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>Of more concern to Tesla investors: What if he knows something they don’t know about the company’s financial future — and is hoping to hang any failure on the

>Of more concern to Tesla investors: What if he knows something they don’t know about the company’s financial future — and is hoping to hang any failure on the nasty, overreaching regulators rather than his own dubious management skills? That seems very possible. I think the reality of scaling up Tesla to live up to its valuation might be too daunting for Elon to handle. It might even be impossible. EV sales as a % of total vehicle sales is surprisingly low. If EV's do take off, it's likely to be the established car manufacturers who are good at making cars at scale who eventually capitalize on the opportunity. And the most likely to drive the S-curve adoption. Being taken out by the SEC would be a way to keep confidence in Elon Musk Inc going which would obviously be beneficial to his other companies. He could even team up with Mark Cuban to rail against them on Twitter.

appsonify 8y ago
I agree, that Musk is hiding something, one that would seriously hamper his reputation. I think it might have to do something with the Solar City acquisition. He doesn't want to admit he fucked up and failed because it would cast doubt on all his other half-baked ideas. Tesla will definitely feel the pressure from other car manufacturers, but so far it has nothing much to worry about as the only really viable game changer as of now is the Hyundai Kona Electric. The new Audi e-tron was promising but ruined it with using electric mirrors which require your eyes to focus on far objects and near objects unlike a normal mirror, and heavy steel frame, which pretty much negates any excellent regen (due to heavy weight). The Jaguar i-Pace is also a good alternative, but I feel like Hyundai's Kona E is an unbeatable value. Forget Chevy Bolt & Nissan Leaf....garbage. The model 3 is seriously bad....did you see the interior? it's empty....its completely void apart from the giant tablet thing....the price is it's killing point.....now that there are are viable alternatives.
- sk5t 8y ago
  Let's see how it goes with the Porsche Taycan. Porsche minds the engineering details that Audi, for some strange reason, often misses.
  - appsonify 8y ago
    ah I was not aware that Porsche did that, is there example of this? I'm a petrolhead myself.
- vvillena 8y ago
  It's a shame there's no love for small cars in America. Renault-Nissan applied the lessons learned with the Leaf to a subcompact, the Renault Zoe, and it's a great car.
  - Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
    I love my Subaru BRZ! I want a Tesla Roadster for my next car, but that $200k price tag is hard to swallow. If they could produce a $120k model with a 300 mile range and 0-60 in around 3 seconds rather than a 620 mile range with 0-60 in 1.9 seconds, I'd buy it. But really if anybody else came up with a small, sporty, EV coupe, I'd consider it. The Model S P100D is a quick car, but way too big. Even the smaller Model 3 is bigger than what I'd like.
    - vvillena 8y ago
      Honda is moving its Urban EV concept to production, so let's hope they'll give some love to their Sports EV concept too!
  - appsonify 8y ago
    You mean those small Japanese Kei cars? They are really cute.
    - vvillena 8y ago
      No no, subcompacts are bigger than that. An electric car made to comply with kei car regulations is the Mitshubishi I-miev / Citroen C-Zero, which is 3.50m long and less than 1.50m wide. This compromises the whole car. Having driven it, it doesn't really feel good. The Zoe is 4m long and about 1.70m wide. That's the same dimensions as the rest of the cars in its segment. This "Ford Fiesta" size is great for European cities, and the cars don't feel compromised on the higher speed roads, as their size and weight makes them more agile than bigger cars, whose only real advantage is space and stability at higher, illegal speeds.
      - appsonify 8y ago
- anth_anm 8y ago
  It's not hidden, Tesla has massive debts coming due and the stop price is nowhere near the point where they can get away with not paying cash. The Model 3 is a reasonable 30k car. maybe 35. If they can actually get the price down to that point it might be worth it.
