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The stock is blazing! Weed jokes aside, the market has finally caught up to the fact that Tesla is years ahead of their competitors. I bought my Model 3 18 mon

The stock is blazing! Weed jokes aside, the market has finally caught up to the fact that Tesla is years ahead of their competitors. I bought my Model 3 18 months ago and it felt like buying a car from the future. I think my feeling was correct. 2019 saw a number of serious competitors (Audi, MB, VW, Porche) release their first EVs and they've all been somewhat disappointing. Very solid first releases taken in isolation, but the market expectations were that the "Big Boys" were coming in and were going to wipe the floor with Tesla. Turns out they couldn't, Tesla's head start is real and consequential. If you go out and actually try to put down $40-50k on a car and judge all EVs on a collection of attributes (range, efficiency, safety, charging options, tech, etc) Tesla clearly stands out. It's tough to convince yourself to put down a nearly-equivalent amount of hard-earned money for another brand, so it is no coincidence that they outsell other EVs by a very wide margin.

disconnected 7y ago
> the market has finally caught up to the fact that Tesla is years ahead of their competitors. Incorrect. The stock value is being pushed up by: 1. Unexpected quarterly profits in October; 2. Tesla planning to open a new factory in China and securing a 1.4 Billion dollar loan to do so; 3. Apparent strong interest in the Cybertruck and the impending announcement of the Model Y; 4. USA and China are easing the trade war, which is pushing the whole stock market up (there have been "records" left and right in the past few days). But the big one is number 2. Tesla moving into China means that they can tap into the humongous Chinese market.
- martythemaniak 7y ago
  Well, TSLA is a very sentiment-heavy stock, so it's hard or impossible to say what exactly caused this recent run. For example, they've been guiding Q3 and Q4 profitablity since ~Q2 or earlier. They started building the Shanghai factory in Q1, the Model Y was announced in March, the Truck's been talked up since forever, etc. What's really changed is that the Taycan is no longer a mystery, but a real car with a real price tag and real range. The ID.3 is almost-real and struggling with software issues. The E-Tron, new Leaf, new Bolt, etc have real sales figures. When these were unknowns, you could be reasonably skeptical of Tesla's claims, but that's increasingly untenable. Or, as the great Silicon Valley philosothoughtleader Russ Hanneman said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo
- rhacker 7y ago
  Everything you just typed can be explained by the phrase "Tesla is years ahead of their competitors", so not sure why you're so solid on that "Incorrect" statement.
- rory096 7y ago
  >impending announcement of the Model Y The Model Y was announced in mid-March, to generally negative reviews/market reaction.
- CyanLite2 7y ago
  Stock is up mostly because of short-covering. This is what a textbook case of a short-squeeze looks like.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Tesla already sells cars in the Chinese market, especially since there is really no other EV luxury alternative and Beijing ICE plate lottery allocations are lower than the EV ones. The factory means Model3s no longer need to be imported, so should be cheaper.
- m0zg 7y ago
  5. Tesla is one of the most manipulated large cap stocks on Wall Street. You're observing one of the many rounds of a pump and dump and 6 months from now it'll be at just above 200 again as something "bad" is discovered by the "free" press just in time for the big players to cash out again. Anyone who buys at 420 is a sucker.
stoicShell 7y ago
Here's what most surprised me recently, which compounds all your points. Middle of Nowhere, France, 11 AM. My Uber arrives, a cool Model 3, "huh, great!" I thought, "I'm gonna pry this guy's brain for info on EV's." Sure thing the driver was a talker and over the course of the next 20 minutes proceeded to tell me all the good and bad, in his opinion — it was his 3rd or 4th EV. Tesla is "out of this world" — his words. "And you know why? Because they have the best free charging network, period, others are not even comparable". Remember, we're in the middle of nowhere in a rural town. He points to me a couple gas stations on the map nearby: "I can charge there, super fast, no problem. But with any other brand, the German, the French, the Japanese? It's a mess. Nothing before 30-40 miles at least, can only charge during work hours, that sort of... problems. And Tesla's (sorta) free and has much more range to top it all." Consider that we're talking infrastructure, Tesla being better than the French and German brands in France of all countries, about 200 km from the German border! So, there's that. The headstart and pragmatism of Tesla, even far away from homeland, USA is big and consequential — it'll take years for others to catch up, and they're not heading this way as they all rely on different standards (NIH syndrome) and bodies like the EU haven't catched up on regulation yet (like they did e.g. for phone chargers normalized to micro-USB, now USB-C). I know it's anecdotal, but for a professional driver it was pretty clear that Tesla is just about unchallenged in EV.
