Musk endeavours

[redsturgeon]

Musk exercises options for 175,000 more Tesla shares

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon- ... 2019-05-21

Regards,

Is this news good, bad or neutral?

John

[odysseus2000]

Musk exercises options for 175,000 more Tesla shares

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon- ... 2019-05-21

Regards,

at $31.17....

So still a little upside left!

Not if they are going to $10.

Still for someone who many on Twitter say is bankrupt, the spend of 175,000 x $31.17 =$5.45 million, does suggest that claims of Musk's financial demise are a little over the top.

Interestingly the amount of Musk and Tesla bashing has reached a short term peak with the ridiculous $10 price target perhaps marking the bottom of the equity price.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Musk exercises options for 175,000 more Tesla shares

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon- ... 2019-05-21

Regards,

Is this news good, bad or neutral?

John

Probably instilling fear, uncertainty and doubt in the very many short thesis that have currently reached plaque proportions on social media.

Regards,

[Howard]

I must admit that I am bemused by how confident some posters are at forecasting huge world-wide automotive trends five or more years ahead.

No one on this forum predicted dieselgate, perhaps the biggest factor in the car industry over the last ten years and yet some are now confidently predicting the demise of BMW and Mercedes in the next few years. (I wonder if they have ever had the pleasure of driving or owning a modern BMW or Merc. )

In the meantime, Tesla is struggling. Some are saying that it may not survive in its present form. Owners of Teslas in the UK are seeing their residual values falling faster than ICE equivalents and there is evidence that this is occuring in the US too.

If you want to be one of the first to own a Tesla Model 3 in the UK, just look at the financials that the leasing industry is building in to the cost of ownership. To lease a Model 3 for 48 months and drive it 10k miles a year you will have to pay nearly £3,300 up front and a monthly cost of £548 - a total lease cost of £29,030. This compares with £2,000 up front and less than £334 a month for a BMW 3 Series Estate Auto - a total lease cost of less than £17,700. These figures are not a guess at what might happen in five years time but the real costs for a motorist ordering a new car today. See https://leasing.com/personal/car-leasing

Some have been forecasting the death of the German car industry for ten years or more. During this time German manufacturers have seen record sales and profitability.

How can anyone justify some of the forecasts made about engineering and the success or failure of individual company's EV production five years ahead? We can’t know how politicians will act to protect their car manufacturers. Yes Germany and the EU may let BMW, Mercedes and VW and the French manufacturers collapse, but it is more likely that they will phase in legislation to enable a gradual change to BEVs which gives time for their industries to adjust. US politicians may well continue to support Tesla with massive grants but they aren’t going to ruin their other car manufacturers to support Elon Musk. And the US aren’t likely to allow the Chinese BEV manufacturers too much rope to destroy US manufacturers either.

Naive trust is placed in Elon Musk who surely can’t even forecast this quarter’s sales figures accurately. And his claims about Autopilot are easy to challenge. Do we really think thousands of driverless Tesla taxis will be taking passengers through US cities next year? Just look at how much it costs to insure a Tesla now and think of the risk involved in driverless cars taking US citizens around - we don't need to be skilled underwriters to see it doesn't make sense.

https://news.yahoo.com/consumer-reports ... 03454.html

How many forecasters on this forum (honourable exception redsturgeon) have actually taken the trouble to drive an electric car for a day or more?*

It’s fun to try to predict the future but it is perhaps more important to concentrate on getting the current situation right and examining the wild claims by Elon Musk to see which are true and which are ramping his company and exposing shareholders to losses.

Let’s give Elon Musk his due for showing that he can carve out a niche in the US market for expensive cars and for shaking up the industry. And, yes, if one is affluent enough for a bit of gamble, invest in Tesla shares or their convertible bonds, that’s fine, but, surely, any serious investor must have doubts about investing in Tesla. They may end up as one of the companies who really shake investors’ belief in the Modern Disruptive Technology Model.

Sorry to be provocative, but this sceptic feels it needs to be said.

regards

Howard


*As well as several ICE Mercs and a couple of BMWs I have driven a new Nissan Leaf for a day, a BMW plug-in hybrid for two years and have experienced Tesla’s (so far woeful) UK sales programme for an S and Model 3. I may test drive a Model 3 soon - if this happens - I'll give an honest view.

[dspp]

Howard,

I drive a couple of new cars for several days of the week most months, in various countries.

This week I am in Berlin. Regrettably the eTron is not a thing of grace & beauty. It looks fantastic for the average yummy mummy who wants to keep her crop top above white van man line.

