Nonsense from John Petersen

[JRP3]

BMW is deep into it's own EV program, with the MiniE and the ActiveE, so there is no way that they are going to be fooled by Petersen's uniformed blogging. It's no secret that Petersen is desperately trying to paint lithium ion batteries as dangerous, foolish, wasteful, and the wrong technology for any application other than cell phones and laptops. To do this he has focused his sights on the company most likely to be successful in the EV sector, while serving the additional purpose of getting exposure for AXPW in his articles. To achieve his ends he cherry picks "data" and spins it to fit his purposes, regardless of the facts. When confronted with blatant errors he either tries personal attacks in an attempt to discredit the messenger, claims he no longer wishes to discuss the topic, or complains and has comments deleted. I take some pride in the fact that I pissed him off enough that he made a concerted effort to have me banned from commenting on his articles, which was ultimately successful. Plenty of others have stepped up and continued to deconstruct his nonsense every time he posts it. At this point he is an irrelevant joke, but it's fun to watch him flail around in his desperation.
Interestingly Nicu started out seeing through Petersen's obvious agenda but apparently after meeting him in person was somehow mesmerized by his personality, which, if you've heard Petersen speak, is particularly baffling since he's less dynamic than Mr. Rogers. "Hello neighbor, would you buy some AXPW?"

 

[kenliles]

Yes. He's become his own worst enemy which is inevitable given his proclamations. And I think DrJohn's posted theory is accurate although I'd be surprised if BMW fell for approval of the Axiom battery - too smart for that and adds the JP desperation.

 

[vfx]

BMW is deep into it's own EV program, with the MiniE and the ActiveE, so there is no way that they are going to be fooled by Petersen's uniformed blogging. ...

Unless the company is bifurcated enough to not help itself.

 

[kenliles]

Unless the company is bifurcated enough to not help itself.

A distinct possibility. I don't know enough about BMW internals to tell

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

@DrJohnM, that was a real fun read; a riot at times Thanks!

It's impossible for anyone with a technology bent and an iota of interest in clean(er) transportation to not root for Tesla even a tad bit, the short-term financials aside. Given that, the vitriol that JP spews out is hard to digest; had it not been for his stake in AXPW (which may indeed become worthless if and when BMW moves on), I'm pretty sure he'd be tempted to sing Tesla's praises.

Having seen the Model S sales numbers in one of the biggest auto markets in the world - and I'm referring to California alone, let alone North America as a whole - most likely at the expense of the 5-/7-series and the M3/M5, I'm sure those bratwurst-eating, Bitburger-sipping, Lederhosen-clad (or not) BMW executives are taking notice right now and have bigger fish to fry than tinkering with stop-gap (pardon the pun) tech such as Axion stop-start. Very soon, Norway, The Netherlands and so on will be waving the Tesla flag in BMW's own backyard and it's not going to look pretty for JP and his timeshare in the Swiss castle.

 

[Nicu.Mihalache]

Interestingly Nicu started out seeing through Petersen's obvious agenda but apparently after meeting him in person was somehow mesmerized by his personality, which, if you've heard Petersen speak, is particularly baffling since he's less dynamic than Mr. Rogers. "Hello neighbor, would you buy some AXPW?"

Actually, I became JP's friend after debating in contradictory about Tesla for several months on SA. Despite his strong opinions and his (annoying) jokes, he stayed more respectful during this time than some posters here in the space of a few days. Still unconvinced by his arguments about Tesla, I thought meeting him in person to get a better feel was in order. The chance made that this was indeed possible. I had researched Axion before meeting him and decided to get in.

So after all this time, I still do not agree with his conclusions about Tesla. Because he speaks from experience, and 99% of companies would have already died in Tesla's shoes by now. But that's what "experts" kept telling us about Apple during the last 10 years: they cannot win that, they will fail this etc. But here we are, from time to time there is a team / leader that does something for the sake of it, not for the money. And they work and suffer harder than any monetary gains would warrant.

