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When the chief accounting officer quits after one month on the job, that's a stock I don't want to own.
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I imagine he started his job, went through all of the meet and greets, did the HR stuff and finally sat down to get to work. After an hour of looking at the numbers, he goes ‘oh ****’ (fill in your favorite four letter word here). He then thought it couldn’t be correct, started talking to people, realized it was correct and dropped a ‘peace out’ email, which a Tesla publicist then expanded and sugar coated.Comment
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People forget filing for ch11 bankruptcy allows the business a chance to keep going and right the ship. Delay that too far and you have a ch7 which will be much worse for all involved. For all the owners on here I hope this weekends Crazy Eddie sales events gives them enough liquidity to stay afloat for a bit longer.Comment
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Selling hundreds of cars in a weekend at full price is now a sign of desperation?
Honest question:. I know I mostly follow fan boy Tesla news and my opinions are skewed by that, but I've never encountered anyone as deep into the short narrative as you. I'm not here to debate, but I'm curious...Where do you get your news? Are you reading the same things I am and applying your slant, or are you ingesting information colored by writers you believe?Comment
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Selling hundreds of cars in a weekend at full price is now a sign of desperation?
Honest question:. I know I mostly follow fan boy Tesla news and my opinions are skewed by that, but I’ve never encountered anyone as deep into the short narrative as you. I’m not here to debate, but I’m curious…Where do you get your news? Are you reading the same things I am and applying your slant, or are you ingesting information colored by writers you believe?
Its definitely a sign of desperation. They need the cash flow, and its frankly illegal to do so, which is why theyre calling it a "delivery event" instead of what it is a direct to public selling. They need to raise cash, preferably in a dilutive equity offering, but I dont know if they can legally. You'd think thats the case because its near negligent that they havent already.
I get my information from all over and I would say Im a big fan of the Tesla idea and the original runs of cars were great and I wish they were not in the position they are currently. Tesla the company is unfortunately terribly run and newer cars are not up to the same standards (just look at recent reliability reports from 3rd parties puts model 3 as worst production vehicle). The people on the other side that have been everything is always great about tesla honestly have terrible arguments and just sad ways of assessing the situations, I wouldnt trust them with anything.
Seriously most people havent looked into nor should they even care to things like this, I just know several people on here own the stock and the cars. Its also just a great lesson about markets, narratives, putting people on pedestals, etc...and finance in general.
I dont know what you mean by "deep into the short narrative". I think reality has caught up to them. It sounds like many others havent actually looked into things objectively. Thats fine, but I'd be pretty moderate in my claims or position if that were so. Everything is basically playing out exactly as I have been expecting for years, while believers have just moved the goalposts. In what objective measure is Tesla succeeding or not justifying a bearish outlook on their stock or even the extreme case that they are an ongoing concern? The facts simply dont point in that direction. Its just the weight of the evidence.
Im 100% willing to update my priors. If Tesla somehow can manufacture enough cars per week/month and is met with robust demand, etc...that changes everything. They first need some money though for ongoing operations. They are not currently doing whats necessary to make that happen. Dont have the paint permits for >5000 cars per week and havent invested in the necessary Capex that would have been required years ago to reach such goals. Tesla doesnt own much of anything anymore, they mortgaged it for cash or has supplier liens on it.
This was apparent years ago that if they continued down this path this bottleneck in production would be realized. Its not like car production is some new and difficult concept. Its a very mature industry and there were very little 'breakthroughs' that would magically somehow make tesla able to do the things they predicted without the necessary investments.
Doesnt it concern you that things keep turning out the way the naysayers or short narratives have said? All issues regarding raises, profitability, production, solar, vaporware, etc...and so forth?
I would love to be wrong for everyone that owns the cars, the workers, etc....What am I missing? Remember to take their current valuations, liabilities, etc....and project that into the future with sales (noting their manufacturing constraints, etc..). Then arrive at a value. Its far far below current prices.
Strong opinions weakly held something, something....It just seems a lot of people start at the need to defend tsla/EM and build their argument there. I was once a fanboy too, 2012-14 maybe even 2015. Things changed and so did my outlook.Comment
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Lots of words, but I asked for links.
Ford and Toyota are apparently desperate based on my drive by few minutes ago.Comment
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I dont go looking for tesla news. I dont read any articles regularly. Theres enough out there its impossible to miss. I didnt see where you asked for specific links.
I have a curated financial twitter feed and things get tossed into my feed just depending on whatever is interesting that day to the swarm. Other than that I dont go looking. I see the earnings releases, etc..., and did listen to last earnings call as things continue to get more interesting.
What are you looking for? I did just see a link to an article that breaks down someones views on their situation and everything about it. Perused and looks fairly straightforward without too much slant either way, mostly financial in nature. I can throw you a link to that if you like.