DennisP 8y ago
It'd be daunting even if he weren't simultaneously running a space launch company and personally leading the rocket engine design team: https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=21 https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=21 Though if it's all too much and he'd rather focus on rockets, I don't see why he wouldn't just step down as Tesla CEO. If things go south he could just blame the new CEO.
- HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
  Musk is basing his entire funding plans for Mars colonisation in Tesla succeeding. Read his new CEO contract, it's another moon shot. He doesn't intend to step down any time soon. Apparently a new wave of shorts FUD has started to spread now which probably means Tesla has something new to unveil and people are preparing for the next round of hate. Let's see how the semi and the Y turn out.
  - DennisP 8y ago
    The funding plan for Mars is based on the SpaceX satellite internet business. The only way Tesla can contribute is if Musk donates his personal shares or compensation, unless somehow he can make a Mars trip profitable for the other Tesla shareholders.
    - HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
      >The only way Tesla can contribute is if Musk donates his personal shares or compensation Why donate? He can just slowly sell shares just like Bezos does with Amazon. And Starlink is something Musk can't fun alone.
  - anth_anm 8y ago
    Engaging in blatant stock manipulation then blatantly violating your SEC settlement is not "shorts FUD".
- anth_anm 8y ago
  > personally leading the rocket engine design team and the propulsion department
techslave 8y ago
> EV sales as a % of total vehicle sales is surprisingly low. What’s surprising about it?
- unityByFreedom 8y ago
  Tesla's valuation
  - xiphias2 8y ago
    Tesla's growing 50% / year, and the valuation shows expected future earnings. Only some Chinese electric car companies grow faster than Tesla. So far it looks like in 10 years electric cars will get cheaper than gas cars, which makes the case for the future earnings potential.
    - unityByFreedom 8y ago
      Eh, I'm pretty sure a big factor of the valuation is full self driving, and that isn't happening anytime soon despite Musk's repeated insistence it is only a year or two away from when he last said so.
      - xiphias2 8y ago
        Probably you're right, but I still hope not. Elon Musk just redefined the expression full self driving to having all the features for self driving in the last conference call, like detecting signs and changing lanes automatically. Of course we know that it's very far from it (even though I believe Tesla is doing the data gathering part extremely well)
travisoneill1 8y ago
> If EV's do take off, it's likely to be the established car manufacturers who are good at making cars at scale who eventually capitalize on the opportunity. This is what I used to think, but every year the "Tesla killers" fail to kill, or even wound. I never even hear about the other EV's by themselves, only as the competition to Tesla. Anybody who watches the news would have known that the Model 3 was a colossal failure. But it wasn't. It was just 6 months late, which is not bad given the scale of the project. The narrative is just not reality here. Tesla has a head start on the industry. That doesn't guarantee anything, but I think that it's a bigger advantage to Tesla than it would be to any other car company because one of Elon Musk's strengths (Spacex too) is iteration speed. Last I heard they got the price down to $45K, so they are in striking distance of the $35K target and won't stop there. EV's are mechanically simpler than gas powered cars. Once the technology and economies of scale are there, they will be cheaper. And I don't see any other company in a better position to get there first. Edit: Predicting that the established players being the ones to take the lead in a new technology sounds like common sense, but it isn't: > It's likely to be the established electronics companies who are good at making electronics that take the lead in semi-conductor manufacturing. > It's likely to be the established mail order companies who are good at delivery logistics that take the lead in online retail. > It's likely to be the established taxi companies who are good at running taxi fleets (and have a legal monopoly) that take the lead in ride sharing apps. If the pattern holds (which is not by any means guaranteed), Tesla has more to fear from a yet to be founded startup than it does from the legacy car manufacturers.
