Tesla Has Jumped the Shark, is a Dead Company Walking

Gbgyybggbyggyb wrote:

Hey Nostradamus. Production has restarted. Weekly production now up to 2,556 cars per week. On track to building 3,000 per week. I am expecting them to be in the top 20 selling cars in the US in April.

Hey Musk, everyone is jumping ship from Tesla:

FFF wrote:

A lot of you need to get out more.

Musk's ONLY goal is to establish a human presence on Mars. That's it. All his companies are designed to fund that one thing, the pinnacle of which right now is the BFR. It's a rocket. You can imagine the rest.

Can't he get more hair transplants and plastic surgery here on Earth?

Since 2008, Tesla has sold more than $1.3 billion in regulatory credits. In 2017, the company delivered 103,181 cars globally but earned $360.3 million selling these emission credits, or roughly $3,500 per car.

A fair criticism leveled at Tesla by outside critics is that you’re not a real company unless you generate a profit, meaning simply that revenue exceeds cost. It didn’t make sense to do that until reaching economies of scale, but now we are there. Going forward, we will be far more rigorous about expenditures. I have asked the Tesla finance team to comb through every expense worldwide, no matter how small, and cut everything that doesn’t have a strong value justification.

TVFtvftfvtffft wrote:

Let's look at the top selling cars in the US in March 2018 for example,

#1 is the Toyota Camry with 35.246 units

#2 is the Honda Civic with 32,584 units

#10 is the Ford Fusion with 16,103 units

#20 is the Kia Optima with 8,010 units

Tesla is now producing more than 2,250 Model 3 per week (they only delivered 8,180 cars for the whole of Q1), so the Model 3 will be in the top 20 selling cars in the US in April (perhaps as high as top 15)

Musk is predicting to produce 20,000 to 24,000 units in June. .

Ok, only 4,777 Model 3 sold in the US in April. Not quite top 20 selling car in the US yet. Of course the Model 3 is far ahead of any other EV models (#2 is the Prius with 2,626 sold, #3 and #4 are the other Tesla models). Maybe in May. They will crack the top 20

The reservations for the Model 3 topped over 400,000 people. Say what you want about Tesla's fumbles and Elon Musk's oddities, but Tesla has massive demand for their product without having a single dealership or ad campaign. That is huge in the automotive world.

The only real challenge for Tesla is that its production problems open the door to competition. BMW, Volvo, and Mercedes-Benz are going to be ramping up EV models in the next 5-10 years, but are no where even close to having enough product to challenge Tesla in the current market. But the real challenge may be Toyota. Toyota wants to have its entire line of vehicles available in EV versions by 2025. Toyota has proven that it can take on big technology challenges with its hybrid vehicles. So, for the near future, Tesla has time to work its problems out and capitalize on its current advantage in the EV market. But if the production problems persist for another 5 years, others will catch up and might just beat Tesla at its own game.

The e Golf for example, which was launched in 2011, sold 128 units in the US in the month of April. Should Tesla really be worried? It’s not as if these other car manufacturers are “new” at this game. They have been playing it for a while with no success.

Toyota launches the Prius in 1997. More than 20 years ago. They only sold 2.7k units in the US in April (and they are the only “successful” major car manufacturer in EV and they are bad)

No, the major car manufacturers will not start being successful at this game all of a sudden

They have been failing for decades

Precious Roy wrote:

The reservations for the Model 3 topped over 400,000 people. Say what you want about Tesla's fumbles and Elon Musk's oddities, but Tesla has massive demand for their product without having a single dealership or ad campaign. That is huge in the automotive world.

Yet Tesla still can't manage to turn a profit. Elon always predicts they will make money, soon.

400,000 is minuscule compared to real manufacturers. Ford sold 6,600,000 vehicles in 2017. That's 550,000 vehicles per month. What happens to Tesla when they finally fulfill their reservations?

400,000 is pretty good compared to Delorean, which only sold about 9,000 cars.

It's easier to win the volume game when you're selling your product at a loss. Until we see a positive operating margin and an actual profit from selling vehicles, I think it's safe to assume more vehicle sales ( at a loss) is actually worse news. Shareholders need profits, not volume.

?

Doesn’t volume absorb your fixed overhead?

I doubt that they are selling at a loss, simply looking at variable costs

Yes, you need volume to drive down costs

Economics 101

They're selling them at a loss and building by hand. Sure, volume drives down overhead costs, but I think they're off on scale by orders of magnitude. If you wanna talk 4000 vs 400 cars when what you need is 40,000 cars.

Maths is hard wrote:

They're selling them at a loss and building by hand. Sure, volume drives down overhead costs, but I think they're off on scale by orders of magnitude. If you wanna talk 4000 vs 400 cars when what you need is 40,000 cars.

Tesla is planning to produce at a rate of 20,000 cars per month in June

There are only a handful of car models that sell more than 20,000 per month in the US. If you expect a new car company to already do better than a car company that has been around for 100 years, then...

Hshdhjdj wrote:

Maths is hard wrote:

They're selling them at a loss and building by hand. Sure, volume drives down overhead costs, but I think they're off on scale by orders of magnitude. If you wanna talk 4000 vs 400 cars when what you need is 40,000 cars.

Tesla is planning to produce at a rate of 20,000 cars per month in June

There are only a handful of car models that sell more than 20,000 per month in the US. If you expect a new car company to already do better than a car company that has been around for 100 years, then...

"planning to produce"

Cr@p....I actually agree wholeheartedly with something John Utah said.

This is true of any company...Tesla has until they run out of money to start making money. They are planning to make money. They do not now. Everything is talk until they make money. Pretty simple stuff.

The chemicals inside battery cells can be corrosive and flammable, said Karl Brauer, executive publisher for Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. “Electric vehicles are not more prone to fire, but batteries can burn hotter fires that are harder to extinguish,” he said. “Once there is a fire and you melt the battery pack, chemicals come out and when those chemicals come out, the fire can start, even without a spark.”

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-sb-engulfed-flames-car-crash-20180508-story.html

I predict more and more Tesla crashes in the future

Oh... there are more and more on the road every day

Could there be a correlation?

I generally avoid what I call "battleground" stocks, unless I have some specialized knowledge that gives me an edge, but would just say beware of CEOs who attack short sellers in public.

The Martian government was directed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled “Elon.” Two houses of Parliament enacted the laws to be administered by the Elon and his cabinet.

Elon … Elon … that name sounds familiar. So does the connection to Mars. Where have we heard of this Mars-linked being named Elon before? If you said, “In Wernher von Braun’s 1949 book, Project Mars: A Technical Tale,” you win a Mars bar.

Who is von Braun? Ex-Nazi, SS Officer, and father of space science in the US (NASA). He also built Disney.

http://photobucket.com/gallery/http://s843.photobucket.com/user/loaloauk/media/Universal%20Singapore/Disney%20and%20more/GPN-2000-000060.jpg.html?t=1287289581