You seek to call into question the integrity of the car, the company, the CEO, and everyone who is favorable toward them. You are working overtime here to convince the world that the car is statistically prone to fire and therefore ultimately unsafe.
i will defend myself on this one. from the very first post, i have said that the data support elon's conclusions regarding overall safety. i dug through all of the source documents, retrieved the source statistics, and ran the calculations myself.
i have shown how it can be demonstrated to a 99% confidence level that model s is safer than ice from the standpoint of mechanical or electrical fires.
i have mentioned that i own a model s, that i am very happy with it, and that i am not concerned about a fire (unless of course i am in a collision).
the one angle i am questioning is the risk of collision related fires. that's the line of research people have disagreed with, and i have posted numerous rebuttals. maybe that's why it dominates the discussion, because it's the point of disagreement.
You seem to further the implication that this fire issue (and the accompanying "lies" of the CEO) may be a problem which cannot be feasibly addressed, let alone "fixed" by Tesla Motors, even with a recall.
i said no such thing. in fact, i mentioned that the worst case scenario i envision is 25,000 teslas are recalled and have to go through $10,000 of retrofits. that's a ** worst case ** dollar estimate of $250 million.
you're questioning my motives and saying i must be a short. i've mentioned repeatedly that the stock has already lost several billions of market value since this incident, and that in my opinion the shorting opportunity has long since past. when the mit article came out yesterday, and there was no reaction, i mentioned that the market is reacting as if there's nothing new there (meaning, the information is already priced into the stock).
i have offered pretty much zero in the way of investment implications long or short, other than saying i don't feel compelled to be a long or a short in the stock at the moment.
what i sense here is there is some bizarre dread of short-sellers. have you forgotten how much money we made on the back of the shorts in from april to september? do you really think we could have done that well if there weren't mountains of shorts who were forced to drive the stock higher? for as much money as all of us have made at the shorts' expense, we should welcome them with open arms.
now those of you who want investment implications, you could look at it a number of different ways.
1. you could say, yes, there is a higher risk of collision related fires, but overall the data shows the tesla is definitely safer. the stock has lost multiple billions of market cap and so it's more than discounted this problem related to the collision related fires. so tesla is a buy.
2. you could say, the statistical significance of collision related fires is high enough that nhtsa might find a real problem. perhaps the perception of this will keep the stock from going up a lot until the investigation is complete. so maybe short term call options are the wrong play, maybe it's better to be in leaps or just hold the stock.
3. you could say, if nhtsa finds a real problem, the stock will go down on that news. but i already know the car is safer overall, so if that happens i'm going to be ready to buy when it does.
4. you could say well teslas are more likely to catch fire in an accident, and because of this people will stop buying them, and so i should short.
5. you could say, luv is just wrong, those numbers are all flawed, and i am a long term holder anyway, so i don't do anything but hold.
6. or something else. that is entirely up to you.
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Ha- True, there is a bit of derail-age. I have to express my gratitude for the thread and luvb2b work on it though. Just from my seat here (not imposing this on anyone of course), it's enlightened a dark corner. The statistical conclusions are sound in my mind after checking the work extensively. My background for reference includes Aerospace engineering with some substantial work in predictive signal processing and similar- so not statistics but some related math.
That said, I believe Bonnie also nailed it here; The focus is better served on what possible conclusions there are for each investor- Mine seem to be at odds with most of the posters, (and strike me as perhaps a source of mis-communication - not sure).
For me the conclusion (and I know many are not willing to form this conclusion currently) is that ModS currently is more susceptible than ICE to large road debris, undercarriage, collision fires that apparently produce no significant additional risk of injury (due to the excellent fire suppression rate design elements) - This in my mind is an extremely positive one. It identifies for both the consumer and investor the issue to consider and it falls as a long term issue for Tesla, in my mind (where before the there was uncertainty). The same data shows ModS to be very much less susceptible to fires from other, more common causes in ICE. If the risk of a non-injurous fire is greater than ICE for a narrow event category then no worries (I lived happily in FL knowing my risk of a lightening strike was an order of magnitude greater than anywhere else for example). This will all take some time to play out, some education, etc thus I simply stayed long and moved LEAPS out further (as I also belief most of this has already been discounted in the stock price).
I really see this as a positive enlightening analysis that (to luvb2b's) point would have better served at an earlier time- but given the stock price now, it really serves a positive conclusory in my mind. In fact I disagree with luv's decision to remain uninvested at these levels. I see downside risk here 20% of the upside potential, including with my belief there will be another collision fire in next months- (thanks for that forward projection work luvb2b)... those are my 2c
+1
ken, thank you very much for posting that. i was hoping to provide a helpful objective analysis of the situation where i saw one lacking. i worked very hard to be objective in carefully evaluating as many reasonable sources of data as i could find. i tried to present my work so that someone knowledgeable or motivated could independently verify it.
it's sad to watch people getting blown away in short term options week after week when they don't have a handle on the data. i was hoping posting a good objective analysis would allow people to come to their own conclusions, just as i came to mine. i'm glad you found the research helpful.
as i said in the first post: "
to my numerous acquaintances on the board, i apologize that my vacations have kept me from doing this analysis sooner, as i'm sure it would have saved many people much money since the third fire was reported. but hey, you get what you pay for... i've been lurking on the forums and i've seen some good statistical information posted and discussed. my purpose here is to present the various points of view, point out the subtle differences, and present statistical data to support."
thank you for a fabulous positive note, on your closing note i feel it is time for me to stop posting to this thread for the near future.
With two or three fires there just is no statistical way to claim either. The car could be far far safer or far far worse, but at this level of statistics both hypothesis are consistent with observation and therefore no conclusion can be drawn.
