Tesla

[specuvestor]

Correct that's why Apple failed in the 80s with Apple IIe arguably being the iconic peak and succeeded after Jobs became more pragmatic (even alliance with Microsoft and using Intel chips), though he still pushed design to the boundary of what is operationally available, rather than what is idealistic.

It's always a balance

A good read to think about the implications of the whole car ecosystem - from batteries to suppliers, from sales support to ramping up production and of course the future of driving - autonomous self driving.

Tesla, software and disruption

This post began as a much shorter piece about Tesla and Netflix, comparing two companies that are using software to change other industries. But the fascinating things about Tesla is that there are so many different things going on, and so many different kinds of innovation. I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of things. One of the issues that recurs in thinking about Tesla is that tech people don’t really know enough about cars, and car people don’t really know enough about software.

But the history of the tech industry is full of companies where having a lovely product, or being the first to see or build the future, were not enough. Indeed, the car industry is the same - a great, innovative car and a great car company are not the same thing. Tesla owners love their cars. I loved my Palm V, and my Nokia Lumia, and my father loved his Saab 9000. But being first isn’t enough and having a great product isn’t enough - you have to try to think about how this fits into all the broader systems.

https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/...disruption

[Wildreamz]

Tesla continues to crush competitors in August: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4209230...ember-2018
EV Company News For The Month Of September 2018
Oct. 1, 2018 4:50 PM ET

Tesla is currently ranked the number 1 globally with 11% global market share. Tesla is the number 1 electric car seller in the US, and achieved a stellar 25,464 global sales in August 2018, led by Model 3 sales at 17,895.

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It's not all fine and dandy though. According to Bloomberg Model 3 tracker (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/), weekly production has fallen to 1881 (lowest since May) in the last few days. Tesla occasionally stops production for a few days to optimize production process and clear bottlenecks. 

Hope production resumes soon.

[weijian]

It's abit puzzling why Tesla needs to foot part of the bill? Nonetheless, we have all seen how a "compliant board" that doesn't act as a sort of check and balance against an aggressive CEO will often end up as a disaster. So i suspect the (involuntary) removal of Elon Musk as the chairman of the board, will actually be a big positive for Tesla moving forward. From a "structure" standpoint, it actually starts to make Tesla interesting for one to continue the "asset/business" portion of the study of Tesla as an investment.

Elon Musk removed as Tesla chairman, but will remain CEO in US$40 million settlement after tweet

Musk to split a US$40 million penalty with the electric-car maker to settle fraud charges over his tweeted claims about taking the company private and must resign as chairman within 45 days

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-s...remain-ceo

[Wildreamz]

Tesla confirms that Model 3 production hit its ambitious target last quarter
October 2nd, 2018 at 10:30 PM
https://bgr.com/2018/10/02/tesla-model-3...crease-q3/

Delivery wise, Tesla during the September quarter delivered 83,500 vehicles to buyers. And driving home just how fast Tesla has managed to improve production and its delivery rate, the company notes that during the third quarter alone, “we delivered more than 80% of the vehicles that we delivered in all of 2017, and we delivered about twice as many Model 3s as we did in all previous quarters combined.”

No matter how you look at it, Tesla appears to have had a stellar quarter, Elon Musk’s peculiar antics on Twitter notwithstanding.

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This quarter looking in line; the next question will be profitability, which will be answered during earnings call; looking forward for next quarter.

(vested)

[weijian]

So how will this work out? Will traditional car makers (whom are now treating the electric car as inevitable, compared to when Musk just started) poach Tesla's folks away, or Musk come around to get someone from the carmakers? Both will probably happen and the consumer will be the winner. I actually hope my current ICE car can survive till the day where i can transit straight to an electric car.

Tearing Apart Teslas to Find Elon Musk’s Best and Worst Decisions

The teardown by Munro’s team revealed an advanced design that uses powerful magnets to spin faster and generate more power. “This electric motor is a game changer,” he said. “Everyone should be benchmarking this.”

The software and electronics are also better. Munro found that Tesla reduced the amount of wiring snaking through the car by concentrating a lot of the electronics in small circuit boards. That’s knowledge from Silicon Valley that the carmakers don’t have.

The trick now is turning this established technological advantage into consistent profits—and to do that Musk needs to hire executives with experience in the nuts and bolts of carmaking. If he does, Munro said, “he’s not far away from making money.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/...-decisions

[Wildreamz]

It depends on who can iterate faster, attract and retain talent better, and market their product better 

(vested; recently increased position)

[Wildreamz]

https://www.thestreet.com/opinion/tesla-...s-14756742
Tesla Soars After Blowing Away Earnings Estimates: 10 Key Takeaways
Eric Jhonsa
Updated Oct 24, 2018 8:54 PM EDT

With the help of a major improvement in Model 3 gross margins (more on that shortly), as well as recent spending cuts, Tesla produced $881 million in free cash flow (FCF) in Q3. That's well above an analyst consensus of $191 million, and represents a big reversal from FCF of negative $739 million in Q2 and negative $1.42 billion in the year-ago period.
That in turn helped Tesla's cash balance improve by $731 million sequentially to nearly $2.97 billion, in spite of the repayment of $82.5 million worth of bonds (the company's long-term debt and capital leases still total $11.9 billion) Not surprisingly, Tesla is still guiding for positive Q4 GAAP net income and FCF; no specific targets are given. CEO Elon Musk had previously indicated that both Q3 and Q4 would be profitable on a GAAP basis and feature positive free cash flow.

