Why did you invest in Tesla?

[sleepyhead]

Investing for 20 years. After 5 years of mutual funds (paying other people to manage my money, gladly charging fees even if providing negative returns) I had enough. Last 15 years I have done my own research and have picked select few individual stocks. Who best to invest your own money than you. You only have yourself to blame or credit which is the way it should be.
Leaders: Nortel Networks 300%, Apple 300%, RIM (Blackberry) 300%.
Losers: Many, only just recently had my portfolio above my '06 high (seven year wait)
There is a time for every stock (Nortel lost $238B and went Bankrupt, Blackberry is down 94% from it's $150/SP, Apple is down 40% and may never see $700 again) The time for Tesla is now. But don't believe me. Do your own research from a wide variety of sources, don't invest what you can't afford to lose, enjoy life and sleep well.
Advise: Stay away from penny stocks. Know what you are investing in. Truly Believe in what you are investing in. If your investing is losing you sleep and affecting your health, no amount of money is worth that. Buy and hold long term strategy. Stay away from the stock ticker, daily fluctuations are pointless.

Why Tesla: To me, it just makes sense in every way shape and form, a "Eureka" moment. Of course, no if ands or buts. No more gas, looks awesome, no more dealers, looks awesome, best performance, North American made, looks awesome, seasoned CEO, no more unions, battery technology improving. How can Tesla's first car from the ground up beat every other car the big auto industry has ever made. This speaks volumes. The mass produced EV will be revolutionary and I believe Tesla will play a significant part, one of many, in this revolution. EVs are the future and the amount of change will be enormous affecting the economy. Gas producers and their infrastructure, car engine repair shops (specialty lube, brake and muffler), dealerships, hundreds of thousands of jobs will need to be transferred to other sectors of the economy. Change is good. But there are many who wish Tesla to fail, their livelihoods are at risk. This is an epic battle in a trillion dollar industry. But it will take time, years. I was lucky to invest in Tesla at $29 in October '12 and will hold for many years. When I invested in Nortel, Blackberry and Apple, I was very late in the game. I feel I am getting in very early with Tesla (think Apple in '04). I know this because most of my friends have never heard of Tesla.

When I was a teenager several friends of mine drove self modified mustangs and the like...I drove my Mom's '83 Datsun Sentra. I was never a car guy. Now all I do is talk about cars and I feel like I am living my teenage years over again. How cool is that! This may sound unreal, but I have already picked out my Model X '14 that I will purchase in '18 after a four year lease, direct from Tesla. I have planned five years in advance on my three previous vehicles and it came true every time down to the colour of the paint and options. I can see the Model X already in my driveway, for me it is already there, just need to wait five years. It is called delayed gratification, and it works.

Thanks for reading my ramble. Final note, if you have not already seen the following, they are good watches.
Search Google for full length film documentaries "Who Killed the Electric Car" and the sequel, "The Revenge of the Electric Car".
Enjoy and God Bless.

Great Post WoH.

 

[Causalien]

Been in the market 23 years. First 10 years I let someone else manage my stock for me. Lost my shirt in the tech bubble. The biggest lesson I learned? If I am going to lose my money, might as well do it myself. Like Kimbal's attitude. The rocket explosion is the greatest firework.

Next 7 years was spent investing. Then, the previous 6 years I spent most of my time in options. Investing for me, is like an ongoing learning experience. I am in it to learn every trick there is to know and believe me, I've tried most trick that was written out there. My conclusion is that, they all worked at some point.

From my fundamental analysis days. I believe one thing above all other. CEO trumps every other metrics. Because of this belief, I found Elon Musk and watched every interview he's ever been on before TSLA's IPO. Back then, my conclusion is that he is genuine.

This post made me go back to how I found Elon. I think the earliest recollection I can think of was Iron man. I kind of wondered who it was because his acting was pretty bad. Then later I saw an article about the Tony Stark in real life which caused me to find out which company he founded. "Holly COW!" Paypal. Then I read in his divorce with his first wife that even though she probably hates him for being absent all the time, she still demanded a lot of TSLA stocks from the divorce. That is true belief from an enemy who knows your innermost secrets. Imagine someone who hates you, but still invests in your company.

Then I found out about Space X, next TSLA. The only question I had to ask was "will this disrupt an industry". Once that was done with, I was constantly trying to throw money at TSLA so I can get some stocks. The 2008 financial crisis that forced a TSLA IPO before it was ready for public offering was the best thing that ever happened.

