion, or about seven times what it would be worth in a best-case scenario.

      • Tesla isn't just the leader in EVs. They are also the leader in self-driving vehicles. It will be even harder for the legacy companies to catch up there.

        • Re:Not even speculation based in rational thought (Score:4, Informative)

          by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Tuesday December 08, 2020 @12:37AM (#60805872) Journal

          If you're right, and if Tesla doesn't make any major mistakes, and if none of the companies selling millions of cars comes up with something killer, then maybe Tesla will be as big as Toyota in twenty years.

          *If* all that happens, Tesla will be worth $90 billion.

          The current price of the stock has the company valued at $539 billion.

          • Re:Not even speculation based in rational thought (Score:5, Informative)

            by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Tuesday December 08, 2020 @12:51AM (#60805910) Journal

            I misspoke slightly when I said "will be worth $90 billion".
            Let me explain.

            Would you loan me $50K today if I pay you back $55k 20 years from now?

            If so, you might be a fool. With AVERAGE investments, in SAFE, established companies like Walmart and General Mills, your money would double about every seven years. *On average*, with randomly picked major companies, for every dollar you invest today you'll have about eight dollars 20 years from now.

            Consider if you were a smart investor *from the future* with a time machine, and you knew for certain that 20 years from now Telsa would be selling millions of cars like Toyota and the other actual car companies do, if you knew they would sell more than any other company. If you *knew* they would be the world's largest car maker, that would mean they'd be worth $150 billion.

            Remember over 20 years your investment goes up 8X with randomly chosen major companies.
            So if Tesla is definitely going to be hugely successful and actually be making enough money be worth $160B twenty years from now, the price you'd pay for it today, knowing that it will be that successful, would be $160B / 8 = $20 billion.

            Again, even if you not only believe in the best case scenario, but you believe there is zero risk - the best case scenario WILL happen, the stock is still ridiculously over-valued.

            • Toyota earns about $2700 in profit from each vehicle they sell. Tesla, as a prestige brand, should be able to do at least as well as they scale up.

              Over the next 20 years, about 2 billion vehicles will be sold worldwide on current trends. Tesla certainly won't get all of those sales, or likely even most of them. But it isn't unreasonable that they may get 20%, or 400M vehicles.

              400M x $2700 > $1 Trillion ... which is 50 times more than your estimate of $20B.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                In 2018 Toyota held about 10% of the global market. Toyota is the world's biggest automaker.

                Tesla getting to 20% in just 20 years is pure fantasy.

              • > Over the next 20 years, about 2 billion vehicles will be sold worldwide on current trends.
                > Tesla certainly won't get all of those sales, or likely even most of them. But it isn't unreasonable that they may get 20%, or 400M vehicles

                You think Telsa is going to produce 20 M vehicles in 2021?
                Tesla's produces *thousands* of cars. It's car companies that produce millions. Twenty years from now, it's possible that Tesla will produce 20% of the cars in the US and Europe.

                There is a 0% chance that China is

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Cyberax ( 705495 )

            If you're right, and if Tesla doesn't make any major mistakes, and if none of the companies selling millions of cars comes up with something killer, then maybe Tesla will be as big as Toyota in twenty years.

            Tesla has 35% (thirty five percent) margin on cars with the average price of $45000. Their EBIDTA is $1.4 billion versus Toyota's $10B.

            They are already within the same order of magnitude and Tesla is planning to double their production next two years. And that's before they release Semi, Cybertruck and the budget $25k car.

            And Tesla has by now a robust pipeline of new factories, battery development and products. If they don't screw up royally, they will become the biggest automaker within the next 10 yea

            • Tesla reports their profit is 3.7%.

              > Tesla is planning to double their production next two years.

              I'm planning on my dick doubling in size every two years.
              That's more likely than Tesla having full self-driving "while the passenger sleeps" by 2019, as Elon promised in 2017.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            The current valuation is pure speculation that they will get their "full self driving" to work. Currently it looks very far away from being finished, to the point where they can launch their robotaxi service.

            Meanwhile Waymo is expanding its operating areas. Whoever gets there first is going to be raking in the cash because clearly there will be huge demand for reliable self driving tech.

        • That does not justify the insane PE that Tesla is trading at. Not even Musk thinks it is sane and he is probably pretty bullish on his own company

        • Tesla isn't just the leader in EVs. They are also the leader in self-driving vehicles.

