I'm Betting on Elon

http://danielodio.com/im-betting-on-elon?

by danielodio • 13 years ago

124 123 13 years ago

There is a lot of Elon love on HN - but the analysis here is fundamentally correct - bet on winners. And Elon will either win big or blow up big. Its a pretty good bet IMO.

And I am amazed to see the "relentlessly resourceful" tag be dropped casually in here - even if the author is part of the SV-mafia its still amazing what impact one mans' essays are having.

So that makes two people to bet on ...

VeejayRampay4• 13 years ago

Besides the stocket market evaluations and all those considerations, I have to say that I am amazed how spoiled America is sometimes.

How I wish we had such an entrepreneur in Europe, someone willing to shake the status quo and speed up the process of making the future happen.

Tesla is a company that is trying to make AMERICAN electric cars, he should encouraged and cheered. People with some money and liberal views should be jumping on those cars, it's History in the making, a true revolution. I really hope he suceeds, that'd be an encouraging sign that science and technology can actually have a good impact on climate and consumer practices vis à vis greenhouse gases and the approach to modernity.

omonra• 13 years ago

But he is encouraged and cheered - the valuation of his company vs Ford is precisely the indication of it. Nothing says "I believe in this guy" like actually putting money down & buying the company stock.

monkeyfacebag• 13 years ago

> he should encouraged and cheered.

Is that not happening already? From the article: "Tesla's current market value is 250 times higher than it would be if it were being valued as a car manufacturer rather than an idea whose time is about to come." Of course, we're also talking about a company that received a $465 million loan from US taxpayers so it's not like we're hanging him out to dry.

VeejayRampay4• 13 years ago

You're right about that. I was actually addressing the general attitude of the American public as well as pundits' and car enthusiasts and writers with regard to Tesla and the immense promises it brings to the game.

I don't know, I might just be naive about this but god, if Tesla were a French company created by an awesome entrepreneur from my homeland, I'd be over the moon and overlooking the little mistakes, the agitation over the tiny tremors of the stock market.

Tesla Motors is bigger than "reports from the market", in my opinion it's a total game changer in a world that hasn't evolved much in the past 40/50 years (at least in terms of groundbreaking mutations in the core technology), the automobile industry and something that I am (obviously) really excited about. Tesla speaks VOLUMES in the rest of the world about America's capacity to still be #1 in terms of science, innovation, vision at the beginning of the 21st century, I just wish people were more enthusiastically backing the company at all times, this is something the USA should be proud of.

Then again, the article addressing the financial/economical aspect of it all, which makes my comment off-topic and on the "that's cute" side :)

snogglethorpe3• 13 years ago

> Tesla is a company that is trying to make AMERICAN electric cars, he should encouraged and cheered ... science and technology can actually have a good impact on climate and consumer practices vis à vis greenhouse gases and the approach to modernity.

A vastly more effective approach would be to encourage and cheer those trying to wean America from its addiction to automobiles....

Elon does cool things, but it's not clear Tesla really represents a desirable future.

lucian1900• 13 years ago

Addiction to electric cars would not be harmful.

VeejayRampay4• 13 years ago

I agree with you. I am from Europe where mass transit and reliable and efficient public transportation has been implemented and enjoyed by the population for a long time, I think this is a way for the future.

Siemens, a German company and Alstom, a French one both have the technology to make 200+mph on a train happen in the USA.

The West Coast for example could and SHOULD have a HST from Vancouver to San Diego. By car that's roughly a 1400 miles trip or something like a 15 hours drive (give or take). With a HST, that suddenly becomes a 8 hour trip with next to no greenhouse gas emissions per person while everyone just chills out browsing the interwebs in a comfy seat.

Same for the East Coast, there should be some sort of East Coast HST as well (something to the tune of Boston -> NYC -> Philly -> DC -> somehow down to Florida or some other route, I don't live in the States).

If Germany, Spain, France, Japan and China have that, there's no reason why the USA shouldn't be able to do it as well.

EDIT: By saying that I am not implying that the "middle of America" should not benefit from HST as well, but its population density and sheer size makes that less cost-feasable.

jseliger2• 13 years ago

>A vastly more effective approach would be to encourage and cheer those trying to wean America from its addiction to automobiles....

