Author Topic: Is Tesla a good investment?  (Read 378024 times)

mubington

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #200 on: February 05, 2019, 02:43:45 PM »
My take on the Tesla Price,  is that sentiment will prop the price up, which will stagnate around 320 + or - 10%, for as many years as it takes for the PE to get below 30.

Currently I think the share price is roughly driven like this

Cars 200
Energy storage 30
Solar 10
FSD 30
Space x / Elon Musk fandom  50

It's amazing how much bears hate Elon Musk, convinced he is a total fraud. /r/realtesla is like a moon landings  cult or something!

ChpBstrd

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #201 on: February 05, 2019, 03:47:47 PM »
My take on the Tesla Price,  is that sentiment will prop the price up, which will stagnate around 320 + or - 10%, for as many years as it takes for the PE to get below 30.

Currently I think the share price is roughly driven like this

Cars 200
Energy storage 30
Solar 10
FSD 30
Space x / Elon Musk fandom  50

It's amazing how much bears hate Elon Musk, convinced he is a total fraud. /r/realtesla is like a moon landings  cult or something!

In fairness to the bears, Tesla does bear a striking resemblance to two bankrupt clean energy companies who produced more hype and media attention than products - Solyndra and Raser Technologies. And, in fairness, there are incentives for founders to creating a company on the basis of a large stock-funded bet on one technical path that has a miniscule probability of panning out. And, finally, you can win a bearish bet even if you were wrong about everything and a "risk off" market correction occurs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://phys.org/news/2009-04-hummer-mpg.amp&ved=2ahUKEwim2cPd1KXgAhUEVK0KHWcpAXQQFjAJegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw1jB24sJh8bHOWTAgkKM_XJ&ampcf=1

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #202 on: February 05, 2019, 08:39:57 PM »
I read an article about Elon Musk's terrible management style. And another article about the mishaps in delivering the Tesla 3 vehicles combined with problems with the vehicles.
After reading these articles I'm no longer enthralled by Elon Musk's foresight, I don't think he can really deliver what he claims he will, and I get a sense that the company is going to go bankrupt. Tesla will ultimately become known for causing the mainstream car companies to take electrification seriously.
Tesla is also caught between the anti-environmentalist sentiment of the White House and the effort by China's leadership to develop the energy technologies of the future in which only Chinese companies would be propped up by the Chinese government.

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #203 on: February 05, 2019, 10:44:07 PM »
I read an article about Elon Musk's terrible management style. And another article about the mishaps in delivering the Tesla 3 vehicles combined with problems with the vehicles.
After reading these articles I'm no longer enthralled by Elon Musk's foresight, I don't think he can really deliver what he claims he will, and I get a sense that the company is going to go bankrupt. Tesla will ultimately become known for causing the mainstream car companies to take electrification seriously.
Tesla is also caught between the anti-environmentalist sentiment of the White House and the effort by China's leadership to develop the energy technologies of the future in which only Chinese companies would be propped up by the Chinese government.

You suggest there are issues with Tesla vehicles based on an unreferenced news article, yet the M3 was just rated highest in customer satisfaction per Consumer Reports, beating out the Porsche 911.  With nearly 140,000 units sold, Model 3 was also the best-selling premium vehicle (including SUVs) in the US for 2018 – the first time in decades an American carmaker has been able to secure the top spot.  Tesla's cars are also some of the safest ever made. There were issues with the M3 ramp, but those have largely been addressed. Tesla produced and delivered about 90,000 vehicles in Q4 alone, which is more than they produced all of last year. That is amazing growth.

You get the "sense" that Tesla is going bankrupt, yet the company just turned a net profit in Q4 of $139M after turning a net profit of $312M in Q3 and the company has $3.7B in cash/cash equivalents at the end of 2018. They accomplished two consecutive profitable quarters while continuing to pump money into capex and RND (i.e., China gigafactory, more service centers, charging stations, battery research, etc.).

There is really nothing the White House can do to hurt Tesla at this point. Tesla has already reached the point where it will be phasing out the federal subsidy after reaching the 200,000 vehicles sold domestically milestone. As for China, perhaps you are unaware that Tesla is building Gigafactory #3 in China as we speak and will be selling vehicles manufactured in China to the Chinese market duty free by the end of the year.  Yes, there are Chinese EV manufacturers, but none offer the quality of Tesla.

Apparently, Elon's management style is so bad that he is successfully running two companies simultaneously in SpaceX and Tesla. I guess that's also why Tesla was ranked as the 5th best company in the country to work. Just because Elon is demanding does not mean that the majority of employees don't respect him and enjoy working for a cutting edge company with a rewarding mission.

If you're going to hate on Elon and Tesla can we at least ground the discussion in fact and not sentiment.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2019, 10:41:11 AM by ColoradoTribe »

mubington

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #204 on: February 06, 2019, 02:23:03 AM »
Tesla media coverage is extraordinary.

Seekingalpha for instance generally pump out multiple articles on every news story, both bullish and bearish (but mostly bearish). This shotgun approach does have the benefit that probably at least one of the articles will be right, but look at the list of articles published by time, and you can often see entirely opposite forecast published within a few minutes.

Reddit is also interesting, the same story on 'teslamoters' and 'realtesla' using same data will have totally opposite spins.

The facts are, the company has targeting 30bn in revenue this year, with profit, and no raise. This combined with topping consumer satisfaction surveys, is not classic bankrupt trajectory.

Car Jack

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #205 on: February 06, 2019, 07:25:29 AM »
You get the "sense" that Tesla is going bankrupt, yet the company just turned a net profit in Q4 of $139M after turning a net profit of $312M in Q3 and the company has $3.7 in cash/cash equivalents at the end of 2018. They accomplished two consecutive profitable quarters while continuing to pump money into capex and RND (i.e., China gigafactory, more service centers, charging stations, battery research, etc.).

But they're also $10B in debt.

