In defense of TS, can't believe I'm saying that, he may be right on this trade simply because a bear market could just pull everything down.

Also, I've driven a few teslas they are truly terrible cars. Worst luxury car I've ever driven and it's not even close. Has nothing to do with where the stock goes but just imo. At low speeds they jerk like crazy trying to, I'm assuming, switch between electric power and coasting in order to save energy. Also, that key is moronic it has no place to put a ring on it and can easily fall out of your pocket.

For what it's worth, almost no one agrees with you on this. Most people say the opposite.

Most people have the opposite experience. I drove one and won't buy another car unless it's a Tesla(would have bought a 4 or 6 series already) and I probably know 20-30 people in the same boat who are just waiting for the Model 3. Anecdotal evidence is BS but it really is like using an iPhone for the first time - can't see how anyone would want a gas car. I can't tell you how many of these random conversations I have where someone is waiting for the "cheap Tesla".

Most engineers would not leave Musk if they paid him $50,000 and Apple offered them $1 million. Musk is a romantic, he cares not so much for money or credits but to put electric cars on the road to save the planet. In late 2013 TSLA was basically profitable, however instead of trying to cut cost and make themselves more profitable they tripled the R&D budget and went for the gigafactory. Batteries are one thing that might be best made in Japan or China. They could have tried to make the current car cheaper or at least maintain price. Rather than the Model 3, they could have gone to a RV or truck, conversions, and possibly leaf battery replacements. I don't own TSLA but would never short it. TSLA could be profitable today with 1/3 the R&D budget and 1/2 the SG&A staff. However, they are in the process of gold miners insanity. Get the most ounces with no regard for costs. Things are groovy until the price of gold drops.

I have driven lots of luxury cars, I did it for work, and none of it was just occasionally driving them. I drove all brands from rolls to low end bmw's etc. Tesla is hands down the worst 100k car I have ever driven.

When do you start filming the new Amazon show, Jeremy?

I agree that the poaching of talent is a disaster for Tesla. One of Tesla's big advantages was they were the only game in town for engineers who wanted to do something innovative in the car industry and were able to get talented engineers for below market.

However, I think you underestimate Tesla's moat. Several points:

1. Competitors don't have charging infrastructure in place
2. Current car manufacturers rely on dealer service networks, which are currently setup to service ICE vehicles
3. It's not easy for competitors to cannibalize their own successful business and embrace a new technology.
4. No other large manufacturer has a self-updating car yet
5. If they do build successful electric cars, there's no one manufacturing LiON batteries at that kind of scale
6. Current manufacturers are shooting at Tesla's specs today and have no idea what Tesla is planning for the future. It's like Samsung shooting at Apple's specs and realizing it'll take several years to do the R&D for 3D touch.
7. Dual motor technology

I think the company that produces the best product and continues to innovate will win in electric vehicles. So far, no one is close to matching Tesla's ability to do that. You're right, poaching is a big, big risk - Tesla needs top tier engineering talent to continue to out innovate the competition.

My guess is Tesla will be non-GAAP profitable by early next year since a large amount of CapEx was Model X ramp up and that tends to stabilize and create free cashflow, as we saw with the S.

One additional point: apparently there's about a billion dollars worth of demand for the power wall.

https://global.handelsblatt.com/edit...d-up-in-berlin

Interview with a German newspaper conducted in English. Some points regarding the Apple discussion, interview has an obvious focus on Germany though.

This was said last week and reported by Techcrunch yesterday:
Is Musk a nut, a liar, or telling the truth? Especially interested in Subfallen and other Musk fan comments.

I mean, this was a guy who was two years late on getting the Model X done, and said that the new extra simple car features had "engineering challenges".

Yet he think batteries are going to triple capacity in "1-2 years" and as yet far from solved fully autonomous driving will be ready by Tesla in three years.

Is he losing touch with reality?

prediction is hard?

CEOs need to overstate positive and understate negative in public. That strategy is a market equilibrium, so no way to deviate from that...

So your take is that he's lying?

And no, prediction isn't hard. I predict Tesla will not have a fully autonomous car with in 3 years and I will bet any amount of money on it. It is unadulterated bull****.

The range comment was stupid and misleading, because I believe he is referring to using hypermiling techniques, which aren't practical. The current Tesla range record is 452 miles, achieved by driving 24mph. Still 30+% increase in 1-2 years is optimistic.

Not sure what he is thinking with the full autonomy comment, unless he means it will be able to park itself in your garage without a driver. Surely he can't believe it will be able to drive autonomously on public roads.

when leading people optimism and positive skew is GTO...
no way around it...
all ppl hide negative, they don't tell you their history of failures, only success...

no one will take the other side of your bet...
as not doing something is far,far,far easier then doing it....
give fair odds... 40-1?

I think he is talking about driving on the highway and he said earlier in the year that they are pretty close to it. Don't think he will be able to get autonomous driving in the inner cities.

The range stuff I am not sure about what he means. 3x range with the same battery pack weight as now or is he talking about loading more batteries on the car.

Well either way, you are trying to nail him here on something that is not that relevant. I'm clearly a fan but I wouldn't take his words here too seriously. So call him a liar, I don't think his words really change sentiment that much. And clearly they don't really have that much influence on the stock price.

Toyota has what, 60+ billion on hand, the most durable product, and a huge dealer network. Certainly if they thought full electric was the way to go they would have gone that route. They already got their hands on a lot of the tesla tech. Yet they are pushing hydrogen and partnering with bmw to use more carbon fiber in cars. Seems to me they got a look under the skirt and were disappointed with what they found.

I'm wiling to bet on hydrogen fuel cells never being viable.

Ok give me 10 to one that Toyota motor will have more fuel cell vehicle sales in 2021 than tesla. That's only 6 years away

Agreed. Battery technology is many years from being ready for mainstream appeal. Intelligent, rich, multi car owning enthusiasts might be happy with it for the electric ride and nice acceleration, but it's not ready for others:



You need probably double the Model S/X range and much faster charging to have a viable electric car with mainstream appeal. Tesla are managing to lose billions of dollars capturing 0.05% of the auto market right now (not a typo, that's the actual figure).

There is already a commercial version. Maybe you want to equivocate on what "viable" means.

You can watch here the response of a somewhat more relevant Musk fanboi, Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, when Elon says that he views autonomous driving as essentially a solved problem: "We know exactly what to do, and we'll be there in a few years. <shrug>"

As for your trilemma, Elon's relentless optimism is obviously not accidental or naive, but a psychological necessity for someone who works on rapidly reusable rockets five days a week while fast-tracking at-scale BEV adoption on the weekends.

It's hard to read the waitbutwhy articles on Musk and not become fanboi.

More overly optimistic than anything. In fact, he's almost too honest on investor calls and almost always telegraphs intentions. If Musk says the stock is overvalued you can always sell and pick it up later at a lower price.

Don't think the competition is the problem since Teslas value is out innovating the competition and a lot of that is Musk, some of it is being in SV and some of it is cultural.

The big risks to me are the world and competition choosing a different standard or some unknown failure costing the company recalls. You can have a huge moat and first mover advantage and then a different standard is chosen a la Malcolm McLean and the container. That's why I think him open sourcing the patents was so genius. Now most manufacturers have no excuse not to use the charging infrastructure and leverage gigafactory battery economics.

2006: Nokia has what, billions of cash on hand, a durable product and 40% market share. If they thought smart phones were a thing they would have gone that route.

Google before Google Plus: We have what, billions of cash on hand, a durable product, 80% market share. Let's build a better social network than Facebook.

I think you underestimate how tough it is to go into a completely new business or cannibalize your own market in order to embrace something new.