While that's true, it's also not happening: the only real way it might is through considerably higher density (which I support, both through the removal of urban height limits and mandatory lot setbacks), but across the world density has actually been declining for decades, as Shlomo Angel shows in Planet of Cities:

New empirical evidence on the average population density of cities across space and time confirms that these densities have been in decline almost everywhere for a century or more. The new evidence is counterintuitive, since numerous academic researchers believe that urban densities have been on the increase. Were that true, it would lend encouragement and support to those favoring densification. However, urban density decline has been persistent and global in scope, and it predated the automobile. It is not restricted to the United States or other industrialized countries, but is pervasive in developing countries as well. [. . .]

You should support greater density, bike lines, etc., but in reality we're going to be relying on car-based transportation for the foreseeable future—which means decades at the very least.

Again, I would like to see more cities that allow and encourage non-car transport, but I haven't seen much of it, and current property law prevents people from actually building those kinds of cities.

whyenot• 13 years ago

he should encouraged and cheered

All of Musk's recent ventures (Tesla, SpaceX and even SolarCity) have been heavily subsidized by government (federal, state and local). It certainly seems like there has been a lot of cheering and a lot of positive thinking. Siemens is even running a TV add where they celebrate SpaceX's success.

I hope he succeeds, but when it comes to investing money, I don't want to make decisions based on hope.

BrainScraps• 13 years ago

I'm also a Musketeer.

I think the company as a whole executes brilliantly, but I decided to allocate a good chunk of my (measly) portfolio to TSLA as a result of Elon's track record and vision.

I wonder if we'll soon see a prospectus for the "Musk Fund" containing only companies that he's been involved in...

dkroy• 13 years ago

My first thought for this was, wow cool looking site. I then played around with the responsive nature of it.

danielodio4• 13 years ago

What did you think? It's a new blogging platform called SETT. I'm sure @tynan the creator would love to get your thoughts on it. - DROdio

cjbprime• 13 years ago

My problem with the "I'm betting on Elon" approach is that the market is clearly already betting on Elon, to the point of somewhere between 10-40x a sensible company valuation. If you buy now, you're betting on a clearly ridiculously-optimistic valuation being not quite ridiculously-optimistic enough. You're not the first person to have considered that the company might be successful and grow exponentially in the future -- that's already priced in to the stock!

Talking about long-term bets, it would be interesting to read about how the electric car future might tie into the driverless car future. My understanding is that we'll have many fewer cars around in the driverless future, even if the cars that we do have are electric.

rthomas6• 13 years ago

Exactly. Tesla being successful in the future doesn't necessarily tie in to making money on the stock, except over the scale of decades.

danielodio4• 13 years ago

I'm taking that type of view on this stock. - DROdio

sachingulaya2• 13 years ago

Investors are surprisingly pessimistic. I am heavily invested in TSLA. I got out right before earnings call because CEOs like Elon don't seem to care about meeting Wall Street's expectations. I'll buy more in a week or two when the market is more favorable.

Almost all of the criticism I read of TSLA is regarding their financials. There is a lot of room for sentiment and investor confidence to improve. Things I care about(like Elon's track record & ridiculous amounts of ambition, improvements in battery technology, not using dealerships, the supercharger network, etc.) don't ever get mentioned.

Wall street seems to care about whether they'll be able to meet production goals, the amount of cash they have on hand to continue operations, etc.

Most importantly, as more consumers take delivery of their Model S' I'm expecting investor confidence and awareness to improve. They'll "see" the demand with their own eyes. My father is already mentioning to me that his friends are seeing Model S' pop up around town and people are talking about them. They want to know what it is. It's extremely common for retail investors to buy stock based on products that they see being used.

You're right in that I'm betting solely based on investor confidence improving. In my opinion, there is no other metric on which to price a stock.

carbocation2• 13 years ago

Did you get out, or did you purchase shorts? Getting out seems to be painful from a taxation perspective, assuming you're net positive.

damoncali9• 13 years ago

This is otherwise known as the greater fool theory. I'm not saying that to suggest you're a fool. But you are a gambler, hoping for someone even more emotionally invested than you are to buy your shares. At the end of the day confidence is not sustainable. The bubble showed us that quite clearly. At some point, Tesla has to make sense, and there has to be a clear path from now until then or someone will lose a lot of money along the way.

supercanuck• 13 years ago

I think the NYT affair started cementing the idea of brand loyalty into the minds of their customers. US consumers love an underdog they can get behind in an "us vs them" type storyline.

millstone5• 13 years ago

The market is betting more heavily against Elon. TSLA is the ninth most shorted stock - see http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3062-nasdaqshort-hig... .