My view is the Elon is unable to focus.  This Boring company is just stupid.  The flame thrower that's not a flame thrower is fine if his goal is to be a youtuber.  Is Space-X making money or is it yet another distraction?  An buying Solar City seemed to me like just helping out the family with investors' money.  Elon......stop trying to do everything.  Do one thing.  Or put good people in place and get the hell out of the way.  I think his inability to take up the next shiny thing he finds will be the downfall of all the companies.

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #206 on: February 06, 2019, 10:56:30 AM »
I hope you're right ColoradoTribe about Tesla's prospects.

But at this point Elon Musk is what's standing in the way of Tesla's success.

Tesla is succeeding because of all the dedicated engineers and management and other employees who don't get any publicity.

Elon Musk is just firing employees willy nilly based on scant evidence. Musk had a good idea, and started the company, but now he basically is a drain on the company.

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #207 on: February 06, 2019, 11:11:44 AM »
You get the "sense" that Tesla is going bankrupt, yet the company just turned a net profit in Q4 of $139M after turning a net profit of $312M in Q3 and the company has $3.7 in cash/cash equivalents at the end of 2018. They accomplished two consecutive profitable quarters while continuing to pump money into capex and RND (i.e., China gigafactory, more service centers, charging stations, battery research, etc.).

But they're also $10B in debt.

My view is the Elon is unable to focus.  This Boring company is just stupid.  The flame thrower that's not a flame thrower is fine if his goal is to be a youtuber.  Is Space-X making money or is it yet another distraction?  An buying Solar City seemed to me like just helping out the family with investors' money.  Elon......stop trying to do everything.  Do one thing.  Or put good people in place and get the hell out of the way.  I think his inability to take up the next shiny thing he finds will be the downfall of all the companies.

That $10B debt number includes all the part inventory, as well as produced, but yet undelivered vehicles. So, while it's technically accurate to call that debt, it really isn't debt in any meaningful sense, as Tesla sells every car it makes at an average profit margin of 20%. Tesla has already announced it has cash on hand to pay its March 2019 bond obligations ($920M). Six months ago every bear was pointing to this March debt repayment deadline as the point of imminent bankruptcy. Again, there is no evidence that Tesla is going to go bankrupt. At this point, even if they needed to raise additional cash, there would be no shortage of deep-pocketed investors willing to invest or buyers for Tesla.

Also, keep in mind that the debt/bankruptcy narrative is only the latest bear boogie-man. As a refresher here are the past arguments:

1) Tesla can't make a compelling EV.
2) Nobody will buy an EV.
3) Tesla can't mass produce a compelling EV.
4) The demand will dry up.
5) Tesla can't turn a profit

Probably missing a few in there, but the argument now is...okay, sure Tesla can make a compelling EV, profitability, in mass number, that people are lining up to buy, but they're going bankrupt any day now. Doesn't compute...

Keep in mind Tesla has accomplished this with virtually zero advertising or marketing budget. Imagine the demand if they were actively marketing their cars. The reason they aren't spending on advertisement is that can't keep pace with current demand.

It is my understanding that SpaceX is profitable. The flamethrower was unneccessary, but I doubt Elon invested any real amount of time to it. As for the boring company, only time will tell if that's a winner or not. As a Tesla investor would I prefer Elon devote 100% of his time to Tesla (and stay off Twitter), absolutely. Do I think Tesla is doomed to failure because it's not Elon's sole focus, absolutely not.

We keep having forest vs tree dicussions it seems to me. Bears keep pointing to a few dead trees, but can't see the healthy (and growing) forest that surrounds them.

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #208 on: February 06, 2019, 11:21:07 AM »
I hope you're right ColoradoTribe about Tesla's prospects.

But at this point Elon Musk is what's standing in the way of Tesla's success.

Tesla is succeeding because of all the dedicated engineers and management and other employees who don't get any publicity.

Elon Musk is just firing employees willy nilly based on scant evidence. Musk had a good idea, and started the company, but now he basically is a drain on the company.

Once again, what proof can you offer to back the claim that Elon is firing employees "willy-nilly"? If Elon was as much of a tyrant as you believe and employees lived in fear of being fired at any moment, would Tesla be ranked the 5th best company in the country to work? And culling 7% of the workforce to improve efficiency and profitability is not "willy-nilly" IMO.

I think I can disprove your statement about Elon being a detriment to Tesla in one simple thought experiment? If Elon Musk were to die and you were given 24-hr notice before his passing was made public, would you buy or sell Tesla stock with your insider knowledge??

No doubt in my mind that if Elon died tomorrow the stock price would drop 25-50% in an instant with little short-term rebound. Something happening to Elon is really the only thing that gives me pause when considering my TSLA position.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2019, 11:51:00 AM by ColoradoTribe »

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #209 on: February 06, 2019, 11:44:11 AM »
Tesla media coverage is extraordinary.

Seekingalpha for instance generally pump out multiple articles on every news story, both bullish and bearish (but mostly bearish). This shotgun approach does have the benefit that probably at least one of the articles will be right, but look at the list of articles published by time, and you can often see entirely opposite forecast published within a few minutes.

Reddit is also interesting, the same story on 'teslamoters' and 'realtesla' using same data will have totally opposite spins.

The facts are, the company has targeting 30bn in revenue this year, with profit, and no raise. This combined with topping consumer satisfaction surveys, is not classic bankrupt trajectory.

As you suggest, coverage on seeking Alpha is overwhelmingly negative/bearish (4:1 ratio). Not only are the articles simply bearish, they are often riddled with cherry-picked data, fear-mongering, conjecture, faulty extrapolations, anecdotal bias, etc.  Generally, very poor journalism and I feel sorry for anyone making Tesla investment decisions based on the Seeking Alpha news feed.

Overall, there is a huge media bias against Tesla. You have a rare American manufacturing and jobs success story, the start of a potential green transportation and energy storage revolution, and the coverage across the board is overwhelming negative these past few years (once Tesla started to achieve success in the form of market share).

