Articles re Tesla—Fact or Fiction?

[ggr]

When I first looked this morning (about 9:45 Eastern, markets open for 15 minutes) there was a CNBC video running on Yahoo Finance with the subtitle "Musk earns $3.5B selling flamethrowers" or words to that effect. Note the "B" there. I went back a couple of minutes later to get a screen shot but it was gone... $3.5M appears to be real though.

 

[JRP3]

Fake news

 

[PeterK]

More than 70% of Tesla’s biggest fans didn’t buy a Model 3 when offered, analyst finds

https://www.marketwatch.com/Story/its-tesla-whac-a-mole-time-as-stock-heads-toward-300-2018-03-20

As usual, I get annoyed by some of the stupid articles and stupider comments on Marketwatch, and I have to jump into the discussion. There are a few very annoying regulars there, this guy Gordon Dressler being one of them. He’s questioning how quickly ICE will become obsolete.

Somewhere online I saw a presentation on EVs with two photos of a street in lower Manhattan at the turn of last century, taken a few years apart. One was mostly horse carts with a few cars, and the other was all cars with a single horse. Does anyone here know where to find it? Thanks in advance.

 

[JRP3]

Movement disrupted: The car over the last 100 years | InMotion

 

[TheDoktor]

More than 70% of Tesla’s biggest fans didn’t buy a Model 3 when offered, analyst finds

https://www.marketwatch.com/Story/its-tesla-whac-a-mole-time-as-stock-heads-toward-300-2018-03-20

As usual, I get annoyed by some of the stupid articles and stupider comments on Marketwatch, and I have to jump into the discussion. There are a few very annoying regulars there, this guy Gordon Dressler being one of them. He’s questioning how quickly ICE will become obsolete.

Somewhere online I saw a presentation on EVs with two photos of a street in lower Manhattan at the turn of last century, taken a few years apart. One was mostly horse carts with a few cars, and the other was all cars with a single horse. Does anyone here know where to find it? Thanks in advance.

 

[wdolson]

More than 70% of Tesla’s biggest fans didn’t buy a Model 3 when offered, analyst finds

https://www.marketwatch.com/Story/its-tesla-whac-a-mole-time-as-stock-heads-toward-300-2018-03-20

As usual, I get annoyed by some of the stupid articles and stupider comments on Marketwatch, and I have to jump into the discussion. There are a few very annoying regulars there, this guy Gordon Dressler being one of them. He’s questioning how quickly ICE will become obsolete.

Somewhere online I saw a presentation on EVs with two photos of a street in lower Manhattan at the turn of last century, taken a few years apart. One was mostly horse carts with a few cars, and the other was all cars with a single horse. Does anyone here know where to find it? Thanks in advance.

A data point without any drill down into why people behaved a certain way is open to all sorts of speculation, most of it wildly wrong. I've heard some people say they want the AWD version and others are looking for the small battery version. Neither of which are available. Why take something you don't want when you know what you do want will be available soon? Especially when it's costing thousands of dollars.

A year from now when all the versions of the Model 3 are out if there are still a lot of people opting out, then there might be a problem.

 

[PeterK]

Thank you, @TheDoktor.

 

[jcdenton40]

A data point without any drill down into why people behaved a certain way is open to all sorts of speculation, most of it wildly wrong. I've heard some people say they want the AWD version and others are looking for the small battery version. Neither of which are available. Why take something you don't want when you know what you do want will be available soon? Especially when it's costing thousands of dollars.

A year from now when all the versions of the Model 3 are out if there are still a lot of people opting out, then there might be a problem.

Good point; a far more accurate headline would have been "More than 70% of Tesla’s biggest fans haven't bought a Model 3 yet". But there's another massive flaw with the analyst's conclusion:

“If correct, this take rate would be substantially worse than predicted by our July 2017 survey, which had indicated that up to 69% of S/X owners with reservations were likely/very likely to take delivery of their Model 3,” Sacconaghi noted.

The first problem is that surveys regarding future behavior are ridiculously unreliable. That's why "consumer confidence" indexes (based on surveys) actually have very little correlation to the state of the economy. It's why the percentage of people who claim they'll cancel a particular service if the price increases is always VASTLY higher than the percentage who actually follow through and cancel when the price actually increases. It's a lot easier to say yes to a survey than to actually take the action that you think you will in a hypothetical future.

But the bigger problem is staring us right in the face in the analyst's statement:

"...up to 69% of S/X owners with reservations were likely/very likely to take delivery"

That doesn't mean 69% actually said they would buy a Model 3, just that they were "likely" or "very likely", which doesn't translate into an expected buy-rate of 69%. It's hard to come up with an accurate proejction without knowing the percentage breakdown of likely vs. very likely, and without knowing what "likely" vs. "very likely" actually mean, but let's use ballpark numbers of 50% likely and 50% likely, and let's say "likely" means a 60% claimed likelihood of buying a Model 3, and "very likely" means an 80% claimed likelihood of buying a Model 3.

