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I'm not so sure shareholders like the deal, I think its more of a case where they like Telsa despite the deal. Or more to the point, they consider the deal mor

I'm not so sure shareholders like the deal, I think its more of a case where they like Telsa despite the deal. Or more to the point, they consider the deal more of a distraction than something that will sink Telsa. When you think Tesla, you probably think electric car, or autonomous driving car, or Elon Musk. I mean if you hate the deal what are you going todo. The deal is almost certainly going to go through so holding shares just to vote against the deal won't do any good. You could short Tesla but over the past 5 years the street seems to love Tesla so much that bad news doesn't seem to affect the company that much. This is a stock that has had a high short interest number for a long time. And quarter after quarter they miss numbers but the stock goes up as the shorts are forced to cover their positions when the stock fails to drop. People aren't investing in Telsa due to any fundamental, int he financial sense, numbers, they are doing it on belief that Elon will come through. Which is good news for Tesla as they really need the short term investors on their side in the next year as they'll almost certainly have to raise cash to fund the production of the Model 3.

tcoppi 10y ago
I'm a Tesla investor, and I started increasing my position when the SolarCity deal was first talked about. The potential there with SolarCity's new panels and Tesla's advantage in battery pack manufacture is pretty big, and they seem to be the only company poised to take advantage of solar + battery technology applications in the short to medium term. That alone will justify a fairly large valuation in my mind, discounting any applications to the car manufacturing side of the house.
- chollida1 10y ago
  I'm also an investor and love Tesla and I agree completely with this.... > The potential there with SolarCity's new panels and Tesla's advantage in battery pack manufacture is pretty big, This however is just plain old wrong.... > and they seem to be the only company poised to take advantage of solar + battery technology applications in the short to medium term. have a look at this list... http://cleantechnica.com/2015/01/15/27-battery-storage-companies-watch/ http://cleantechnica.com/2015/01/15/27-battery-storage-compa... or http://www.enfsolar.com/directory/component/battery http://www.enfsolar.com/directory/component/battery There are many companies doing solar/batteries. Some are large and very well capitalized like GE and Siemens. The only way you could consider them "the only company poised to take advantage of solar + battery" is if you didn't bother to look for any other companies:) I like Tesla's future but in terms of solar+battery they have alot of competition and its not at all clear that they are even the leader.
  - tcoppi 10y ago
    Obviously there are a lot of other companies trying to do the same thing. And none of those companies will be able to compete with Tesla's pricing on the battery side as soon as the Gigafactory is fully online. They will be producing a very, very large proportion of the world's battery capacity and have the scale to bring costs down way below what anyone else is capable of for some years yet. There is risk there of not being able to meet demand between panel installs and model 3 orders, but I think that's a good problem to have. The panel side of SolarCity is a little less impressive, but the Silveo 360w panels are looking to be very competitive with other offerings in that range on price, though they will probably have lower absolute efficiency relative to the next-best offering that I know about from SunPower, and a large increase over most currently installed panel's wattage.
wklauss 10y ago
> When you think Tesla, you probably think electric car, or autonomous driving car, or Elon Musk. If you are an investor thinking in those terms, Tesla will probably seem like a terrible company. Overvalued and unlikely to succeed once traditional car companies start taking EV seriously. Like you say, there are no fundamentals to support current valuation and there will never be. The only way to look at Tesla is to think about it on more broad terms. It is a car manufacturer, yes, but it also is a company that provides a long range EV support infrastructure (superchargers), the (soon-to-be) largest Li-ion battery manufacturer, a domestic energy storage provider, etc... With that perspective in mind, SolarCity fits right within the catalog of product and services. Tesla is an engineering company focusing the different applications of renewable energy and batteries. Cars just happen to be one that offers an attractive market to address now and a personal interest for Musk. And that, I think, it's more than just faith in Elon coming through. It is a measurable market, albeit uncertain and dependent on a lot of social transformation and full of regulatory hurdles.
- dragontamer 10y ago
  The largest Li-ion cell manufacturer remains Panasonic, the other owner of the Gigafactory. The "Batteries" that Tesla builds are just a bunch of Panasonic cells wired together plus some smarts to distribute the load. I don't see Panasonic remaining Tesla-exclusive for an extended period of time.
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    The Tesla IP is just as important as the Panasonic IP though. It really is a joint venture. And Tesla, as the customer connection, has more leverage than Panasonic. They could cut Panasonic out of the next Gigafactory, but Panasonic can't start selling cars and home energy systems.
    - dragontamer 10y ago
      Panasonic owns half the Gigafactory. Tesla doesn't have any leverage here. Panasonic does what it wants. Tesla can decide to switch to another supplier, but Panasonic can just start selling to GM or Ford.