Astute observers should be asking why is the media coverage turning increasing negative at a time when Tesla is achieving rapid growth and profitability. For me, there are two simply and logical reasons.

1) Tesla is disrupting not just one, but several huge industries, including oil production and refining, vehicle manufacturing, car dealerships, and fossil-fuel based utility companies.

2) These disrupted industries have huge advertising budgets, whereas Tesla does virtually no advertising.

The result? You have biased media protecting precious advertising revenue and powerful (politically and financially) industries willing to buy and produce news coverage critical of Tesla to protect their billions in profit by stopping or at least slowing Tesla's advance.

The famous Ghandi quote goes (paraphrasing), "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." In the early days Tesla was either laughed at or ignored. The same Elon (warts and all) who today is eviscerated in the media coverage, was a media darling. The minute Tesla went from a cute little green, feel-good story, to an actual disruptive threat to the interests listed above, the coverage turned on a dime.  Elon hasn't changed, Tesla is far-less likely to fail today than five years ago, so why the shift?  Follow the money...

ChpBstrd

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #210 on: February 06, 2019, 11:58:17 AM »
Tesla media coverage is extraordinary.

Seekingalpha for instance generally pump out multiple articles on every news story, both bullish and bearish (but mostly bearish). This shotgun approach does have the benefit that probably at least one of the articles will be right, but look at the list of articles published by time, and you can often see entirely opposite forecast published within a few minutes.

Reddit is also interesting, the same story on 'teslamoters' and 'realtesla' using same data will have totally opposite spins.

The facts are, the company has targeting 30bn in revenue this year, with profit, and no raise. This combined with topping consumer satisfaction surveys, is not classic bankrupt trajectory.

As you suggest, coverage on seeking Alpha is overwhelmingly negative/bearish (4:1 ratio). Not only are the articles simply bearish, they are often riddled with cherry-picked data, fear-mongering, conjecture, faulty extrapolations, anecdotal bias, etc.  Generally, very poor journalism and I feel sorry for anyone making Tesla investment decisions based on the Seeking Alpha news feed.

Overall, there is a huge media bias against Tesla. You have a rare American manufacturing and jobs success story, the start of a potential green transportation and energy storage revolution, and the coverage across the board is overwhelming negative these past few years (once Tesla started to achieve success in the form of market share).

Astute observers should be asking why is the media coverage turning increasing negative at a time when Tesla is achieving rapid growth and profitability. For me, there are two simply and logical reasons.

1) Tesla is disrupting not just one, but several huge industries, including oil production and refining, vehicle manufacturing, car dealerships, and fossil-fuel based utility companies.

2) These disrupted industries have huge advertising budgets, whereas Tesla does virtually no advertising.

The result? You have biased media protecting precious advertising revenue and powerful (politically and financially) industries willing to buy and produce news coverage critical of Tesla to protect their billions in profit by stopping or at least slowing Tesla's advance.

The famous Ghandi quote goes (paraphrasing), "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." In the early days Tesla was either laughed at or ignored. The same Elon (warts and all) who today is eviscerated in the media coverage, was a media darling. The minute Tesla went from a cute little green, feel-good story, to an actual disruptive threat to the interests listed above, the coverage turned on a dime.  Elon hasn't changed, Tesla is far-less likely to fail today than five years ago, so why the shift?  Follow the money...

The other thing that changed over the past couple of years is a lot more individual investors bought a lot more of the notoriously volatile TSLA stock. Now they fear a decline. Perhaps the bias is simply that fear sells.

Also, have you noticed how much of the "news" is about what some influencer tweeted? This is probably due to the fact there are so few journalists left, so "news" organizations cover the cheapest, least time-consuming things possible, rather than attempting to tell complicated or investigative stories via smartphone. You don't have to spend time explaining EBITDA coverage or corporate debt restructuring when the story is about someone saying something stupid on social media.

Anyway, the news about Tesla tweets has painted a picture of incompetence, while the company's progress is the opposite.

flipboard

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #211 on: February 06, 2019, 12:12:40 PM »
Tesla media coverage is extraordinary.

Seekingalpha for instance generally pump out multiple articles on every news story, both bullish and bearish (but mostly bearish). This shotgun approach does have the benefit that probably at least one of the articles will be right, but look at the list of articles published by time, and you can often see entirely opposite forecast published within a few minutes.

Reddit is also interesting, the same story on 'teslamoters' and 'realtesla' using same data will have totally opposite spins.

The facts are, the company has targeting 30bn in revenue this year, with profit, and no raise. This combined with topping consumer satisfaction surveys, is not classic bankrupt trajectory.

As you suggest, coverage on seeking Alpha is overwhelmingly negative/bearish (4:1 ratio). Not only are the articles simply bearish, they are often riddled with cherry-picked data, fear-mongering, conjecture, faulty extrapolations, anecdotal bias, etc.  Generally, very poor journalism and I feel sorry for anyone making Tesla investment decisions based on the Seeking Alpha news feed.

Overall, there is a huge media bias against Tesla. You have a rare American manufacturing and jobs success story, the start of a potential green transportation and energy storage revolution, and the coverage across the board is overwhelming negative these past few years (once Tesla started to achieve success in the form of market share).

Astute observers should be asking why is the media coverage turning increasing negative at a time when Tesla is achieving rapid growth and profitability. For me, there are two simply and logical reasons.

1) Tesla is disrupting not just one, but several huge industries, including oil production and refining, vehicle manufacturing, car dealerships, and fossil-fuel based utility companies.

2) These disrupted industries have huge advertising budgets, whereas Tesla does virtually no advertising.

The result? You have biased media protecting precious advertising revenue and powerful (politically and financially) industries willing to buy and produce news coverage critical of Tesla to protect their billions in profit by stopping or at least slowing Tesla's advance.