- lisper 8y ago
  > every year the "Tesla killers" fail to kill, or even wound That's true, but I think it's because of bad marketing rather than bad technology. The Chevy Bolt has the specs to beat the Model 3, but it is being positioned as a low-end car, a competitor to the Honda Civic rather than the Model 3. Power seats, for example, are not even offered as an option. That is not a car a rich person is going to buy to impress their friends. But GM could easily turn it into such a car. They obviously know how to make power seats. All the heavy lifting has been done. I have no idea why they aren't doing it, but GM has a long history of shooting itself in the foot when it comes to electric vehicles.
newsbinator 8y ago
This begs the question: does Elon Musk seem like the kind of person who isn't willing to fail in public? Whether it's for personality reasons or for the sake of keeping his other companies well respected, is he unwilling to let the public lose confidence in him and/or his projects? My guess is he doesn't care that much about our opinions of him, personally and professionally. He might be picking a fight with the SEC simply because he can. There's something to be said for having "FU money" and using it, in the near-literal sense.
- newen 8y ago
  > My guess is he doesn't care that much about our opinions of him, personally and professionally. Hahahaha. Everything about his twitter account says the exact opposite.
- elliekelly 8y ago
  There’s no such thing as “FU money” with the SEC though. They can bar him from serving in any fiduciary capacity on behalf of any company under their jurisdiction. For life. Musk is playing with fire.
  - berbec 8y ago
    I argue Bezos has FU money. He's about to lose half+ to his ex, and basically is funding a personal war against the Enquirer. I am sure he will spend them into the ground.
  - newsbinator 8y ago
    I agree that I wouldn't be playing with fire in his position, but I'm not surprised that someone with a track record of unicorns is doing things that nobody else would fathom to do. Either he's very bad at this and getting worse, or he knows something we don't.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    In the US. The world's a big place.
  - 8y ago
L_226 8y ago
I have always thought that the real potential in Tesla is a fully-realised gigafactory. When you can near totally automate complex manufacturing at scale, you can basically whitelabel the factory as a product in and of itself (or put it in orbit and build Mars habitats :)
kwhitefoot 8y ago
> If EV's do take off EV's have already taken off. It's only a matter of time before the fossil fuelled car business is just a niche product.
mcv 8y ago
> If EV's do take off, it's likely to be the established car manufacturers But Elon Musk has said that that's what he wants. He doesn't want Tesla to win, he wants EVs to win. That's one of the things I admire about him. But be acting flaky and irresponsible, and picking stupid fights, he's undermining people's confidence in Elon Musk, which reflects on his companies, and possibly on his product: EVs. I think it would be much better for his companies and for EVs in general if he ran his companies in a responsible and reliable manner, and he didn't pick stupid fights.
manicdee 8y ago
Or Musk thinks picking fights with regulatory authorities is a war he can win. Or Musk just doesn’t give a damn about the SEC considering they take his tweets more seriously than the deliberate market manipulation practised daily by various publications in concert with big investors. Maybe Musk feels that spaceflight to Mars is so close that he can afford to thumb his nose at US regulators because he will just move to Mars where they have no reach.