 

[ppl]

This post made me go back to how I found Elon. I think the earliest recollection I can think of was Iron man. I kind of wondered who it was because his acting was pretty bad. Then later I saw an article about the Tony Stark in real life which caused me to find out which company he founded. "Holly COW!" Paypal. Then I read in his divorce with his first wife that even though she probably hates him for being absent all the time, she still demanded a lot of TSLA stocks from the divorce. That is true belief from an enemy who knows your innermost secrets. Imagine someone who hates you, but still invests in your company.

.

For me the confirmation was reading her divorce demands that totaled over a Billion dollars and ended with a demand for a roadster. Clearly vindictive and despite enough to buy any car on her own she was demanding the Roadster. Quite the endorcement. Realized it must be special

 

[bonnie]

1. I drove their product,
2. I've spent time on numerous occasions with Tesla employees ranging from a new shuttle bus driver to senior management & witnessed the shared hard-to-create single vision focus (key to the long hours and commitment),
3. I've looked at how they hired and saw they clearly weren't playing the game of "we're smart enough, we can figure it out" and went after experts who 'got it',
4. I do a lot of EV outreach and see the public reaction changing to EVs,
5. I've walked their factory floor multiple times and looked hard at flow, operator documentation, safety shields, simple things like getting light in and painting everything white, good break area, Elon's desk on the floor, enthusiasm from those operating the equipment knowing they're part of something big,
6. I drove their product ,
7. I've watched a startup make the right hard decisions,
8. I've been part of their earned customer loyalty,
9. I've witnessed people's reaction to the brand,
10. I've watched the viral marketing that is occurring,
11. I've watched THIS forum of people talk about the company,
12. And finally, since I evaluate the health and viability of companies as part of 'what I do', I decided that if I had any faith whatsoever in my own skills, I'd put my money in the company that had totally blown me away (something not so easy to do).

So I made a big bet.

 

[Words of HABIT]

Final note, if you have not already seen the following, they are good watches.
Search Google for full length film documentaries "Who Killed the Electric Car" and the sequel, "The Revenge of the Electric Car".
Enjoy and God Bless.

I found these links on YouTube.

Who Killed the Electric Car (watch first)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTHsTCBxDM8 (part 1 of 8)

Revenge of the Electric Car (sequel to Who Killed the Electric Car)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_7c9kPncnk (full length)

Tesla is creating the events for next instalment as I type. Hopefully film maker Chris Payne can produce the trilogy. I'll be in the front row seat.

 

[Grendal]

Since I don't own a Tesla yet, I still wanted to show my support for the innovative company. I was pro-EV even before I heard of Tesla. Tesla is doing more to promote EV's and EV technology than anyone else so they have won my support.

My current plan is to buy a Tesla in 2015. The profits from my investment will make that purchase a lot easier.

 

[DaveT]

Back in early 2012 I kept on seeing Elon Musk's name pop up in articles on Hacker News (Hacker News). I'm on Hacker News a lot because it's where a lot of the world's smartest programmers and tech entreprenuers hang out. Overwhelmingly people had good things to say about Elon Musk and his companies.

So, I started to watch video interviews of him on YouTube (similar to Causalien above). I learned a ton about business, entrepreneurship, tech, first principle, cost reduction, space exploration, rockets, electric cars, batteries, solar, etc. So, I kept on watching. After exhausting all of the interviews on YouTube, I went to google and started to read all the written interviews of Elon since his Paypal days. I did this for a few hours a day for months. Then, I started doing strange searches on Google trying to uncover lost written and video interviews of Elon Musk... I actually found a lot of cool stuff.

Here are some of the things I concluded about Elon Musk during this time:
1. Elon has a huge advantage in spotting opportunities because of his understanding of First Principle and it's application to business and products.
2. Elon is a product maniac. He has super high standards and knows that the value of the company is dependent on how good the product/service is.
3. Elon knows how to cut costs through relentless iteration (ie., SpaceX).
4. Elon understands the power of an amazing product to market itself and empower word-of-mouth viral sharing.
5. Elon cares about investors in his companies and is proud that he's never had a down round.
6. Elon is generous with interviews and shares lessons he's learned.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]It came to the point where I could not NOT invest in TSLA. So I bought some shares in Aug 2012. I wanted to buy more shares but I first wanted to test drive the Model S. My local store only had a beta car. To make a long story short, I finally test drive the car in early November, and then was blown away. The car handled amazingly, accelerated like crazy, and was a complete joy to drive. I knew the tech, the car performance, and ever-lower battery prices would truly disrupt the car industry. I also read all their annual reports and investor presentations to understand the company from a financial point of view as well.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]So in November, I bought enough stock so I wouldn't regret it (which happened to be large majority of all our liquid assets). I've also added option call purchases when the stock was at 72, 92, 100 and 109 because I think Tesla's growth is just getting started.[/FONT]

