It's rather disappointing to see so many long-standing members of this forum be surprised by the ER and the comments from the management yesterday. I guess I'm lucky to have been able to adjust my expectations accordingly through repeated target delays, with both Tesla and SpaceX (there's a very good reason for that commonality, can you guess what?).
Elon Musk is a visionary, a designer and an engineer. What he still isn't, however, is a good planning manager. How many times do people need to be reminded of the sad truth that EM takes the time required to achieve a goal under optimal conditions, and then shortens it expecting people to work extra-hard / overtime etc.? It's enough to listen to him on the conference call yesterday to see the inner conflict between him trying to put forward achievable timelines and his incurable optimism that all the hard stuff is behind and the future brings only smooth sailing.
For instance: the battery pack assembly machine is completed and working at Grohmann in Germany. They expect it in Nevada sometime next month, so that's March. That equipment is necessary to achieve 2500/week production rates. And the management is guiding for hitting that rate by the end of Q1? C'mon, how many things can go wrong with that? It would be super-lucky for them to be able to set up the equipment, get it started and optimise the whole process for hitting that rate all within a couple of weeks!
The one thing that really got to me: him talking about how all the other OEMs not even being aware of the potential improvements in production speed! Tesla is still far from matching the production speed of others! Of course I am convinced he has a clear plan to bring about major breakthroughs in production speed and efficiency, but it really would serve him well to save these comments until after he's achieved these goals! Rant over.
I sold some other stock yesterday in preparation for the post-ER dip. I don't believe we've hit bottom yet, it might happen tomorrow or next week. I can't think of any impending good news (other than AP progress / updates) that would make the SP jump higher in the short term. So I'm still waiting to buy. I'm long, in case it wasn't obvious.