- creato 7y ago
  This sounds nice for Tesla, but it sounds utterly insane from a greater perspective that EVs can't charge at any electric charging station. How stupid does it sound if I said I needed to find a Ford gas station to fill up my car?
  - stoicShell 7y ago
    Agreed, it's insane. I don't know about most countries, but in France, some brands (Japanese iirc?) would have you go to their branded car dealership to charge. How crazy does that sound? (I couldn't believe it when he told me that, sorry I can't recall which brand it was) The whole thing sounded mind-boggling, really. Anecdotally, my partner is seeking to buy a new car for a 1h commute so I wanted to get her a small EV — but the charging options make it totally impossible (short of getting a Tesla but that's way above our budget for this 2nd, smaller car). Consider that we live in France 30 km away from Luxembourg, a major financial/tech/political hub in the EU. What gives? I honestly don't get it. If Tesla ever makes a sub-20K €/$ small EV suited for hourly commutes, they can just take my money.
bryanlarsen 7y ago
> competitors ... all been somewhat disappointing. Often that's bad news, though. If your competitors cannot sell their product, that's a sign of a small/poor market.
noir_lord 7y ago
Saw the first Model 3 I've seen in the wild today (north of England though I see a few S's on a regular basis), pretty pretty car in the flesh, the white looked lovely though like all white cars in winter I bet it's a bastard to keep clean. I get what you mean about the car of the future, it glided past silently (couldn't hear it through my motorcycle helmet) like something from the future. Would be the car I buy if I ever went 4 wheels.
spike021 7y ago
What part of the Porsche Taycan has been disappointing when compared to Tesla? My only complaint is the price, but it's a Porsche so what can I do?
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  Second. The Taycan release looks very promising. Porsche seems poised to eat the majority of profits from this space with the Taycan. There's not a lot of money to be made selling baseline Model 3s. And Toyota & Honda et al will soon be coming for the entry level space. Tesla seems like they'll be around for the long haul. But it doesn't seem like they're going to be highly profitable with a small market share like Porsche or Mercedes. It also doesn't seem like they're going to be the next Toyota. But my crystal ball isn't working. I have no idea what will happen.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    It's pretty likely that the incumbents will get competitive electric cars on the market eventually. The real question is, how much of the overall vehicle market will Tesla have before that happens? Because the longer it takes, the longer Tesla has to convert profits from existing models into developing new models and reducing manufacturing costs and the more likely it is that they become the electric Toyota. But it'd be a lot harder for Tesla to grow that big if the incumbents were to provide meaningful electric competition in the near term.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  EPA range of only 201 miles despite having a 93 kWh battery.
  - spike021 7y ago
    I would say that's less a disappointing bit and more just a factor of if it fits a potential buyer's needs. Even with ICE cars, people have always compared multiple cars' EPA/mileage, drivability, etc. It's hardly a new issue.
bluepickles 7y ago
Tesla puts 20-30% of their gross profits into R&D. https://q10k.com/financials/TSLA https://q10k.com/financials/TSLA Ford/GM don't even have an R&D row on their income statements.
- alpha_squared 7y ago
  Maybe I'm being naive, but I would expect a larger portion of profits going to R&D from companies with a smaller portfolio of products in an industry where you're expected to have a large one.
mprev 7y ago
I’ve had my Model 3 just over a week. It’s great. I love it. But I can’t wait to get an EV in a few years from a mature manufacturer. I hope that mature manufacturer will be Tesla. Right now, though, after sales care is pretty much non-existant, I have rattles that I didn’t have in a car with over 100k on the clock, the handover was chaotic and rushed, the interior is cheap. Even so, I have no regrets. And I’ll recommend the car because it is such a game changer. It drives brilliantly and, of course, it’s great to know that I’m not pumping out diesel fumes. But if there was a EV BMW 3 series with the same range and performance I don’t see how the Model 3 could compete.
- voodooranger 7y ago
  I have a Mazda 6. I would say that Mazda is a mature manufacturer. Yet the Mazda, which I purchased brand new from the factory, sight unseen (big mistake), shook at high speeds (I found out later due to a warped brake rotor), sounded like the windows were cracked at all times and you couldn’t ever roll them all the way up (for which Mazda issues a TSB years later), pulled to the right because it came off the truck out of alignment, and made a crunch vibration in the pedal every time I pushed the brakes. The dealer refused to even acknowledge any of these problems. I had no recourse. On the other hand, Tesla lets you return the car within a week if you don’t like it.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Lemon law?

