What a trip

[Pat Conlon]

Yea, good point....

[Millietant]

But the FJ is good looking   

As good as the Motus is as a motorcycle functionally, it's definitely "fugly" 

[Pat Conlon]

I have Tesla stock and I'm getting a tad cranky after the Q4 reports showing with *another* yearly loss.
($2 billion in 2017)

Still trying to be patient....but getting a bit antsy. My heart says stay...but my brain says sell.

Pat, I'd hold onto that Tesla stock. The guy isn't in the "electric car" business, the guy is in the "energy storage and management" business, and Tesla is where Ford was 100 years ago.....

Holy shit.....THANK YOU BILL !

[Millietant]

Market analysts are beginning to fear that the Tesla bubble is going to burst - one prediction being that stock will be trading 40% lower than it is today, in 12 months time.

The CNBC comment is that they're expecting Tesla stocks to get "clobbered".

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/tesla-could-be-a-pure-speculative-stock-bubble.html

Personally, I can't see a logical business reason why Tesla hasn't become bankrupt by now. It continues to report massive losses and yet its stock price rises. I think there's a speculation that the Govt has "invested" so much (not just money) into Tesla and it's aims, that it will be too embarrassing to let it fail. It's energy storage business is performing about as badly as its car business, so I don't see that being the magical saviour in the 3-5 years.

The one difference between Ford (and GM etc) and Tesla, is that their terrible financial performances resulted in tanked share/stock values, whereas Tesla's keep going higher every time their financial performances worsen!! Perhaps the SEC should look into why Tesla is being propped up so much and if that is actually a "fair" business practice.

Over here, if a business with a market dominant position was being "helped" to survive (despite massive continuous losses (and no real sight of a turnaround)) by being given favourable financial treatments that weren't available to its competitors, then that business would targeted for being involved in "anti-competitive business practices" and criminal charges could ensue.

But, this is a business founded on "Climate Change", so no-one will dare challenge it, for fear of being heralded as a Luddite, or a Trumpton !

[Pat Conlon]

I don't know about the U.K. but I can say that over here in the USA the gas and oil industries have been government supported thru subsidies from day one....

Dean, I do agree with you about the Tesla stock being over valued..... this is crazy.
Perhaps the investors see the writing on the wall about EV's, along with the expanding EU market from the  construction of the third Tesla Giga factory outside of Berlin?
Speaking of expansion, the Shanghai factory seems to be humming along nicely....

[Millietant]

Most of the financial press reporting is pointing the finger at "short selling", or a "short squeeze" as the main reason for the stock values rises, rather than any belief in financial performance. They speculate that investors can't afford to "get out" but that if, or when, the bubble bursts, it could be catastrophic for all investors.

I'm not a stock market person, but the references to the Bitcoin situation keep coming through thick and fast, and despite the new factories and everything else, sales growth in 2019 was essentially flat - at a time where it should be moving moving forward in leaps and bounds - and remember, China is no longer the panacea for new sales that it was a couple of years ago.

I'm not sure what I would do in your situation Pat, but I know my wife would have my arm twisted right up behind my back right now, saying sell, sell, sell, before it falls.

She's always been the pessimist though- I've been the chancer 

[Millietant]

I don't know about the U.K. but I can say that over here in the USA the gas and oil industries have been government supported thru subsidies from day one....

Dean, I do agree with you about the Tesla stock being over valued..... this is crazy.
Perhaps the investors see the writing on the wall about EV's, along with the expanding EU market from the  construction of the third Tesla Giga factory outside of Berlin?
Speaking of expansion, the Shanghai factory seems to be humming along nicely....

I'm not sure, but I think the differences in "support" are linked to keeping Tesla (the dominant player in a market) in its dominant position, against its competitors - which is different to supporting an entire industry through large scale, cross industry "support" to numerous players, which doesn't maintain an unfair dominant position for one market player.

[Pat Conlon]

I'm not sure, but I think the differences in "support" are linked to keeping Tesla (the dominant player in a market) in its dominant position, against its competitors - which is different to supporting an entire industry through large scale, cross industry "support" to numerous players, which doesn't maintain an unfair dominant position for one market player.

I'm not aware that Tesla receives targeted support, the type that is exclusive only to Tesla.
I'm aware of general EV industry support, and US EV industry support, but nothing manufacturer specific....Tesla, GM and Ford will all take equal advantage to this type of support...not just Tesla.

I am aware of special property tax incentives the State of Nevada granted Tesla for building Gigafactory #1 in Reno. Is this ^^ what you mean?
If not, do you have an example?

[Bill_Rockoff]

Today, I stumbled across the only near-term Tesla investment downside that seems at all likely to me.

I posted earlier in this thread that Tesla is a front-runner in a developing industry, and that they could be the equivalent of Ford 100 years ago. (A lifetime of ever-increasing up-side.)  

But, it could also be that Tesla is the equivalent of Research In Motion (the Blackberry people) 10 years ago. (Half a retirement of ever-increasing up-side, followed by half a retirement of eating cat food.)