However, the Ford/Toyota comment doesnt give me a lot of confidence you're approaching this from the same disinterested viewpoint thats willing to unemotionally assess new information. Doesnt really matter, something has to happen in a pretty quick time frame or things will become very obvious to everyone which direction it goes.
If tesla raises capital, the story continues and they have more time to make it. The issue is for some reason they havent.
Ok, here is the article that seems to be making the twitter rounds right now.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4205144-tesla-endgameComment
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Tesla is showing that it doesn't have its ducks in a row. They hit one bottleneck and don't anticipate the next one ahead of the curve. These sales are pulling forward ones already in the pipeline so that they can pull even more forward. That's how it is circumventing the antiquated dealership rules. I come from Detroit and the dealership is a big game that's just as important as the manufacturers themselves.
That said, it's refreshing to see that they are trying to be disruptive of many things--including dealerships.
There are so many people who would like Tesla to fail; but none of them can claim it for the right reasons beyond self preservation.
Personally, I like the car and what it attempts to do. Musk is a bit off the rails, yes. The product is quite good and haven't regretted getting it as the replacement to our Infiniti G37.
The tipping point has always been sustained production of 5000 weekly. Q3 will see if this is sustainable and profitability turns. It's interesting that they are tracking about 10% are completely tricked out performance and 33% are AWD versions. I'm interested to see how quickly that segment is saturated, or if they simply eat the entire Performance lux sedan market.Comment
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Tesla is showing that it doesn’t have its ducks in a row. They hit one bottleneck and don’t anticipate the next one ahead of the curve. These sales are pulling forward ones already in the pipeline so that they can pull even more forward. That’s how it is circumventing the antiquated dealership rules. I come from Detroit and the dealership is a big game that’s just as important as the manufacturers themselves.
That said, it’s refreshing to see that they are trying to be disruptive of many things–including dealerships.
There are so many people who would like Tesla to fail; but none of them can claim it for the right reasons beyond self preservation.
Personally, I like the car and what it attempts to do. Musk is a bit off the rails, yes. The product is quite good and haven’t regretted getting it as the replacement to our Infiniti G37.
The tipping point has always been sustained production of 5000 weekly. Q3 will see if this is sustainable and profitability turns. It’s interesting that they are tracking about 10% are completely tricked out performance and 33% are AWD versions. I’m interested to see how quickly that segment is saturated, or if they simply eat the entire Performance lux sedan market.
I think you're right about the saturation of that market being telling. If not, its great and they can do better, if it saturates quickly that will be bad.
I liked the idea of disrupting the dealership but they havent been able to defeat that lobby which is essentially how those laws came into effect. It takes a lot of money to turn that kind of thing around, and frankly its sad thats the case for laws that are clearly anticompetitive.
The Musk thing is a real conundrum. Hes definitely not the right person for CEO/COO and yet he made them as big of a deal as they are today. Maybe he should have ceded those roles a few years back for visionary/chairman where he could do his thing and they could do whats best for the company.
I really liked/like the Karma. Cool car, but not as full range as tsla.Comment
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I think there is a big disconnect between product and how the company is run. The product is very attractive and is revolutionary. The way the business is run can ruin that.
There was a restaurant that I used to frequent. Great food and service. It was almost always busy. Then one day, it closed. The product was not the issue there.Comment
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Hence - Happy to be a car owner (and perhaps collectible) and not a stock holder/shorter/caller/etc.Comment
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Zaphod,
I'm at a desktop now, so I'll type a little more, but I also gave up internet pissing matches in my twenties, and this forum is worth so much more that I won't continue to engage past this. Much like my uncle who is convinced Trump is the greatest or my sister in law who believes he is the second coming of Franco, there is no point is debate. I'll throw a few links up here, you can read them, realize your position, while possibly correct, is not fully developed, or you may not. I have no money on the line.
First off, your link when asked for sources was a combination of twitter and a seeking alpha (pay to play website) that offered ZERO numbers or debatable facts, but rather 3 paragraphs of predictions. I'll disregard that like I do anti-vaccine arguments. IF you actually care about an honest debate, I'll leave out electrek and teslarati links, you leave out business insider and seeking alpha.
