Tesla No Longer Even A Growth Company; Going Bankrupt: Shortseller

[FairAndUnbiased]

Tesla = Soviet Lada

 

[Menthol]

Tesla is a USA strategic company.

I don't think the USA government let it bankrupt.

 

[F-22Raptor]

Tesla Short Thesis
We remain short Tesla Inc. (TSLA), which I still consider to be the biggest single stock bubble in this whole bubble market. The core points of our Tesla short thesis are:

• Tesla has no “moat” of any kind; i.e., nothing meaningfully proprietary in terms of electric car technology, while existing automakers—unlike Tesla—have a decades-long “experience moat” of knowing how to mass-produce, distribute and service high-quality cars consistently and profitably, as well as the ability to subsidize losses on electric cars with profits from their conventional cars.
  
  
• In 2020 Tesla will again lose money, as it has every year in its 17-year existence.
  
  
• Tesla is now a “busted growth story”; revenue growth is flatlining while unit demand for its cars is only being maintained via price cutting.
  
  
• Elon Musk is a securities fraud-committing pathological liar.

In June, courtesy of Business Insider, we once again learned how much of a sociopath Elon Musk is:

Then, courtesy of J.D. Power, we again learned about the atrocious quality of Tesla’s cars; it ranked dead last of 31 brands surveyed:

Stanphyl Capital
And here’s a great graphic from Twitter user @clausMller17 clearly demonstrating Tesla’s blatantly fraudulent EPA range claims for its cars:

short tesla
And as @TeslaCharts points out on Twitter, Tesla is no longer even a growth company:

short tesla
In May, faced with a shortage of demand in an increasingly competitive (see the many links below) electric car environment during an economic depression, Tesla cut prices across the board. Nothing’s more amusing than seeing this giant stock promotion of a company continue to add capacity (expanding its Chinese factory while supposedly breaking ground on brand new factories in Texas and Germany) in order to desperately try to maintain an image of “limitless demand” as it continually slashes prices to unprofitable levels (excluding its unsustainable emission credit sales and accounting fraud) just to utilize its existing capacity.

In April Tesla reported $16M in Q1 “earnings” thanks entirely to the sale of $354M in 100% margin emission credits that disappear after next year when other automakers no longer need to buy them as they’ll have enough EVs of their own. Additionally, Tesla’s earnings are typically inflated by around $200M/quarter from its ongoing warranty fraud (here’s an excellent Seeking Alpha article and another one in Fortune explaining some of this), so adjusted for these two factors the company would have lost over $500M in Q1, while free cash flow was minus $895M. This is not a viable business.

In addition to the typcial quarterly warranty reserve fraud, Musk may generate a Q2 profit by recognizing part of $600 million in non-cash (it’s already on the balance sheet) deferred revenue from its fraudulently named “Full Self-Driving” (the capabilities of which offer nothing of the kind), thereby turning yet another a money-losing quarter into one showing paper profits. Meanwhile, God only knows how many more people this monstrosity unleashed on public roads will kill, despite February’s NTSB hearing condemning it as dangerous.)

Meanwhile, a terrific chart from Twitter user @fly4dat illustrates how Tesla’s EV market share (the pink line below) in Europe (the world’s most competitive EV market) continues to erode as new competition arrives; this foreshadows what will soon happen to Tesla worldwide:

short tesla
And for those of you looking for a resumption of growth from Tesla’s upcoming Model Y, demand for that car is reportedly disastrous. This is unsurprising, as it will both massively cannibalize sales of the Model 3 sedan and (later this year and in 2021) face superior competition from the much nicer electric Audi Q4 e-tron, BMW iX3 (in Europe & China), Mercedes EQB, Volvo XC40 and Volkswagen ID.4, while less expensive and available now are the excellent new all-electric Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro, extremely well reviewed small crossovers with an EPA range of 258 miles for the Hyundai and 238 miles for the Kia, at prices of under $30,000 inclusive of the $7500 U.S. tax credit. Meanwhile, the Model 3 will have terrific direct “sedan competition” later this year from Volvo’s beautiful new Polestar 2, the BMW i4 and the premium version of Volkswagen’s ID.3.

And if you think China is the secret to the resumption of Tesla’s growth, let’s put that market in perspective even without the coronavirus problem: prior to a recent 10% sales tax exemption Tesla was selling around 30,000 Model 3s a year there, and “the story” is that avoiding the 15% tariff and that 10% sales tax will allow it to sell a lot more. There’s also a $3600 EV incentive available (which will be reduced over the next two years), but China just cut to 300,000 yuan the maximum price allowed for an EV to get it; Tesla is thus slashing its Model 3 price from 323,000 yuan to qualify and will now make little-to-nothing on the car, and thus all volume increases will be profitless. Meanwhile the rule of thumb for the elasticity of auto pricing is that every 1% price cut results in a sales increase of up to 2.4%. If we assume a 2.4x “elasticity multiplier,” domestically produced Model 3s that are 40% cheaper (than the original price at the 30,000/year sales rate) would result in annual sales of just 59,000 (40% x 2.4 = 96% more than the previous 30,000), meaning Tesla’s new Chinese factory would be a massive money-loser vs. its initial 150,000-unit annual capacity and the 500,000/year capacity it will supposedly have in 2021. Even if we were to increase the previous sales rate by 150% to 75,000 cars a year, it would be massively disappointing for Tesla bulls and the factory will be a huge money-loser.