RIM was a real pioneer and they positively OWNED an exciting new space, and their device's name 'Blackberry' was the de facto slang for "smart-phone" the way Sony's 'Walkman' was slang for "portable music device" before Apple's 'iPod' became slang for "portable music device." It was even acknowledged how addictive the device was; they used to call them "Crackberries."

And RIM's stock price showed that, rising from $25 per share in Feb 2006 to $45 a year after that, and then nearly tripling again during that same year - to $130 or so later in 2007. 2008 was a roller coaster through the first half ("Uh-oh, $90! Yay, $145!") before dropping below $39 that fall, spasming around throughout 2009 and 2010, and then dropping from $70 to $16 during 2011, and then to $7 the following summer. And except for a hopeful little jump to $15 for a couple months, it has zombie-shuffled along between $5 and $11 since then and it's six bucks today.

So, if Tesla is striking off in a bold new direction that everyone follows, they are an industry leader - and you can monetize that. But if Tesla is striking off in a bold new direction and everybody goes off in another direction, Tesla is sitting out there by itself in the wilderness - and you can't monetize that. "Don't follow the beaten path, forge your own trail" is crappy advice for trains.

[Pat Conlon]

I don't see the EV industry shifting course off of Tesla's path. The only possible challenge I see comes from Hydrogen fuel cells, and I don't see that happening. To quote Elon, "Fuel cells are a stupid choice for vehicles".
Fuel cells are only a distant possibility in long range trucking applications.

Currently Billions of research dollars are being spent on battery technology.
Battery energy densities are improving yearly.
Battery recycling will occur. Lithium will be phased out in favor of cheaper, more sustainable materials.
The first one with a 1kWh battery weighing 1 kilogram...wins, and wins big.

At this time, I just don't (or maybe can't?) see an alternative to carbon free personal transportation, other than battery powered EV's.

[Millietant]

I don't have any specifics Pat that I know of in the USA, but there has been a lot of speculation in the press of Environmental Policies being driven to support Battery Vehicle Technology, much more than Hybrid or Hydrogen - and also "blind eyes" being turned in the case of some of the Tesla autonomous "accidents", which it has been purported would have resulted in recalls, safety notices, fines, lawsuits and bans, if the vehicles had been petrol/diesel vehicles.

This is only speculation (I've no idea if there's real truth in it, but that's normal these days with "media" reports) and as Tesla are a really minor "bit-player" over here, they get very little press, so we don't get to see a lot about them, unless we look.

It's interesting that you say Hydrogen Fuel Cells are only a distant possibility in long range trucking applications - we have taxi firms here making the news because they're increasing their fleet sizes of their Fuel Cell cars and moving away from hybrids. Personally, I wouldn't rule anything out and I do have a fear that the way our Govt's are going, they're nailing all of their future options to one mast, before they even know if that one mast can hold the sail.

Our current electricity infrastructure, we are told, can't support a massive uptake in battery charging for BEV's - neither in generation power, nor in distribution - without MASSIVE investment. This means making a national/global investment now in a service for something that currently is not viable as a sole means of transport for many people and battery technology that is apparently moving forward at such a pace that no-one where it will be in 2 years, never mind 5 - and you're already aware of the $ Billions spent on battery technology now and how much more will be spent over the next few years - will the investment tap run dry before the solutions are viable ?

It's a real Catch 22 !!!

I'm totally ready for electric powered vehicles, as soon as they can enable me to "function" normally - and by normally, I mean travelling +400 miles in a day without needing a long "recharge" stop, or having to change my arrangements to cater my stops around charging times.

Where I see Tesla falling down here right now is that every Tesla car driver I know, uses it as a "showpiece" vehicle. These people choose them as "company" cars to take advantages of tax allowances not available for petrol/diesel cars....but they only use the Tesla's for short journeys and to "impress" with their "Green" credentials- they all have a second car, powered by petrol/diesel, which they use for long distance business and private travel. In my mind, this is the absolute worst scenario, both environmentally and financially and until Tesla can provide a car for the "average" man (as opposed to an executive toy), their sales won't increase here to substantiate the companies valuation..

The analogy to Blackberry, is a new one to me, but I can see the links.

I never thought I'd say this, but in a way, I'm glad I don't have a tidy sum of money that could be available to me to spend, sat in Tesla stock tight now - I'd be so confused about what to do I'd likely have a heart attack.....hold/sell/hold/sell/buy more ??

[Bill_Rockoff]

If the industry starts coming up with a different solution, like "inductive charging infrastructure buried in the roadway so you can power the motor / charge while you drive between cities," then the front runners who spent all their development capital building dedicated stationary charging stations and cars that are meant to hopscotch from one of those to the next are gonna be out there by themselves. Kind of like the phone guys that stuck with that mechanical keypad.

Seriously, if we can build an infrastructure that drills holes, pumps up oil, refines it,  and then carries it around and stations it on street corners world-wide in sufficient quantities to let us go wherever we want whenever we want, you can't  tell me it's not possible to do it with electrical energy, which we have been distributing since the 1880s.