There are many paths to heaven. It remains to be seen which are the worthwhile ones.

regards,
dspp

[Howard]

Howard,

I drive a couple of new cars for several days of the week most months, in various countries.

This week I am in Berlin. Regrettably the eTron is not a thing of grace & beauty. It looks fantastic for the average yummy mummy who wants to keep her crop top above white van man line.

There are many paths to heaven. It remains to be seen which are the worthwhile ones.

regards,
dspp

Me too. But I'm too mean to rent the kind of cars I own in the UK, so would be surprised if you are renting nice BMWs or Mercs!

I'm driving from Zurich to Germany tomorrow but in a Golf. Did look at a Tesla rental but it would have been more than four times the cost - and not a fair test because it would be one of those journeys where range anxiety would come into play.

regards

Howard

[BobbyD]

Still for someone who many on Twitter say is bankrupt, the spend of 175,000 x $31.17 =$5.45 million, does suggest that claims of Musk's financial demise are a little over the top.

Hardly, when he could turn around and sell an identical stake for 175,00 x $192.73 = $33,727,750. I'm sure Halifax would lend me $5.45 million under those circumstances...

Interestingly the amount of Musk and Tesla bashing has reached a short term peak with the ridiculous $10 price target perhaps marking the bottom of the equity price.

Who has set a price target of $10?

I must admit that I am bemused by how confident some posters are at forecasting huge world-wide automotive trends five or more years ahead.

For the record I'm not in that bunch, but one of the reasons I like VW in contrast to BMW and to a slightly lesser extent Merc is their diversity and volume. I think the lack of volume and diversity is an elevated risk in a changing market. This is also one of the reasons I hate the idea of Tesla as an investment. Just to remain in existence they have to hit every ball out of the park, which in the real world seems a touch unrealistic. At the other end of the market you have massively diverse, high volume manufacturers like VW. Look at the effect dieselgate had on VW. They sent me a nice healthy cheque this week. You'd never know anything happened. Resilient. Somewhere imbetween you have BMW and Merc. I see a risk gradient.

I also see a degrees of freedom problem. VW just have more pieces to rearrange as they segue in to the electric era. They can turn an engine off for overhaul without significantly affecting the speed of the ship. They can commit to new engine technology more vigorously knowing that they still have enough engines running on oil to keep the pumps working and the ship above water while they wait for the benefits to work their way through the sytem.

No car manufacturer is guaranteed to go under, and none are guaranteed survival. Car companies going under is hardly without precedent, and if we could run this scenario a million times over I have a view as to which company is going to survive often enough for me to consider the risk acceptable.

es Germany and the EU may let BMW, Mercedes and VW and the French manufacturers collapse, but it is more likely that they will phase in legislation to enable a gradual change to BEVs which gives time for their industries to adjust.

If they want to protect their manufacturing bases from China, Europe moving standards and subsidies to lifetime carbon footprint would seem to be the obvious solution. As far as the companies themselves go, they aren't geographically restricted, which is another reason lumping all the German companies together makes no sense, and already build and have joint ventures in China.

How many forecasters on this forum (honourable exception redsturgeon) have actually taken the trouble to drive an electric car for a day or more?*

Not me, but then I've never driven an ICE either. Whilst I'm always happy to read about your positive experiences with Golfs for once I start to diverge from your line of argument somewhat. Whether a car is a good car, and whether its manufacturer has a long and solvent future are different questions, as are whether a propulsion system is suitable for mass adoption, and whether it will be adopted. I'm reminded somewhat of this passage from Danny Kahneman's thinking fast and slow:

Many years ago I visited the chief investment officer of a large financial firm, who told me that he had just invested some tens of millions of dollars in the stock of Ford Motor Company. When I asked how he had made that decision, he replied that he had recently attended an automobile show and had been impressed. “Boy, do they know how to make a car!” was his explanation. He made it very clear that he trusted his gut feeling and was satisfied with himself and with his decision. I found it remarkable that he had apparently not considered the one question that an economist would call relevant: Is Ford stock currently underpriced? Instead, he had listened to his intuition; he liked the cars, he liked the company, and he liked the idea of owning its stock.

...The question that the executive faced (should I invest in Ford stock?) was difficult, but the answer to an easier and related question (do I like Ford cars?) came readily to his mind and determined his choice. This is the essence of intuitive heuristics: when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.