The famous Ghandi quote goes (paraphrasing), "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." In the early days Tesla was either laughed at or ignored. The same Elon (warts and all) who today is eviscerated in the media coverage, was a media darling. The minute Tesla went from a cute little green, feel-good story, to an actual disruptive threat to the interests listed above, the coverage turned on a dime.  Elon hasn't changed, Tesla is far-less likely to fail today than five years ago, so why the shift?  Follow the money...
Every single thing you say in your post... I have seen stated in the same way... but about bitcoin, by bitcoin proponents (exactly the same theories on media bias, negativity, disruption, etc.). Even that Ghandi quote, it was a big staple amongst bitcoin supporters.

mubington

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #212 on: February 06, 2019, 12:19:47 PM »
Everything, except perhaps the bit about revenue growth and profitability....


DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #213 on: February 06, 2019, 12:33:07 PM »
I hope Tesla succeeds but based on this article in Wired Magazine I don't think Elon Musk is helping anymore.
Musk needs to step down and let the company be run by professionals.

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/

It's this article that soured me.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

Musk had demanded that his factories be automated as much as possible. But among the consequences of this extreme roboticization were delays and malfunctions.

At about 10 o’clock on Saturday evening, an angry Musk was examining one of the production line’s mechanized modules, trying to figure out what was wrong, when the young, excited engineer was brought over to assist him.
“Hey, buddy, this doesn’t work!” Musk shouted at the engineer, according to someone who heard the conversation. “Did you do this?”
The engineer was taken aback. He had never met Musk before. Musk didn’t even know the engineer’s name. The young man wasn’t certain what, exactly, Musk was asking him, or why he sounded so angry.
“You mean, program the robot?” the engineer said. “Or design that tool?”
“Did you fucking do this?” Musk asked him.

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to?” the engineer replied apologetically.
“You’re a fucking idiot!” Musk shouted back. “Get the fuck out and don’t come back!”
The young engineer climbed over a low safety barrier and walked away. He was bewildered by what had just happened. The entire conversation had lasted less than a minute. A few moments later, his manager came over to say that he had been fired on Musk’s orders, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The engineer was shocked. He’d been working so hard. He was set to get a review from his manager the next week, and had been hearing only positive things. Instead, two days later, he signed his separation papers.

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #214 on: February 06, 2019, 01:13:35 PM »
Tesla media coverage is extraordinary.

Seekingalpha for instance generally pump out multiple articles on every news story, both bullish and bearish (but mostly bearish). This shotgun approach does have the benefit that probably at least one of the articles will be right, but look at the list of articles published by time, and you can often see entirely opposite forecast published within a few minutes.

Reddit is also interesting, the same story on 'teslamoters' and 'realtesla' using same data will have totally opposite spins.

The facts are, the company has targeting 30bn in revenue this year, with profit, and no raise. This combined with topping consumer satisfaction surveys, is not classic bankrupt trajectory.

As you suggest, coverage on seeking Alpha is overwhelmingly negative/bearish (4:1 ratio). Not only are the articles simply bearish, they are often riddled with cherry-picked data, fear-mongering, conjecture, faulty extrapolations, anecdotal bias, etc.  Generally, very poor journalism and I feel sorry for anyone making Tesla investment decisions based on the Seeking Alpha news feed.

Overall, there is a huge media bias against Tesla. You have a rare American manufacturing and jobs success story, the start of a potential green transportation and energy storage revolution, and the coverage across the board is overwhelming negative these past few years (once Tesla started to achieve success in the form of market share).

Astute observers should be asking why is the media coverage turning increasing negative at a time when Tesla is achieving rapid growth and profitability. For me, there are two simply and logical reasons.

1) Tesla is disrupting not just one, but several huge industries, including oil production and refining, vehicle manufacturing, car dealerships, and fossil-fuel based utility companies.

2) These disrupted industries have huge advertising budgets, whereas Tesla does virtually no advertising.

The result? You have biased media protecting precious advertising revenue and powerful (politically and financially) industries willing to buy and produce news coverage critical of Tesla to protect their billions in profit by stopping or at least slowing Tesla's advance.

The famous Ghandi quote goes (paraphrasing), "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." In the early days Tesla was either laughed at or ignored. The same Elon (warts and all) who today is eviscerated in the media coverage, was a media darling. The minute Tesla went from a cute little green, feel-good story, to an actual disruptive threat to the interests listed above, the coverage turned on a dime.  Elon hasn't changed, Tesla is far-less likely to fail today than five years ago, so why the shift?  Follow the money...
Every single thing you say in your post... I have seen stated in the same way... but about bitcoin, by bitcoin proponents (exactly the same theories on media bias, negativity, disruption, etc.). Even that Ghandi quote, it was a big staple amongst bitcoin supporters.

Not sure of your point here. The sun and lemons are both yellow and round therefore they are similar. The differences between Tesla and Bitcoin are obviously far greater than any coincidental similarities. I would never invest in Bitcoin.

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #215 on: February 06, 2019, 01:18:23 PM »
I hope Tesla succeeds but based on this article in Wired Magazine I don't think Elon Musk is helping anymore.
Musk needs to step down and let the company be run by professionals.

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/

It's this article that soured me.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

Musk had demanded that his factories be automated as much as possible. But among the consequences of this extreme roboticization were delays and malfunctions.

At about 10 o’clock on Saturday evening, an angry Musk was examining one of the production line’s mechanized modules, trying to figure out what was wrong, when the young, excited engineer was brought over to assist him.
“Hey, buddy, this doesn’t work!” Musk shouted at the engineer, according to someone who heard the conversation. “Did you do this?”
The engineer was taken aback. He had never met Musk before. Musk didn’t even know the engineer’s name. The young man wasn’t certain what, exactly, Musk was asking him, or why he sounded so angry.
“You mean, program the robot?” the engineer said. “Or design that tool?”
“Did you fucking do this?” Musk asked him.