In the meantime, tesla sold more cars in the USA than every other manufacturer's electric cars added together. More electric cars were sold in the USA last year than manual transmission cars. They can't do it all - not yet. And even when they can, they will probably not be satisfying in the way a nice internal combustion engine is.

But my only two experiences with a harley motor (sportster 1200, buell s2t) we're not made any better by the motor. In fact, the motor was the part of each of those experiences that was the most disappointing. An electric cruiser or an electric trail bike would be a lot more fun than the weak-sauce hardly or the noisy smoky 2-stroke RM of my experiences.

[Pat Conlon]

Dean, I saw this today about UK's future plans:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/britain-ban-sale-new-gas-diesel-hybrid-cars-2035-n1129616

It looks like Tesla will be ready with a 400 mile range sooner, rather than later..
https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/30/tesla-model-s-400-mile-range/

Excepting the bare bones basic Model 3, all the other current crop of Tesla cars are too rich for my blood.

Watch the VW group introduce a true EV Volkswagen. Things will get interesting when real competition enters the picture.

Bill, yea, I hear you.... Did you ever read Robert Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll"?  You grok?

[Millietant]

I'm with you Bill  - I've ridden Oset BEV off road bikes and would rather have one of them than our Honda CRF - but I'm not going to spend $5k yet on one because I regularly out-ride the range of those bikes.

It's great to use them around an off-road centre where, when the one you're riding runs low one power, you can just return back to the "yard" and swap it for another fully charged one, but that's not very practical for trail riding or exploring a bit further afield.

I also understand/agree about the infrastructure, it's just that the current one has been built up over 100 years, but what is being proposed here means that we'll need a similar scale of network building up over 10 years - and you're right as far as I'm also thinking, in that BEV's with static charging points are not the way the technology is going to end up. My worry is that those who invest in such basic charging technology in a rush now, will not be ready for the next developments - and with our populations the sizes that they are now and our reliance on transportation systems, it's a whole different ballgame to when the petrol/diesel supply infrastructure was "built".

The more I think about it, your Blackberry analogy is hitting home !

Regarding car sales, SUV/truck and car sales were 17 million last year in the USA - the industry needs to make some pretty major strides forward if that demand is gong to be satisfied by BEV's which at the moment are only scratching the surface of vehicle demand. If Tesla sold 180,000 cars and they sold more than all of the others combined, then that's a very small proportion of the market, especially since the Govt have subsidising new BEV sales for over 10 years now.

In our market, the most basic Tesla EV costs £42,000 to buy - and my real question about the bubble bursting sales-wise is, how many car buyers can afford to buy one of those ? Cars over that value here are simply not bought by the "general population" and they are invariably used as second cars by the wealthier element of the motoring market. There is enough of a niche market in "green executive buyers" to support the current short term rate of sales growth, but unless something happens really quickly, that market will be become completely over-saturated and new sales will basically end. The "public" need an affordable Electric Car - at the moment, Electric Car sales are being driven by the more affluent niche of car buyers, not the "average" car buyer.

In the U.K., the Govt announced that that the sale of all ICE and hybrid cars will be banned from 2035 (with a push still to bring this forward to 2030) - if the US follows that route, how will this be possible, where will the investment to change so quickly come from?

Unfortunately, I can see the problem of having too many eggs in one basket and working with technology that is going to be rapidly out-dated - for me, now that you and Pat have got me thinking about it, investing for the longer term in something that has a market valuation so far above its performance is not a risk I'd really be wanting to take.

The future is definitely electric, I'm just not so sure it's Tesla.

[Millietant]

Dean, I saw this today about UK's future plans:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/britain-ban-sale-new-gas-diesel-hybrid-cars-2035-n1129616

It looks like Tesla will be ready with a 400 mile range sooner, rather than later..
https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/30/tesla-model-s-400-mile-range/

Excepting the bare bones basic Model 3, all the other current crop of Tesla cars are too rich for my blood.

Watch the VW group introduce a true EV Volkswagen. Things will get interesting when real competition enters the picture.

Bill, yea, I hear you.... Did you ever read Robert Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll"?  You grok?

Yes, Pat, that announcement has made big news over here, and it's  the first thing that has taken the public "shine" off Boris as the "people's" PM.

All of the current EV's are too expensive for the majority of the population to buy (I don't think there's even a Ford car for sale here that costs as much as the cheapest Tesla, except maybe for a Mustang). The Nissan Leaf costs twice as much as it's ICE equivalent, the Nissan Micra.

When the big players really get into affordable EV manufacture (and I firmly believe they will), I worry that Tesla will be left out in the cold with an overpriced product in a low price commodity market.

My other worry is, where are all of the batteries going to come from to not only sustain annual sales of 17 million cars, but also all of the other Battery Power Storage systems being touted for household use - and what of the earths resources are going to be destroyed to get at the rare minerals required for these.