appsonify 8y ago

I agree, that Musk is hiding something, one that would seriously hamper his reputation. I think it might have to do something with the Solar City acquisition. He doesn't want to admit he fucked up and failed because it would cast doubt on all his other half-baked ideas. Tesla will definitely feel the pressure from other car manufacturers, but so far it has nothing much to worry about as the only really viable game changer as of now is the Hyundai Kona Electric. The new Audi e-tron was promising but ruined it with using electric mirrors which require your eyes to focus on far objects and near objects unlike a normal mirror, and heavy steel frame, which pretty much negates any excellent regen (due to heavy weight). The Jaguar i-Pace is also a good alternative, but I feel like Hyundai's Kona E is an unbeatable value. Forget Chevy Bolt & Nissan Leaf....garbage. The model 3 is seriously bad....did you see the interior? it's empty....its completely void apart from the giant tablet thing....the price is it's killing point.....now that there are are viable alternatives.

sk5t 8y ago
Let's see how it goes with the Porsche Taycan. Porsche minds the engineering details that Audi, for some strange reason, often misses.
- appsonify 8y ago
  ah I was not aware that Porsche did that, is there example of this? I'm a petrolhead myself.
vvillena 8y ago
It's a shame there's no love for small cars in America. Renault-Nissan applied the lessons learned with the Leaf to a subcompact, the Renault Zoe, and it's a great car.
- Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
  I love my Subaru BRZ! I want a Tesla Roadster for my next car, but that $200k price tag is hard to swallow. If they could produce a $120k model with a 300 mile range and 0-60 in around 3 seconds rather than a 620 mile range with 0-60 in 1.9 seconds, I'd buy it. But really if anybody else came up with a small, sporty, EV coupe, I'd consider it. The Model S P100D is a quick car, but way too big. Even the smaller Model 3 is bigger than what I'd like.
  - vvillena 8y ago
    Honda is moving its Urban EV concept to production, so let's hope they'll give some love to their Sports EV concept too!
- appsonify 8y ago
  You mean those small Japanese Kei cars? They are really cute.
  - vvillena 8y ago
    No no, subcompacts are bigger than that. An electric car made to comply with kei car regulations is the Mitshubishi I-miev / Citroen C-Zero, which is 3.50m long and less than 1.50m wide. This compromises the whole car. Having driven it, it doesn't really feel good. The Zoe is 4m long and about 1.70m wide. That's the same dimensions as the rest of the cars in its segment. This "Ford Fiesta" size is great for European cities, and the cars don't feel compromised on the higher speed roads, as their size and weight makes them more agile than bigger cars, whose only real advantage is space and stability at higher, illegal speeds.
    - appsonify 8y ago
anth_anm 8y ago
It's not hidden, Tesla has massive debts coming due and the stop price is nowhere near the point where they can get away with not paying cash. The Model 3 is a reasonable 30k car. maybe 35. If they can actually get the price down to that point it might be worth it.

DennisP 8y ago

It'd be daunting even if he weren't simultaneously running a space launch company and personally leading the rocket engine design team: https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=21 https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=21 Though if it's all too much and he'd rather focus on rockets, I don't see why he wouldn't just step down as Tesla CEO. If things go south he could just blame the new CEO.

HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
Musk is basing his entire funding plans for Mars colonisation in Tesla succeeding. Read his new CEO contract, it's another moon shot. He doesn't intend to step down any time soon. Apparently a new wave of shorts FUD has started to spread now which probably means Tesla has something new to unveil and people are preparing for the next round of hate. Let's see how the semi and the Y turn out.
- DennisP 8y ago
  The funding plan for Mars is based on the SpaceX satellite internet business. The only way Tesla can contribute is if Musk donates his personal shares or compensation, unless somehow he can make a Mars trip profitable for the other Tesla shareholders.
  - HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
    >The only way Tesla can contribute is if Musk donates his personal shares or compensation Why donate? He can just slowly sell shares just like Bezos does with Amazon. And Starlink is something Musk can't fun alone.
- anth_anm 8y ago
  Engaging in blatant stock manipulation then blatantly violating your SEC settlement is not "shorts FUD".
anth_anm 8y ago
> personally leading the rocket engine design team and the propulsion department

techslave 8y ago

> EV sales as a % of total vehicle sales is surprisingly low. What’s surprising about it?

unityByFreedom 8y ago
Tesla's valuation
- xiphias2 8y ago
  Tesla's growing 50% / year, and the valuation shows expected future earnings. Only some Chinese electric car companies grow faster than Tesla. So far it looks like in 10 years electric cars will get cheaper than gas cars, which makes the case for the future earnings potential.
  - unityByFreedom 8y ago
    Eh, I'm pretty sure a big factor of the valuation is full self driving, and that isn't happening anytime soon despite Musk's repeated insistence it is only a year or two away from when he last said so.
    - xiphias2 8y ago
      Probably you're right, but I still hope not. Elon Musk just redefined the expression full self driving to having all the features for self driving in the last conference call, like detecting signs and changing lanes automatically. Of course we know that it's very far from it (even though I believe Tesla is doing the data gathering part extremely well)