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to?” the engineer replied apologetically.
“You’re a fucking idiot!” Musk shouted back. “Get the fuck out and don’t come back!”
The young engineer climbed over a low safety barrier and walked away. He was bewildered by what had just happened. The entire conversation had lasted less than a minute. A few moments later, his manager came over to say that he had been fired on Musk’s orders, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The engineer was shocked. He’d been working so hard. He was set to get a review from his manager the next week, and had been hearing only positive things. Instead, two days later, he signed his separation papers.

An anecdotal third party account of one interaction between Musk and an employee. Assuming this account is even true, I would take the company's ranking among the best places to work in the country, which surveys a large cross-section of Tesla employees over this singular account. Also, as stated by others, even assholes can be wildly successful at running companies.

You didn't respond to my hypothetical. Are you scooping up Tesla stock with insider knowledge of Elon's passing?

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #216 on: February 06, 2019, 01:25:26 PM »
Then there are the problems of Model 3 delivery

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/business/tesla-model-3-buyers.html

Excerpt from the article (but I'll add that given Musk's behavior toward his employees it's not surprising that many aspects of the company are not working well - because when you fire your employees willy nilly you've chased out the competent ones that would have prevented these problems in the first place.)

"What Tesla’s ‘Delivery Logistics Hell’ Is Like for Model 3 Buyers"

Elon Musk has described Tesla’s troubles in getting cars to customers as “delivery logistics hell.”

Jim Fyfe knows what Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, was talking about.

A 44-year-old technology specialist at a bank in Jacksonville, Fla., Mr. Fyfe paid a $2,500 deposit in June to order a black Performance version of the Model 3 priced at $70,000.

He was given a delivery date in early September, but when he went to collect the car, he was told that it was still in California, Mr. Fyfe recalled. Two weeks later, with no update, Mr. Fyfe called the delivery center and was given bad news: His Model 3 had been involved in an accident in transit.

Days later, Mr. Fyfe asked for his money back, but quickly received an email saying Tesla had another car for him. Delivery was set for Oct. 27, but as Mr. Fyfe was heading to the rendezvous, his phone rang. A Tesla sales representative said this second car was no longer available because it, too, had been in an accident. A Tesla spokeswoman said that was a mistaken reference to the original car."

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #217 on: February 06, 2019, 01:31:56 PM »
Then there are the problems of Model 3 delivery

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/business/tesla-model-3-buyers.html

Excerpt from the article (but I'll add that given Musk's behavior toward his employees it's not surprising that many aspects of the company are not working well - because when you fire your employees willy nilly you've chased out the competent ones that would have prevented these problems in the first place.)

"What Tesla’s ‘Delivery Logistics Hell’ Is Like for Model 3 Buyers"

Elon Musk has described Tesla’s troubles in getting cars to customers as “delivery logistics hell.”

Jim Fyfe knows what Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, was talking about.

A 44-year-old technology specialist at a bank in Jacksonville, Fla., Mr. Fyfe paid a $2,500 deposit in June to order a black Performance version of the Model 3 priced at $70,000.

He was given a delivery date in early September, but when he went to collect the car, he was told that it was still in California, Mr. Fyfe recalled. Two weeks later, with no update, Mr. Fyfe called the delivery center and was given bad news: His Model 3 had been involved in an accident in transit.

Days later, Mr. Fyfe asked for his money back, but quickly received an email saying Tesla had another car for him. Delivery was set for Oct. 27, but as Mr. Fyfe was heading to the rendezvous, his phone rang. A Tesla sales representative said this second car was no longer available because it, too, had been in an accident. A Tesla spokeswoman said that was a mistaken reference to the original car."

And yet Tesla delivered more vehicles in Q4 of 2018 than they did in all of 2017. No company growing this fast isn't going to experience growing pains. The question is not wether or not problems will arise (they will), but can the company correct and continually improve. Tesla has overcome every obstacle to date, not always as efficiently or as timely as I would like, but overcome and continued to expand none-the-less. Again, forest vs trees here.

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #218 on: February 06, 2019, 02:09:47 PM »
I hope you're right.

But we don't know for sure.  I still think that Musk is now an obstacle to the success based on what I'm reading from the journalists.

Not knowing is why I would never invest in a single company stock, and choose to go with the Total Stock Market Index.
I own Tesla as a result of owning the index.

I still want Tesla to succeed and disrupt the whole gasoline/petroleum/auto industrial complex.

flipboard

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #219 on: February 06, 2019, 11:16:37 PM »
Not sure of your point here. The sun and lemons are both yellow and round therefore they are similar. The differences between Tesla and Bitcoin are obviously far greater than any coincidental similarities. I would never invest in Bitcoin.
My point is that this thread seems to contain a lot of posts that are mostly emotional argument, and appeals to emotion, as opposed to true understanding and discussion of fundamentals (not as if it's easy to predict single stock's anyway...). Which happens to remind me of bitcoin discussions that I've seen. I just thought it was an interesting comparison, but I can also see how it might upset fanboys who think Tesla will "go to the moon" (it might, it might not - I couldn't care less myself).

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #220 on: February 06, 2019, 11:27:12 PM »
Not sure of your point here. The sun and lemons are both yellow and round therefore they are similar. The differences between Tesla and Bitcoin are obviously far greater than any coincidental similarities. I would never invest in Bitcoin.
My point is that this thread seems to contain a lot of posts that are mostly emotional argument, and appeals to emotion, as opposed to true understanding and discussion of fundamentals (not as if it's easy to predict single stock's anyway...). Which happens to remind me of bitcoin discussions that I've seen. I just thought it was an interesting comparison, but I can also see how it might upset fanboys who think Tesla will "go to the moon" (it might, it might not - I couldn't care less myself).

I posted several facts, numbers, links, etc. above. My original post yesterday was me following up on actual measurable predictions I made six months ago. If you read the last 20 posts on this thread it is the bear posters relying on sentiment, anecdotal evidence, and gut feelings. Your comparison to Bitcoin was shallow and poor IMO. Tesla actually manufacturers multiple products profitably, has employees, factories, publicly traded stock, SEC oversight, etc. Bitcoin is...well Bitcoin.

