re: Investing In Tesla

A snake oil salesman? Where does that come from? In the past decade he's taken Tesla from a nothing that was buying chassis from Lotus to build the roadster to sell a handful of cars to today where he has a gigafactory under production to be the biggest building on earth while selling 88,000 cars with an ASP well over $100k last year. I dont know about where you live but here in my nice pocket of houston, Im seeing them all over the place.

He's built the world's fastest car which btw big auto had 100+ years to do and couldn't, funny how the minute the tesla p100d comes out Dodge puts together a dedicated team to launch the Demon which comes out soon, and yes its a tad quicker to 60 but it has to use freaking drag radials, small tires on the front, and it has to have 1 seat in the whole car to compete with the model S which has 4 doors, 5-7 seats, and regular tires. He is pushing the envelope of the auto industry: he is changing the business model, changing the way cars are purchased, changing the way cars are updated, changing one thing after another for the better and you wanna call him a snakeoil salesman?

I don't know about you, but do you enjoy all the games you have to play ie the will cover method to purchase a freaking car? The MSRP/invoice and shopping around? I like Tesla's no discount approach and the fact I can order it online in a matter of probably 5 minutes or less without dealing with some annoying salesmen, clearly others agree as sales and pre-orders are through the roof at this point.

They pretty much built the world's coolest car to this point, its out of most people's price range now for the S or X, but that all changes when the model 3 launches in a couple months, that could be the eureka moment for the auto industry where they realize that consumers want the simplicity of an 18 part Tesla vs a 2000+ part internal combustion engine. The hundreds of thousands of preorders are telling, no car company on earth could even fathom that number, hell GM thought they were gonna kill Tesla with their bolt, well they launched it and after 3 months were having to give $5000 discounts on it bc it wasn't selling, heres a link

LINK

and to top it off, GM sales declined right after its launch, lol they only sold 952 units in a whole freaking month on a car whose lease is $0 down and $300+ a month. Meanwhile Tesla got people to drop $1000 deposit 2-3 years in advance of delivery, if that doesn't tell you a tidal wave of demand is coming I don't know what does.

and WTF kinda oil loving mod stopped this thread from updating when people comment? I get whoever did it is probably an employee of big oil or whatever, but really? We can't even rationally discuss Tesla without you keeping the thread from being ontop of the page when there's an update? We're on page 4 already within a matter of hours and yet someone is trying to keep the discussion from going forward? You realize even a conversation like this could lead to tons of pageviews and clicks which benefits TD but instead you try to squash the convo? Makes sense.

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see you're a smart man and get it, I respect that. Tesla isn't an automaker, if anything its a technology company that makes cars. There is a big difference

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I personally wish he would stick to technology/energy and leave the car making to everyone else. It is just not an industry I see being successful for many more years but obviously there is something be said for being the #1 player in the EV battle.

Create the battery, let everyone else deal with making cars.

exactly ask the mods, probably some petroleum engineer pissed off and doesn't want to hear about the BEV coming to send him to the unemployment line

Can someone message a mod and get this unanchored this is ridiculous, tesla could legit smash its Er next week and soar and we can't even discuss it here. Last q had record sales, the runway for growth is limitless here and we get anchored smh.

Have been killed to this point? True, but I'm sure you're aware of The Black Swan. One only profits in the market when they sell (especially for a no dividend growth stock); obviously you haven't. Tesla's had a wonderful 6 year run, no doubt about it. Many people confuse themselves as great investors in the market run we've had for the past 8 years when in fact a monkey picking stocks could look like Warren Buffet in this market. The great investors make their money in the down markets, when the confused ones patting themselves on the back all the way up are left shirtless.

You keep referring to Mobileye's valuation as if it's a fact to base every other valuation on. It's just the opinion of one suitor. Everything, especially technology, is overvalued right now in my opinion. Big profits for a couple of recent home run IPOs has everyone hoping to hop on the next one. The absence of any return on cash or savings right now coupled with the recent Wall Street gains has everyone rushing in. I believe this is the time to be concerned. Of course just my opinion, but I, like you, put my money where my mouth is.

forget the software aspect of it. Tesla outsold every single brand in the $100k+ segment last year, what makes you think they wont do the same in lower end segments? That's a serious question, the model 3 has 600,000 pre-orders no bottom of the barrel car from mercedes,bmw,toyota,nissan, etc has ever had that type of demand. The demand was so rich that these people paid $1000 24-30 months in advance of delivery to secure a spot, big auto could only dream of that type of hype.

When you factor in tesla margins from direct sales vs the margins of big auto which rely on servicing cars and less on the actual sale of cars, you have to wonder why tesla is being grouped in with ford and gm when its shown significantly higher margins and elon musk has bonus clauses in his contract that include 30% gross margins, so he's going to do all he can to get them there.

I think when you look at tesla and see the cars + the supercharger network + tesla energy + self driving platform + tesla hardware as a service in a few years + any other brilliant thing musk has in store, the concept of getting all that for a mere $50B just bc profits dont exist now seems like the steal of steals to me. From a risk/reward standpoint you're talking possibly 50-75% downside and potentially 1000s of percent of upside and in the end thats what investing is, trying to maximize upside.

Is it the safest investment? No it isn't but Musk has done nothing to this point to make me doubt him, so Im willing to risk substantial money on Tesla not just surviving but completely dominating a decade down the line even though the profits aren't there today, the demand certainly is.

Im sure you did, did you sell your trailer to raise the cash that quickly, lord knows a guy with your level or eloquence surely doesn't have $30k laying around, well maybe under your mattress bc I know the gumps like you in the backwoods dont have bank accounts or teeth.

I'm kidding... I used my own money. I know, foreign concept to you...