Comment on Elon Musk demands another huge payday from Tesla
Hypx@kbin.social 5 months agoYou have to build the entire system out yourself. That costs a lot of money. The dealership model also costs the manufacturer basically zero dollars, because it really profits on used car sales and maintenance works. You don't make anymore money by having your own dealerships. The whole argument that there's some secret behind Tesla's business smacks of gaslighting, not something that actually holds up to reason.
It's been a long standing issue with Tesla's accounting. No one can really explain how profits are actually being generated, especially considering everyone in the West is losing money on EVs. It's also being ran entirely by sycophants and people with minimal qualifications, with zero accountability anywhere. So it just seems, via Occam's razor, that they're cooking the books.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The manufacturer also has to pay dealerships for warranty work on vehicles. Company owned services centers wouldn’t.
I’m interested in that source you talked about the “people who looked closely”.
Hypx@kbin.social 5 months ago
You still have to pay out warranty work either way. Someone has to fix it after all.
There are many people who have made the claim that Tesla doesn’t really make money. You can google it up. Just look for stuff like “tesla profits” or “tesla not profitable” and you see it. Also, the only people who do vigorously insistent that Tesla is profitable are the fanboy investors and some of the least credible analysts out there. It screams gaslighting no matter how you look at all.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Yes, but if you’re paying a dealer, they need to be paid to make it worth their while. Manufacturers using dealers are essentially hiring an outside company for the work. This would contrast very differently with a direct sales company that simply has its own employees doing the work. A direct sales company doesn’t need to “profit” from the effort put into its warranty work.
Again its a public company. You can download the 10-K directly from SEC.gov.
Are you saying Tesla is lying in their public reports? Keep in mind these are also audited by large outside companies. I think Tesla uses PWC.
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Hypx@kbin.social 5 months ago
Then what, Tesla owns their own repair and maintenance service? That also costs money.
Ultimately, you’re going to accept that there’s no way around some of the cost of running a car company. If you won’t accept it, then there’s nothing I can say to change your mind.
Also, most of the numbers can’t be trusted. It’s known as “regulatory capture.” And they’re probably not the only one. Likely many companies have doctored accounting numbers these days. If anything, this is a huge problem in business today.