For the time being, I think Tesla is doing well because it is a darn good luxury car manufacturer, all that enabled by wonderful engineering and new tech. Not because it is green and saves the planet (the pool of tree-huggers who afford a Model S may already be dry). That is just a byproduct, and it's a very good strategy to sweeten the medicine. I agree of course that we have to start somewhere if we want to clean our air and Model S is a step in the right direction.

I won't say more than that. But every $ or kWh of PbC will save much more emissions over its lifetime than $1 or 1 kWh of Tesla's battery pack. Now and in the future too. But of course we may have both, there is no contradiction.

Now, about all your theories about John's motivations, I think you're sorely wrong. I have a theory about all this discussion JP / Tesla but you will excuse me if I keep it for myself, I'm not ready for all the BS I would get here if I stated it. As for JP / AXPW, he may have indeed saved this stock from going below 10c or much less, because there are no [longer any] institutional investors. But if he actually believes they have a good chance of success, would you still think he should not talk about this just so he doesn't get accused by anonymous commenters on the web of doing something fishy? I bet anyone that he will either keep his shares to 0c or $5 or more, no matter how long it takes.

But thinking that he is bashing Tesla to save Axion or that he writes for 1c per click or at most $100 per article (which takes a few hours to write / edit and another few hours to answer comments), when he works for several hundreds bucks per hour, is completely absurd. As I have already said, he seeks exposure to potential clients and this is better served by "free" articles (no payments, but much easier to cite / reproduce by other publications). Heck, I earn less than 10% per hour than him, I publish my articles with the 1c option, but I do not write for that reason (it still does not justify the time / effort). I write only when I have something meaningful to say and then I donate the proceeds. This idea that he writes to get your 1c is wrong by at least 2 orders of magnitude, still is a never dying urban legend. Sometimes the most puzzling things have a very simple answer if you open your mind.

 

[rolosrevenge]

Very soon, Norway, The Netherlands and so on will be waving the Tesla flag in BMW's own backyard and it's not going to look pretty for JP and his timeshare in the Swiss castle.

He already lost the castle actually.

 

[JRP3]

I've never suggested that Petersen is motivated in the least by the .01 per click. I'm quite sure he's motivated by trying to stop a technology he sees as competition to his holdings and by getting eyeballs on AXPW. He has been successful with the latter. The main point is why anyone would give anything he posts a shred of credibility when at almost every turn he's been shown to be wrong. Ask yourself why a rational human being would be waiting for children to be burned in an EV related fire so he can jump up and down and say "See, I told you so, EV's are dangerous!" Unfortunately for him every real world EV fire has turned out not to be related to the traction pack, and EV's remain safer than ICEs as expected.

 

[Robert.Boston]

JP's motivation might be simpler: no one is going to read an article about Axion, but if he wraps info about Axion into a Tesla article with (tens of?) thousands of views, then he's getting the Axion message out there more effectively. I'm sure he genuinely believes that BEVs are a tremendous waste of resources, but I think the reason he continues to blog about Tesla is because of the intense audience such articles command.

 

[Nicu.Mihalache]

I've never suggested that Petersen is motivated in the least by the .01 per click. I'm quite sure he's motivated by trying to stop a technology he sees as competition to his holdings and by getting eyeballs on AXPW. He has been successful with the latter. The main point is why anyone would give anything he posts a shred of credibility when at almost every turn he's been shown to be wrong. Ask yourself why a rational human being would be waiting for children to be burned in an EV related fire so he can jump up and down and say "See, I told you so, EV's are dangerous!" Unfortunately for him every real world EV fire has turned out not to be related to the traction pack, and EV's remain safer than ICEs as expected.

Sorry, I did not want to imply you were suggesting the 1c per click trick. I started an answer and it got longer than planned.

As for safety, Tesla has done a wonderful thing that John and probably many have failed to grasp. It's like the Falcon 9 design: some cells (engines) may fail, but because the pyramidal (or tree-like if you are a scientist) organization of the pack, the probability of a pack failure drops by many orders of magnitude instead of increasing by almost 4 orders of magnitude due to the presence of 7000-8000 cells in the pack. I think we will never see a (catastrophic or otherwise) Tesla battery pack failure ever (except when its structure is broken from outside), but I do not have the energy to try to convince John (or anybody else for that matter).

