Tesla is about to release the beast.

Glad you asked, and thanks to VW's misfortune.
Electrify America maps out charging network to rival Tesla Superchargers

 

Or Preston Tucker? Or John Delorean? Or Scrooge McDuck.

 

Short selling, if that is what you are referring to, is a hedged bet. Billionaires may lose millions. But it will be like that no matter what. Those who go long are also exposed to risk. Just more of it.

 

Jim, thanks for making some fairly concrete predictions, I appreciate that.
I disagree with many of your conclusions, however, we are all welcome to our opinions.
Your dismissal of anyone who is long TSLA is disturbing.

Now, if we reach the end of 2019 and Tesla has not gone bankrupt, will you adjust your opinions, or make excuses?

 

Never said flooded with BEV, however dealerships may have a flood on their lots of unsold BEV's, it's going to take a lot of marketing to get Americans to buy BEV's, LA is not the norm!

 

The thing with betting against Tesla based on their current expenses is that... a lot of that is one-time expenses to get the volume necessary to become profitable. And, now, they're starting to focus on cutting expenses, something that AFAIK they've never really worried about.

Also, short sellers expose themselves to higher risk than long buyers. Long buyers are only exposed to a maximum risk of the stock price they bought in at, times the number of shares they bought. Short sellers are exposed to unlimited risk, as the price can theoretically go up infinitely. Now, the chances of that happening do depend on the market conditions and the individual company - it's quite possible that a company is more likely to go bankrupt and hit a stock price of $0, than it is for a short squeeze to happen, but the point is that both risks exist. (In my opinion, the bankrupt and hit $0 possibility is almost guaranteed to not happen, as Tesla is if nothing else a decent acquisition target, whereas the short squeeze possibility is plausible.)

(I am long TSLA, FWIW.)

 

i'm not saying tesla will or won't survive. what i don't understand are those who are absolutely positively sure, one way or the other.
something is clouding your judgement.

no one knows the future. people have been saying they won't survive for the last 5 years or more, hasn't happened.
people have been saying they absolutely will survive, right so far, but we don't know for sure.

but i don't understand some of the vitriol of the naysayers, sounds like they've already been burned.

 

The thing is...even 'believers' have to admit that the company isn't in the best financial position...by a long shot. These are hard facts and not something that can be simply shooed away. It all comes down to Elon 'working his magic' to convince investors to continue to fund the company. And he has done a fantastic job at that. Can he continue to do so? We will see. However, the fact he is scrambling for 'profitability' is quite telling. I'm thinking some of his investors are becoming quite antsy at this point.

 

Could not agree more!
Is failure a possibility? Absolutely.
Is success a possibility? Absolutely.
Now the odds of each are certainly an area of discussion. But those that believe one or the other is a certainty really don’t bring anything to the discussion.

 

Doubtful it is very many.

If Tesla were not building a worldwide infrastructure as fast as they are, and they had the same balance sheet, then I would be getting nervous.
Between building out super chargers, doubling the worlds production capacity of batteries, supporting national grids and so on... Well, let’s just say that costs a bit more than what you can find in the cushions of your couch.
If they pull back on all that and still can’t make money,that is a problem.

 

bezos did it, with far less charisma, and no product.

 

all good points except for toyota. do you have their financial data?

 

VERY Interesting comparison between Musk and Edison for those that know a little bit about history.....

@ 22,000K / month.

Time will tell.
It's ONE thing to make 22,000 cars a month.
It's quite another thing to make 22,000 cars that a company like mine would want to buy and drive for 8 years and 150,000 miles that will meet Toyota (or Honda....or Chevy...or das Volksvagen) RELIABILITY standards.
If Tesla is diddling their numbers to get another three months of tax kickbacks from dot.gov, then BEVs have much bigger problems than negative press or people shorting their stock!!

The THREE most important things about building cars are:
1. Reliability.
2. Reliability.
3. Reliability.

And......it's not just the powertrain.
Things like windows...door handles...mirrors...electronics.....seats, etc will either work for 8 years or they will not....AND only time will tell which is which.

 

I don’t see Toyota going downhill drastically because of this.
The impact is being felt first in the smaller, luxury markets where the sales are smaller.
The impact will be felt, and Toyota will come on board. They will just be a late-comer rather than a market leader.

 

Many years ago I received some junk mail and don't even remember what it was about but I do remember the catch phrase, " Disruptive Technologies".
Sometimes something comes along that changes the way thing are done. In the 1800's the train changed things. In recent history the computer and cell phone and now the electric car and Elon Musk and Tesla are the big players in the change. Even if Tesla fails their name will go down in history books.