Articles re Tesla—Fact or Fiction?

[Papafox]

Here's a really uniformed hit piece:
Investopedia: Is Tesla losing money every time it sells a car?

With inaccurate and biased reporting like this, no wonder new shorts are taking the places of the smart shorts leaving TSLA.
The article is not only a rehashing of old FUD, it's getting things wrong that even the FUDsters didn't get wrong before. For example:
"Promises to deliver 100,000 vehicles by year-end 2015 fell short as Tesla sold just over 50,000 cars." Nope, Tesla once hoped to reach a production rate of at least 2,000 cars/week by the end of 2015, but it never promised 100,000 cars in 2015. This is just really slopping reporting on top of biased reporting.

 

[GoTslaGo]

Here's a really uniformed hit piece:
Investopedia: Is Tesla losing money every time it sells a car?

With inaccurate and biased reporting like this, no wonder new shorts are taking the places of the smart shorts leaving TSLA.
The article is not only a rehashing of old FUD, it's getting things wrong that even the FUDsters didn't get wrong before. For example:
"Promises to deliver 100,000 vehicles by year-end 2015 fell short as Tesla sold just over 50,000 cars." Nope, Tesla once hoped to reach a production rate of at least 2,000 cars/week by the end of 2015, but it never promised 100,000 cars in 2015. This is just really slopping reporting on top of biased reporting.

Quote from the article:

"General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) unveiled its Bolt EV in January 2016 at a cost of $37,500 before a federal tax credit of $7,500, a figure less than half that of the Tesla Model S base price of $70,000. With expected production of the automaker's comparably priced Model 3 pushed to late 2018, many EV buyers may opt for the Bolt rather than wait two or three years to take delivery of Tesla's lower-priced offering. This shift of allegiance would stifle Musk's prediction of 80,000 to 90,000 vehicle deliveries in 2016 and render its $3.1 billion debt obligations more difficult to service."


When I read this paragraph I couldn't help but wonder whether this author has been on Mars for the past 2-3 months. Maybe the author should revise the sentence to read:

"With MY expected production of the automaker's..."

Sad because I kind of like their site for basic investing tutorials. Guess I will stay away from their FUD articles.

 

[wdolson]

A few days ago someone posted this in this thread:
How & Why Tesla Model 3 Crushes The Auto Industry - Gas 2

In the video Julian Cox gives a devastatingly good argument why the Bolt will not be serious competition to Tesla. He points out the Bolt is essentially built on the chassis of another Chevy ICE that retails for about $18K USD and is a decent car for the price. They made some significant changes to make it a pure EV, but added $20K to the price. For a car costing $37K, it isn't much.

I would go on to say those making predictions the Bolt will crush Tesla don't really understand manufacturing very well, or business. GM is only planning on making 30K Bolts a year and the most they can possibly make are 50K. The Model 3 has 8X that many pre-orders. How can a limited production car wipe out an entire company that is already making more cars a year than GM can build?

 

[GoTslaGo]

Going to have to watch that video when I get some time. @wdolson, Thanks for reminding me!

 

[Runarbt]

Here's a really uniformed hit piece:
Investopedia: Is Tesla losing money every time it sells a car?

With inaccurate and biased reporting like this, no wonder new shorts are taking the places of the smart shorts leaving TSLA.
The article is not only a rehashing of old FUD, it's getting things wrong that even the FUDsters didn't get wrong before. For example:
"Promises to deliver 100,000 vehicles by year-end 2015 fell short as Tesla sold just over 50,000 cars." Nope, Tesla once hoped to reach a production rate of at least 2,000 cars/week by the end of 2015, but it never promised 100,000 cars in 2015. This is just really slopping reporting on top of biased reporting.

Wow.. Very well written, pro. Understand completely that already biased skeptics let themself fool to enter into a short position.

Good for us.:-D this article actually are very helpful for long longs.:-D

 

[GoTslaGo]

Wow.. Very well written, pro. Understand completely that already biased skeptics let themself fool to enter into a short position.

Good for us.:-D this article actually are very helpful for long longs.:-D

You're making me think that my joke thesis that the smart shorts trawl TMC might be more true than I want it to be. Especially with such misinformed articles out there.