travisoneill1 8y ago

> If EV's do take off, it's likely to be the established car manufacturers who are good at making cars at scale who eventually capitalize on the opportunity. This is what I used to think, but every year the "Tesla killers" fail to kill, or even wound. I never even hear about the other EV's by themselves, only as the competition to Tesla. Anybody who watches the news would have known that the Model 3 was a colossal failure. But it wasn't. It was just 6 months late, which is not bad given the scale of the project. The narrative is just not reality here. Tesla has a head start on the industry. That doesn't guarantee anything, but I think that it's a bigger advantage to Tesla than it would be to any other car company because one of Elon Musk's strengths (Spacex too) is iteration speed. Last I heard they got the price down to $45K, so they are in striking distance of the $35K target and won't stop there. EV's are mechanically simpler than gas powered cars. Once the technology and economies of scale are there, they will be cheaper. And I don't see any other company in a better position to get there first. Edit: Predicting that the established players being the ones to take the lead in a new technology sounds like common sense, but it isn't: > It's likely to be the established electronics companies who are good at making electronics that take the lead in semi-conductor manufacturing. > It's likely to be the established mail order companies who are good at delivery logistics that take the lead in online retail. > It's likely to be the established taxi companies who are good at running taxi fleets (and have a legal monopoly) that take the lead in ride sharing apps. If the pattern holds (which is not by any means guaranteed), Tesla has more to fear from a yet to be founded startup than it does from the legacy car manufacturers.

lisper 8y ago
> every year the "Tesla killers" fail to kill, or even wound That's true, but I think it's because of bad marketing rather than bad technology. The Chevy Bolt has the specs to beat the Model 3, but it is being positioned as a low-end car, a competitor to the Honda Civic rather than the Model 3. Power seats, for example, are not even offered as an option. That is not a car a rich person is going to buy to impress their friends. But GM could easily turn it into such a car. They obviously know how to make power seats. All the heavy lifting has been done. I have no idea why they aren't doing it, but GM has a long history of shooting itself in the foot when it comes to electric vehicles.

newsbinator 8y ago

This begs the question: does Elon Musk seem like the kind of person who isn't willing to fail in public? Whether it's for personality reasons or for the sake of keeping his other companies well respected, is he unwilling to let the public lose confidence in him and/or his projects? My guess is he doesn't care that much about our opinions of him, personally and professionally. He might be picking a fight with the SEC simply because he can. There's something to be said for having "FU money" and using it, in the near-literal sense.

newen 8y ago
> My guess is he doesn't care that much about our opinions of him, personally and professionally. Hahahaha. Everything about his twitter account says the exact opposite.
elliekelly 8y ago
There’s no such thing as “FU money” with the SEC though. They can bar him from serving in any fiduciary capacity on behalf of any company under their jurisdiction. For life. Musk is playing with fire.
- berbec 8y ago
  I argue Bezos has FU money. He's about to lose half+ to his ex, and basically is funding a personal war against the Enquirer. I am sure he will spend them into the ground.
- newsbinator 8y ago
  I agree that I wouldn't be playing with fire in his position, but I'm not surprised that someone with a track record of unicorns is doing things that nobody else would fathom to do. Either he's very bad at this and getting worse, or he knows something we don't.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  In the US. The world's a big place.
- 8y ago

L_226 8y ago

I have always thought that the real potential in Tesla is a fully-realised gigafactory. When you can near totally automate complex manufacturing at scale, you can basically whitelabel the factory as a product in and of itself (or put it in orbit and build Mars habitats :)

kwhitefoot 8y ago

> If EV's do take off EV's have already taken off. It's only a matter of time before the fossil fuelled car business is just a niche product.

mcv 8y ago

> If EV's do take off, it's likely to be the established car manufacturers But Elon Musk has said that that's what he wants. He doesn't want Tesla to win, he wants EVs to win. That's one of the things I admire about him. But be acting flaky and irresponsible, and picking stupid fights, he's undermining people's confidence in Elon Musk, which reflects on his companies, and possibly on his product: EVs. I think it would be much better for his companies and for EVs in general if he ran his companies in a responsible and reliable manner, and he didn't pick stupid fights.

manicdee 8y ago

Or Musk thinks picking fights with regulatory authorities is a war he can win. Or Musk just doesn’t give a damn about the SEC considering they take his tweets more seriously than the deliberate market manipulation practised daily by various publications in concert with big investors. Maybe Musk feels that spaceflight to Mars is so close that he can afford to thumb his nose at US regulators because he will just move to Mars where they have no reach.