 

[Causalien]

Pretty interesting how we did the same researches and reached at the same conclusion but from different cues. I was studying his body language to profile his personality.
From my memory of hacker news, it was only recently that they started loving Elon. Earlier days, there were a lot more haters, which is weird because I thought the hacker news crowd have more ev enthusiasts.

 

[DaveT]

Pretty interesting how we did the same researches and reached at the same conclusion but from different cues. I was studying his body language to profile his personality.
From my memory of hacker news, it was only recently that they started loving Elon. Earlier days, there were a lot more haters, which is weird because I thought the hacker news crowd have more ev enthusiasts.

As far back as I can remember there were always more fans of Elon Musk than critics on Hacker News (though the # of critics seems to have faded more recently). Many of Hacker News were quick to point out that Elon Musk was/had disrupting many industries (online payments w/paypal, space launch w/spacex, auto industry w/tesla and solar w/solarcity). I think it was helpful to view Tesla with a perspective of "Will this disrupt the auto industry?" (similar to the question Causalien you asked) It helped having a software/tech/business background for me as well.

The 2008 financial crisis that forced a TSLA IPO before it was ready for public offering was the best thing that ever happened.

I completely agree. Tesla IPO'ed way earlier than Elon would have ideally wanted and high short sale interest as well as missed 2012 guidance allowed a lot of people to get in on a super low stock price.

From my fundamental analysis days. I believe one thing above all other. CEO trumps every other metrics. Because of this belief, I found Elon Musk and watched every interview he's ever been on before TSLA's IPO. Back then, my conclusion is that he is genuine.

I also agree with you on the importance of the CEO. It's one of the main things I look for in investing. The cool thing about having a visionary/genuine/capable CEO like Elon Musk is that growth is not capped with the company because they can disrupt other industries in the future. Elon's got amazingly clear thinking as well. I've watched a ton of CEO interviews and it's rare to find someone at his level of clarity and understanding (ie., Larry Page is another CEO with very clear thinking and understanding. I listen to GOOG's earnings call just to hear him talk.).

 

[Mycroft]

When I saw the specs for the car and then I saw, in person, the "amazing magical drive train", I just knew Tesla was going to be big. I knew it just as much as when I saw the first iPad that it was going to be a game changer. Unfortunately, at the time I saw the iPad, I didn't believe in buying individual company stocks. I wasn't going to make the same mistake with TSLA.

 

[Causalien]

As far back as I can remember there were always more fans of Elon Musk than critics on Hacker News (though the # of critics seems to have faded more recently). Many of Hacker News were quick to point out that Elon Musk was/had disrupting many industries (online payments w/paypal, space launch w/spacex, auto industry w/tesla and solar w/solarcity). I think it was helpful to view Tesla with a perspective of "Will this disrupt the auto industry?" (similar to the question Causalien you asked) It helped having a software/tech/business background for me as well.

I find it harder and harder to identify with the hacker news crowd now. Probably because I've steered away from the software/startup scene and into traditional tech, one of the reason why I think there are TSLA haters on Hacker news. It is an industry that the demographic don't normally identify with. Coincidentally, Elon Musk saved me from resigning from my current mission. In a moment of weakness, something bad happened between me and the board. Then I asked myself "What would Elon do?". Elon is also doing traditional tech .. He would transform the traditional tech into high tech of course.

Coincidentally, I later found out after looking at the stock price that that was the day when the stock dropped by some -14%. The next day, after a full night's sleep, I told the board to "Boldly go where no one had dared and forget any consequences or statistics." I am really beginning to think TSLA's fate and my company's fate is linked. If not by some electron spin locking, voodoo luck synchronization, then by my own subconscious mood swings due to TSLA stock swings.

