NB If you ever decide to cut to the chase, here is the reciept. what prices the tesla out of the market is price. Price is no good because of parts costs. All competitors could get ahead along side tesla simply by cutting parts costs. so here is the Order Of Events to get this job done. 1. Make batteries cheap 2. make the materials cheap and plentiful. 3. the raw materials are very bountiful 4. the separation of what is wanted cannot be done directly. 5. those controlling the extraction do not know this, except for the fact they do it wrongly. 6. Use the answer below to solve all the above problems. The ore is concentrated in saturated lake beds. what saturates the lake bed is NOT the battery raw material. The substance that is in the way has to be converted to a harmless different substance that does not impede battery raw material extraction. the only way you will convince others to do what you come up with is a cool test. I invented the test for recovering precious metals from ore bodies. We never revealed the process not its rate of processing. All we did was build factories and operate them ourselves for a fee. Take a sample of the lakebed material. divide it into two equal piles. Use your process on one sample. Switch residues with your competitor. Use your process on the residue from your competitor. Give your competitor all your extractions. and all your residues. Lease and operate factories to deliver cheap battery raw materials to all takers. Here "cheap" means the price that lets car manufacturers replace carbon footprint fueled engines.* So far to soften up this very situation we have been sending teams of surgeons to the country in control. By treating burn victim children, we have become known to the powers that be. Trading profits fund the problem solving. * it is like in trading contracting 2, 20 works for the public's satisfaction and has nothing to do with the real trading profits made.
http://www.teslamotors.com/models/options touch screen is imo plain ugly. not sure how practical this thing will be while driving..specially at night..we need something reliable,cheap,simple and practical..mass production..
yeah, and I sat in a Carrera GT and i also want one. does that mean I'm gonna buy one? no. how many people are gonna spend $60k to $100k for a model S when a gasoline vehicle with comparable performance goes for $35-45k? don't even compare this with the Apple/Windows argument. People buy apple because it does some things better (it offers simplicity). pray tell, what does the Model S offer over its competitors that justifies its $25k-40k premium?
nursebee, good call. I was surely the announcement that they will ship in June, one month early. First off, it's 50k to 70k. Secondly, fuel cost are 1/10 of that of a gasoline vehicle. Thirdly, model S is obviously not in the price competition business. But very few cars actually are. Why do people buy a BMW? Doesn't make any sense economically. The pricing power depends on emotional factors. In this case quite a few people are willing to pay more. Look at the reservation numbers and study them over the next months. My bet is 2014 production will be sold out by the end of the year. So demand is not a problem at all. Look at Model X reservations. People really like these cars, although they are not even on the street yet! To analyse companies you have to analyse what other people want, not what you want. lol. We will see, we will see. If you even compare Tesla to the other crap out there, you have no freaking clue. By what standard are they a fail? A sedan quicker than a Porsche and the safest car out there, minimal fuel cost. But this view is fine with me. It's good that the street holds this view and people love to short the stock. They will regret it.
Thanks macro. Did you listen to the call? He hinted at a solarcity partnership in the future. I wish I lived in CA to better know solarcity.
Just did. See below. Question with regards to price is really: how much impact do the short-sellers have? Although short ratio is very high, the stock did well since the IPO. And of course: what is a proper valuation? Sales growth this year will be 160% and next year 200%+ and will likely continue at a pace at 100% or more. Profitablity will increase as scaling effects will reduce cost. So if you normalize for these effects intrinsic value is anywhere north of 60$-90$ in my view, since the business is now on track. It is clear that Tesla could become a 50B$ company, but I certainly wouldn't bet on that right now. But if you look at other super-high growth businesses (albeit those with higher ROEs), then the range of the multiple is 50-100. Anyway, I will suspect sentiment will shift, once it is clear they are in fact shaking up the industry. Another comparison: if you look at the earnings mulitple of AMZN, the lowest it has been was 35 and it's sales growth over the last 10 years was 30%p.a. Odds are certainly good for a shift in sentiment. Musk himself said that he believes short-sellers will have a hard time, from end of the year forward. Any CEO believes that, but I think he refers to the momentum of the business and the shift in sentiment. Electric cars are up to now seens as pet projects, because there has not been a good EV out there. Model S changes that. There was this interview at Bloomberg where the host asks about BYD. Musks just couldn't stop laughing. To even compare BYD to Tesla is hilarious. Buffett/Munger should have put his money on TSLA instead. One of the most interesting things was the following with regards to range. In general I think it will be most interesting how demands will respond once the cars are seen on the street. When I saw a roadster on the street I was stunned. So if reservations really accellerate that will show the potential. The capacity of the plant, they have bought so cheaply, was 400k cars p.a. To me it looks like they are lowballing the 2014 number at 30k+, but that is fine of course.
wrong on both counts. Its MSRP is $58k to $107k before tax credits. and there will be a lot of idiots who pay $10k over MSRP to be the first one on their block with a model S. Fuel costs are estimated to be 1/4 of gasoline vehicle. it's gonna take a LONG time to recoup the fuel savings. and as for your argument that it's gonna be a great car because there's a lot of people who want one now, BFD. Every new model that comes out gets this type of buzz initially, then it wanes. Like the Volt and karma. Oh, remember the chrysler crossfire, it sold 40k units the first year and only 2k by its 5th year. First year sales don't mean jack.