There is a lot of negative sentiment around Tesla lately. The Giga Factory was supposed to be Tesla's greatest asset, its largest advantage in the market, that enables exponential growth of production and sales. It looks like bears are coming for Tesla if they don't step up their game.
That’s a silly analogy. Theranos clearly falsified their technology and were able to do it by hiding their product from their consumers. Tesla not only has been selling their product for years, but many of their consumers are very happy with the results. If things go south for Tesla, it’ll likely be the lack of political will, particularly from this president, to extend green energy credits and foster this nascent industry. That’s even discounting trade wars with China since China conditions were expected to deteriorate to some degree anyway. You can see what a difference political will makes when you read how Tesla is doing in Norway.
>Theranos clearly falsified their technology and were able to do it by hiding their product from their consumers
I guess that depends on which products you are talking about, right?
Full-Self Driving? Solar Shingles? Battery Swap? Starting insurance companies? Hyperloops? Tesla has made plenty of promises about technology that hasn't come into existence.
I see you've already developed your narative, however: Tesla will only fail because of politics. The atrocious financials, a CEO who is hard to work with, massive exodus of talent, employee abuse, poor product quality...none of that will be the reason.
>You can see what a difference political will makes when you read how Tesla is doing in Norway.
Earth shattering news: when you massively subsidize expensive consumer goods, people buy more. Can you tell me what the Norway data is saying now? (Hint: I know, and it's not good for Tesla).
There's so much FUD it's hard to know where to start. You start with a rebuttal on "clearly falsified their technologies" and then transition to examples of how Tesla talked about products that people can't buy yet. Completely Apples and Oranges. Where's "The Machine" from HP? What happened to Seagate's IP-driven Key-Value Drive? Both really cool products they worked on but didn't manage to get out there as everyday products. Full-Self Driving is one example. Tesla is working on it, but they are also describing different levels of Autopilot to the media and you are just focusing on one. The products of Tesla people talk about are the ones that provide the vast majority of their revenue and profit. The ones they are currently driving and reviewing.
I didn't say Tesla could only fail due to politics. I said that's a sizable component of their early stage effort not crossing the finish line. You dismiss the many reports of very happy product owners, which doesn't fit the narrative you have developed. Apple was frequently described as a place that had employee abuse, particularly the way Jobs treated some of his engineers, but they made great products. A company could very well be poor in some aspects but can still do well.
And your Earth shattering news is my point. If the US did what Norway did, Tesla would be doing great and a number of our nascent electric car industries would definitely survive the early-stage. This also goes to political will on forcing more automated driving areas like what China is doing by building out.
Sure, there are plenty of other ways Tesla could crash and burn as a company, including being out-competed, but all of this is just side-stepping what was a completely ridiculous analogy between a fraudulent company that intentionally misrepresented their one main product, and a public company shipping product that is routinely reviewed and scrutinized. If you can't see this, you are so wrapped up in your narrative that you are blind.
> I don't understand this argument. Not saying Tesla is Theranos, but Theranos ran on hope and dreams for 10 years.
Amazon ran on losses for many years and it played out in the end. By choosing what company you compare Tesla to, you already choose a particular narrative. It's worthless as an argument and if you have a reason for your belief, it's more useful to discuss that rather than arbitrary comparisons.
>Amazon ran on losses for many years and it played out in the end.
It's comments like this that demonstrate just how unprepared some people are going to be if Tesla fails. Brush up on your finance.
If you don't see the parallels between the companies, not sure what to tell you. But I'll mark this comment, because assuredly you'll say, "where were the signs!". Just like some other big name posters about Theranos.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Amazon also didn't need the kind of large capital infusions that Tesla needs (in virtue of their industry and their pioneering efforts within it).
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) issued $16B of bonds across seven tranches on Tuesday in the company's biggest bond deal on record. It was the fourth largest deal of 2017, and one of the 20 largest bond deals on record.
The argument is that most of those negative stories are "if it bleeds it reads" style stories rather than substantive analysis.
That doesn't mean they are ultimately wrong, but it does mean that much of the negative sentiment is no more grounded in reality than the positive sentiment.
And in the long term, one of them is bound to be right. Just like people, the vast majority of companies that ever lived are also dead now.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate and support and enjoy them while they're here. Tesla's stated goal is to advance the state of transportation, and they can do that whether they're in it for the long term, or just shake things up for a while and force everyone else to catch up. Sort of like Tucker or Studebaker, IMHO.
I'm too young to have owned a Tucker when they were new, but I'd be proud to have done so. Whatever happens to Tesla, I want to be able to say I was part of it.
> Whatever happens to Tesla, I want to be able to say I was part of it.
Good luck - and I sincerely mean this. I cancelled my Model 3 preorder just this morning after waiting for over 3 years. Still no ETA for them here in the UK. Meanwhile the rest of the global automotive market has caught up. I genuinely hope that my £1000 interest free loan was at least some use to the company in that time.
> Tesla's stated goal is to advance the state of transportation
There's no denying that they've achieved this and given the other manufacturers a much-needed kick up the ass in the process. Practical, desirable electric vehicles are here and they're here to stay, and pretty much entirely thanks to Tesla.
A friend has had a few Model S's since they were released and they're incredible cars, just unfortunately too expensive for me to justify at the moment. I'm still backing Tesla in spirit but there's no denying that they have a lot of issues and that their USP is rapidly disappearing as other manufacturers bring practical electric cars onto the market. Unfortunately mass producing vehicles is a hard problem that Tesla still seem to be working out.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. AFAIK, the schedule was always for the second half of the year, and they've been reaffirming June for first deliveries. They are clearly struggling with European deliveries, but the factory has been at a steady run rate of ~250k model 3s per year for the last 9 months or so. Add in the additional 50-100k run rate of S/X to that, and the plant is at least 350k per year.
For perspective, BMW's largest plant produces ~440k/year.
"The" Giga Factory doesn't exist anymore. There are three now and Tesla is shifting focus away from the first one because in China the demand is higher.
>There is a lot of negative sentiment around Tesla lately.
Because the mainstream press is catching up to things that "the Shorts" have been seeing and saying for a long time.
It's a fact that Teslas are great cars. It's also a fact that the quality is just okay, that the market for $50k+ vehicles is limited, and that Tesla can't produce a $35k vehicle at a profit.
If people bought into the idea that you were getting a fully autonomous car that would drive itself around and make you money while you slept, for $35,000 before incentives...I'm not sure what to say. But it seems like many people did.
That is a really good point and one that I haven't thought of much. I've always considered "most popular" company as a signal of overvaluation, though I've certainly never analyzed that rigorously.
But is there a similar correlation with "most popular short" and future success? Its definitely possible.
Fair point, I wouldn't say simply being contrarian is the solution. Shorts do great work and can profit immensely from finding the truth, as they should, but personally feel the financial media is a Dr. Frankenstein which creates it's own monsters. There's plenty of examples of "common knowledge" in the year before the Great Recession. All sorts of talking heads lined up to re-iterate the _truth_.
It is possible to short a viable company into bankruptcy and win from it, this is something that should be acknowledged.
