Electric Cars

That's cool, I was just saying that he was no one that I could put faith in. I would like an electric car myself, but I am 68, retired, and my paid for pickup gets 21mpg. Since I use a tank of gas each month, it would not be cost effective for me. You make good points for why it would be good for you. The extras to make the house zero net energy would cost more than my whole house. To build a house like that is for a rich man in my mind. Not even an option for me.

The numbers seem rational. When we first got married, we had a subscription to Alternative Housing magazine, which covered things like log cabins, sprayed concrete houses, and my favorite for this area, the "underground" house. The design we liked was an artificial hill built up around an insulated tilt-wall construction. It would have an open patio courtyard in the center with windows from all the rooms having windows into it. The super insulation and heat sink of all the soil maintains the temperature. A heat pump is still needed for heat and humidity control.
The problem then as now is that for something like that you have to have the capital up front to take it to the end. And we didn't have it. The type of home you want to build is no longer exotic, so should be able to borrow money for. We never had a choice, really. Our current home is super energy efficient compared to most. It is a mobile home with 6" of insulation, double pane glass, and it's completely shaded. Only requires heat 2 days a year on average. I don't know if you can build a standard construction home in Houston that can be livable without AC, to keep the humidity down as well as the heat. It would take a lot of solar cells to run a 3 ton AC. Our unit uses about 750 watts while running.

New York Times reported yesterday that Tesla is in a heap O'trouble.

www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/business/tesla-stock-shorts.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FTesla%20Motors%20Inc.&action=click&contentCollection=business®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

As far as I know, from talking to owners, they make a good car and built an extensive array of fast charging stations. I hope they succeed.

Doubtful

To be clear fellas,

I'm not a bonafide Tesla Fan Boy.

In fact, having been in the automotive industry since 1988, I was quite the opposite. When I first read about a silicon valley software guy starting a car company, an electric car company, an electric car company that used lap top batteries to power a modified Lotus?!?!?!?!?

How absurd.


Here's the thing though, despite him never hitting an estimated timeline, as it relates to delivery of products, he has beat all of the odds.

Tesla's charging network is by far the most comprehensive in the entire world!

His gigafactory is enormous and will in and of itself have a larger impact on Lithium Ion Battery Supplies than anything else in the foreseeable future.

Lastly, If you haven't driven / ridden in one of these vehicles (S, X or 3) then you really need to. The fit and finish is much better now than when the S first rolled off the line.

The performance is really unbelievable.

Well, you don't have to take it from the Times. Bloomberg Businessweek and the WSJ have similar reporting. Or you can go straight to the horse's mouth: Tesla's own filings.

ir.tesla.com/node/18946/html

Tesla's official disclosures to shareholders look very, very serious:

• They're losing over a billion dollars every quarter. Four to six billion dollars a year.


• As of June, they had 2.2 billion in cash on hand, and 1.8 billion that was already owed to suppliers. Not loans, just accounts payable. Unpaid invoices, twisting in the wind.


• They are already burdened with 2.6 billion dollars in outstanding loans, at high interest rates.


• They have 3.2 billion dollars in unsold inventory, while they publicly claim to have thousands of people on waiting lists to buy cars. Something doesn't add up. Have they been manufacturing unsaleable cars just to bump production numbers?
  

In short, Tesla needs to raise money immediately if its shareholders wish it to remain a going concern. Honestly, they probably needed to raise that money three months ago.

Their balance sheet and bond ratings are too ugly to raise any more money as debt. They probably need to issue stock, or else it will be Ch 11 + 363 sales, or straight up Ch 7. There's no way to operate the company as it stands today without new money.

The SEC probe, and a CEO implicated in defrauding investors, will make it impossible to sell a new stock offering. That's a non-starter.

Tesla did some really cool stuff but the company has been mis-managed. I fear they may go down not because their technology was bad, or the price points didn't work, but because they haven't properly handled the nuts-and-bolts matters of accounting and process control.

yer killin me smells.  Bloomberg is in the same camp as the times.

