TSLA Investor Discussions

[Norbert]

Maybe it's this article from yesterday on Green Car Reports:

How Many Tesla Model S Electric Cars Were Built In 2012? How Many Sold?

Perhaps people expected Tesla to beat there own estimate and this article makes them belief that's not going to happen. In my opinion the article is not helpful, it takes the surprise out of Tesla's Q4 and year end announcement.

I think that the GreenCarReports article is a response to other articles, for example the one on Plugincars.com, which in turn is based on a Dec 20th MarketWatch article. That article is based mostly on Q3 financials, and doesn't even mentioned that until and including Q3, Tesla was investing a lot in Model S production and ramp-up, whereas following Q3 it started producing Model S in earnest. It doesn't even mention Model S at all. (But strangely, shortly mentions Elon's positive cash flow tweet, yet withholds judgement about whether it is a reliable info). Most of the article tries to point out Tesla's need for additional cash, but mentions the post-Q3 $200 million capital raise only as an afterthought to be dealt with in the "next column". Reads like the author learned about that only after writing the rest of article.

The GreenCarReports article adds additional info (much more so than the Plugincars.com article), but still wonders if the current stock price could be based solely on the optimistic side, ignoring that TSLA is one of the most shorted stocks (I guess even after the shorts went down from 29,091,311 as of 12/14/2012, to 26,854,593 as of 12/31/2012). As everyone should know, there have been tons of articles expressing the bearish side, even if recently there has been a shift towards bullish views (for obvious reasons).

 

[JeanLuc]

Follow the Money boys and girls... The lawsuit was brought on by lawyers who work for Koch Foundation... ie Charles Koch 1/2 of the infamous Koch brothers, anti Obama right wing Republicans who are pro big oil and denounce everything to do with the green movement. Follow the money trail and it leads to these bowery boy millionaires...
Bottom line, more pressure by the Shorts buying puts.

 

[tslas]

Or may be it is this. This news came out few days back and ever since TSLA has been dipping back slowly.
SanDisk Hires Former Tesla GC for Top Legal Spot

Erik Whitaker's LinkedIn Profile:Eric Whitaker | LinkedIn

 

[vfx]

Sour grapes:

94.

For example, Tesla, using taxpayer money to build a luxury vehicle aimed at rich actors, media personalities and businessmen, has repeatedly missed production targets, burned through cash and required DOE to repeatedly renegotiate loan terms to survive.

Like XP would do something different if they were given the money.

- - - Updated - - -

I hate to post the link, but here it is: XP Vehicles, XP Vehicle

....

Here is the TMC thread on them. The site is dead but my comment is telling.

XP Electric Vehicle

 

[tslas]

It also might be due to following news. Ever since this news came out few days back, Stock has been going down slowly.

Eric S. Whitaker Appointed as SanDisk's Chief Legal Officer - DailyFinance
SandDisk Hires Former Tesla GC For Top Legal Spot.

Eric Whitaker | LinkedIn

 

[Bardlebee]

Nothing but naysayers. Seriously, a lot of these articles don't seem to have solid backing behind such claims. I mean I don't consider myself an actor/media personality/business man. I work in IT.

Also... a 60k car while is a luxury car price, is not out of range for people... perhaps many, but its not a one percenter vehicle.

 

[Doug_G]

It also might be due to following news. Ever since this news came out few days back, Stock has been going down slowly.

That's old news from November Tesla's GC Hits the Brakes

Definitely no correlation.

 

[Zzzz...]

Quote from the book I just read:

We confabulate all the time in explaining the outcome of events. If you want a good example of this, just tune in to the daily commentary on the movement of financial markets. No matter how the markets perform, it’s always possible to come up with a good explanation for why it happened, and such after-the-fact commentary is plentiful. Of course, if these commentators really understood the markets, they wouldn’t have to waste their time doing commentary.

I agree with Ray and do not think there was any "news" that affected price today. Just someone decided to dump $7M worth of shares at around 9:50... And reason for that decision was probably not based on anything that was posted on the Internet in recent hours, if not days. They might just needed some cash fast Or there could be gazillion other possible reasons.

And same was the case, you remember, after Musk's cash flow positive twit price gone down next morning. Twit was a positive news, and it affected stock price, but other forces made stock to actually go down.

 

[ppl]

To change subject. Google earth tesla plant and count cars lined up. Over 400. Of course don't know date it was taken but must be fairly recent with that many cars

 

[Zzzz...]

To change subject. Google earth tesla plant and count cars lined up. Over 400. Of course don't know date it was taken but must be fairly recent with that many cars

In Google Earth image is dated 28 Sep for me. And there is less then 30 S there.

In Google Maps image is the same as above under direct view, but 45% angled view showing this:

Is that what you counted? I do not think this is Model Ses...

 

[palmer_md]

it is strange...the latest google earth image is VERY old. the front of the building says NUMMI again. It was more up to date 4-5 months ago when I looked and it was clearly a Tesla plant and all the paint and logos were current. Somebody at Google is playing games.

 

[JRP3]

Zoom in for Street View on Kato Rd and the sign says Tesla.

 

[Bobfitz1]

Effect of Q4 Financials in Feb. on Tesla stock price?