CCCA

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #221 on: April 26, 2019, 04:21:24 PM »
Hopefully I'm not reviving a dead conversation that others want to stay dead, but since Tesla is back in the news these days, it seems as good a time as any.  I've been following the news recently and it seems like there is a severe lack of credibility from Tesla these days. 

Their claims that they've solved level 5 autonomy are pretty unbelievable and in 1 year they'll have 1 million robo taxis on the road.  I don't think anyone in the autonomy world believes that will happen in 5 years, some probably would say 10 even. 

Their quarterly earnings were pretty bad but maybe it's a blip in the road? I've been tracking model 3 sales and it seems like US demand (even with the recently announced $35k version) is lagging.  I think they've burned through most of their built up demand.  There is no huge pool of people still waiting for model 3s now, just a normal rate of people buying them.  They didn't make much money selling $50k+ model 3s but reducing the price to juice the demand means that they'll be losing more money with each car sold.

Musk said they'd offer tesla insurance next month.  I'm not even sure what to say about that. 

Are they really expanding their service centers that they need to in order to maintain all the new cars they've sold?

They almost closed all of the stores last month before doing an about face.

I don't doubt that there are lots of people who like their Teslas (I know a few).  I also don't doubt that they would be a fine niche automaker selling 50k to 150k cars per year without Musk.  But they are severely overvalued at their current share price if that's their fate. 


lowroller4111

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #222 on: April 26, 2019, 04:55:22 PM »
TSLA is done...if they are struggling in the best blockbuster economy of all time imagine what will happen to them in the upcoming slowdown when auto sales will fall off a cliff.  This company is over in my opinion.  In no way am I making judgements on the products itself which I think are very innovative, it's just that it isn't economically viable in a tighter monetary environment (considering it's been barely viable in a cheap money and credit environment), consider TSLA just a big experiment in technological excess which will be the first thing to go offline in a recession.

nick663

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #223 on: April 26, 2019, 05:11:02 PM »
Just another buying opportunity.

*chuckles*

TomTX

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #224 on: April 26, 2019, 08:01:17 PM »
Their claims that they've solved level 5 autonomy are pretty unbelievable and in 1 year they'll have 1 million robo taxis on the road. 
Nope. The target was stated as end of next year. And they haven't claimed they have solved level 5 autonomy yet, just that they are on track to have it by end of 2020.

CCCA

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #225 on: April 26, 2019, 11:07:22 PM »
Their claims that they've solved level 5 autonomy are pretty unbelievable and in 1 year they'll have 1 million robo taxis on the road. 
Nope. The target was stated as end of next year. And they haven't claimed they have solved level 5 autonomy yet, just that they are on track to have it by end of 2020.


Okay, sorry, I saw next year as "in one year".  Saying that you'll have level 5, next year, means it has to be mostly solved now. I understand software guys think they can go fast and break things, but seriously, it needs a lot of testing (like months and months) before you can just say "go for it" and leave it up to a car. 


Looked it up and his quote was "If you fast forward a year, maybe a year three months, we'll have over a million robo-taxis on the road."  So basically my original assertion was correct.


ChpBstrd

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #226 on: April 27, 2019, 07:50:23 AM »
TSLA is done...if they are struggling in the best blockbuster economy of all time imagine what will happen to them in the upcoming slowdown when auto sales will fall off a cliff.  This company is over in my opinion.  In no way am I making judgements on the products itself which I think are very innovative, it's just that it isn't economically viable in a tighter monetary environment (considering it's been barely viable in a cheap money and credit environment), consider TSLA just a big experiment in technological excess which will be the first thing to go offline in a recession.

For $60 plus commission, you could buy a January 15, 2021 put contract that will be worth $1000 in the event of a TSLA bankruptcy that wiped out all equity.

If this scenario played out, a $60k investment would become $1M in less than 2 years.

FrugalSaver

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #227 on: April 27, 2019, 07:57:10 AM »
I’m curious what the Colorado poster is thinking these days

FrugalSaver

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #228 on: April 27, 2019, 07:59:19 AM »
TSLA is done...if they are struggling in the best blockbuster economy of all time imagine what will happen to them in the upcoming slowdown when auto sales will fall off a cliff.  This company is over in my opinion.  In no way am I making judgements on the products itself which I think are very innovative, it's just that it isn't economically viable in a tighter monetary environment (considering it's been barely viable in a cheap money and credit environment), consider TSLA just a big experiment in technological excess which will be the first thing to go offline in a recession.

For $60 plus commission, you could buy a January 15, 2021 put contract that will be worth $1000 in the event of a TSLA bankruptcy that wiped out all equity.

If this scenario played out, a $60k investment would become $1M in less than 2 years.

I’ve been selling puts every week for many many months now and paying the mortgage with it

CCCA

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #229 on: April 27, 2019, 01:00:21 PM »
TSLA is done...if they are struggling in the best blockbuster economy of all time imagine what will happen to them in the upcoming slowdown when auto sales will fall off a cliff.  This company is over in my opinion.  In no way am I making judgements on the products itself which I think are very innovative, it's just that it isn't economically viable in a tighter monetary environment (considering it's been barely viable in a cheap money and credit environment), consider TSLA just a big experiment in technological excess which will be the first thing to go offline in a recession.

For $60 plus commission, you could buy a January 15, 2021 put contract that will be worth $1000 in the event of a TSLA bankruptcy that wiped out all equity.

If this scenario played out, a $60k investment would become $1M in less than 2 years.

I’ve been selling puts every week for many many months now and paying the mortgage with it


just to clarify, you are selling puts to later buy back at a lower price (like shorting puts)?  or selling puts that you previously purchased for a gain?