 

[Johan]

Here's a really uniformed hit piece:
Investopedia: Is Tesla losing money every time it sells a car?

With inaccurate and biased reporting like this, no wonder new shorts are taking the places of the smart shorts leaving TSLA.
The article is not only a rehashing of old FUD, it's getting things wrong that even the FUDsters didn't get wrong before. For example:
"Promises to deliver 100,000 vehicles by year-end 2015 fell short as Tesla sold just over 50,000 cars." Nope, Tesla once hoped to reach a production rate of at least 2,000 cars/week by the end of 2015, but it never promised 100,000 cars in 2015. This is just really slopping reporting on top of biased reporting.

As usual, Betteridge's law is correct.

Betteridge's law of headlines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It says that any article where the headline is a question can be answered with "No". In my experience this law is almost always correct.

 

[ohmman]

Breaking: Does @Johan really believe that Betteridge's law holds?

 

[Johan]

Breaking: Does @Johan really believe that Betteridge's law holds?

Can be answered with a resounding definitely maybe.

 

[EinSV]

An Op-Ed piece in the NYT today suggests Tesla's AutoPilot should be required to get a "driver's license" before use in what is erroneously referred to as "self-driving mode."

The authors are a research professor and project manager at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/o...-shouldnt-a-self-driving-car.html?ref=opinion

Unfortunately, they fail to disclose that 6 of the 13 "members" (sponsors) of the UMTRI are: Exxon Mobil, Saudi Aramco, GM, Mercedes Benz, Nissan and Mitsubishi. Sustainable Worldwide Transportation - Current Members

 

[electracity]

An Op-Ed piece in the NYT today suggests Tesla's AutoPilot should be required to get a "driver's license" before use in what is erroneously referred to as "self-driving mode."

The authors are a research professor and project manager at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/o...-shouldnt-a-self-driving-car.html?ref=opinion

Unfortunately, they fail to disclose that 6 of the 13 "members" (sponsors) of the UMTRI are: Exxon Mobil, Saudi Aramco, GM, Mercedes Benz, Nissan and Mitsubishi. Sustainable Worldwide Transportation - Current Members

Yeah, that piece is pathetic. But it is still good advertising for Tesla.

 

[XLR8OR]

Here's a rational view from an owner: Understanding Tesla Autopilot – Marco.org

 

[bhzmark]

generally not participating in investor discussions I didn't know about this thread and started another fact-checking thread and started with a debunk of the Carol Loomis Fortune article: Fact Checking and Truth Squading media articles on Tesla

 

[EldestOyster]

Tesla Is Slashing the Starting Price on Its Model X Crossover
Each morning I get articles on my phone (courtesy of Google Now, or Cards, or whatever it is) and they're clearly targeted at my reading habits. Nonetheless, Fortune seems to be responding to the Tesla Tiff with everything they've got. The article reads like a review of all the FUD points.

Starting off with the headline, I correctly guessed that "slashing the price" actually meant the introduction of a lower-priced (smaller battery) vehicle. (Yes, I'm surprised they would put such a small battery in an X. But if you only drive your kids to and from school every day, "this is genius".)

The headline is supposed to make us think, "The business is suffering so much that we're cutting prices just to move 'em!" And the list of "guilt by implication" includes:

- missed sales target for second consecutive quarter
- on track to miss year's guidance of 80-90k
- NHTSA "demanded it hand over" information about AP after a fatal crash...
- investors and shareholders question takeover attempt of SCTY
- Barclay's downgrade to "D" and remarks about "$4.2B hole" of debt
- cut the price of the S earlier this month (same trick--60kwH battery)
- TSLA shares were down this morning...

On the upside, they did mention Elon's tweet about a second master plan (not even sure they view that as a positive).

I always like to mention the "as" technique, used to connect unrelated events. For example, "Oklahoma reports 3.2 earthquake in wake of Fortune article".

Putting on my journalist's hat, I wonder if slashing the price of the cars will allow us to "lose less money on every car we sell" ?

