What is your opinion on Tesla? Do you think it will go bankrupt within the decade? Stock priced based only on hype?

since you studied it your opinion is valuable input to the thread. What do you think about current and future price of the stock?

What could seriously go wrong? Show me two recent examples where this kind of situation spelled doom for a company.

Sadly the stock and how the business goes is isolated from their technology, in my experience. I've owned Tesla stock on and off over the last 6 years and I wouldn't trust it to last, or Tesla for that matter.

Electric Vehicle technology will get better and better over time, but not necessarily less expensive. And public perception needs major changing before its at the level Tesla needs it to be to be very profitable. The moves Tesla has made to make EV tech viable are astounding...you can literrally drive across country with only 30 minute charges every 200 miles or so...and they have enough stations to do this.

I think its a great idea, a great company, but I wouldn't say their stock will reflect that enough to invest in it. I could be dead wrong though

THey are becoming really popular now (Eastern Sydney) and they are perceived as cool and new. The novelty hasn't worn off yet, so, I think it is here to stay.

Their company is secure

I'm purely armchair speculating but I agree with everything you said except questioning if the company would last. The cult of Elon is huge, so is the hype, and the supercharger network puts Tesla miles ahead in terms of practicality. An EV without a widespread quick charging network is a glorified golf cart.

Stock value is propped up on hype though, I wouldn't be too hot on investing in them at the moment.

>only 200 mile range

My gas-guzzling shitbox gets 200 miles on a tank

Not examples, but two easily possible outcomes:
>Tesla sacrifices QA to ship 5x the amount of cars they've ever shipped on time. Queue a revolving door of recalls and tons of press about it.
>The new factories Tesla requires are hastily built and end up being a drain on the operational budget just to keep them running. Profits from the Model 3 thus drop well below what's expected.

A lot could go wrong.

Only 30 miute
Only

Google "premature scaling." Going from a company with a novel product that sells to early adopters at a very high price point to a company that mass produces products that everyday consumers can afford is an extremely difficult process.

The stock is overvalued based on current EPS, but the growth potential is huge. I expect the stock to flatline (on average) until the next major downturn, when it will fall very sharply. I don't think bankruptcy is a realistic outcome, given how well connected Musk is. He could raise a billion dollars of new debt finance inside of 24 hours if he had to.

I'll buy when it falls below $120. 20 years from now the company is going to be worth hundreds of billions. $500bn+.

If I'm wrong, I owe you a Coke.

What is the quarterly return? Oh, wait it's zero. They return nothing to their investors, but they've hovered above 200 bucks a share on the promise that if you give them money now they'll repay you sometime in the 2020s. There really is a sucker born every minute, good luck waiting for that one. Elon Musk is to Tesla what Steve Jobs was to apple. He's a cult of personality and that's what is selling Tesla right now. Give it a few more years of no return and Tesla is going to be to the next Pets.com. People are going to wonder how the market could have been duped so spectacularly.

>Tesla is going to be to the next Pets.com

Finally someone else sees this!

I got a card from tesla. I want to intern there

How do?

Lol you guys are idiots. Tesla along with others will be the Father's of automated driving. 5 years. Watch what will happen to the automotive space. Huge changed from inside sources. I'll give you guys another hint; how will infrastructure manage this change ?

Role-Playing, the post everybody

seekingalpha.com/article/3969630-put-20-refundable-deposits-tesla-model-3?ifp=1&utoken=8a48680f171b0abc3accbd9d0e98bd03

Think what you want to buddy. Big companies are investing huge amounts of money into the space.

I'm sceptical they're actually making a profit.

They're not making a profit though, or they'd return dividends to their shareholders. They've returned nothing to date, but they're still asking for more money. In another other market we'd call this a scam, but because it's Elon Musk people aren't asking questions. It's a penny stock pump and dump that's somehow managed to reach the national psyche and thirst for new technology.

Who said they're making a profit? They reported almost $900 million in losses last year and most analysts are not projecting them to turn a profit until 2017.

Even if/when they become profitable, they won't start paying dividends for a long time, if ever. High growth companies generally choose to retain their earnings to invest in future growth opportunities.

>High growth companies generally choose to retain their earnings to invest in future growth opportunities.
The whole point of owning stock is to make money derivative of earnings. If a company isn't earning, it's stock will be reflected by that except in situations where hype and inflated expectations of long-term gain is driving consumer confidence. It's why no one should invest in a company like facebook and expect to earn any money.