 

[Sunnyday]

I've been investing for about 30 years, starting in high school. My best investments over the years have been companies on a mission to turn the world upside down and make it better. I look for companies that sell a product that, once the prospective customer tries it, they don't want to give it back. I'm not a car person. I drive a 20-year-old car with 110k miles and it works just fine. I drive very few miles since my office is nearby. The last 20 years, every time I had an extra $20-$30k laying around, I chose to invest it rather than buy a new car. Ever since 9/11, I've felt growing resentment that my driving - any driving - was putting money in the hands of foreign oil producers, funding religious extremism, polluting the atmosphere, and causing an American foreign policy driven by oil that caused our country to do some really evil, un-
American things. Imagine if the dollars we spent on oil were redirected to more productive, less destructive, more enlightened pursuits. A few years back I installed solar on my roof, and deliberately overbuilt the system with the hope of one day powering a car. I love my free electricity. Earlier this year, I test drove the Model S just for kicks. I was blown away. I think if the showroom rep had asked me if I wanted to put down a deposit, I would have said yes without hesitation. Luckily, he didn't ask (this impressed me!). Given the negligible miles I drive, it's not yet practical for me. I decided to wait until Gen III. The next few months, I couldn't get the Tesla out of my head. I was smitten. I listened to an earnings conference call, watched some videos of Elon, and decided I would invest. I made that decision at $35, though it took me a couple months to assemble a big wad of cash and by then the stock had started its breakout. I got in at $54 with 7,500 shares. My wife was expecting me to invest $30k, not $400k, so she was a bit surprised when I revealed the extent of my TSLA love a few days later. Now that she realizes how far we're ahead, I've noticed she spends a bit more liberally on clothes. When I find a disruptive company I believe in, I hold for the long term. I see a future, maybe only 10 years away, where ICEs are viewed as quaint and inadequate, most new cars are electric, and most homes have solar power plants on the roof. In that world, or even in 1/4 that world, TSLA is a $1,000-$2,000+ stock, the world is a dramatically better and more peaceful place, and Elon gets the Nobel Peace prize. Imagine a world where it's no longer cost effective to pull fossil fuels out of the ground. Imagine a world where EVs are cheaper, perform better, have lower cost of ownership and are more desirable by all classes of car-buyers than ICE cars. When you invest in TSLA, or your purchase a Tesla, you're helping to enable this future. I hope all the car owners on this forum realize they've done something more special than simply purchase a great car. You're supporting a better future for your grandchildren. Thanks for reading my story.

 

[DaveT]

I see a future, maybe only 10 years away, where ICEs are viewed as quaint and inadequate, most new cars are electric, and most homes have solar power plants on the roof. In that world, or even in 1/4 that world, TSLA is a $1,000-$2,000+ stock, the world is a dramatically better and more peaceful place, and Elon gets the Nobel Peace prize. Imagine a world where it's no longer cost effective to pull fossil fuels out of the ground. Imagine a world where EVs are cheaper, perform better, have lower cost of ownership and are more desirable by all classes of car-buyers than ICE cars.

+100

 

[kevin99]

Lots of intriguing story here. Thanks for starting the topic.

It has been less than 6 months since I seriously followed TSLA. Before that I knew the company however at a distance because: 1. Though I am all for the environment, I am not as passionate as others. 2. I was not a car person so I wouldn't consider putting $60k+ on a car.

All that changed when my colleague bought the Models S, then I put in an reservation for the X and then I test drove the S out of the 2012 Christmas boredom. After the drive, I know it is the next generation of car but I was simply in awe by such creation. Investment has not come to my mind.

Then somehow TSLA started enjoying free press, free marketing from every media outlet. Even negative story brings extra attention to the company and draws dormant fans like me.

I start invested TSLA as an ordinary stock in my 'diverse' portfolio in Feb(or Mar?) till currently I invested it as the stock of decade. I am dangerously pre-occupied by TSLA and my portfolio is not healthy. The last several months has been a fast track. There is significant progress in terms of shares, size and gain. Looking back, I have to be pleased with myself having the courage and techniques to take action quickly and build more along the magnificent run.

It could be luck but I certainly put in the effort. There were many morning I get up before 5am, just to read, research and digest all the information out there. Now I still reads a lot, however I found it only takes me 1 minute to finish many articles out there as I've internalize most of public info.

Instead of replicating my story here, my articles/posts in the signature should provide more chronological in-context bits.

Congratulations to all TSLA faithful. It takes deep belief to hold this long. Obviously majority of people are in for a gain. When there is sign of trouble after such big run, it is tempting to take profit and get out.

I am optimistic about the future of TSLA. I hope that even though there will be tretuous downturn sometimes for sure, I have a sound method to management the downside and hold on as much as possible, and as long as possible.