          You mean driving-assist vehicles. Waymo is leading in self-driving vehicles. Or arguably that Chinese company that was just allowed to take out the safety drivers from their test vehicles... Although I'm going to remain skeptical there for the time being.

        • Will self driving ever work with equipment that can be used on an affordable vehicle? That's a really big bet. No one has solved more than 20% of the problem. When they are ready to accept liability for anything that happens with the car, then self driving is solved.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        If you think that 20 years from now Tesla will be the world's largest automaker, and you are 80% sure that'll happen, that would justify buying the stock at 10X revenue, or a valuation of $80 billion. Keep in mind that's not just assuming all the buyers switch to EVs. That's assuming the buyers switch to EVs AND none of the car companies notice that, that the auto companies don't ever sell EVs, they just quietly go out of business and let Tesla grow to be the big car company.

        Tesla doesn't need to be the world's biggest automaker to justify its price. Most of the other companies are loaded up with debt and liabilities to their eyeballs. GM has $191.663 *billion* in pension liability. Notice that this is on top of their $87.99 billion in debt. That's almost $280 billion dollars in debt and liabilities alone.

        And their dealer network is, in and of itself, another huge drag on future profitability because of the way they share profits with the dealers. As a result of not having

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Many countries have already announced end dates for fossil car sales. EV sales will only continue to increase until they are nearly 100%, with only special service vehicles exempt.

      Most of Europe is looking to switch over between 2030 and 2050. Realistically I expect there will be hardly any fossil cars sold in Europe by 2035.

  • Self driving vans is actually where we need to get to. It's BS that we are in the year 2020 and we lose an 45 mins to an hour everyday sitting down staring at traffic (ok I forgot we're in a pandemic). That's like missing one episode of the Mandalorian every day, for what? Nothing. You could be videochatting with friends and family, or better yet you could be productive in that time by posting important comments on slashdot (like this one, for example). We seriously need to figure out self driving vehicles.

    • I'd rather just keep working from home mostly, I've done it since last March so my company proved we can do it

    • I mean, you can take the train or telecommute if you want. Or live closer to work. An hour sitting in traffic to get to the office sounds horrible.

      That said, I don't know any commuter who drives without listening to podcasts. So non-visual entertainment or education is totally a possibility.

    • You mean like Dolmushs? (Those minivan taxi-bus things you see everywhere in Turkey.)

      Because nobody but an American would seriously suggest one minivan per person...

      But maybe we can start a charity event for ya: OMPA. One minivan per American.

      (Laugh, it's a joke. What do ya think I weigh? :)

      • It's actually that buses suck rocks, they do most of the pavement damage and they can't make the turn to go down lots of streets so they don't go past people's houses. The one and only reason we use them is that drivers are expensive, and a bus lets one driver steer a vehicle for many more people than a van. If you don't need drivers, you use vans. Then you can let people use an Uber-like website to hail them, and generate routes that take them to people's front doors.

        The self-driving van will kill the bus,

  • Mania (Score:3)

    by jschultz410 ( 583092 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @11:01PM (#60805670)

    "The three EV makers reported annual sales of $30.5 billion, or about 3% of total sales for the 10 largest companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."

    People keep piling in because the price keeps going up. How ridiculous will it get before it explodes? Stay tuned.

    • Re:Mania (Score:4, Interesting)

      by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @11:38PM (#60805744)
      The revenue does not matter. Remember a while back when Apple made like, 104% of all profit from mobile phones, but only had a 15% market share? The same industry-wide disruption is happening now in automobiles, and will continue for the next decade. The traditional autos will merge, fail, or be acquired, while the new companies transform the industry completely. The high stock prices are because everyone can see it coming a mile away. Tesla also reinvests its profits, which is why is margin from operations is north of 20% while its profit is 1% of revenue. Building supercomputers, designing custom silicon, and making plants on 3 continents is a growth story I want to partake in.

      • For a similar "newcomer vs established company" comparison, think Apple vs Motorola. People said they never had a chance in hell.

        Today, I can't even recall the last time I saw anyone with a Motorola phone. It's all Apple, Google, Samsung and LG.