It's so heavily shorted that there's a possibility of a short squeeze, which I would find quite delicious - not because I own TSLA, but because I want to see people hoping for failure get screwed.

cryowaffle• 13 years ago

Even a stock that is ninth most heavily shorted isn't necessary heavily against. The market is very very very long TSLA, they have bought into the idea and given it a lofty valuation as a result. People who are short are just balancing the optimism... it's not like they just want failure for failure's sake.

damoncali9• 13 years ago

What makes you think that being short on a stock is the same as hoping for failure? I hope Tesla is fantastically successful, but I would consider shorting it if I were doing such things these days. They're two totally separate things.

chollida1• 13 years ago

> It's so heavily shorted that there's a possibility of a short squeeze

Not really sure what makes you think this. It's no where close to a short squeeze.

What makes you think this is the case?

blandau123• 13 years ago

The short interest is only indicative of how many investors think that there is a greater chance TSLA is overpriced vs. underpriced. The short sellers may very well believe in Elon but they may also think that they have a superior risk-reward by shorting the stock right now. The high short interest is also indicative of investors having access to more ambiguous data, which is the case for a unique company with negative cash-flow and large market potential.

Tyrant505• 13 years ago

When you buy stock, you should scale in. He is clearly someone comfortable now with his purchase, if it dips, as far as he is concerned its on sale, scale in.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

>>You're not the first person to have considered that the company might be successful and grow exponentially in the future -- that's already priced in to the stock!

This is actually a flawed view, because it assumes perfect information by all market participants. George Soros goes into quite a bit of detail in the second part of his General Theory of Reflexivity. You should read it.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dbc0e0c6-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab4...

Relevant excerpt:

"Let me state the two cardinal principles of my conceptual framework as it applies to the financial markets. First, market prices always distort the underlying fundamentals. The degree of distortion may range from the negligible to the significant. This is in direct contradiction to the efficient market hypothesis, which maintains that market prices accurately reflect all the available information.

Second, instead of playing a purely passive role in reflecting an underlying reality, financial markets also have an active role: they can affect the so-called fundamentals they are supposed to reflect. That is the point that behavioral economics is missing. It focuses only on one half of a reflexive process: the mispricing of financial assets; it does not concern itself with the impact of the mispricing on the so-called fundamentals.

There are various feedback mechanisms at work which may validate the mispricing of financial assets, at least for a while. This may give the impression that markets are often right, but the mechanism at work is very different from the one proposed by the prevailing paradigm. I claim that financial markets have ways of altering the fundamentals and that may bring about a closer correspondence between market prices and the underlying fundamentals. Contrast that with the efficient market hypothesis, which claims that markets always accurately reflect reality and automatically tend towards equilibrium. There are various pathways by which the mispricing of financial assets can affect the so-called fundamentals. The most widely travelled are those which involve the use of leverage—both debt and equity leveraging. These pathways deserve a lot more research."

tomasien3• 13 years ago

The absolute best way to buy stocks is to wait until something happens in the market that seems to be based on emotions and then bet the other way. 2 best examples I can remember where I noticed this was when Citi was at $1 despite the fact we knew the bailout was coming (I bought, but not enough) and when Facebook was at $17 because investors kept getting hammered with "Facebook hasn't figured out mobile" shit over and over. Didn't buy then because I was super broke (http://tommy.authpad.com/the-one-year-anniversary-of-sleepin...)

eCa4• 13 years ago

Of course, the difficulty is in picking the low point.

tomasien3• 13 years ago

Oh I don't mean try to find the bottom! I mean try to find when something seems to be happening purely out of emotion, as in a stock going down for no discernible reason short of a weird investment environment I.E. FB and all its bad press post IPO and CITI pre-bailout

tomasien3• 13 years ago

Finding the bottom doesn't matter, that's impossible so don't even think about that. Just say "the market doesn't seem to be operating rationally today, I'll bet against it"

eCa4• 13 years ago

That page is in an eternal redirect loop (FF19/Win7). With a redirect to self every three seconds it is not easy to read.

