TESLA investor?

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TESLA investor?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

If you like that sort of thing its interesting watching TESLA. While the company and its CEO Elon Musk polarise opinion, they have undoubtedly shaken up the automotive industry. The traditional auto makers have eventually been dragged along to invest and join the competition, and new ventures particularly in China are investing and competing too.

There are many vested interests which want TESLA to fail, but also many who want it to succeed with a passion.

This week, Elon Musk was in the news again for his "boring bonehead questions" response to a couple of market analysts about TESLA's financial position, and the subsequent share price fall virtually as he made the remarks!

Having never turned a profit, or paid a dividend, and continuing to use investors resources to develop and expand its products, manufacturing capacity and infrastructure worldwide, it burns through cash at an alarming rate. Investors have up to this point bought into Musk's vision, and his ability to deliver profitability and return on investment in the longer term.

The Q1 report for 2018 may be a bit dry, but investors watch closely the progress of the production of the Model 3, and at levels in the 2000's/week the cash burn problem only gets worse. Do all the difficulties go away if the hit 5000/week? who knows?

Plenty more "boring bonehead questions" to come when Q2 Results emerge :-D

So Buy/Sell or Hold?

Anyone got shares in TESLA? or is it akin to giving money to support a cause you believe in with no expectation you will get it back!

Regards Neil
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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by Gibbo2286 »

It can't go on much longer at the current rate Neil but as far as the current investors are concerned it's a bit like the banks, in too deep to let it fail, so for a while they'll keep supporting it, more in hope now than expectation.
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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by white exec »

. . . Let alone all the other cash-consuming projects Musk is involved with, like SpaceX . . .
My guess is that, at some point, Tesla will get sold off or bought, and for a substantial sum.
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Re: TESLA investor?

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white exec wrote: 06 May 2018, 11:36 . . . Let alone all the other cash-consuming projects Musk is involved with, like SpaceX . . .
Actually unlike Tesla, SpaceX is a profitable, privately held company, and the only connection between the two companies is that Musk heads both companies, other than that they have no connection with each other and certainly not financially.

SpaceX doesn't rely on venture capital or investment to keep going and has no shareholders to answer to. They turn a tidy profit as both a contractor for NASA for ISS resupply missions and satellite launches, as well as performing numerous commercial satellite launches.

In 2017 they performed more launches than any other launch provider, and the numbers of launches is expected to grow considerably again this year. They pioneered reusable booster technology and have something like 15 successful landings of the first stage booster under their belt now, something that nobody else has done.

Ten years ago Russia was one of the biggest launch providers in the world doing nearly 50% of the worlds satellite launches, today that figure has dropped to about 10% with SpaceX now being the single biggest launch provider with nearly 50% of the total market. Russia have more or less come out and admitted they're throwing in the towel in the commercial unmanned launch market as they can't compete. They will remain in the manned launch market though with their Soyuz capsule as that is the only currently flying human rated rocket in the world and the only way to get people to the ISS.

In short while SpaceX is far from the only game in town, they're eating everyone else's lunch, and now moving on with designing and building the very exciting looking next generation BFR platform while launches for the next few years using the existing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets pay the bills. All the financing for the BFR is coming out of profits from existing customer deployments.

So the situation of SpaceX isn't even remotely like Tesla - it's a mature, profitable private company with a very bright future, and they're very unlikely to fail at this point.
My guess is that, at some point, Tesla will get sold off or bought, and for a substantial sum.

I'm not sure what's going to happen with Tesla. Unlike SpaceX who are profitable and in a very good position, Tesla are only 50/50 at the moment.

They're gambling everything on getting the Model 3 production sorted out and ramped up - if they can do that, they should become profitable for the first time ever late this year. If that happens I think they have a good chance of surviving long term.

If things don't work out this year the I really don't know what their future will be like or whether they will have one. My gut feeling is they will get past the production ramp problems soon and things will look upwards. Musk is nothing if not tenacious. He has put all his money, heart and soul into Tesla to keep it going, when he says he's sleeping on the factory floor working on the production ramp problems you better believe it.

I listened to some of the investor call and he sounded like a man that hasn't slept properly for weeks, who is almost at the point of breaking. :shock: Some of his tweets lately are a bit strange and off the wall as well, like a man deliriously short on sleep... :lol: I wish him well and hope the production problems can be sorted out so he can go back to his own bed! :lol:
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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by andy5 »

NewcastleFalcon wrote: 06 May 2018, 09:01 This week, Elon Musk was in the news again for his "boring bonehead questions" response to a couple of market analysts about TESLA's financial position, and the subsequent share price fall virtually as he made the remarks!

