More negative news on Tesla drawn from interviews with short sellers. The journalist on this is famous for working with Jim Chanos, the short seller who was involved in exposing Enron. He is shorting Tesla and thinks it's the next Enron, and got this journalist to push his short narrative. I don't buy it. The economics of solar are great long term, and selling it with electric cars makes a lot of sense because a) EV…
Having seen Chanos interviewed on Tesla, I don't think he thinks it's the next Enron, just a loss making car company which will struggle. He's a long short investor who is basically long the S&P500 so he doesn't need Tesla to go to zero, just to underperform the market which it has done during his period of being short. He's also recently bought call options on the stock as a hedge against it shooting up.
Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
241–250 of 282 posts
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAICT they are still losing money on every Model 3 though? Doesn't matter that your cars are really good if you're not profitable. Just look at Saab.
> AFAICT they are still losing money on every Model 3 though? Citation needed...
They're not losing $ on every Model 3.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobodies perfect. Not even Musk. So I suggest accepting both the faults and successes of the man as a complete package. Tesla is one of the many cases of Silicon Valley syndrome where you run a company at negative profit forever while claiming to make all these substantial advances (some laudable, others stupid) in an attempt to disrupt something that's been working for decades for specific reasons. There's a reason…
It's not really one of those cases though. Electric cars were all but dead. They were considered a joke ("golf carts") until Telsa challenged the status quo and changed the industry. Many seem to have already forgotten this.
The Nissan Leaf was released 2 years before the first Tesla.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#244For all the negativity here about Musk and his business decisions, there is something to be said for integrating transport and energy services in one great package. I consult for a large energy conglomerate that wants to get into this market from the energy suppliers side, but the problem is that they are completely clueless when it comes to expanding beyond their traditional business. In their vision, they'll supply…
That's an easy dream to sell, but I don't buy that home rooftop solar and batteries will be cheaper for consumers than something at scale. The downside is centralized production needs transmission infrastructure, but that's already built, and between centralized installation and maintenance and a better location, the mass approach seems better.
The only legitimate synergy between Tesla and SolarCity is that they target the same sort of people--a Tesla owner is probably more likely to have rooftop solar than a F-150 owner, or even an Accord owner.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note: the financial positioning of SolarCity was obvious to anyone who could read a 10k. SolarCity never made a profit, and it spent tons of money chasing imaginary products (similar to a lot of other Musk-based properties). 10k documents exist for a reason. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1408356/000156459017... In 2016, SolarCity lost a full, solid, $Billion. The Tesla investors who voted for SolarCity / Te…
> In 2016, SolarCity lost a full, solid, $Billion. Amateurs. Uber does that every quarter.
I'd love to see Uber's projections on what fare chances to do the demand curve. How much would they have to raise fares (accounting for decreased demand) to break even? If it's <5%, they're actually in a pretty good spot.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
So was Enron, the company who was creating the future of energy. A future in which we produce and consume energy more sustainably. Enron wasn't tackling space challenges, so I guess there's a slight difference there. Look: fraud is fraud. If someone is lying to the public, it is wrong on that basis alone. Elon Musk could have done everything the same and simply NOT lied about it, and things would have gone far smooth…
This is such a shit comparison. Enron was just a trading company. They didn't invent anything.
That is certainly a statement.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#247For all the negativity here about Musk and his business decisions, there is something to be said for integrating transport and energy services in one great package. I consult for a large energy conglomerate that wants to get into this market from the energy suppliers side, but the problem is that they are completely clueless when it comes to expanding beyond their traditional business. In their vision, they'll supply…
That's an easy dream to sell, but I don't buy that home rooftop solar and batteries will be cheaper for consumers than something at scale. The downside is centralized production needs transmission infrastructure, but that's already built, and between centralized installation and maintenance and a better location, the mass approach seems better. The only legitimate synergy between Tesla and SolarCity is that they targ…
Yes, centralized production needs transmission infrastructure that's already built.
But any solar power production needs energy storage infrastructure which Tesla is trying to do with batteries.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's an easy dream to sell, but I don't buy that home rooftop solar and batteries will be cheaper for consumers than something at scale. The downside is centralized production needs transmission infrastructure, but that's already built, and between centralized installation and maintenance and a better location, the mass approach seems better. The only legitimate synergy between Tesla and SolarCity is that they targ…
Yes, centralized production needs transmission infrastructure that's already built. But any solar power production needs energy storage infrastructure which Tesla is trying to do with batteries.
I'd bet more on wind, hydro, nuclear, and some natural gas providing the baseline evening power over batteries.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#249The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk did and it has dire consequences for Tesla the car company. Shareholders definitely have a great chance to sue Musk because he did not do this in the best interest of his shareholders, it's in the best interest of his cousin. Co-mingling all parts of his companies (SpaceX buying SolarCity Bonds) is a huge red flag that reeks of corporate malfea…
My personal theory about all of this is that it feels like someone went "we want to do X in 2025" and that the three musk companies were launched separately to achieve those goals because the complexity of arguing them together would not have been conductive of fundraising.
This is going to seem super nit-picky but SpaceX was and is still a privately owned company. If the board was aware of the decision to purchase these bonds then the act was completely above board.
There are lots of things we tell our selves about the legalities of how companies should be run. But most of those mythologies are based on the regulation of publicly traded companies. Privately traded companies can and do play these types of financial shell games constantly.
Sadly I don't feel like there is much recourse for Tesla shareholders here. Even if you could prove some sort of far ranging conspiracy, there was an up down vote on the merger. Additionally the merger it self was a stock swap and not a cash acquisition. Calling the merger a mistake is fair but my sense when you look at the positions held by musk and others I think that is unlikely a broader fraud happened here. Musk owns 1/3rd of Tesla and because Tesla is publicly traded (unlike spaceX) this 1/3rd ownership stake represents most of Musk's financial liquidity. Based on the 2016 market Cap of Tesla (somewhere between 20 and 60 billion) it seems highly unlikely that Musk would encourage a merger just to gain the additional 800 or so million in Tesla stock he was given for his solar city stock.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm talking about the economics of powering cars with renewable energy rather than oil: http://ieefa.org/bnp-paribas-oil-losing-the-economic-battle-... Whether the panels themselves are a commodity doesn't matter -- it may actually be advantageous by lowering the capital cost required for installation. The user wants to buy the whole experience -- the panels, with a home battery to store and serve as a backup maybe,…
I'm talking about the economics and moat that Tesla has itself, with which the fact that the panels are a commodity matter a great deal. This makes Tesla a servicing/financing company, and why do they have a systematic advantage at that over competition? That doesn't seem like a high margin business that is going to justify Tesla's lofty valuation (especially when their solar installations have gone down close to ~90…
One advantage they have is that they try and pre-assemble systems into fixed 4 kw systems that are easier to put together on site
Another advantage they have is a very simple online ordering system -- try getting a quote for solar somewhere else vs ordering on Tesla.com
another advantage they have is asthetics
and also integration with the same app you use to control your car