      • Remember a while back when Apple made like, 104% of all profit from mobile phones, but only had a 15% market share? The same industry-wide disruption

        Apple, with a huge markup on it's phones, making a huge profit is... not disruption.

        happening now in automobiles, and will continue for the next decade. The traditional autos will merge, fail, or be acquired, while the new companies transform the industry completely.

        Maybe, maybe not. The big automakers aren't standing still while this is going on.

        • Apple, with a huge markup on it's phones, making a huge profit is... not disruption.

          The fact that other makers keep chasing Apple on phone tech is.

          The big automakers aren't standing still while this is going on.

          Certainly not, some of them are going backwards.

          Alt take: Microsoft certainly was not "standing still" while the iPhone and Android advanced.

          The high stock prices are because there's a mind boggling amount of investment capital sloshing around the world looking for a new bubble to ride

          Right because

          • Apple, with a huge markup on it's phones, making a huge profit is... not disruption.

            The fact that other makers keep chasing Apple on phone tech is.

            Um, no. "chasing tech" isn't disruption either.

            And that's the least nonsensical part of your reply. You really have no idea what you're talking about.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cyberax ( 705495 )

          Apple, with a huge markup on it's phones, making a huge profit is... not disruption.

          Tesla has a 35% operating margin on cars sold (22% gross margin).

    • People keep piling in because the price keeps going up.

      People keep "piling in", because this is obviously where the future is, and traditional car companies have not shown they can transition well.

      Additionally people "pile in" to Tesla, because of the other aspects of that business that have obviously massive growth potential (batteries, solar power, advanced self driving abilities).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "...traditional car companies have not shown they can transition well."

        A wildly indefensible claim made by a moron.

        "Additionally people "pile in" to Tesla, because of the other aspects of that business that have obviously massive growth potential (batteries, solar power, advanced self driving abilities)."

        And also because of the stupidity of crowds and the ease in manipulating the poorly informed. The stock market is not known for intelligence and critical thinking and is not a good indicator of long term v

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by havana9 ( 101033 )
        Seem to me that traditional car car companier are trnsitioning right now.
        You could order a Fiat 500, a WV Up!, Renault Zoe and other models now. The 500 electric is a brand new drivetrain, you could exchange some parts with the petrol and LPG models.
        The problem to switching to all electric is a bit of egg and chicken one, because with few EV no recharge station are available, and with no recharge station people aren't willing to buy an EV. To put a recharge station at home one has to have a garage with

  • Too conservative (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Socguy ( 933973 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @11:06PM (#60805690)
    Those estimates are too conservative. The speed at which governments are going to have to act to stave off increasingly dire outcomes from climate change will drive a transition much faster. Even before fossil fuel bans increasingly take hold, intelligent consumers will come to the conclusion that buying anything else but an electric vehicle is a bad investment.
    • Who are you kidding? We are gleefully racing towards the point of no return in our SUVs and TRUCKS.

      My biggest contribution isn't even transportation, my heat source is still oil which uses magnitudes more fossil fuel than my new hybrid. I do wish I had chosen a heat pump when installing AC 10 years ago. If I were doing that today its not even a choice but the way forward.
  • While one would expect a News for Nerds site to get excited about electric car news, we'll erupt with all the old memes.

    I'd just ask the people who have to increase their blood pressure meds when they hear or see "Electric Vehicle" - what is your solution, or are you going to claim that affordable petrofuel will just automagically replenish itself?

    Meanwhile, I see Jeep is going to have a full EV out in the near future. Looks like I'm gonna have one soon.

    Otherwise, this darn popcorn is really good. We

    • we have centuries of petrofuel though...

      meanwhile electric cars haven't quite arrived yet. five more years, yes

      hundreds of years, yes. https://www.discovermagazine.c... [discovermagazine.com]

      • It's not only about running out of oil, it's also about the pollution of getting that oil, refining it, transporting it to the pumps and burning it causing even more pollution - for every tank refuel.

        • I'll agree that burning oil for 3 more centuries will make earth look like something coo,l in very bad way, out of Ayn Rand movie or a "Harkonen planet" in Dune.

          That said, five more years won't. And electric cars won't be good general solution for most for about that time.

    • Yeah, newsflash: We value open platforms, open source and privacy more than some overblown-up uncanny valley airbag's iCars just because they are electric.