You talk about cash burn. They had 2.2 billion dollars cash on hand, and had a record 700+ million dollar cash burn in q2. IF they continue to burn at that rate, they don't run out till Mid 2019. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/01/tesla-earnings-q2-2018.html They have expectations of positive cash flow in q3 and q4, though the consensus is still negative cash flow in q3 and positive in q4. https://money.cnn.com/quote/forecast/forecast.html?symb=TSLA
quote: "Dont have the paint permits for >5000 cars per week." I dug into this, and all I could find was Tesla reports of no issues with EPA or California regulations. As of 2016, they seem to have been limited to 219k cars painted annually. Perhaps that has not changed since, but it'd be pretty bold for Musk to broadcast painting 7000 cars in 7 days if true. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1013519243030253570
quote: " Tesla doesnt own much of anything anymore, they mortgaged it for cash or has supplier liens on it." Link?
quote: "Doesnt it concern you that things keep turning out the way the naysayers or short narratives have said? All issues regarding raises, profitability, production, solar, vaporware, etc…and so forth?" Perhaps this is where our differing sources have led us to different conclusions. I keep seeing narratives posted that are continuously proven false.
quote: "I didnt see where you asked for specific links." Quote above that: " I’m not here to debate, but I’m curious…Where do you get your news? Are you reading the same things I am and applying your slant, or are you ingesting information colored by writers you believe?"
Quote: "I have a curated financial twitter feed and things get tossed into my feed just depending on whatever is interesting that day to the swarm." At the risk of breaking this into a bigger discussion, this is what in my opinion is the biggies issue with the USA today. Twitter and Facebook don't show you news, they show you what they think you want to read. This is true in politics, sports, and apparently investing. See my above comment about my uncle and my sister in law.
Quote: What are you looking for? I did just see a link to an article that breaks down someones views on their situation and everything about it. Perused and looks fairly straightforward without too much slant either way, mostly financial in nature. I can throw you a link to that if you like." Seriously???????????
quote: "However, the Ford/Toyota comment doesnt give me a lot of confidence you’re approaching this from the same disinterested viewpoint thats willing to unemotionally assess new information. " You literally were bitching about them not selling cars, then when you report on them selling several hundred cars from one location, you call it a quote "crazy eddie sales event". WTF do you expect them to do. BTW, you realize they are only restricted from selling in a limited number of states. California, which is where the large weekend event was, does not have such restrictions. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/media/us-direct-sales-map.118772/full
Quote: "If tesla raises capital, the story continues and they have more time to make it. The issue is for some reason they havent." He stated in the q2 call that he was not restricted from raising capital. Coincidentally, it came out on twitter (I wouldn't have considered that a source, except that is apparently your source) today that they had taken out the first third of a 2B loan for the Shanghai factory recently. https://twitter.com/xzssx1te7oar9if/status/1038701568013430784?s=21
Quote: "The Musk thing is a real conundrum. Hes definitely not the right person for CEO/COO and yet he made them as big of a deal as they are today. Maybe he should have ceded those roles a few years back for visionary/chairman where he could do his thing and they could do whats best for the company." Yeah, I really don't know the right answer on this. He's a genius and a dufus. Time will tell which is greater. It'll be fun to watch.
Thanks for the insight into your thinking on the subject. I strongly suspect you'll discount my opinions and links, and I've watched your posts on here long enough to have a decent feel for the truth:statement ratio. The bond picture is scary though, and that is probably a far better arguement about the company.
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You seem very personally invested in this story and it seems you want to make it about me rather than anything else, which of course shouldnt matter at all. Tesla will be famously successful or go bust no matter my personal opinion on it. You're the one using "deep into the short narrative", anti vaxxer, trump, etc...I am only trying to look at it from a business standpoint, that is how does this business continue to fund itself until it can make a profit? If it cant make a profit how much and for how long can it continue to raise capital? Involving emotions and such is just a bad way to look at things.
And obviously none of us have all the facts and its crazy to even suppose anywhere near that, everything should be ranges and probabalistic when you approach things. Things change and new information arrives and your positions should update accordingly. I wouldnt be shocked for tsla to have a decent q3/4, they usually do and who knows with the weekend sale and whatevers happening in the books, zev credits, etc...anything could happen.
offered ZERO numbers or debatable facts
Serioiusly? It was full of charts that were straight from tsla financial filings.
I’m not here to debate, but I’m curious…Where do you get your news? Are you reading the same things I am and applying your slant, or are you ingesting information colored by writers you believe?”
This is not an ask for links. This is a general statement and accusation as to my sources and biases.
IF they continue to burn at that rate, they don’t run out till Mid 2019.
How is this a good thing? That is not a lot of runway and not something that makes you feel confident about a company. Sure, if this was a microcap with a low single digit PE, but its a macro cap with an exceedingly high valuation. Very different. Mid 2019 is tomorrow in business terms, not some far away time.
Perhaps that has not changed since, but it’d be pretty bold for Musk to broadcast painting 7000 cars in 7 days if
That was not the claim they made. I dont know why it would be that bold, he's made many a prediction about things that were bold and never came to pass, eg, Model 3 with 200k produced in 2017, of which they made 2700 a fact the SEC is investigating them for. He also said "funding secured", which was an outright lie. He tends to over sell and out right lie at times, this is not new behavior. The only new thing is that people are starting to pay attention.