elteto• 13 years ago

Also in Chrome / W8

MattGrommes• 13 years ago

I had to hit Escape a bunch of times before I caught it at the right time and it stopped.

mixedbit2• 13 years ago

Yes, in Firefox it is impossible to scroll down.

tynan6• 13 years ago

Hey, I created the blogging platform he's running on. Would you mind giving me some details on the scrolling problem you're having? Do arrows, mouse wheel, and scroll bar all not work?

tynan6• 13 years ago

Hey, I'm the creator of the blogging platform he's running on and am trying to replicate this. Do you have cookies or js off or any other notable change from stock?

mongol• 13 years ago

Third party cookies off in my case

eCa4• 13 years ago

Cookies & js on.

I do use a few addons (Flashblock, Adblock plus, Ghostery) that possibly could cause side effects, but since Chrome also causes problems for some I doubt that it's a Firefox specific bug.

wavesplash• 13 years ago

Same redirect loop problem in Chrome/Linux. Addons: Adblock, Disconnect, Ghostery. 3rd party cookies disabled.

tynan6• 13 years ago

Thanks a lot for the info, everyone. I can't replicate this even with all the same addons installed, but I'm working on it...

damoncali9• 13 years ago

I got a weird and similar problem. The page looked like it was just continually reloading parts (most) of itself, 2 to 3 times per second. I stopped if I clicked the stop button and all was well. Chrome for mac, normal config except 3rd party cookies blocked. Google Page Insights and YSlow enabled.

tynan6• 13 years ago

I believe this issue is fixed now... feel free to give it a try and let me know if you're still having issues.

Thanks to everyone for the detailed info-- really helped me a lot.

For those interested, here's what happened:

When someone goes to a SETT blog, the first thing we do is fire off an ajax call to see if we can set a 3rd party cookie. If we can't, we bounce to a page on sett.com that sets a cookie and then redirects back. In some cases, like Safari with default settings, this allows us to use a 3rd party cookie.

To prevent infinite looping in cases where 3rd party cookies can't be accessed, we add a query string to the URL, telling SETT to skip the cookie check.

However, the old way we were doing it was just appending ?_ to the URL, rather than parsing it out and taking into consideration the query string of the URL.

This URL was submitted with a trailing ?, which made the query string ??_, which didn't properly skip the cookie check. Thus... infinite refreshes.

moakleaf• 13 years ago

Well... If the profit margin guidance for the next quarters is correct, and they are not hit by anything unexpected, the company should be trading at around 15 P/E by the end of 2013 at the current share price. Which would be great... But that means that there isn't likely to be any significant share price growth until then.

One problem with that analysis is that they have overpromised and underdelivered a bit in the past.

Another issue is that they only got 6000 new reservations in the last quarter. For them to have significant growth they need a lot more. And this is in a quarter where they were awarded car of the year and got fantastic reviews (except that NYT one).

I bet these reasons, combined with a standard sell-off of a stock that has increased by a lot the last quarter, and that you now really have to be patient for another or two quarters before anything significant happens, is why the stock is down today.

Personally, I am disappointed by the number of new reservations. I think it is far too low for a car with such stellar reviews.

I had hoped they would have more than 20000 reservations currently. 15-16000 is not even enough to use their full capacity for the year, so they need to start selling more.

I had also hoped the production rate would have been higher. 400 cars per week is also not enough in the long run. Elon talked about reaching 500 by the summer, and that really isn't that great. He also said that theoretically they didn't need to get more reservations in 2013, as they would have enough to use up their capacity. That also worried me.

I have seen analyst say they will produce 30000 cars in 2014. If that is the case, the share price is really not going to move a lot from current levels. Because the growth is just too small.

So I think a lot of shareholders feel like me, that the growth isn't significant enough.

I guess we need to wait another couple of quarters before we can say anything.

Shivetya• 13 years ago

It is a hundred thousand dollar, its not like the market is large. Sure there are many buyers out there with good money to spend but there are far more exciting cars in that price range. Finally, its electric ONLY. Supercharger network or not, your tied to cord.