disconnected 7y ago

> the market has finally caught up to the fact that Tesla is years ahead of their competitors. Incorrect. The stock value is being pushed up by: 1. Unexpected quarterly profits in October; 2. Tesla planning to open a new factory in China and securing a 1.4 Billion dollar loan to do so; 3. Apparent strong interest in the Cybertruck and the impending announcement of the Model Y; 4. USA and China are easing the trade war, which is pushing the whole stock market up (there have been "records" left and right in the past few days). But the big one is number 2. Tesla moving into China means that they can tap into the humongous Chinese market.

martythemaniak 7y ago
Well, TSLA is a very sentiment-heavy stock, so it's hard or impossible to say what exactly caused this recent run. For example, they've been guiding Q3 and Q4 profitablity since ~Q2 or earlier. They started building the Shanghai factory in Q1, the Model Y was announced in March, the Truck's been talked up since forever, etc. What's really changed is that the Taycan is no longer a mystery, but a real car with a real price tag and real range. The ID.3 is almost-real and struggling with software issues. The E-Tron, new Leaf, new Bolt, etc have real sales figures. When these were unknowns, you could be reasonably skeptical of Tesla's claims, but that's increasingly untenable. Or, as the great Silicon Valley philosothoughtleader Russ Hanneman said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo
rhacker 7y ago
Everything you just typed can be explained by the phrase "Tesla is years ahead of their competitors", so not sure why you're so solid on that "Incorrect" statement.
rory096 7y ago
>impending announcement of the Model Y The Model Y was announced in mid-March, to generally negative reviews/market reaction.
CyanLite2 7y ago
Stock is up mostly because of short-covering. This is what a textbook case of a short-squeeze looks like.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Tesla already sells cars in the Chinese market, especially since there is really no other EV luxury alternative and Beijing ICE plate lottery allocations are lower than the EV ones. The factory means Model3s no longer need to be imported, so should be cheaper.
m0zg 7y ago
5. Tesla is one of the most manipulated large cap stocks on Wall Street. You're observing one of the many rounds of a pump and dump and 6 months from now it'll be at just above 200 again as something "bad" is discovered by the "free" press just in time for the big players to cash out again. Anyone who buys at 420 is a sucker.

stoicShell 7y ago

Here's what most surprised me recently, which compounds all your points. Middle of Nowhere, France, 11 AM. My Uber arrives, a cool Model 3, "huh, great!" I thought, "I'm gonna pry this guy's brain for info on EV's." Sure thing the driver was a talker and over the course of the next 20 minutes proceeded to tell me all the good and bad, in his opinion — it was his 3rd or 4th EV. Tesla is "out of this world" — his words. "And you know why? Because they have the best free charging network, period, others are not even comparable". Remember, we're in the middle of nowhere in a rural town. He points to me a couple gas stations on the map nearby: "I can charge there, super fast, no problem. But with any other brand, the German, the French, the Japanese? It's a mess. Nothing before 30-40 miles at least, can only charge during work hours, that sort of... problems. And Tesla's (sorta) free and has much more range to top it all." Consider that we're talking infrastructure, Tesla being better than the French and German brands in France of all countries, about 200 km from the German border! So, there's that. The headstart and pragmatism of Tesla, even far away from homeland, USA is big and consequential — it'll take years for others to catch up, and they're not heading this way as they all rely on different standards (NIH syndrome) and bodies like the EU haven't catched up on regulation yet (like they did e.g. for phone chargers normalized to micro-USB, now USB-C). I know it's anecdotal, but for a professional driver it was pretty clear that Tesla is just about unchallenged in EV.