 

[gameon]

I believe stock market is gamble based on entry and exist. If you master that you are in good hands.

I invested in tesla like based on many reports and reviews + management of the company (don't have to elaborate on that)

Again, I have my doubts i.e. will tesla be only game changer for long time in this segment because other manufacturers are not going to let the market shares go etc..

So for same reason I sold few for profit and hold some for a fun ride...:wink:

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

I decided to buy into Tesla after some seriously intense research carried out in these forums. Honestly, I didn't come into it with any plan about investing in the company. I had been a long time EV enthusiast and skeptic, but outside of the Volt (which was my darling) I didn't see much on the horizon.

I knew about the Roadster, and about the Model S, but I had a generally skeptical view of Elon thanks to my experience working with a competitor of Zip2 back in the 90's. We all felt that he fleeced Altavista during the dot com boom, and we all had a generally poor view of his technology. Paypal seemed legit, but based on first impressions I came from an environment where we had much better technology and deep roots in the publishing industry, and so he came off to me as just some dilettante who was in the right place at the right time in Silicon Valley. Much more part of the problem than the solution. And yes, we were bitter that we didn't fleece some foolish company too, lol.

Anyways, I had watched Revenge of the Electric Car, and bought into the whole notion that the Model S was vaporware. I was much more aware of the initial failures of the Roadster than I was of the end result. Now I see the seeds of some amazing technology stamped all over the Roadster design, but partial ignorance at the time just encouraged me to believe that there was nothing to see there.

It didn't help that I've been a space nut since forever, and SpaceX still looked (from the outside, and from the perspective of the industry insiders that I paid attention to) kinda silly, and I was royally pissed when Obama cancelled Constellation in favor of a non-existent commercial space alternative. So it was yet another reason for me to just not take Elon seriously.

That changed starting in 2010 and 2011 when SpaceX started to look a lot less silly to me. I stopped automatically agreeing with the industry guys on the spaceflight forums, mostly because I pride myself on being evidence based. If the evidence doesn't fit my preconceptions I make a concerted effort to set my beliefs aside and to find out the truth. And in 2010 and 2011 my preconceptions about SpaceX were taking a hit, so I started doing some pretty relentless research and developed some rather shocking models which seemed to indicate that SpaceX was developing legit hardware for like pennies compared to anyone else I'd ever heard of. I must say, I turned into (and still am) a major SpaceX fan.

That only snowballed through the early part of 2012, but for some reason, I didn't really think that much about Elon's other company until May of 2012 when stories started to appear that Tesla was moving up their production date on the Model S. I literally remember something clicking in my brain as I realized that Tesla was also an Elon Musk company, and I vaguely remembered what some of the supposed capabilities of this soon to be non-vaporware product were.

By June, I was in full information absorbtion mode and I joined TMC, and started looking into the possibility of finagling a press pass to the big production/press event in June (I failed). After studying all of the stats on the car, it looked to me like it might have a shot at taking down a BMW M5, so I started a thread here on TMC to examine that possibility. It was my first thread, and one of my first posts overall, so I think its fair to say that it was the car's performance that I was most interested in -

Model S Performance vs BMW M5

By late July, I felt like I understood enough about the technical capabilities of the car to be certain that it was quite a bargain compared to its peers. That led me to the inevitable conclusion that Tesla was going to sell a lot of these things, and since Tesla (unlike SpaceX) was a publicly traded company, I realized that I could actually buy stock in it.

So I devoted something like 20 hours a week in late July and through August researching TSLA. And the immediate thing that jumped out at me was how terrible the information was, especially the stuff Wall Street was working off of. John Peterson was still a thing, and 99% of commentary on the company was just utterly clueless.

It was immediately obvious that not only was Tesla a great company to invest in over the long term, but also I'd be able to actively trade the stock and make money simply by having better information. So I went big, and then actively traded the crap out of it until late March, when my information gathering convinced me that the stock was likely to break out soon. In dollar terms my gains have pretty much dwarfed the rest of my portfolio, and its by far the best trade I've ever done. And I'm convinced that Tesla has by far the most world changing potential of any company I've ever put money into, and that includes Apple and Microsoft back in the day.

 

[MABMAB]

ANyone else care to add their story to this old topic?
Congrats to those that bought early on, hope you still hold large! Do you?
Dave T, good work, I say this impressed that someone else commented on reading company reports, S-1s, 10-Qs. I thought I was the only one that worked that hard.