To put their numbers in perspective versus their losses and debts, they want to sell nearly twenty thousand cards this year. Mercedes sold more than that in January just in the United States. Toyota sells that many cars in four days, US alone! There are also stories about supplier problems, something small volume cars suffer a lot.

Sure the luxury market doesn't put up those numbers but the brands there are well established and storied. Tesla is neither.

Tesla's fate is probably to be bought by Mercedes or similar. Someone who has the ability to put a large number of these on the road, with a large support network, and a trusted name

SeanLuke2• 13 years ago

> Sure there are many buyers out there with good money to spend but there are far more exciting cars in that price range.

Really? I can't think of one.

revelation2• 13 years ago

This isn't another freaking social app. They are production constrained; in the old economy that is considered a good problem to have.

codex3• 13 years ago

The lesson I draw from Tesla is that it's possible (even straightforward) to produce an amazing car if you're willing to lose a ton of money on each one and your competitors (mainstream auto makers) aren't. I say this because Tesla has, to date, been poor at controlling costs, enough so that the feds (Tesla's creditors) are concerned about their balance sheet, and Wall Street has hammered the stock.

For example, Tesla used to lose $30M a month. Last quarter it brought in hundreds of millions more in revenue, but still lost ~$30M a month. At some point, they hope to stop losing money, but then they're about to create two new products which will also incur large R&D costs. To date, Tesla has lost about a billion dollars, or $50K per car sold, assuming they sell 20K cars next year.

So to a consumer, Tesla's cars look amazing compared to what else is on the market (after all, they're losing money on each one, which their competitors are unwilling to do); to an accountant, the company looks worrysome, and to an investor, the company looks like either a tremendous deal or a fantastic lemon, depending on the investors views about the size of the market, competition, and ability to control costs. At current rates, they will have more liabilities than assets three months.

Once Tesla can reign in their costs they can rewrite this story, and there's a good chance they can. Whether they can make electric cars more cheaply than mainstream automakers in the long term is, in my mind, an open question.

dman4• 13 years ago

Entering a market with entrenched players is hard. Your competitors have economies of scale and you dont.

rogerbinns2• 13 years ago

Note that Toyota also lost money for several years on the Prius as is GM on the Volt http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-generalmotors-a... - there is a learning curve to play in this space. Since everyone is keeping their technology private it won't be cheaper for later entrants.

There will be an experience curve for the manufacturing which will lead to it becoming increasingly productive and cheaper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects#The_ex...

As a comparison Boeing is reported to have an experienced a curve of 84% (costs decreasing 16% every time production units doubled) on the 777. Tesla doesn't have the legacy manufacturing infrastructure and can use far more automated methods, especially if they manufacture a large amount of the car themselves instead of outsourcing. It will be interesting to see what Tesla's numbers turn out to be.

codex3• 13 years ago

Tesla's gross margins are currently 8% (whereas BMW is something like 19%) and they expect it to increase to 25% in one year alone. It's already up significantly from negative territory (I shudder to think what it was on the Roadster), but they still have to make the car another 18.5% cheaper. I wonder if they're aiming to squeeze that from the battery cost, in which case it's up to Panasonic, I suppose.

krschultz• 13 years ago

You are dividing fixed costs over a small number of units. Of course it's going to be bad. A lot of that money is R&D for current products. Another large chunk is investments in factory equipment that will be making cars for 10+ years.

If I build a plastic mold for $2 parts, and the mold costs me $100,000, you don't say that I lost $10,000 per part for the first 10 parts.

codex3• 13 years ago

Capital expenditures are actually up over last quarter, to $72M. I don't see that as sustainable with a gross margin of only eight percent at twenty thousand cars a year, as that leaves a gross profit of only $120M a year at a $75K average selling price.

So something must be improved--either expenditures need to go down or gross margin needs to go up. Meanwhile, the average selling prices of Teslas will go down as early adopters run dry, even as R&D and capital expenditures on other models ramp up. At 25% gross margin, though, they can recoup their billion dollars in only three years.

If they're indeed flying in tires from the Czech Republic it sounds like there's a lot of low hanging fruit in the cost department, but it's quite possible Tesla has just built a more expensive car than they thought they were making. I suspect it, in fact. I'm not sure they'll be able to avoid going back to the public markets for more money this year if they want to expand their product line.