 

[JRP3]

Eventually statistics will do the convincing. We are probably already at the level where there are enough lithium powered EV's and hybrids in the world that we should be seeing crash related fires if that were a real concern, yet we are not.

 

[qwk]

JP's motivation might be simpler: no one is going to read an article about Axion, but if he wraps info about Axion into a Tesla article with (tens of?) thousands of views, then he's getting the Axion message out there more effectively. I'm sure he genuinely believes that BEVs are a tremendous waste of resources, but I think the reason he continues to blog about Tesla is because of the intense audience such articles command.

Yep, ignore him, and he and his penny stock will go away into BK.

 

[smorgasbord]

JP's motivation might be simpler: no one is going to read an article about Axion, but if he wraps info about Axion into a Tesla article with (tens of?) thousands of views, then he's getting the Axion message out there more effectively.

This. I believe everything Petersen writes can be correlated to boosting his own personal wealth.

 

[smorgasbord]

...he stayed more respectful during this time than some posters here in the space of a few days.

I'm not ready for all the BS I would get here if I stated it.

As a contributor to and financial supporter of TMC, I am offended by these personal attacks, which in my view are completely unjustified. If we treat you so badly, why do you stick around?

 

[Nicu.Mihalache]

As a contributor to and financial supporter of TMC, I am offended by these personal attacks, which in my view are completely unjustified. If we treat you so badly, why do you stick around?

You have the right to your own view, as much as I do. There is no attack, just my personal experience. There are some very knowledgeable and respectful people around, that's why I choose to participate. And I may even accept the right quantity of BS from time to time if there is something to learn in exchange.

 

[NigelM]

This. I believe everything Petersen writes can be correlated to boosting his own personal wealth.

Well it's not some philanthropic desire to save people from investing in Tesla.

 

[dsm363]

Whatever JP's motivations are, they are not pure in the sense he just wants to keep people from making a 'mistake' and buying a Tesla. He seems to be a very petty person who resorts to personal attacks on someone's intelligence when he is questioned. I tried to point out why I thought his arguments were false without attacking his intelligence and he decides not to publish those comments. I'm sorry but don't think very much of the guy. He may have a lot of experience in the area but he is attacking Tesla for seeming purely personal gain and often using inaccurate or simply making up data.

 

[Zythryn]

I do find it curious that he has a large position in Axion yet has no short position in Tesla.
He seems to be passionate about both.
If he feels having a short position in Tesla would be a conflict since he seems to beat on the company so much, isn't having a long position in Axion while singing its praises a conflict of interest.
Alternatively, if he believes in putting his money where his mouth is, shouldn't he jump in and short the heck out of Tesla?

 

[NigelM]

But thinking that he is bashing Tesla to save Axion or that he writes for 1c per click or at most $100 per article (which takes a few hours to write / edit and another few hours to answer comments), when he works for several hundreds bucks per hour, is completely absurd. As I have already said, he seeks exposure to potential clients.....

Sorry, I don't buy that. You imply he's not doing it for the money but doing it to gain more clients he can bill at $700 per hour, so....he is doing it for the money.

I've worked in consulting before and it's common to spend at least 30-50% of your time on client acquisition; however, in JP's case he's made basic accounting and analysis mistakes in his articles (there is a reason for this thread and just search the original investor thread if you need more proof) and judging by the comments on his articles he's not building a stellar reputation, altogether not an ideal way to attract new clients.

 

[Nicu.Mihalache]

Sorry, I don't buy that. You imply he's not doing it for the money but doing it to gain more clients he can bill at $700 per hour, so....he is doing it for the money.

I think it is obvious he's not spending all that time just to get better at writing or to win gold stars from some of his readers. Just that the profit is not in the direction most suspect. In the above statement there are 3 potential [monetary] reasons. I say it's not 1 or 2, but 3. You come and say "look, you are wrong, it's 3". So yes, it's 3. And I never said anything else, except if I posted after smoking something weird. And 95+% of theories in any pro-Tesla comments assume it's 1 or 2.

I would really like to see ideas debated here instead of persons. What are the odds?