FrugalSaver

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #230 on: April 28, 2019, 10:35:49 AM »
TSLA is done...if they are struggling in the best blockbuster economy of all time imagine what will happen to them in the upcoming slowdown when auto sales will fall off a cliff.  This company is over in my opinion.  In no way am I making judgements on the products itself which I think are very innovative, it's just that it isn't economically viable in a tighter monetary environment (considering it's been barely viable in a cheap money and credit environment), consider TSLA just a big experiment in technological excess which will be the first thing to go offline in a recession.

selling naked puts.  For example, I have several contracts that expire on Friday at a $170 strike

For $60 plus commission, you could buy a January 15, 2021 put contract that will be worth $1000 in the event of a TSLA bankruptcy that wiped out all equity.

If this scenario played out, a $60k investment would become $1M in less than 2 years.

I’ve been selling puts every week for many many months now and paying the mortgage with it


just to clarify, you are selling puts to later buy back at a lower price (like shorting puts)?  or selling puts that you previously purchased for a gain?

CorpRaider

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #231 on: April 29, 2019, 12:31:07 PM »
Brothers and sisters, prepare your offerings for The Telsa Tithe.

EDIT:  Probably wasting some thunder for planned update of the above (year old) TSLA post but damn that takes me forever.  It is pretty interesting to me that Markel is working with Telsa on the insurance product. Could be laying off a lot of the actual premiums, but still the TSLAQ people on twitter thought it was a complete oddball fantasy that Elon threw out off the cuff and then, basically the next day, they file with regulators in California to roll out a product with a legitimate outfit handling the insurance blocking and tackling.  The move has some echoes (to me) of the historical model of progressive insurance:  superior data resulting in better underwriting as the core competency.  I wonder if Gayner's deputy Saurabh (formerly of google/host of the investors at google youtube series, and poster on COBF) was involved in putting this on Markel's radar.

« Last Edit: April 30, 2019, 09:20:25 AM by CorpRaider »

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #232 on: April 29, 2019, 10:42:38 PM »
I’m curious what the Colorado poster is thinking these days


I've been trading the volatility with swing shares. Holding all my core shares. Last bought 10 shares at $234 on Friday. As a long-term investor I'm not worried about one bad quarter. Bears/shorts counting on a demand issue will be disappointed. They've been making that argument for about 5 years. Meanwhile Tesla has yet to spend a dollar on paid advertising.

Jacob F

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #233 on: May 17, 2019, 12:51:31 PM »
We're now at half of 420 USD per share, the price that Elon wanted to take the company private at (Tweet on August 7th). Funding secured.
That's less than a year ago. How long until we lose another 210 Dollars / share? Elon now talking about 'hardcore' belt tightening ahead of Tesla to stay profitable/alive.

http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2019/05/hardcore-belt-tightening-a-must-says-teslas-musk/

This visionary guy who supposedly thinks in decades is managing this company in a paycheck-to-paycheck, quarter-by-quarter style, changing course 180 degrees overnight.


Kalergie

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #234 on: May 18, 2019, 04:10:40 AM »
Quoting Elon Musk:
"That is why, going forward, all expenses of any kind anywhere in the world, including parts, salary, travel expenses, rent, literally every payment that leaves our bank account must be reviewed, confirmed as critical and the top of every page of outgoing payments signed by our CFO.

I will personally review and sign every 10th page."

This man has lost the plot. Sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare to work at Tesla these days.

And for that reason, I'm out.

Raeon

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #235 on: May 18, 2019, 08:58:00 PM »
I'm curious what happens if they do go bankrupt...  some big company would HAVE to pounce on the opportunity to put 3rd party "universal" charging stations in place of the current tesla stations.  If interstate gas stations can get away with highway robbery prices due to convenience, then why not charging stations?  I'm not really sure where I'm going with this in the context of the original thread.  I guess I just figure you could probably walk away without a complete loss should shtf and the company get bought.  Maybe only an 80% loss.
Interesting to watch if nothing else, and they ARE responsible for getting the ball rolling again on electric cars, I suppose we should all be grateful for that much regardless of the outcome.

CCCA

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #236 on: May 19, 2019, 01:05:32 AM »
I'm curious what happens if they do go bankrupt...  some big company would HAVE to pounce on the opportunity to put 3rd party "universal" charging stations in place of the current tesla stations.  If interstate gas stations can get away with highway robbery prices due to convenience, then why not charging stations?  I'm not really sure where I'm going with this in the context of the original thread.  I guess I just figure you could probably walk away without a complete loss should shtf and the company get bought.  Maybe only an 80% loss.
Interesting to watch if nothing else, and they ARE responsible for getting the ball rolling again on electric cars, I suppose we should all be grateful for that much regardless of the outcome.


Superchargers aren't worth that much.  20% of tesla's value is $8 billion.  Tesla's site says there are 12888 superchargers that have been deployed. $8 billion/12888 is $620k per charger.  The DOE estimates the cost of a level 3 charger to be between $4 and $50k depending on the amount of prep work/site upgrades to bring power to a location, and that Tesla doesn't own the land , but merely leases it.  If you are valuing tesla's bankruptcy value on the value of their super charger network, it's probably more like $258 million (12888*20k), which is less than 1% of it's current market cap. 


Their brand may have a bit more value, but that said, it still probably isn't worth anything near to their current market cap.


I've made a bit of money with buying and selling options on Tesla.  My general sense is that the stock price will be less than $200/share fairly soon and is currently in the process of investors re-evaluating their growth story (realizing that stratospheric growth and profitability is getting less and less likely) and bringing the lofty price back down closer to a more fundamental valuation of their stock (double digit stock price).

appleshampooid

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #237 on: May 21, 2019, 08:36:53 AM »
My general sense is that the stock price will be less than $200/share fairly soon ...
Like right now!

Car Jack

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #238 on: May 21, 2019, 08:40:21 AM »
I just looked at TSLA.  Holy Crap!  Under $200.  So much for Elon's $420 predition.