On the call, Musk added that Tesla's "aspiration" is to be profitable and cash-flow positive every quarter going forward, save for ones in which the company has a large debt repayment to make. He also noted that Tesla wants to improve its cash conversion cycle to the point where it gets paid by customers for cars before it has to pay suppliers for the parts used to make the car.

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Tesla has came a long way since I first invested in 2016, they were only making $7Billion in annual revenues. Last quarter alone, they made $6.8 billion in revenues.

Optimistic about their future

[weijian]

It takes a few years to build a reputation but just a few minutes to ruin it.

Mr Musk probably shown that he is not above anyone else in terms of his temperament, but with his apology, he also shown that he has the character to become much better than who he is.

My personal opinion of a true leader and someone that i want leading the company i have a piece of: It's better to work quietly and then let the results show for itself to convince your critics.

Tesla Model 3 is most profitable electric car - consultant: "The Model 3 is profitable, so I have to eat crow. I didn't think it would happen this way," he said on Monday. "No electric car is getting 30 per cent net, nobody."
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/transpo...consultant

The ultimate win is always to convince your critics.

Tesla shares surge as stock short-seller goes long

Tesla shares surged on Tuesday after a high-profile stock short-seller shifted gears to say the electric car maker is "destroying the competition."

In a complete U-turn, Citron Research released a note to investors outlining reasons it thought the smart move is to be "long" and own Tesla shares - which were up 12.7 per cent to $294.14 at the end of the Nasdaq trading day.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/stocks/...-goes-long

[BlueKelah]

It takes a few years to build a reputation but just a few minutes to ruin it.

Mr Musk probably shown that he is not above anyone else in terms of his temperament, but with his apology, he also shown that he has the character to become much better than who he is.

My personal opinion of a true leader and someone that i want leading the company i have a piece of: It's better to work quietly and then let the results show for itself to convince your critics.

Tesla Model 3 is most profitable electric car - consultant: "The Model 3 is profitable, so I have to eat crow. I didn't think it would happen this way," he said on Monday. "No electric car is getting 30 per cent net, nobody."
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/transpo...consultant

The ultimate win is always to convince your critics.

Tesla shares surge as stock short-seller goes long

Tesla shares surged on Tuesday after a high-profile stock short-seller shifted gears to say the electric car maker is "destroying the competition."

In a complete U-turn, Citron Research released a note to investors outlining reasons it thought the smart move is to be "long" and own Tesla shares - which were up 12.7 per cent to $294.14 at the end of the Nasdaq trading day.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/stocks/...-goes-long

Tesla has had 2 previous profitable quarters in its history, question is can they maintain it or is it just a one time thing? After all the model 3 production has dropped back down to 4300+ cars rather than 5000 target. Also what about their more expensive models, those should have much bigger margins than their model 3 given their very very high price and probably just marginally higher material costs compared to the model 3. 

And soon Tesla is supposed to face substantial CAPEX for the land aquisition and factory in China. I am still quite skeptical about their reporting. I suspect they will go back into losses and use the china factory setup costs and trade war as reason/excuse.

I do give boss musk credit for managing to hammer out a deal with chinese. In fact his recent fiasco with the buyout might be a leak of a Chinese investor wanting to buy out Tesla and be on the forefront of EV tech. Perhaps it could be Geely, they have already bought Volvo as well as Proton/Lotus, Tesla would be good addition to their automotive tech expertise. I suspect Elon may end up sell off his stake in the company to Chinese. There is no way Chinese just allow American company to just suka suka go and open factory in China without some sort of Chinese oversight or control or partnership....

On another note, seems like Dyson is coming over here to setup electric car factory to rival tesla. hahaha another high end EV company. Question is why didnt they go to China???

[Wildreamz]

Yes the 2 times where Tesla got profitable, was when (1) they first ramped up Model S, (2) they ramped up Model X. 



Now that they achieved profitability, the next question is whether it is enough to pay down debt + fund their future growth, and whether that is the most optimum thing to do. And with EPS of $3 this quarter, a share price of $300, assuming they can sustain similar net margins in the next 3 quarters, even with 0 q-o-q growth; in a snap, they are a 25 PE company with triple digit growth rate. Note that they have not shipped to Europe (to capitalize on the US tax credit before it phases out) and many States in the US (because they are not allowed to sell them without a dealer) yet.