creato 7y ago
This sounds nice for Tesla, but it sounds utterly insane from a greater perspective that EVs can't charge at any electric charging station. How stupid does it sound if I said I needed to find a Ford gas station to fill up my car?
- stoicShell 7y ago
  Agreed, it's insane. I don't know about most countries, but in France, some brands (Japanese iirc?) would have you go to their branded car dealership to charge. How crazy does that sound? (I couldn't believe it when he told me that, sorry I can't recall which brand it was) The whole thing sounded mind-boggling, really. Anecdotally, my partner is seeking to buy a new car for a 1h commute so I wanted to get her a small EV — but the charging options make it totally impossible (short of getting a Tesla but that's way above our budget for this 2nd, smaller car). Consider that we live in France 30 km away from Luxembourg, a major financial/tech/political hub in the EU. What gives? I honestly don't get it. If Tesla ever makes a sub-20K €/$ small EV suited for hourly commutes, they can just take my money.

bryanlarsen 7y ago

> competitors ... all been somewhat disappointing. Often that's bad news, though. If your competitors cannot sell their product, that's a sign of a small/poor market.

noir_lord 7y ago

Saw the first Model 3 I've seen in the wild today (north of England though I see a few S's on a regular basis), pretty pretty car in the flesh, the white looked lovely though like all white cars in winter I bet it's a bastard to keep clean. I get what you mean about the car of the future, it glided past silently (couldn't hear it through my motorcycle helmet) like something from the future. Would be the car I buy if I ever went 4 wheels.

spike021 7y ago

What part of the Porsche Taycan has been disappointing when compared to Tesla? My only complaint is the price, but it's a Porsche so what can I do?

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
Second. The Taycan release looks very promising. Porsche seems poised to eat the majority of profits from this space with the Taycan. There's not a lot of money to be made selling baseline Model 3s. And Toyota & Honda et al will soon be coming for the entry level space. Tesla seems like they'll be around for the long haul. But it doesn't seem like they're going to be highly profitable with a small market share like Porsche or Mercedes. It also doesn't seem like they're going to be the next Toyota. But my crystal ball isn't working. I have no idea what will happen.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  It's pretty likely that the incumbents will get competitive electric cars on the market eventually. The real question is, how much of the overall vehicle market will Tesla have before that happens? Because the longer it takes, the longer Tesla has to convert profits from existing models into developing new models and reducing manufacturing costs and the more likely it is that they become the electric Toyota. But it'd be a lot harder for Tesla to grow that big if the incumbents were to provide meaningful electric competition in the near term.
bryanlarsen 7y ago
EPA range of only 201 miles despite having a 93 kWh battery.
- spike021 7y ago
  I would say that's less a disappointing bit and more just a factor of if it fits a potential buyer's needs. Even with ICE cars, people have always compared multiple cars' EPA/mileage, drivability, etc. It's hardly a new issue.

bluepickles 7y ago

Tesla puts 20-30% of their gross profits into R&D. https://q10k.com/financials/TSLA https://q10k.com/financials/TSLA Ford/GM don't even have an R&D row on their income statements.

alpha_squared 7y ago
Maybe I'm being naive, but I would expect a larger portion of profits going to R&D from companies with a smaller portfolio of products in an industry where you're expected to have a large one.

mprev 7y ago

I’ve had my Model 3 just over a week. It’s great. I love it. But I can’t wait to get an EV in a few years from a mature manufacturer. I hope that mature manufacturer will be Tesla. Right now, though, after sales care is pretty much non-existant, I have rattles that I didn’t have in a car with over 100k on the clock, the handover was chaotic and rushed, the interior is cheap. Even so, I have no regrets. And I’ll recommend the car because it is such a game changer. It drives brilliantly and, of course, it’s great to know that I’m not pumping out diesel fumes. But if there was a EV BMW 3 series with the same range and performance I don’t see how the Model 3 could compete.

voodooranger 7y ago
I have a Mazda 6. I would say that Mazda is a mature manufacturer. Yet the Mazda, which I purchased brand new from the factory, sight unseen (big mistake), shook at high speeds (I found out later due to a warped brake rotor), sounded like the windows were cracked at all times and you couldn’t ever roll them all the way up (for which Mazda issues a TSB years later), pulled to the right because it came off the truck out of alignment, and made a crunch vibration in the pedal every time I pushed the brakes. The dealer refused to even acknowledge any of these problems. I had no recourse. On the other hand, Tesla lets you return the car within a week if you don’t like it.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Lemon law?