I don't have time to respond to each of the soundbites you've posted, most all excerpts from the sources you cited, but  I will say this.

The amount of money you're talking about here, though not a measly sum, is by far much less than GM borrowed from the Fed, not to mention the amount they stiffed their Preferred Stock holders.


In the end Elon has been at war with the Short Gamblers for some time now.  Admittedly his tweet, though not the best move, was most likely legit, and he did have intentions of taking the company private, royally screwin the short betters.

The DOJ actions are not surprising, though disappointing.  I'd much rather see them pursue more worthwhile endeavors than to be pulled into a pissin contest between wallstreet short sellers and their ilk.



Some soundbites you left out...

Tesla owns 87% of the EV Market in the U.S.

World wide EV sales have been increasing some 40% to 50% a year.  Admittedly they still account for less than 5% of the total sales, but all indications are that we are in exponential upswing of the s curve.

The fact that more Model 3's are being produced weekly and that the Base Model will be available by years end, all bode well for Tesla.

As to the Unsold Inventory claim.  It is my understanding that much of those figures is an inaccurate extrapolation derived from inventory that Tesla "chose" not to sell, trying to minimize the number of cars sold somewhat, keeping them below the threshold maximums, thus allowing them to offer the full Fed rebate on all cars sold for another quarter.
After the end of that time the $7500 rebate reduces significantly.


All of this being said, I should mention that I am not a Tesla owner and I do not own any stock or positions with Tesla.  I also don't share Elon's convictions, as they relate to MMGW, but I d appreciate his genius and his accomplishments.

I do hope that all of the feeding frenzy by the press, undoubtedly brought on by his comments and treatment of Main Stream Media and Publications.

In the end I think we will be much better off is Tesla does succeed and prosper.  It will no doubt come at the expense of other industries, i.e. the utilities, and the I.C.E. manufacturers as well as the oil & gas folks.

 I like the concept of electric cars, it's just that they don't have the range I need and there are too few charging stations available. Now if you could charge an electric car like fueling up a regular car they would be great. A hybrid would fill my needs. I'm now likely to buy a new car. Used maybe should the need arise. So it's a mute point most likely.


  

The Chevrolet Volt was originally intended to be a "series" hybrid. In its original conception, the gas engine would only be a generator to charge batteries once you exceeded the range of what you charged at home.

As the project continued, they realized the efficiency gains at high speed were too compelling to leave the gas engine out of the direct drivetrain connection. So the Volt, as-sold, will couple the engine to the wheels if you go over 50 mph or something like that.

If you charge at home, and avoid highways, a Volt can be operated purely electrically. It's essentially an electric car that also has the range of a gas car, when you need it.

Smells,

Thanks you for the Rational and Civil Response.

In the end, I can't argue with the facts you've presented.


Their inventory decision, "Slow Walking Deliveries" for the first 1/2 of this year, as I understand it, allows them to keep getting the entire Federal Rebate on all of the cars they sell throughout the end of the year.

It is theorized that they will use this to entice folks to buy their more expensive offerings (much larger profit margins) vs their $35K base model.


As for the Cash Infusion???

Musk is supposedly worth $20 Billion. (not sure how much of that is on paper only due to tesla holdings).

If we were to predict the future, based off of previous experiences, I'd wager that he would most likely put his own money into it again if need be.


Any time at all on the web today reveals that musk is also getting sued by the cave diver over his "pedo" tweets.

Add this to smokin ganja on the air, definitely plenty of fuel for the fire of discontent, whether it's bein fanned by the haters (shorters) or not.


cheers

To be clear, the NYT is not making this opinion, they are reporting what fund managers and other investors are telling them. True, they did not include others who are bullish on Tesla.

Tesla will go the way of California and the Barrett .50cal. Barrett Built fiddys for all the California law enforcement agencies then California decided that the fiddy had no place in the hands of a recreational gun owner soooooooo.......... Barrett stopped selling parts to the California law enforcement agencies