[afadeev]

Originally Posted by N & M

Alas, you have missed many great things my dear fellow. BMW has given the automotive world many inspirations and firsts. Relevent to the topic was the i3 and i8; both of which showed innovation and lifted the bar of standards.

I'm not entirely sure what "standards" BMW may have lifted with i3 and i8: design? quality? EV innovation? hybrid innovation? semi-affordable CF shells?

I would agree on the last count (and skip the others), alas, i-series CF frame on aluminum rails production approach doesn't scale for mass production runs, nor allow BMW to leap ahead of the competition in either EV or hybrid space.
More here:

Originally Posted by alexandertg21

In regards to Tesla losing money are cars sold, those figures are typically also based on the fact that Tesla took a ton of government subsidies

I see the above claim repeated religiously, but never substantiated with data. Only hearsay.

Tesla has always had positive gross profit margins, as reported in 10Q's.
Last quarter (ending 3/31/16), it was 22% positive.
For comparison, GM's was 12.8%, Ford's 17.9%, Diamler's 19.8%, BMW's 18.9%.

All of the above must be loosing money on cars sold, following your logic?

On the subsidies - pray tell me, that you realize that every S&P500 company is buying political favors and milking the tax code for all it worth, right?

Originally Posted by alexandertg21

The Tesla business model is an interesting one as nobody is pointing out that this company is essentially a "Crowd funded" company.

Really?
I though TSLA was a publicly (NASDAQ) listed and traded company, but do continue...

Originally Posted by alexandertg21

The model 3 took $1000 deposits from over 400,000 people. That money, sitting in a hedge fund with even a mediocre manager will make buckets of interest and he promised the car in 8 quarters. So much free money. Genius.

You think $400 Mil makes or brakes a $~30 Bil public company?
Really?

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