      Like telling a dog-loving Jew that Hitler liked dogs too. (He did. And I get it. The war only happened because he never got his box of puppies [youtube.com]. Got a box of Goebbels [wikimedia.org] instead. Poor fuckin' kid.)
      And that, right here, ends this thread, by the way. ;)

      • Yeah, newsflash: We value open platforms, open source and privacy more than some overblown-up uncanny valley airbag's iCars just because they are electric.

        Like telling a dog-loving Jew that Hitler liked dogs too. (He did. And I get it. The war only happened because he never got his box of puppies [youtube.com]. Got a box of Goebbels [wikimedia.org] instead. Poor fuckin' kid.) And that, right here, ends this thread, by the way. ;)

        And that, right here, is why I'm munching popcorn and watching the hilarity ensue

  • Correction to Title (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Tuesday December 08, 2020 @02:18AM (#60806026)
    We need to add the words, “Speculators Hope That...” on to the front of BeauHD’s title to this post.

    This clarification is important because it is critical to make the distinction that, in large part, Tesla’s stock price is being driven [no pun intended] by speculators and the basic laws of supply and demand. Musk himself has said that he thinks that Tesla is over-priced.

    There are lots of different ways to think about the perceived values of companies as defined by the price at which their shares are traded. One of these is known as the P/E ratio, or the Price-To-Earnings ratio. You can calculate this for any company by dividing the share price by the earnings-per-share, which gives you an indication of how the market values the company. Historically, the P/E ratio for the S&P500 lies in the range of 13-15.

    Today, General Motors has a P/E ratio of 14.80. Tesla has a P/E ratio of 94.79. (Source for both: Google).

    Of course, the key thing to remember here is that P/E ratio is effectively a gauge of investor sentiment. It would be irresponsible to not point out the roller-coaster ride that Tesla’s share price has experienced since the company went public, although there has been a lot of speculation that the volatility has been significantly influenced by short sellers.

    But one way to look at this might be to recognize that the global coronavirus pandemic hasn’t just hit the bottom lines of businesses around the world, it has also made investors a bit more cautious. Over time that has meant that they have held more money in cash. Now, with successful vaccine trials being reported, those investors are now looking for somewhere to place bets with the billions or trillions of dollars that have been sloshing around in cash equivalents for the last few months. There is pressure to spot a winning stock and get ahead of the market, which is going to drive speculation like this.

    Are Tesla worth a long term investment? Absolutely. Are they worth the current hype? The answer to that has to be: you shouldn’t be investing on hype.

  • And sell 0.1% of the cars.

    Something tells me they're a mite overvalued.

  • The report puts Tesla at the top with a worth of $555billion. Next comes Toyota at $220bn and the rest (including two small EV makers combined worth $100bn).

    So really, all this report tells us is that Tesla is way ahead, valuations-wise, than all the rest: EV or traditional. It it wasn't for them, the report would read: Traditional car makers worth six times as much as EV manufacturers.
    Which tells an entirely different story.

    • All it tells us that Tesla. is the new shiny / playing ball du jour of a few gamblers. Watch them dump it like they always wanted, once your money starts going into their accounts. Musk's gonna be a sad panda, and I dislike him and despise his locked-down spyware A-bullshit-I cars, but I'll be too.

  • Because that's not us, mateys.

    It's just you gamblers.

    And no, we didn't fall for your Ponzi trap right now, thank you for asking. Now fuck off. [youtube.com]

  • I don't just charge my phone at night. Because I know my phone may take an hour to charge and I don't want that hour to happen when I need the phone I prefer to keep it charged all the time. It will be the same with cars. An EV I will want to charge whenever it is parked. When I am in the store, when I am at work; because who will want to be left without a charge when they need the car?
    • Interesting analogy.

      If I had the choice between a phone that I could only charge every night at home, vs. one that I could never charge at home, personally I'd choose the one that I could charge at home while I'm sleeping. But let's say I had to choose the one that I couldn't charge at home but could only charge at hubs spread out across the city, I'd be the same as you and want it as highly charged as possible all the time.

      I think your fear comes from being stuck in the mindset of needing to go to a gas

  • That's about half the fines that VW alone paid for their frauds.

  • Anyone who thinks charging at night is adequate clearly hasn't had a close relative rushed to a hospital 200 km away. Life is full of unforeseen events. Your car should support any one that may happen.

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