I think the interesting question is whether incumbent manufacturers will produce an equivalent auto lineup at less cost, or not. Many competitors, like Mercedes, BMW, or Ford, have existing labor, plants and tooling they could leverage for electric vehicle manufacture. Some have been in business for a hundred years. If the answer is no (market is too niche, existing plants are too old, incumbents lack the skillz) I think Tesla may be a viable entity. However, I think mainstream manufacturers have stayed away from aggressively creating new hotness in the vehicle market because they don't yet see any profits there. Their approach has been conservative, and I think the reason is that conditions are not yet ripe. Tesla was founded ten years ago; timing is everything.

rdl• 13 years ago

I love Tesla as a company, but TSLA as a stock is broken. There seems to be serious manipulation going on -- right before long annual options expiry, the price drops, then pops right after. There was shadiness the previous year related to a drop, then announcing a departure of some mid-level exec, then a pop. I generally stick to options for playing things like AAPL, TSLA, etc. where it will move based on some specific accomplishments, but TSLA is one I own as stock directly.

quux• 13 years ago

Sometimes I feel like Tesla is the NeXT of cars. Technologically impressive, but ahead of its time.

In 15 years electric cars will have much more market share, question is, will Tesla still be there leading the pack?

Maybe they can reverse acquire some ailing car company ;)

dman4• 13 years ago

In an alternative fictional universe Elon will be hired by Honda to survive a near death spiral and will then bring in the team from Tesla to create Honda 2.0

kirpekar• 13 years ago

At the end of the day, you are only "betting". When you know something for sure, I'll pay attention.

danielodio4• 13 years ago

When we know it for sure, the stock will be in a much different place. - DROdio

tokenadult• 13 years ago

From the blog post, "Tesla stock is down almost 10% today, after its 2012 earnings report became public. Tesla missed its projections and investors hammered the stock in response."

I guess that's what you call contrarian investing. Sometimes that works just fine. Sometimes that doesn't work so well. People who have extra money to buy speculative stocks can make their own call on this, I guess.

I found it interesting that there were many news reports about the Tesla fourth quarter results call yesterday.

"Tesla 4Q net loss widens on costs for new car"

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-02-20/tesla-4q-net-loss-...

"As Tesla Eyes Profit, Elon Musk Wants to Punch Himself in the Face"

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-20/as-tesla-eye...

"Loss Widens at Electric-Car Maker"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732354920457831...

"Tesla’s Earnings Indicate Some Customer Cancellations"

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/teslas-earnings-indic...

"Tesla posts revenue of $306 million, larger-than-expected loss"

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-autos-tesla-2...

So, yeah, some investors will read all that and still bet on Tesla's stock having a rising value over their investment time frame. But customers who are thinking about buying the car might wonder if the company has enough financial strength, while losing money on every car it sells, to provide long-term customer service and the promised completion of the Supercharger network, etc. If it's your money, spend it how you like, but be sure to diversify for maximum safety.

Skoofoo• 13 years ago

It's not hard to bet on a massively successful entrepreneur.

3am• 13 years ago

The idea that TSLA's valuation should be modeled in the same was as Ford, GM, et al is so preposterous that I have trouble comprehending how someone can make the point in an honest fashion.

I think TSLA is richly valued and I would not buy it now (nor do I own shares), but saying it should have a similar P/S or EV/FCF to F is like saying that VMWare is overvalued by virtue of it having a higher valuation than HP.

brown9-2• 13 years ago

Of course, every other person who bought stock in a company after bad news where the company ended up going on to fail had the same reasoning:

- critics don't understand the master plan

- I'm betting on CEO X, and the market just doesn't understand him/her

Scaevolus• 13 years ago

The page refreshes itself continuously. How did you even manage that?

(I block 3rd party cookies)

tynan6• 13 years ago

I created the blogging platform he's using... the redirect is supposed to happen once to set a cookie from the platform, but apparently isn't working. Would you mind telling me what browser/version/os you use so that I can replicate and fix this?

davecardwell• 13 years ago

Not the grandparent, but it does it in Google Chrome v26.0.1410.10 dev on Mac OS X Lion v10.8.2

I have third-party cookies blocked.