Other companies that had explosive growth like Microsoft still paid, and continue to pay dividends. The only companies that don't are social companies and start ups on the verge of collapse making the same promises that Tesla is about future profitability. All it's going to take for those experiments to go belly up is a turn in the market. Once again I point you to pets.com

>The whole point of owning stock is to make money derivative of earnings
From a textbook perspective, yes. But a lot of profitable companies do not pay dividends and their investors still make money because they understand that these companies are saying "we have some great growth opportunities that's we'd like to roll this cash into" rather than saying "okay, we made this money, here, you do something with it." Just because a company doesn't pay dividends doesn't mean its stock price is unfounded. Microsoft did not start paying a regular dividend until 2004. Apple did not start paying dividends until 2011. Both companies were profitable long before that. Berkshire Hathaway doesn't pay dividends. Google/Alphabet is highly profitable and doesn't pay a dividend.

>Even if/when they become profitable, they won't start paying dividends for a long time, if ever. High growth companies generally choose to retain their earnings to invest in future growth opportunities.

lol. You're so wise. Tell Elon he should say that in his next presentation.

Maybe Warren Buffett should tell him. Reinvesting profits rather than distributing them has been a pretty good strategy for BRK over the last 50 years.

>pets.com

I remember having no clue why this thing didn't work until I read about the company.

>They believed that the revenue target was close to $300 million to hit the break even point and that it would take a minimum of four to five years to hit that run rate.
>No independent market research preceded the launch of Pets.com.
>During its first fiscal year (February to September 1999) Pets.com earned revenues of $619,000, yet spent $11.8 million on advertising.
>Even before the cost of advertising, it was selling merchandise for approximately one-third the price it paid to obtain the products.
>Tried to build a customer base by offering discounts and free shipping, but it was impossible to turn a profit while absorbing the costs of shipping for heavy bags of cat litter and cans of pet food within a business field whose conventional profit margins are only two to four percent.
>Stock had fallen from its IPO price of $11 per share in February 2000 to $0.19 the day of its liquidation announcement in November of 2000.

Good God.

I should have clarified, I was just laughing at the statement, particularly the "if ever" part.

Someone else in the thread compared Musk to Jobs and the cult of personality. Tesla's kind of a "meme" company to me. Like Apple. This brings a lot of stupid investors. People who buy the stock so they can tell their friends in coffee shops that they bought/own a few shares of Tesla/Apple stock. And if they ever do become profitable you'll start hearing the demands for it, just like you did Apple a few years ago.

Smartest thing Tesla's doing, IMHO, is building up the national network of superchargers. I could give 2 shits about their cars. I don't believe Elon for a second when he says, "the supercharger will always be free," and, "we have to make the charging tech universal for adoption." He's right about the latter, but don't for a second believe the only reason he's saying that is because he knows he's got a head start and will be able to turn around and charge every car that comes through those things in the future.

But how is that any different than Tesla? They claim to be able to outcompete Ford, Toyota, and Nissan in the realm of electric cars, yet Nissan, Toyota and Ford all outsell in the area where they claim supremacy. They only sold 11,580 cars in the year 2015. That's nothing. The Prius’s 207,372 units sold represents a 11.5% decrease from 2013. They're scaling back electric operations because of it. How are they going to create a consumer market to rival ford if they can't even dominate their own dwindling market? Is there even more than 200 dollars per share of value in the entire electric car industry moreless tesla? Or is it just a hype train? With oil being down it seems the electric car industry may have to wait a while longer, and the question is will Tesla survive that or will competitors continue to outshine while Tesla offers only promises.

Sources:
time.com/money/3654905/toyota-prius-hybrids-sales-decline/
latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-vehicle-deliveries-20151002-story.html

The Ford Motor Company faced exactly those criticisms when it was starting out. It's just a novelty, the market doesn't exist, it won't scale, etc.

>But how is that any different than Tesla? They claim to be able to outcompete Ford, Toyota, and Nissan in the realm of electric cars, yet Nissan, Toyota and Ford all outsell in the area where they claim supremacy. They only sold 11,580 cars in the year 2015. That's nothing. The Prius’s 207,372 units sold represents a 11.5% decrease from 2013. They're scaling back electric operations because of it. How are they going to create a consumer market to rival ford if they can't even dominate their own dwindling market? Is there even more than 200 dollars per share of value in the entire electric car industry moreless tesla? Or is it just a hype train? With oil being down it seems the electric car industry may have to wait a while longer, and the question is will Tesla survive that or will competitors continue to outshine while Tesla offers only promises.

I'm the guy that agrees with you.

Here's where I usually lose people. I don't think Elon cares about the electric car business. I think he just sees them as a mobile billboard for Tesla, his military contracting company. He sees the supercharger as the electric car equivalent of Paypal. He's racing against the clock to increase the amount of supercharger stations around the country so he can charge for all the other cars to use them, and he wants to turn Tesla into the next Boeing/Lockheed/Northrup, etc.