"Musk has built an aura of being a bad-****************** billionaire who does what he wants. For the last several years, that's been great for Tesla. More recently, Musk's aura has seemed part jerk, part bully and part liar. He surely isn't winning new fans with how he's been acting. It's more likely he's losing supporters and, since he's the face of Tesla, that means Tesla is losing supporters."-Gene Munster, Loup Ventures (guy who believed they could go private and loves tesla, big supporter)
You literally were bitching about them not selling cars, then when you report on them selling several hundred cars from one location, you call it a quote “crazy eddie sales event”. WTF do you expect them to do. BTW, you realize they are only restricted from selling in a limited number of states. California, which is where the large weekend event was, does not have such restrictions.
Yes, because it signals several things and makes narratives in the supposed demand/reservations, production, inventory or sales in question or mutually exclusive. Yes, they need to sale cars to survive, obvious. However, theyve done nothing but talk trash about dealerships, etc...but just under all this scrutiny this weekend they randomly choose to do this? Why? Thats whats important.
Either they built more cars of a configuration that doesnt have the demand, they dont have the backlog in reservations claimed, etc...This is a huge departure for them. Maybe life saving cash infusion, so I understand why. However, just because its legal in California doesnt mean you dont need permits and all kinds of other regulations long before hand to act as such. Its not that they did it, its the departure and whatever the impetus to institute it was that is far more important. I think they called it a "delivery event", which may have been to skirt those rules, aka "not a flamethrower" tactics.
Link?
For this and all other similar things, you can find them if you want, Im not going to do the work.
Coincidentally, it came out on twitter (I wouldn’t have considered that a source, except that is apparently your source) today that they had taken out the first third of a 2B loan for the Shanghai factory recently.
This isnt funding, its registered capital. There was a row on twitter about the loose terminology one of the EV sites used giving that impression. It used to mean money that needed to be raised, which would be terrible, but some say you may be able to take loans against it, which would be good.
http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2014/07/30/raise-fold-changing-registered-capital-company-china.html old article about the term in china
Still, if they are able to raise capital they can fight for longer, or if they made enough this weekend but no one knows how many they sold.
The bond picture is scary though, and that is probably a far better arguement about the company.
Yes, their implied default is higher than Lehmans was before they filed, and if bond holders are concerned and thinking its 0.83c, equity gets wiped out.
Again, Im not saying thats guaranteed, just the game keeps stacking up against any other outcome, and the probabilities are increasing, but maybe he pulls a River card that saves the day. All possible, one is just more likely, which doesnt mean the opposite cant happen.
The only good sign tesla has going for it are the products, but if they cant get any operating leverage it doesnt matter. You cant make up losses with volume, and rushing product can undermine your good rep.Comment
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I'll nit-pic a few things, but like I said, I value this site too much to go deep into a pissing contest, especially one so inconsequential. If I'm "personally invested", it's only because I've started to reply to your post on here about this company before, and always deleted them, but this time the ridiculousness of "crazy eddie" caught me off guard and I took the bait. That was as absurd of a fact twist I've come across outside of college football message boards or facebook politics.
This is the link you posted. It seems it probably isn't the one you meant to post, but does seem to lend some perspective on your Tesla sources: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4205144-tesla-endgame No charts, no financial reports. Just emotion and prediction.
With regards to dealerships, Tesla has a dealers license and has operated as such in many states. I can walk onto the lot with a cashiers check and walk out with a car in my state, and twenty eight others, if the map posted above is legit. I suspect them going to that model has more to do with their generally poor supply chain management, and the realization that they want to push sales into q3 and they cannot build a car this week and sell it on the east coast in the next 20 days. I'd worry about the lack of demand if there weren't significantly more people bitching about not getting their car yet than those buying off the lots. I think there is probably some truth to the overbuilding certain configurations. Good thing they were able to sell them.
Why do you think the 7,000 cars tweet was a prediction not a report. It was widely reported on as a statement of accomplishment. https://www.news18.com/news/auto/tesla-hits-production-milestone-of-7000-cars-in-7-days-elon-musk-tweets-1797991.html Perhaps they built cars unpainted?
Regarding the China cash tweet...I don't know ************************ about corporate finance. I doubt you know as much as you think you do. I do know your slant is to believe the negative at each opportunity.
Personally, I wish staff would delete the thread. It takes away from the value of this forum, and the worst thing that could happen is this becoming a place for a bunch of overconfident amateur investors showing how easy it is to be misled. I'm implying you and I both in that statement.
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Seems only thing more polarizing than politics is probably Tesla investing financials.
I'd just like to keep the financials out of it --biggest irony on this forum, I know.
Let's talk about the cars -- and how a Model 3 recently blew a Corvette off the line.
https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-performance-crush-corvette/
Or that a Small Lux Sedan 0-60 in 3.2sec
https://insideevs.com/motor-trend-test-tesla-model-3-performance/
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