I'm also reminded of the battle between Betamax/VHS. Better doesn't always equate to survival.

You don't need to have driven a car to assess the political pressures currently aligned against oil based propulsion, and the position of BEV compared to other alternatives, to see whose name is on consumers' lips, or who can sell a car and who can't. You might even argue that a pedestrian, unswayed by the exuberant drivability of this car, the unconscienably hard suspension of that or their tender feelings for the four wheeled friend sat on their driveway has a better view of the road than an experienced driver.

Regrettably the eTron is not a thing of grace & beauty. It looks fantastic for the average yummy mummy who wants to keep her crop top above white van man line.

Sounds like a decent market to me.

There are many paths to heaven. It remains to be seen which are the worthwhile ones.

Diversity again...

[odysseus2000]

$10 price target by Morgan Stanley:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... weak-sales

Regards,

[redsturgeon]

$10 price target by Morgan Stanley:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... weak-sales

Regards,

Would you be topping up at £10?

John

[odysseus2000]

$10 price target by Morgan Stanley:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... weak-sales

Regards,

Would you be topping up at £10?

John

Chance would be a fine thing!

Tesla would have been bought out long before it reaches anywhere near that level imho.

Regards,

[dealtn]

$10 price target by Morgan Stanley:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... weak-sales

Regards,

I suspect you already know this (but choose to represent things differently), but Morgan Stanley's price target is actually $230, a level maintained from the previous release.

The $10 figure is a "bear-case" price for shares should all the potential bad news come true. Those who are bullish, having done their research, shouldn't be concerned by the bear case price since they know it can't be true, surely?

[odysseus2000]

$10 price target by Morgan Stanley:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... weak-sales

Regards,

I suspect you already know this (but choose to represent things differently), but Morgan Stanley's price target is actually $230, a level maintained from the previous release.

The $10 figure is a "bear-case" price for shares should all the potential bad news come true. Those who are bullish, having done their research, shouldn't be concerned by the bear case price since they know it can't be true, surely?

Yes, this is all correct, although if you look on social media some seem to believe this is where Tesla is going very quickly.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Is this real or fake?

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-wi ... usk-email/

Confirmation or otherwise will likely lead to serious price volatility.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

$10 price target by Morgan Stanley:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... weak-sales

Regards,

Already posted, albeit correctly as the worst case scenario price not a target.

Claiming other people elsewhere are distorting the truth isn't really a defence for your own distortions.

[BobbyD]

Is this real or fake?

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-wi ... usk-email/

Confirmation or otherwise will likely lead to serious price volatility.

Regards,

How will we tell the difference from Tesla's normal price volatility?

I doubt the downside is that great, although the will of people to pile in to Tesla at the first sign of good news should never be underestimated.

[odysseus2000]

Tesla sales in California:

https://twitter.com/cleantechnica/statu ... 03360?s=21

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Etron is slower to charge than Tesla & uses more average power:

https://twitter.com/SimonBarke/status/1 ... 7957121024

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Musk exercises options for 175,000 more Tesla shares

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon- ... 2019-05-21

Regards,

Meanwhile, how the other half live...

A week later, we are starting to get a better idea of what kind of cost-cutting efforts employees have been taking following Musk’s warning and it’s indeed quite “hardcore”, as the CEO mentioned.

Sources familiar with the matter told Electrek that teams at several Tesla facilities are going to some extremes in attempts to cut costs, including skipping on ordering office supplies – even toilet paper.

A source even said that some employees are bringing toilet paper from home to the office in an attempt to reduce their overhead.

- https://electrek.co/2019/05/24/tesla-co ... let-paper/

Mind you Musk's 175,000 shares have lost about $2.5 million in value since he bought them on Tuesday...

[BobbyD]

Škoda launches all-electric car for less than $20,000

- https://electrek.co/2019/05/23/skoda-ci ... qus_thread

[odysseus2000]

Škoda launches all-electric car for less than $20,000

- https://electrek.co/2019/05/23/skoda-ci ... qus_thread

Interesting how the comments are now regularly about Tesla having way too much range when most folk only drive short distances & so need much smaller batteries.

One can find some support for that with the Nissan Leaf still selling, but alas it so hammers its batteries that the cars depreciate strongly.

Still believe that the shopping cart market will go to the Chinese makers.

In my case I still do 170 mile drives, so a short range electric would imply hiring a car for longer distances, but I generally want a bigger car for hauling stuff so a smaller car would not interest me although they can be fun to drive, not so good in a crash though.

Regards,