tcoppi 10y ago

I'm a Tesla investor, and I started increasing my position when the SolarCity deal was first talked about. The potential there with SolarCity's new panels and Tesla's advantage in battery pack manufacture is pretty big, and they seem to be the only company poised to take advantage of solar + battery technology applications in the short to medium term. That alone will justify a fairly large valuation in my mind, discounting any applications to the car manufacturing side of the house.

chollida1 10y ago
I'm also an investor and love Tesla and I agree completely with this.... > The potential there with SolarCity's new panels and Tesla's advantage in battery pack manufacture is pretty big, This however is just plain old wrong.... > and they seem to be the only company poised to take advantage of solar + battery technology applications in the short to medium term. have a look at this list... http://cleantechnica.com/2015/01/15/27-battery-storage-companies-watch/ http://cleantechnica.com/2015/01/15/27-battery-storage-compa... or http://www.enfsolar.com/directory/component/battery http://www.enfsolar.com/directory/component/battery There are many companies doing solar/batteries. Some are large and very well capitalized like GE and Siemens. The only way you could consider them "the only company poised to take advantage of solar + battery" is if you didn't bother to look for any other companies:) I like Tesla's future but in terms of solar+battery they have alot of competition and its not at all clear that they are even the leader.
- tcoppi 10y ago
  Obviously there are a lot of other companies trying to do the same thing. And none of those companies will be able to compete with Tesla's pricing on the battery side as soon as the Gigafactory is fully online. They will be producing a very, very large proportion of the world's battery capacity and have the scale to bring costs down way below what anyone else is capable of for some years yet. There is risk there of not being able to meet demand between panel installs and model 3 orders, but I think that's a good problem to have. The panel side of SolarCity is a little less impressive, but the Silveo 360w panels are looking to be very competitive with other offerings in that range on price, though they will probably have lower absolute efficiency relative to the next-best offering that I know about from SunPower, and a large increase over most currently installed panel's wattage.

wklauss 10y ago

> When you think Tesla, you probably think electric car, or autonomous driving car, or Elon Musk. If you are an investor thinking in those terms, Tesla will probably seem like a terrible company. Overvalued and unlikely to succeed once traditional car companies start taking EV seriously. Like you say, there are no fundamentals to support current valuation and there will never be. The only way to look at Tesla is to think about it on more broad terms. It is a car manufacturer, yes, but it also is a company that provides a long range EV support infrastructure (superchargers), the (soon-to-be) largest Li-ion battery manufacturer, a domestic energy storage provider, etc... With that perspective in mind, SolarCity fits right within the catalog of product and services. Tesla is an engineering company focusing the different applications of renewable energy and batteries. Cars just happen to be one that offers an attractive market to address now and a personal interest for Musk. And that, I think, it's more than just faith in Elon coming through. It is a measurable market, albeit uncertain and dependent on a lot of social transformation and full of regulatory hurdles.

dragontamer 10y ago
The largest Li-ion cell manufacturer remains Panasonic, the other owner of the Gigafactory. The "Batteries" that Tesla builds are just a bunch of Panasonic cells wired together plus some smarts to distribute the load. I don't see Panasonic remaining Tesla-exclusive for an extended period of time.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  The Tesla IP is just as important as the Panasonic IP though. It really is a joint venture. And Tesla, as the customer connection, has more leverage than Panasonic. They could cut Panasonic out of the next Gigafactory, but Panasonic can't start selling cars and home energy systems.
  - dragontamer 10y ago
    Panasonic owns half the Gigafactory. Tesla doesn't have any leverage here. Panasonic does what it wants. Tesla can decide to switch to another supplier, but Panasonic can just start selling to GM or Ford.