Using elementary level math that translates into

69 * .5 = 34.5

34.5 * .6 = 20.7
34.5 * .8 = 27.6

20.7 + 27.6 = 48.3%

So even ignoring the whole issue with surveys vs. actual behavior that I noted above, even in a best case scenario (using the ballpark estimates above) we're looking at around 48% expected buys based on the survey data, which makes the actual buy rate of ~30% look pretty damn good (particularly since that number can only go up further from here).

 

[Curt Renz]

This anti-Tesla FUD piece was published as opinion yesterday by Bloomberg, and was recirculated by the Chicago Tribune. Today the Tribune reprinted it among its featured opinion articles.

Bloomberg: Elon Musk Is the Henry Ford of His Age. That's Bad.

Tribune: Elon Musk is today's Henry Ford, and that's not a good thing

The author is the notorious Edward Niedermeyer, co-founder of the Daily Kanban, who along with his partner Bertel Schmitt, has relentlessly published FUD about Tesla and Musk for years.

 

[AZRI11]

This anti-Tesla FUD piece was published as opinion yesterday by Bloomberg, and was recirculated by the Chicago Tribune. Today the Tribune reprinted it among its featured opinion articles.

Bloomberg: Elon Musk Is the Henry Ford of His Age. That's Bad.

Tribune: Elon Musk is today's Henry Ford, and that's not a good thing

The author is the notorious Edward Niedermeyer, co-founder of the Daily Kanban, who along with his partner Bertel Schmitt, has relentlessly published FUD about Tesla and Musk for years.

Everybody is out to make a buck. There has to be a reckoning. Tabloid journalism is the norm in all forms of news. Blame short attention span of everyone my age (50) and younger. The onion, and now soon to be thud! Might be the only "news" i read from now on.

 

[SteveG3]

Everybody is out to make a buck. There has to be a reckoning. Tabloid journalism is the norm in all forms of news. Blame short attention span of everyone my age (50) and younger. The onion, and now soon to be thud! Might be the only "news" i read from now on.

Media was deregulated a couple of decades ago. Over 90% of US media is now owned by 6 massive corporations.

These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America

(probably more concentrated now than 2012 when that article was written)


We’ve seen a very large drift from jouranalism to PR for what tremendously concentrated wealth imagines to be in its best interests.

 

[Electroman]

On the bright side gone are the days anyone took these opinion pieces seriously.

Most, including the choir to whom these kind of opinion is targeted, have learnt to treat them as entertainment.

 

[GBleck]

This anti-Tesla FUD piece was published as opinion yesterday by Bloomberg, and was recirculated by the Chicago Tribune. Today the Tribune reprinted it among its featured opinion articles.

Bloomberg: Elon Musk Is the Henry Ford of His Age. That's Bad.

Tribune: Elon Musk is today's Henry Ford, and that's not a good thing

The author is the notorious Edward Niedermeyer, co-founder of the Daily Kanban, who along with his partner Bertel Schmitt, has relentlessly published FUD about Tesla and Musk for years.

Has BS tempered his use of potentially inflammatory language in headlines to get clicks? I have a no feeding the trolls policy on BS and EN after getting bated into popping off on him on Twitter.

 

[ggr]

Numerous FUD articles in Yahoo Finance this morning with headlines like Tesla to recall 8,898 vehicles in China from June 28: China quality watchdog . I guess they don't seem to think that a week old, worldwide, pro-active recall would apply to China too.

 

[PeterK]

Numerous FUD articles in Yahoo Finance this morning with headlines like Tesla to recall 8,898 vehicles in China from June 28: China quality watchdog . I guess they don't seem to think that a week old, worldwide, pro-active recall would apply to China too.

Yep, hard to believe. And the stock dropped today. I wonder if there is a connection...

 

[TSLA Pilot]

Are electric cars worse for the environment?

A stunning article on a well read site.

Does anyone here have anything on the author's background/funding?

On the Manhattan Institute I have is this, FWIW:

Source:
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research

Ties to the Koch Brothers
The Manhattan Institute has received funding from the Koch brothers. The Claude R. Lambe Foundation, one of the Koch Family Foundations, reported giving $2,075,000 to the Manhattan Institute between 2001 and 2012, the last year for which data is available. The Charles G. Koch Foundation gave $100,000 to the Institute in 2012.

And, for more background, we have this from 2016:

The Kochs Are Plotting A Multimillion-Dollar Assault On Electric Vehicles | HuffPost

The Kochs Are Plotting A Multimillion-Dollar Assault On Electric Vehicles
A new group could spend $10 million a year on the campaign.
By Peter Stone

The oil and gas industry may have thought it had killed the electric car, but sales — boosted by generous government subsidies — rose dramatically between 2010 and 2014, and energy giants are worried the thing may have come back to life.

Time to kill it again.

A new group that’s being cobbled together with fossil fuel backing hopes to spend about $10 million dollars per year to boost petroleum-based transportation fuels and attack government subsidies for electric vehicles, according to refining industry sources familiar with the plan. A Koch Industries board member and a veteran Washington energy lobbyist are working quietly to fund and launch the new advocacy outfit.

Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest privately held corporation, is an energy and industrial conglomerate with $115 billion in annual revenues that is controlled by the multibillionaire brothers — and prolific conservative donors — Charles and David Koch. James Mahoney, a confidante of the brothers and member of their company’s board, has teamed up with lobbyist Charlie Drevna, who until last year helmed the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, for preliminary talks with several energy giants about funding the new pro-petroleum fuels group.

Late last year, Mahoney and Drevna flew into San Antonio to explain the need for a new group to executives at two Texas refining giants, Valero Energy and Tesoro Corp. Then, in late January, Mahoney moderated a seminar on “Changing the Energy Narrative” at the brothers’ twice-a-year retreat for mega-donors in California. The panel drew a mix of CEOs from big energy companies and other wealthy attendees who, in conjunction with the Koch brothers, bankroll numerous conservative advocacy groups. And last month, Mahoney and Drevna had further conversations with Koch executives about the new project, sources say.

Neither Mahoney nor Drevna returned multiple calls seeking comment about the new group. A Koch spokesman also didn’t respond to a request for comment.

It’s not clear when the still-unnamed group will be launched, but energy industry sources predict it’s likely to be up and running by this spring or summer, and that Koch Industries — or a Koch foundation or allied nonprofit — will be the lead financier.

[truncated]

 

[neroden]

I have never seen so much FUD. I begin to think that Musk's snub to the Wall Street boneheads was intended to shake out the backstabbing liars among the major Wall Street banks. The latest is a nonsense report from Goldman Sachs claiming that Tesla will need to raise 10 billion dollars by 2020. This is from always-wrong Tamberrino, or Tambourine-O as I call him.

I betcha GS is buying up shares while their man talks the stock price down with nonsense.

 

[EinSV]

I have never seen so much FUD. I begin to think that Musk's snub to the Wall Street boneheads was intended to shake out the backstabbing liars among the major Wall Street banks. The latest is a nonsense report from Goldman Sachs claiming that Tesla will need to raise 10 billion dollars by 2020. This is from always-wrong Tamberrino, or Tambourine-O as I call him.

I betcha GS is buying up shares while their man talks the stock price down with nonsense.

Institutions definitely loaded up on Tesla stock in Q1 (about 5.6M net shares added by institutional owners, according to Nasdaq.com Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Institutional Ownership & Holdings), at the same time Tesla FUD reached a fever pitch and helped push the share price down.

Since there were only about 1.3M net shares shorted in Q1 (30.4M short on 12/29/17 to 31.7M on 3/30/18), institutions were on average buying shares from individual investors, who sold when prices were beaten down (as is too often the case). In Q2, I expect we'll see more institutions piling in, although this quarter most of the buying may be from short sellers, since short positions have increased dramatically (probably about 8M shares so far).

I think we basically are seeing institutions making money from retail investors, who tend to buy high and sell low, and from short sellers, who tend to short low and cover high. The FUD seems to play a role in convincing retail investors to sell at the wrong time, and short sellers (including retail shorts) to short the bottom.

 

[CatB]

I can completely believe that FUD about Tesla profits institutional investors at the expense of retail and individuals. Manhattan Institute article quoted above is attacking all electric vehicles. And it quotes PhD research, which obviously still stands for piled higher and deeper. And there doesn’t even seem to be a comments field that would hold the author accountable to more reasonable and well informed opinions.
It appears to me that trying to depress tesla stock is more a priority of the grander campaign to destroy the environment and conserve certain peoples profits than it is an end of itself.

 

[wdolson]

There are three forces at work trying to drive down Tesla stock. One is the overall market. It's become a bear market over the last few months and when the entire market becomes uncertain, volatile stocks usually take more of a hit than blue chip stocks. That's a force that is much larger than Tesla.

Then there are the profiteers who are trying to cash in on high volatility by trying to make a bad situation worse. They don't really care which direction a stock goes as long as it makes big swings in the direction they are betting it will go. These people don't care one way or the other whether it's Tesla or Mother Theresa Inc. They just feed on a disrupted market.

Lastly there are people who have something to lose if Tesla succeeds. These are car industry people like Bob Lutz who will be hurt financially if the company paying their pension or salary goes bankrupt. There are some oil industry people too, but the more savvy oil industry people know that the end of oil is a long ways off. Even an aggressive electrification program is going to take at least a decade before there is a noticeable dent in oil demand, and several decades until oil becomes unprofitable. In other words, just about everyone in the oil industry today will probably be dead before oil will be.

But there are some connected to oil who like stirring the political cesspool who are attacking Tesla, like the Koch brothers. They go after anything that might interfere with their industries even slightly. They also politically agitate for other reasons. If it's the least bit "liberal" they attack it on principle.

Add to this last group a few financial analysts who have a pessimistic outlook and might be neutral or even positively disposed to the technology. They just aren't very good at analyzing stock for an emerging tech company and apply the wrong filters to their data.

The FUD starts with this last group, but the other two factors amplify the effect. Tesla is going to be under attack by the FUDsters until the last group starts going broke.