It's possible, but it's stupid because the market isn't asking for a supercharging station. That's my issue. If he thinks he's going to turn into a lockheed he's going to need more than name recognition. That feels like a strategy from the 1960's. The military is set to cut spending not increase it. I feel like he's missed the military contractor gravy train by quite a few years if he wanted to become General Dynamics or L3. The military doesn't seem terribly enamored of electric vehicles either. It's possible further down the road, but will his company survive that long before a market downturn reduces consumer confidence in his company or a better competitor emerges?

Amazon doesn't get net profit but people love that shit

And if you say it's because they're investing what do you think tesla is doing?

Amazon has the ability to make profit, which is why they're now in streaming services on top of their regular business model. While they aren't profitable their stock has suffered from it. They're also a mainstay, something Tesla is not. As long as perceived market confidence keeps up with Amazon they'll do fine. Tesla has a whole bunch of other problems. Try to keep up with the thread.

How should I invest in electric cars? Put my money in lithium or specific car companies?

I think we're both on the same page, but I'm gonna go through it anyway.

>It's possible, but it's stupid because the market isn't asking for a supercharging station.

The market isn't because the market isn't demanding an electric car because it doesn't have enough charging options. If the supercharging thing doesn't convince people electric is viable, Tesla's done.

>If he thinks he's going to turn into a lockheed he's going to need more than name recognition.

I'm talking about SpaceX and Tesla as a combo under the Musk umbrella.

>That feels like a strategy from the 1960's. The military is set to cut spending not increase it.

The military is only going to cut outdated waste, like getting rid of tanks. They're certainly not going to cut spending in the emerging technology space that Tesla and SpaceX are in.

>I feel like he's missed the military contractor gravy train by quite a few years if he wanted to become General Dynamics or L3.

I agree with you that they're ahead, I'm saying he knows it and is trying to play catch up and that's why you see him and his companies in the public eye so much.

>The military doesn't seem terribly enamored of electric vehicles either.

I agree when it comes to infantry use but not with drone and delivery tech. No infantry wants to be caught somewhere they have to plug into a charger and wait a half hour to get going again, but the military is absolutely interested in tiny drone that is near impossible to get shot down/reusable rockets/etc. for delivery of their tech.

>It's possible further down the road, but will his company survive that long before a market downturn reduces consumer confidence in his company or a better competitor emerges?

I agree with you 100%. That's why I said he's racing time.

You will all hate me, but I am a Musk Fanboy. And in my portfolio I set aside 5% of my funds to things that I "believe" in.

Which means that are things they do not necessary are my normal (conservative) choices, but I really believe in die company and what they are trying to so.

I got in TSLA in Feb and for now it already gave a really good profit but I will hold them even if they tank. Electric cars are the future and after driving around in a Model S for a week I really did not want to go back to my ICE car.

I believe in Elons Mission with Tesla, SpaceX and even SolarCity, and that was the reason I dumped 5k$ into them. Also 3k in GXY.AS when it was 0.2 but thats a different story.

Did you also invest in bitcoin and star citizen?
>mfw I almost feel bad for how gullible you are.

No fuck that noise.

When crocs started selling like hot cakes, morons bought stock in croc manufacturing. The geniuses bought stock in croc accessories.

When GoPro took off, you know who got rich? Some fag who developed a selfie-stick that attaches to the GoPro.

What kind of add ons and accessories will people want installed on their Teslas? That's what you buy.

Nope, they gave their patents away.

>I set aside 5% of my funds to things that I "believe" in.

This is the only thing Tesla has. A mob of people who believe in it, essentially the apple crowd. Unfortunately for them the mob is fickle and their still not making any money off them.

Tesla will either drop spectacularly when Musk is caught doing something which leads his believers to lose faith, or slowly when they migrate onto the next bandwagon.

Radio.
On.
Internet.

>all these uneducated posts thinking tesla will fail
Wow Veeky Forums surprises me every day with how dumb they are

It's okay Elon, r*ddit is always there for you

>will fail

You are implying it's not currently failing, which it is, as it loses money every quarter and always has.

What you should have said is
>all these uneducated posts thinking tesla won't stop failing

I do some ethereum mining due to my renting agreement makes electricity free
And yes, I bought the 25$ Starter Package for Star Citizen, had already some fun on Crusader.

Teslas finances dont look too bad, it is just the heavy reinvestment of funds. And even if its just the apple crowd, look how it performed over the fast 8 years. If Tesla performs just as well as apple, my 5% was still a sound investment.
It is a big "if" but that is pretty much all long term investments.

>as it loses money every quarter and always has.

But its okay when amazon does it?