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Goodbye, "Tesla Motors"

posted by martyb on Friday February 03 2017, @06:21PM   
from the watts-in-a-name? dept.

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The Buffalo News in upstate New York reports

Tesla Motors is changing its name, as the SolarCity owner branches out into solar energy.

The California-based company will become Tesla Inc., according to a regulatory filing on [February 1].

The name change reflects Tesla's evolution from a company that makes electric cars to one that now seeks to be a renewable energy powerhouse, with products ranging from electric vehicles to battery storage and solar energy. The business includes the sprawling SolarCity solar panel factory in South Buffalo that is set to open this summer.

Some additional details are available in a story at Inc :

Tesla Motors isn't just a car company.

That's been true for some time, as Elon Musk's firm has pushed its way into the energy sectorover the past two years.

But now the company is making it official. A new SEC filing on Wednesday revealed that the company will change its name from Tesla Motors to Tesla Inc. The filing was first spotted by Business Insider.

The move is indicative of Tesla's changing business model since Musk co-founded it in 2006. Initially a maker of high-end electric sports cars, Tesla has shifted into energy products like solar panels and home batteries. It also agreed to acquire SolarCity, which Musk co-founded, in November for $2.3 billion.

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Original Submission

• Re:impossible Re:impossible (Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday February 03 2017, @07:45PM

  by bob_super (1357) on Friday February 03 2017, @07:45PM (#462558)

  Well, compared to cable companies, mil-indus rent seekers or bankers, there's value in his companies making new things which genuinely advance the state of the art, and deliver it on an industrial scale.
  Even if Tesla Motors is too big-brotherish for my taste, at least they don't have yet a track record of cheating and covering up, instead delivering updates and improvements to products they already got paid for. That's a refreshing concept, when everyone else is out to screw you to make the quarter.

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• Re:impossible (Score: 2) by n1 on Friday February 03 2017, @10:33PM

  by n1 (993) on Friday February 03 2017, @10:33PM (#462628) Journal

  As i said in my original comment... You can like the products all you want, but the TSLA business model is not something anyone else can replicate or compete with, and it has absolutely no trajectory to making positive cash flow and profit making. Musk is always kicking the can down the road with the next big idea which is going to require a few more billion capex.

  "Tesla does not ever need to raise another funding round" - Musk Feb 2012
  Sep 2012 - $192m
  May 2013 - $913m
  Feb 2014 - $2bn
  Aug 2015 - $652m
  May 2016 - $2bn

  They turned a profit in one quarter recently, by shifting a years worth of ZEV credits -- other manufaturers buy TSLA sales, rather than building their own electic/zev cars -- and moving recent capex in to the next one.

  This is all fine for some people, several investors are quite open about their buying into the dream and putting their money on Musk and don't actually care about the viability and scalability of the business model... Because Musk assures them next year they'll be building hundreds of thousands of cars.... Which is why they missed their delivery targets last time, they were too focused on building all these cars they didn't have time to ship them out, or something.

  Depends who you ask, but some people are firmly of the belief that they've already sold 400,000 model 3's... because a lot of people have put down a refundable $1000 reservation on one.

  There is a lot more to why Tesla as a business shouldn't be held in the high regard that it is by many and as i've said before... To me it appears Musk just wants to become a TBTF part of the energy infrastructure, so who cares about a solid business model then?

  In past five years, Tesla failed to meet more than 20 of his projections, and missed 10 goals by nearly a year on average; Musk says he ‘doesn’t set targets that I know can’t be met’

  [...]In the past five years, though, Tesla has fallen short of more than 20 projections made by Mr. Musk, ranging from car-production output to financial targets, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. The company missed 10 of his stated goals by an average of nearly a year.

  Tesla’s Model S sedan was rolled out on schedule in 2012, but its Model X sport-utility vehicle was delayed nearly two years before its debut last September. The Model 3 sedan, initially targeted for rollout by the end of 2014, was unveiled in March and won’t be delivered to customers until next year.

  [...]In a news release in April, Tesla blamed its own “hubris” for the delays and said it was a mistake to include so much new technology with the Model X.

  [...]He went even further in a May conference call. “It’s better to say our 2020 target for volume is closer to maybe close to one million vehicles in 2020 or something like that,” Mr. Musk said.

  Model 3 production is supposed to start in less than a year, but final engineering designs were finished only a few months ago.

  https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-sets-ambitious-goals-at-teslaand-often-falls-short-1471275436 [wsj.com]

  But in the mean time he can dick about being the messiah of private space travel, hyperloop and artificial intelligence.

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• Re:impossible - nothing new here move along. (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 03 2017, @11:04PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 03 2017, @11:04PM (#462648)

  Toyota Motor Manufacturing is one of 13 sister companies of Toyada (a holding company). It is the largest and best known. when you said "Toyota" you are saying "Toyota Motor Manufacturing". The sisters have many sub-relationships, like one is into Foods (like Orange Juice), Recycle Metals, and Diabetic Supplies, but also tires for VW and yes, Telsa.

  It is normal, look at Alphabet and Google.

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