 

[Curt Renz]

Tesla Is Slashing the Starting Price on Its Model X Crossover
Each morning I get articles on my phone (courtesy of Google Now, or Cards, or whatever it is) and they're clearly targeted at my reading habits. Nonetheless, Fortune seems to be responding to the Tesla Tiff with everything they've got. The article reads like a review of all the FUD points.

Starting off with the headline, I correctly guessed that "slashing the price" actually meant the introduction of a lower-priced (smaller battery) vehicle. (Yes, I'm surprised they would put such a small battery in an X. But if you only drive your kids to and from school every day, "this is genius".)

The headline is supposed to make us think, "The business is suffering so much that we're cutting prices just to move 'em!" And the list of "guilt by implication" includes:

- missed sales target for second consecutive quarter
- on track to miss year's guidance of 80-90k
- NHTSA "demanded it hand over" information about AP after a fatal crash...
- investors and shareholders question takeover attempt of SCTY
- Barclay's downgrade to "D" and remarks about "$4.2B hole" of debt
- cut the price of the S earlier this month (same trick--60kwH battery)
- TSLA shares were down this morning...

On the upside, they did mention Elon's tweet about a second master plan (not even sure they view that as a positive).

I always like to mention the "as" technique, used to connect unrelated events. For example, "Oklahoma reports 3.2 earthquake in wake of Fortune article".

Putting on my journalist's hat, I wonder if slashing the price of the cars will allow us to "lose less money on every car we sell" ?

Fortune retransmitted the article from the Reuters news service, but changed in the headline the word "cuts" to "is slashing". Of course the intended implication is that Tesla has lowered the price of a particular model version. In actuality, a new version is being introduced that costs less than the already existing lowest priced version. But making that clear in the headline would not suit their FUD thesis. They surely realize that many people and algobots simply read headlines.

 

[JRP3]

Although in a way Tesla is cutting the price of an existing model, since the "new" "60" is really a 75 with a software limit on range. Tesla is essentially charging less for the exact same components. I can't think of an equivalent in ICE sales.

 

[30seconds]

Although in a way Tesla is cutting the price of an existing model, since the "new" "60" is really a 75 with a software limit on range. Tesla is essentially charging less for the exact same components. I can't think of an equivalent in ICE sales.

Porsche basically does a software tune between the Turbo and Turbo S cars. Some variants of the GM LS motors are "detuned" between the corvette and camaros / cadillacs which involves software + smaller intakes (which basically cost the same to produce as the larger ones), mercedes does this with the AMG variants, BMW with shared engines between the 750 and rolls, Audi with the V10 in the A8 vs. lambos and so on...

 

[PeterK]

Another WSJ negative piece: Tesla’s Price Tag for ‘Masterplan Part 1′? A $4.2 Billion Hole


That "$4.2B hole" from Barclays is really poor analysis. It completely misses the balance sheet perspective. Tesla didn't burn that money, they created assets - the Fremont and Tilburg factories and smaller production facilities, phase 1 of the Gigafactory, stores and service centers worldwide and a global supercharger network. And softer assets like designs, patents, a valuable brand, tens of thousands of loyal owners/evangelists, and hundreds of thousands of future owners.

At least one of the commenters got it right.

 

[JRP3]

Porsche basically does a software tune between the Turbo and Turbo S cars. Some variants of the GM LS motors are "detuned" between the corvette and camaros / cadillacs which involves software + smaller intakes (which basically cost the same to produce as the larger ones), mercedes does this with the AMG variants, BMW with shared engines between the 750 and rolls, Audi with the V10 in the A8 vs. lambos and so on...

But none of those are the exact same vehicle, as far as I'm aware, (Porsche S gets CF brakes and dynamic roll control), so there are actual physical differences.

 

[neroden]

An Op-Ed piece in the NYT today suggests Tesla's AutoPilot should be required to get a "driver's license" before use in what is erroneously referred to as "self-driving mode."

You know what? Last time I took the driver's license exam -- over 20 years ago -- they never tested me at speeds above 20 mph, and they never tested me in bad weather. I also only saw one other car the entire time, and zero pedestrians, driving on quiet, well-marked residential streets. AutoPilot would actually get a driver's license *in its current state*.

This says more about our terrible low standards for drivers' licenses in the US than anything else.