1) Somehow i'm approaching it from the opposite direction. I'm assuming every company is working hard and putting a lot of resources (intelligence, experience, R&D, capex) to use.
We have actual evidence that they aren't. I'm quite serious about this. BYD is working hard and putting a lot of resources to use -- so is Geely -- and apparently so is BAIC now. Nissan and Renault might be but they still seem to be making many mistakes.
Most of the others really are definitely not. Toyota and Fiat Chrysler most obviously are putting absolutely nothing in. Some large part of GM is fighting to not deliver EVs. Same with the rest.
Here's the clever thing: *Musk knew this before he invested in Tesla*. He watched the crushing of the EV-1 and the recall of the RAV4-EV before he put a single penny into electric cars. He had actual evidence of their behavior. He would never have funded Tesla otherwise.
3) I believe Tesla energy may contribute a bigger part to revenue, but next to nothing or even a loss to the bottom line. I don't see why they would have lower price or technological advantage
We have actual evidence that they do have an advantage. Don't ask me; ask South Australia and PG&E. Or ask the people who compare production costs; Tesla's leaked costs are better than anyone else's.
A lot of people don't realize this, but Musk's engineering skills are focused in cost engineering, which he is very very good at. I realized this during the Roadster period, when the leaked information about Musk's takeover of Tesla management all spilled out. Eberhard and the previous management had designed a car which was too expensive to build for the price they were selling it at; Musk personally figured out how to cut the costs while still satisfying the customers. He's very, very good at cost engineering. He's repeated this sort of cost engineering coup at SpaceX (multiple times) and at Tesla multiple times.
4) Hm. Maybe you have instead been very clever in the 2000s to avoid AOL, WorldCom, Lycos, Excite, Fireball, BOL, AskJeeves, Yahoo, Netscape, VA Linux systems, Mobilcom and hundreds of other companies
I did. My girlfriend suggested that all the fools short-selling the major tech companies (Apple, Amazon, Alibaba, Tesla, etc.) today think that it's like the dot-com bubble. It isn't. People who actually knew tech saw the dot-com bubble happening, and we know that this is different -- this isn't pets.com. You are confirming my girlfriend's theory that memories of the dot-com bubble are driving the irrational short-selling.
and simply got lucky with Facebook?
I didn't, because it wasn't obvious to me which social network (Friendster? Baidu?) would actually win. It was obvious one would win due to network effects. It's unfortunate it was the one run by Zuckerberg, who is kind of dumb, not thoughtful, not considerate, and easily convinced to do things which help propagandists.
The question with Google, as with Amazon, was where it would make money. It was clear it was the best search engine within about a year after its launch.
Once the ad business showed up, it was clear what would happen, but that took a while.
Amazon still doesn't make money on its primary business, and I think very few people would have predicted AWS would become their only profitable business line, which means before that became clear, it really was just a bet on Jeff Bezos. It would be rational to make the same bet on Musk given his track record at X.com, Paypal, and SpaceX, but we don't need to because we have a lot of information about the car industry.
Thanks for some rational bearish arguments; I like to sink my teeth against them. Much better than listening to TSLAQ nonsense. It's quite possible the stock is overvalued, so I keep an eye on my valuation models. (My average purchase price is still under $200 so I'm not in any rush to change to a different investment and incur capital gains taxes.)
FWIW, my biggest worry about Tesla is their internal disorganization and poor communications. This seems to have become corporate culture at this point and is going to be very hard, if not impossible, to fix. At some point this will bite Tesla, but right now my bullish thesis is largely based on the patheticness of the "competition" -- whose communications are even worse, thanks to franchised dealers and dieselgate and so on -- so it isn't really hurting Tesla now.