Tesla is about to release the beast.

Model 3 numbers will be out on Friday. Regardless of what the production numbers are, there are significant concerns that will affect Tesla stock and the health of Tesla that can't be ignored:

Tesla's product delivery has never been on time, Tesla may have thousand of buyers waiting, but without a car to sell, you can't profit, Tesla is in the hole with $20 Billion in liabilities, this needs to be paid back some how?, cashflow negative and has never made a real profit, again the proposed $35k car may have fixed this, but selling higher priced cars will take longer to profit from was a mistake, only so many peps can afford a mind blowing $78k for a model 3, blowing through cash in an insane amount everyday, can only last so long, Tesla will need to raise more capital, there is no other way to survive, and the Solarcity bailout, which has weakened Tesla overall health.

Musk is a dreamer, and has good intentions, but is not good at actually executing, building cars at a profit.

 

The higher-priced cars won't take longer to profit from - as long as Tesla is production-constrained, they'll want to sell as expensive cars as possible, because that maximizes their profit. And, they're production-constrained, nowhere near demand-constrained.

 

Sure there is a limit to the size of that market. For those that can’t afford the $78k, they can buy the $54k, or $49k Model 3s.

 

Yes my bad, end of the month is Saturday. We will see if Tesla was able to hit their target goals for production.

Bargain for the average American? Will those who had deposits down on the $78k car be credited? You keep mentioning how fast these cars are, where can one drive this fast? This type of acceleration is not a selling point for me, I would rather have long term reliability history as a selling point.

Even at this price range it limits who their buyers are. They need a car under $30k.

 

I've never understood this thinking. Seems big rigs that do 0-60 measured on a calendar would be crashing all over the place if this were true.

 

That's because it's an excuse.
Thrust-to-weight ratios that give same-day 0-60 times just make cars a little more fun to drive....and for some people this is valuable enough to spend money for!
Tesla itself spends lots of money on advertising 0-60 times that are even faster than EV fans get 'outraged' at criticism....but for all of the reviews that I'm reading I'm not seeing very many of them that give instrumented test results including an MSRP versus PRICE ACTUALLY PAID.
I'm also starting to see some negative comments from non-fanboy automotive publications that point to some for-real down the road issues....such as:
....Not the price we were promised, not the range we were hoping for, the questionable build quality we’ve learned to expect.

The last one is fundamental!
That's because if robots are NOTHING else?
They're consistent.

Even on a Nissan Versa, (base price: about $12,000) the paint is nearly perfect.....the door handles do not fall off...and everything in the car is just about dead-bang certain to work for about 3-years, and the power-train is just about dead-bang certain to work for 100,000 miles.
This is NOT because the Versa is such a high quality car, but because it's built by a company with an 84 year history of building cars.
Even Versa drivers expect a certain level of reliability AND a company with enough teeth and tail to maintain an R/D and a logistics infrastructure will support MASS producing 100,000 cars with acceptable failure rates for $12k.

Tesla has definitely earned the love of EV enthusiasts, and they've definitely helped transform the industry - but if they continue to over promise, over charge, and under deliver then all of the people who are shorting their stock will be proven to be correct in the long run......which according to the Darwin-theory of capitalism is how everything is decided...

 

all these companies struggled in the beginning. you don't have to be in business 84 years to survive.

actually, over promising doesn't matter.

over charging would lead to cars not being sold, which isn't the case.

and under delivering is always a good thing. otherwise, your inventory rots.

the shorters have been waiting how long to be proven right? when do we declare them proven wrong?

 

When the numbers represent what we have been promised.

 

There is a certain novelty to buying a Tesla just like it was for the Prius when it was the newest and hottest thing on the road. Remember when one went by and someone in the car said, "there goes a Prius". I saw two Teslas today, they are getting more common here in Indiana. As more competition for the EV market builds, Tesla will have to compete with the big boys. It will be interesting to see how it goes. Remember when a Sony TV was king?

 

i guess i'm just not in the habit of betting against companies that are doing good things. i'm not sure what the thought process is:
i hope they fail?

i work in big oil?

these idiots will never survive, here's my chance to make big money?

i don't have a dog in the fight, but if i did, i'd rather bet on good things happening in society than bad.

 

i heard you the first time.

 

Long and short investments aren't about whether the company will succeed or fail, but a bet on what the future value of the stock will be. One possibility is that Tesla begins to post regular positive earnings, but those earnings make for an outrageous Price/Earnings Ratio. The stock price plummets to $150 to give a PER suitable for a growth stock, the shorts win and Tesla slowly goes on to become a major automaker.

This was a recurring theme during the internet bubble. The worst thing a company could do for its stock price was to make a profit

 

These are some good points.
However, unlike the hybrids, EVs excel in many areas at once.
They provide driving experience, quality, safety, fuel efficiency and performance few, if any ICE vehicles can match.

While the top end cars have reached price parity, this isn’t true yet of the more economical cars. Each year they get closer and closer though.

Tesla wants other companies to make EVs. The new EVs, when they get here, will give people more choices. This is a good thing.
What the shorts don’t realize, apparently, is that the more choices that join the market, the more the market will expand. It isn’t a zero sum game.

 

was a lot of money made shorting amazon?

 

If you're talking BEVs only, perhaps. But if you're talking cars in general, it actually is a zero sum game. To imply it's an expanding market would imply that people who are walking and taking the bus now will buy a BEV where they wouldn't have bought an ICE. If BEVs are significantly cheaper than ICE that might be the case, otherwise "cars" are pretty much a zero-sum game.

What do you think is a realistic price for Tesla stock? It's $353.10 at this very moment, would you recommend buy, sell, or hold at that price?

 

apparently, you haven't seen the video of the guy who makes the case for bev's becoming cheaper and cheaper, and other cars becoming more expensive. he made some interesting points.

 

No, I haven't. But how cheap can they really get, given safety requirements (airbags, ABS, backup cameras) and demand for high tech options? If it were just about being cheap, the Tata Nano would be taking over the planet.