6ren• 13 years ago

Elon isn't competing against Ford. He's competing against Exxon.

EDIT mkt cap: Ford 47.24B https://www.google.com/search?q=f Exxon 398.83B https://www.google.com/search?q=xom

thematt• 13 years ago

Here's a contrarian investment approach: if what you say is true, then buy Exxon. The only way electric vehicles and the "green" movement maintain momentum is if oil prices stay high. Consequently, Exxon wins.

Lambdanaut• 13 years ago

There's not really a dichotomy here. He's competing against both.

blumentopf• 13 years ago

A minor correction to this article, to the best of my knowledge Mercedes-Benz uses batteries produced by Deutsche Accumotive (a joint-venture of Daimler and Evonik) both in the smart electric drive and the forthcoming B-Class E-Cell. The Tesla batteries were only used in pre-production smart electric drives, as a replacement for the old ZEBRA NaNiCl batteries.

niggler• 13 years ago

Full Disclosure: I shorted a few weeks ago when the NYT article came out and covered today.

I would not bet on TSLA the stock just yet. They can be successful and profitable and yet still not come close to the current stock price (P/E contraction, future equity dilution). Most importantly, the thing which stemmed the drop today was a short-sale restriction (a circuit breaker after it falls 10%)

What would be a buy signal for me is when the car cost can be brought down to the 35-40K range (which, based on reports from mercedes benz and bmw, is the most profitable segment)

chris_mahan2• 13 years ago

I betted on Elon and bought TSLA at 16, 22, 28, and 33. When I saw the CEO of Toyota with Elon behind the same podium, I knew he had been vetted by the best in the business. Ref: http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/lh9s3JaOMRr/Gov+Arnold+Schwar...

colmvp• 13 years ago

I think it's weird to bet on the person instead of the company. I'd hate to be in a company or team where outsiders focused on one person.

jasonyeh• 13 years ago

That has its peeves/perks, people don't want to say they work for apple anymore just to avoid the attention; a company of one.

timdorr• 13 years ago

From the article he references:

"Are there that many luxury car buyers out there who are willing to live with the limitations of an electric car? It seems doubtful to me."

Limitations? What limitations? I've been driving mine for 2 months and it's been a freeing experience. It doesn't go as far? My old ICE didn't go as far on a tank and required 10x the cost to fill up. I no longer feel guilty about driving to the grocery store a few miles away because I know I'm running my car at it's least efficient state. I just took a trip this weekend to some relatives in another part of my state (GA) with no concerns about range or having to compromise to extend it. Google Maps in the car has already saved me many times from heading into bad traffic (I would never remember to check traffic on my phone beforehand).

Honestly, if I'm being limited in some way, I'm not seeing it.

untog2• 13 years ago

Limitations? What limitations?

They are overwhelmingly obvious. The simple fact is that 'filling up' is harder to do- there are far, far fewer stations, and the actual act of charging takes a not inconsiderable amount of time. The cost argument is valid, but the point is that luxury car owners are less likely to worry about the price of gas, given that they are already rich enough to buy a luxury car.

I'm not saying you are wrong in your assertions, clearly the car suits you well. But to suggest that there are no limitations flies in the face of all evidence.

revelation2• 13 years ago

What evidence? The evidence shows very clearly that the majority oft people drive less than 80 miles a day. To suggest that ICE cars have no limitations in these ranges does indeed fly in the face. of all evidence.

rabbitonrails• 13 years ago

Elon is betting on SpaceX.

droithomme• 13 years ago

I'm looking forward to purchasing a Volkswagen XL1.

http://theage.drive.com.au/motor-reviews/worlds-most-efficie...

Since it gets 261 MPG, I can drive across the entire United States and only make one stop for refueling, using around 9 gallons of diesel for the whole trip. Driving with a friend at 60mph and bringing a sack lunch, we can even make the trip in only 38 hours since there will be no overnight recharging stops.

And when the 5.5kWh Lithium Ion battery fails, it will only cost 1/15 the replacement cost of a 85kWh Lithium Ion battery.

scottschulthess• 13 years ago

"Tesla absolutely will get to Ford's volume production numbers with this strategy"

really? maybe eventually. we are a ways off from mass market all electric vehicles.

I'm Betting on Elon

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