He's arriving in the news again even more recently.

It turns out he hung up a phone call with the head of the NTSB about investigation of a fatal accident.

There seem to be some arguments between these parties. The NTSB objected to Tesla making press statements blaming the driver while the investigation is still in progress, and said it would remove Tesla from the investigation.

In response, Tesla claimed it withdrew itself, and accuses the NTSB of being more interested in press releases than public safety.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... esla-probe

I appreciate that being head of some very large and mostly successful businesses will give someone the mentality that most of the world are less clever and successful, but sometimes a degree of outward public modesty could be useful or wise.
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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Problem with the Model 3's braking performance.....No worries Elon's going to fix it with a software upgrade.

Three cheers for software!...hip hip...hooray! hip hip hooray! hip hip hooray!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/teslas-musk- ... 47349.html

Investors slightly cheered by a strategy with the model 3 to upsell the higher spec models. Very few if any Model 3's will be at the $35,000 price tag, and the company is taking deposits and reservations now for a $78,000 version of the Model 3 that will go on sale this summer. All helps with profitability and according to the article in the LA Times Musk recently tweeted that selling the base model now, would cause the company to "lose money & die."

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/l ... story.html

Regards Neil
Last edited by NewcastleFalcon on 22 May 2018, 23:08, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by bobins »

NewcastleFalcon wrote: 22 May 2018, 22:27 Problem with the Model 3's braking performance.....No worries Elon's going to fix it with a software upgrade.

Three cheers for software!...hip hip...hooray! hip hip hooray! hip hip hooray!



"........this braking manoeuvre has performed an illegal operation and will be restarted" :-D
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TESLA investor?

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TESLA in the news this morning through a decent chunk of cost-cutting, a 9% reduction in its workforce. It is of course a "restructuring".

In general though shares have bounced back significantly recently, as confidence grows that the model 3 production will reach its targets.

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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by Mandrake »

Covered quite well here:

https://electrek.co/2018/06/12/tesla-la ... structure/

Tesla has grown very rapidly from 14,000 employees in 2015 to 37,000 employees today, and have actually increased employee numbers by 10% just since the start of this year, so a 9% cut will only take them back to the number of employees they had in January!

Sounds like they employed too many people too quickly and ended up with a lot of people in areas in the company that they didn't really need... from previous articles it also sounds like there were a lot of "cost plus" subcontractors working onsite to the point where it had got out of control, so a couple of months ago they slashed the number of contractors working onsite as well.

I don't like to see anyone lose their jobs but with investors clamouring for Tesla to actually make a profit for the first time ever, trimming a bit of fat may be necessary to make the company sustainable long term.
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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by wurlycorner »

Amazon burned cash for decades while it expanded, but look at it now...
It will come good in the end because they still, by far and away, make the most desirable EV products - and I can't see that changing any time soon.

My beef with Tesla is the truly appauling anti-competitive way they control parts, servicing and support for their cars.
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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

In the news again
Elon Musk: Tesla worker admitted to sabotage

"There are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die," Musk wrote. "These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies, the wealthiest industries in the world -- they don't love the idea of Tesla advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars. Don't want to blow your mind, but rumor has it that those companies are sometimes not super nice. Then there are the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors. If they're willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they're willing to cheat in other ways?"
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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by bobins »

Whilst Mr Musk might be entirely correct about the capabilities of other companies, I still can't afford one of his cars.
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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by Michel »

bobins wrote: 20 Jun 2018, 06:49 Whilst Mr Musk might be entirely correct about the capabilities of other companies, I still can't afford one of his cars.


Nor me, and I have no desire to own one if I could. If I went electric, a Leaf would do me just fine.
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Re: TESLA investor?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Well we are into July now.....have 5,000 model 3's per week rolled off the production line in Fremont California?

According to the Times today Elon has had a very large tent erected the size of 2 football fields to house a third production line.

...and has it worked?

Apparently so. The headline reads "Musk's electric dream comes true as target is hit"

According to the Times article, the response from Ford's European Boss Steven Armstrong on twitter was..."Ford makes about 7,000 vehicles every four hours"

Yes but the FCF's I spy electric vehicles has yet to spot a Ford Electric Vehicle....put that in your pipe and smoke it Steven!

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