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Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

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Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#211

Post by omarforgotpwd »

xkjkls wrote: post #174
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #173

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…

> The economics of solar are great long term Why? It seems like a flooded and commodified utility market, the opposite of something with great economics.

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, and a car all controlled through one app.

Right now you can go on Tesla.com and in five minutes you can order a Tesla for lease at $399 / month and rent a solar system for your roof at $50 a month to fuel the car. You're completely off the grid, prepared for the apocalypse, and no polluting the air. That's very compelling.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#212

Post by tim333 »

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #173

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.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#213

Post by pmorici »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #102

For 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…

Maybe Musk will be proven right in time but having followed Tesla for a long time and having recently purchased a Model 3 (It's an incredible car). The Solar City purchase is the one thing that never made a lot of sense to me.

Even if you start from the premise that it makes sense for Tesla to be in the solar business, it's hard to rationalize that the best way to break into that market was to buy a debt laden solar panel installer.

I don't buy the short's narrative that this is anything like an Enron style fraud but the only point that the Tesla short sellers are a little bit right on, among the mounds of BS they publish, is that the Solar City acquisition was a shitty deal and Tesla would be better of today had it not happened. That said I don't think it is going to sink the company the Model 3 is just too good.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#214

Post by shkkmo »

dahfizz wrote: post #136
joering2 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting, but can you elaborate how we could benefit from colonizing Mars? Even more so - how could SpaceX be much more worth by being able to go to Mars, and how others wouldn't be able to achieve similar step sometime after them (depriving SpaceX from exclusivity of operation) Mars is much smaller than Earth with much more hostile environment. I heard some ideas of growing trees or putting air on Mars, but…

NASA has already committed to a permanent moon colony. I think it's pretty inevitable that Mars colonies will become common. Humans love to explore and expand. So why wouldn't you want to get ahead of the curve? Maybe governments and eccentric billionaires start paying SpaceX for their services and expertise in Mars colonization. Maybe SpaceX makes tons of money selling vacations to Mars. Maybe musk names himself Lor…

> NASA has already committed to a permanent moon colony

NASA's priorities get changed for it every 4-8 years and doesn't get given funding increases to compensate. I am very skeptical that we will see a permanent moon colony (run by NASA) in the foreseeable future. I would love to be proven wrong.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#215

Post by dreamcompiler »

btilly wrote: post #98
smacktoward wrote: post #9

This bit seems pretty damning: > As SolarCity struggled to raise money from institutional investors, it began offering individuals a chance to buy what it called Solar Bonds. (“Now you can get paid while driving the solar revolution,” the marketing material said.) But there were few takers—so other parts of the Musk empire took up the slack. According to the shareholder lawsuit, SpaceX acquired $255 million of the bo…

SpaceX's stated goal is "occupy Mars". Being able to land and deploy solar panels at scale is essential to this goal. And Musk has learned the hard way not to trust third party suppliers that he doesn't control. SpaceX's aspirational goal is to launch something Mars-wards in the 2022 window to identify where the base will be and have some resources. Then send several vehicles and a few people in 2025 to set up a miss…

Any person who goes to Mars in the next 30 years is going there to die. Full stop. The technology doesn't exist to keep them alive on the journey, and the technology to bring them home is decades farther out still.

OTOH, going to the Moon and back is relatively easy, and that's where everybody will be focusing their energy when this Mars mania finally runs its course.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#216

Post by xkjkls »

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #211
xkjkls wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The economics of solar are great long term Why? It seems like a flooded and commodified utility market, the opposite of something with great economics.

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% since the acquisition of SolarCity, and their competitors now have greater market share than they do).

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#217

Post by xkjkls »

kjksf wrote: post #195
xkjkls wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The economics of solar are great long term Why? It seems like a flooded and commodified utility market, the opposite of something with great economics.

This is "no one goes there anymore because it's so crowded" argument. Solar is big business and will become even bigger (because the economics are great and becoming even better). Commodity or not, some company will make good money there. That company could be Tesla. As to blanket "commodity" argument: McDonald sells hamburgers, Coca-Cola sells flavored water in a glass bottle and StarBucks sells coffee in a plastic…

> This is "no one goes there anymore because it's so crowded" argument.

This is a very true argument about the margins/economics of a business. If it is easy for competition to enter, it becomes very hard to make a high-margin, valuable business out of it.

> As to blanket "commodity" argument: McDonald sells hamburgers, Coca-Cola sells flavored water in a glass bottle and StarBucks sells coffee in a plastic cup.

All of these have substantial moats in either brand, training, or real estate. In what way does Tesla have any of these (brand matters far less for larger financial decisions like this) and why is it any advantage to any of these areas to have this attached to an electric car company?

And in this area, they already are no longer the leading brand, and have fallen behind many other solar companies.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#218

Post by xkjkls »

kelnos wrote: post #160
xkjkls wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Ponzi schemes usually do produce something of value for those who cash out early enough. I'm not saying the comparison is apt though.

Do they, though? My impression was that most Ponzi schemes generate cash for early participants by paying them with cash infusions from later participants. Nothing of value is created there; it's just taking money from suckers and giving it to unethical speculators.

That's still value for the early investors.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#219

Post by xkjkls »

infecto wrote: post #180
xkjkls wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has the highest paid board of any Fortune 500 company.

It is mind blowing. Kimbal has zero relevant experience in this specific industry and he has a 6million take home comp for it. In comparison a company like GM I want to say their average is below 500k but don't quote me, it has been a while since I looked...I actually think it was closer to 300k. And this for people with very relevant industry experience. I don't get it. Seems like a conflict of interest to me.

Apologies, I was actually off by one: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2017/11/16/the-10-highest-pa...

But the point still stands.

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