Morgan Stanley says to expect TSLA to go to $10.  Not down $10....to $10.

https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/tesla-stock-morgan-stanley-china-tariffs-51558445937?mod=mw_latestnews

ChpBstrd

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #239 on: May 21, 2019, 09:30:50 AM »
I just looked at TSLA.  Holy Crap!  Under $200.  So much for Elon's $420 predition.

Morgan Stanley says to expect TSLA to go to $10.  Not down $10....to $10.

https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/tesla-stock-morgan-stanley-china-tariffs-51558445937?mod=mw_latestnews

One can buy a put option today for $120 that will go up 316% if Morgan Stanley is correct and TSLA closes at $10 on January 15, 2021. If they go to zero by then, the return would be 1150%.

Someone talk me out of gambling.

lemonlyman

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #240 on: May 23, 2019, 02:27:04 PM »
I just looked at TSLA.  Holy Crap!  Under $200.  So much for Elon's $420 predition.

Morgan Stanley says to expect TSLA to go to $10.  Not down $10....to $10.

https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/tesla-stock-morgan-stanley-china-tariffs-51558445937?mod=mw_latestnews

Actually, Morgan Stanley is a hold and $10 is their worst bear case scenario from one analyst. $391 is their bull. Morgan Stanley also underwrote Tesla's bond a few weeks ago so I take their analysis with a grain of salt.

This whole spiral is a result of 63000 cars delivered in Qtr 1. That's indicative of a demand problem problem and is unsustainable with their Op ex rate. Tesla is saying they had problems delivering to Europe and China in mass for the first time. I'm skeptical of that, but I suppose it's possible logistics is a big issue. I see a lot of bears predicting 75,000 cars delivered in Qtr 2, but Tesla guidance is on 90-100k. If they do 90k delivered, the stock will rebound. Not to over $300/share, imo, but with much stronger support above $200.  The other big issue is the huge decline in S and X sales. Those were big cash cows for Tesla and are more important than a huge scale increase of the 3. If the 90k delivered doesn't have 25k of S and X, 90k cars definitely isn't profitable.

The bright side is those operating expenses have been flat per quarter at $1 billion for over a year. At 90k cars, if they're not profitable, they're definitely cashflow positive. So Qtr 2 is a big deal for the company. Not too worried about cash. They have over $4 billion which at $250 million cash Qtr 1 burn rate a month ( -$910m one time debt payment) would still last a very long time without being cash flow positive. Little risk of near term insolvency, imo. Lasting long enough for the Shanghai factory to be built and start producing behind the tariffs is a big deal.

Edit: I'm long Tesla. I'm eating crow on the near term growth story. I still believe in the company's long term prospects, but I would never recommend someone else either invest or short it. The vicissitudes are unreal.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 02:40:58 PM by lemonlyman »

TomTX

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #241 on: May 23, 2019, 03:32:59 PM »
So, on the sales volume, there are several mitigating factors:

If you start shipping cars to Europe and China, you're going to have more vehicles... on ships. Since Tesla doesn't count a sale til delivery happens, they're going to have a lot more cars in shipment. That probably accounts for ~10k vehicles.

The Model S/X production line was shut down for awhile, resulting in the new version with the Model 3 style front motor and overall significant performance improvements (overall range, acceleration, higher Supercharger power usable, noticeably better recharging whether Supercharger or not in terms of miles of range recharged per minute.)

Many Tesla enthusiasts were aware of the upcoming refresh, and at least some number held off buying. I certainly would have if I were rich and wanted a Model S or X.

Apparently Panasonic was still unable to supply as many Model 3 cells as Tesla wanted.

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #242 on: May 23, 2019, 07:43:59 PM »
I thought the cells were coming from the gigafactory

ChpBstrd

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #243 on: May 23, 2019, 08:48:18 PM »

TomTX

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #244 on: May 23, 2019, 09:51:08 PM »
I thought the cells were coming from the gigafactory

Model 3 cells are being produced by Panasonic in the Gigafactory. Tesla owns the factory and makes the packs after Panasonic supplies the cells. Another company colocated in the Gigafactory supplies the "cans" to Panasonic for the outer shell of the cells.

Sciurus

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #245 on: May 24, 2019, 07:52:46 AM »
This whole spiral is a result of 63000 cars delivered in Qtr 1. That's indicative of a demand problem problem and is unsustainable with their Op ex rate. Tesla is saying they had problems delivering to Europe and China in mass for the first time. I'm skeptical of that, but I suppose it's possible logistics is a big issue. I see a lot of bears predicting 75,000 cars delivered in Qtr 2, but Tesla guidance is on 90-100k. If they do 90k delivered, the stock will rebound. Not to over $300/share, imo, but with much stronger support above $200.  The other big issue is the huge decline in S and X sales. Those were big cash cows for Tesla and are more important than a huge scale increase of the 3. If the 90k delivered doesn't have 25k of S and X, 90k cars definitely isn't profitable.

Tesla also points to 2019 being the first year when the EV credits step down which they say pulled many Q1 sales into Q4 last year.  That being said as bad as Q1 was this year it is still the most sales that Tesla has ever had in a Q1. 

TomTX

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #246 on: May 25, 2019, 07:31:17 PM »

Tesla also points to 2019 being the first year when the EV credits step down which they say pulled many Q1 sales into Q4 last year.  That being said as bad as Q1 was this year it is still the most sales that Tesla has ever had in a Q1.

Tax credits get cut in half again on July 1, so that may push more sales forward into Q2, along with the improved Model S & X motors/range/supercharging speed.

Daisyedwards800

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #247 on: October 24, 2019, 11:54:02 AM »
Another profit!

talltexan

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #248 on: October 24, 2019, 01:23:15 PM »
Yeah, the big Tesla fan in the office (he both drives one and has a long position) was crowing about their latest earnings release today.

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Is Tesla a good investment?
« Reply #249 on: October 25, 2019, 02:33:36 PM »
I hope Tesla succeeds and upends transportation. I just am very critical of Elon Musk's ad hoc managerial skills.