After a recent Model S test drive, I'm confident that Tesla has a bright future and the time is about right to invest more substantially.

I've read that Tesla built and delivered approx. 3,000 cars by end of Dec., most of which would have been in Q4.
Does anyone on the forum who has been tracking quarterly results, stock market analysts 'expectations' etc. have any thoughts on
whether the likely Q4 results will temporarily hurt or help stock price when announced? Understood that any analysis is going to be very speculative at this point.

 

[jerry33]

The thread for that is here.

 

[Bardlebee]

There is a Investment stock thread here: TSLA Investor News

However, I am A) Very new to investing and B) Long term on TSLA so take my speculation like you would a crazy homeless man that sees dead people. I think the Q4 report will be a mix. There will be concerns about delivery screw ups, of which there has been a moderate amount. But there will also be positives of hitting deadlines and being able to get the product out to the customer. Ultimately though, I think anyone familiar with Tesla as a company that is investing expected the ramp up for delivery to have some bumps. You would be blind to think a newer company to the mass market field wouldn't have issues in the beginning. Compound that with dumb state laws (Texas, I am looking at you) and you have some obvious complications.

Ultimately, I think it will be positive, an air of "Going as planned" type of deal will be felt. In the news I see most if not all lawsuits for dealerships fighting Tesla have been batted down and dropped, thrown out of court. So I think it will be middle of the road, if not slightly positive.

 

[Zzzz...]

I've read that Tesla built and delivered approx. 3,000 cars by end of Dec., most of which would have been in Q4.

Tesla probably built around 3200 to 3300 cars last year.
But actual deliveries - they would be lucky to get them to around 2600 level.

Does anyone on the forum who has been tracking quarterly results, stock market analysts 'expectations' etc. have any thoughts on
whether the likely Q4 results will temporarily hurt or help stock price when announced? Understood that any analysis is going to be very speculative at this point.

I think there would be two big news. First is a production rate of over 400 cars per week. Something in a range of 420 - 450 cars.
Second is a number of new reservations(check tally thread).

Together they make total number of cars produced and delivered largely irrelevant. Tesla is not limited by demand, and as long as TM is able to archive high production rate, how fast they got to that rate dose not really matter. Basically 400+ rate retire risk that Tesla's supply chain is incapable of keeping up and would require extra investments and restructuring.

Reservations numbers will help to mitigate question about long term demand for Model S. It would not totally retire the question, but will help to install some more confidence about continues demand.

The big question that will remain largely unanswered would be gross margins. To see dynamics on that one market would have to wait for next quarterly report.

But overall I think market reaction to Q4 results release would be on a positive side.

 

[kenliles]

yowser- I'm much more bullish than Bardlebee and Zzzz
Assuming the report 1) Announces full 400/week production, around 3000 delivered, reservations securing bulk of 2013 20,000+ production, and balance sheet showing all their cash was not in fact used as some speculative reports have surmised; this will produce a blow through 36 toward 40 and set off some shorts really squeezing out. Along with that the loss will turn in a positive direction (a significantly smaller number and moving positive for next quarter)- gonna be one of the best stock moving reports TSLA has seen in a long time IMO- buy before the announcement

 

[Zzzz...]

balance sheet showing all their cash was not in fact used as some speculative reports have surmised;

All big money know that TM got $222M from secondary offering. Add $86M cash and equivalents as of Sep 30 and TM got enough cash to survive whole year assuming they spend at rate they were spending in Q1-Q3 12. But their CAPEX probably dropped substantially now that TM fully equipped plant and supply chain.

Point is, this one largely priced into shares already, but yeah, some will need to see numbers with their own eyes.

BTW, TM have collected ~9000 new reservations for production Model S US and EU version and US X since end of September. That would translate into $45M cash that could be used as working capital.
Sure there were cancellations but there were Signatures reservations and reservations on other markets too..

 

[Norbert]

The Q4 results will be announced in February, and I'd guess by then Tesla will be able to say that everything actually happened which needs to happen for Tesla to become a profitable company. However I'm not sure in how far overall Q4 results will already show this in numbers. Perhaps it takes the Q1 2013 numbers for this to become completely clear.

Tesla will probably be able to reach their revised expectations, but not the original ones. So I think the results will not be even better than hoped for, but also not as bad as feared: the end-of-year results should already show that Tesla can make it easily through 2013/2014 at least. However in order to be convincing, they might have to add information about the latest January 2013 developments, and perhaps only the Q1 2013 results will prove it in numbers.

Recently the short interest went down from 29+ million to 26+ million, and I'd guess that after the February announcement of the Q4 results, it will have gone down even further. Yet some pessimism will remain until there is further proof of continued demand, and until it becomes clear that the established auto manufacturers will not as easily catch up as some might believe (and also not just "buy" Tesla).

While the financial numbers should show reduced risks, they don't necessarily show increased promises. However I'd think that the positive reviews of Model S are based on true potential (not only the best EV, but also one of the best cars), and that this potential is only partially reflected in the share price already. This may happen in the next few months.

 

[FredTMC]

Reuters released this Elon news an hour ago... "Tesla CEO aims for profit in 2013"

google it.