Meanwhile, sales of Tesla’s highest-margin cars (the Models S&X) will be down by over 50% worldwide this year vs. their 2018 peak, thanks to cannibalization from the less expensive Model 3 and direct high-end competition (especially in Europe and China) from the Audi e-tron, Jaguar I-Pace, Mercedes EQC and Porsche Taycan, with multiple additional electric Audis, Mercedes and Porsches to follow, many at starting prices considerably below those of the high-end Teslas. (See the links below for more details.)

And oh, the joke of a “pickup truck” Tesla introduced in November won’t be any kind of “growth engine” either, especially as if it’s ever built it will enter a dogfight of a market.

Meanwhile, Tesla has the most executive departures I’ve ever seen from any company, including in June its VP of Business Development; here’s the astounding full list of escapees. These people aren’t leaving because things are going great (or even passably) at Tesla; rather, they’re likely leaving because Musk is either an outright crook or the world’s biggest jerk to work for (or both). And in January Aaron Greenspan of @PlainSite published a terrific treatise on the long history of Tesla fraud; please read it!

In May Consumer Reports completely eviscerated the safety of Tesla’s so-called “Autopilot” system; in fact, Teslas have far more pro rata (i.e., relative to the number sold) deadly incidents than other comparable new luxury cars; here’s a link to those that have been made public. Meanwhile Consumer Report’s annual auto reliability survey ranks Tesla 23rd out of 30 brands (and that’s with many stockholder/owners undoubtedly underreporting their problems—the real number is almost certainly much worse), and the number of lawsuits of all types against the company continues to escalate-- there are now over 800 including one proving blatant fraud by Musk in the SolarCity buyout (if you want to be really entertained, read his deposition!).

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tesla-no-longer-even-growth-121604978.html

Tesla posted a profit in Q2. That's four straight quarters of profitability and Tesla is now eligible for S&P 500 inclusion. RIP shorts

 

[LeGenD]

This thread = Facepalm

 

[F-22Raptor]

Tesla Short Thesis
We remain short Tesla Inc. (TSLA), which I still consider to be the biggest single stock bubble in this whole bubble market. The core points of our Tesla short thesis are:

• Tesla has no “moat” of any kind; i.e., nothing meaningfully proprietary in terms of electric car technology, while existing automakers—unlike Tesla—have a decades-long “experience moat” of knowing how to mass-produce, distribute and service high-quality cars consistently and profitably, as well as the ability to subsidize losses on electric cars with profits from their conventional cars.
  
  
• In 2020 Tesla will again lose money, as it has every year in its 17-year existence.
  
  
• Tesla is now a “busted growth story”; revenue growth is flatlining while unit demand for its cars is only being maintained via price cutting.
  
  
• Elon Musk is a securities fraud-committing pathological liar.

In June, courtesy of Business Insider, we once again learned how much of a sociopath Elon Musk is:

Then, courtesy of J.D. Power, we again learned about the atrocious quality of Tesla’s cars; it ranked dead last of 31 brands surveyed:

Stanphyl Capital
And here’s a great graphic from Twitter user @clausMller17 clearly demonstrating Tesla’s blatantly fraudulent EPA range claims for its cars:

short tesla
And as @TeslaCharts points out on Twitter, Tesla is no longer even a growth company:

short tesla
In May, faced with a shortage of demand in an increasingly competitive (see the many links below) electric car environment during an economic depression, Tesla cut prices across the board. Nothing’s more amusing than seeing this giant stock promotion of a company continue to add capacity (expanding its Chinese factory while supposedly breaking ground on brand new factories in Texas and Germany) in order to desperately try to maintain an image of “limitless demand” as it continually slashes prices to unprofitable levels (excluding its unsustainable emission credit sales and accounting fraud) just to utilize its existing capacity.

In April Tesla reported $16M in Q1 “earnings” thanks entirely to the sale of $354M in 100% margin emission credits that disappear after next year when other automakers no longer need to buy them as they’ll have enough EVs of their own. Additionally, Tesla’s earnings are typically inflated by around $200M/quarter from its ongoing warranty fraud (here’s an excellent Seeking Alpha article and another one in Fortune explaining some of this), so adjusted for these two factors the company would have lost over $500M in Q1, while free cash flow was minus $895M. This is not a viable business.

In addition to the typcial quarterly warranty reserve fraud, Musk may generate a Q2 profit by recognizing part of $600 million in non-cash (it’s already on the balance sheet) deferred revenue from its fraudulently named “Full Self-Driving” (the capabilities of which offer nothing of the kind), thereby turning yet another a money-losing quarter into one showing paper profits. Meanwhile, God only knows how many more people this monstrosity unleashed on public roads will kill, despite February’s NTSB hearing condemning it as dangerous.)

Meanwhile, a terrific chart from Twitter user @fly4dat illustrates how Tesla’s EV market share (the pink line below) in Europe (the world’s most competitive EV market) continues to erode as new competition arrives; this foreshadows what will soon happen to Tesla worldwide:

short tesla
And for those of you looking for a resumption of growth from Tesla’s upcoming Model Y, demand for that car is reportedly disastrous. This is unsurprising, as it will both massively cannibalize sales of the Model 3 sedan and (later this year and in 2021) face superior competition from the much nicer electric Audi Q4 e-tron, BMW iX3 (in Europe & China), Mercedes EQB, Volvo XC40 and Volkswagen ID.4, while less expensive and available now are the excellent new all-electric Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro, extremely well reviewed small crossovers with an EPA range of 258 miles for the Hyundai and 238 miles for the Kia, at prices of under $30,000 inclusive of the $7500 U.S. tax credit. Meanwhile, the Model 3 will have terrific direct “sedan competition” later this year from Volvo’s beautiful new Polestar 2, the BMW i4 and the premium version of Volkswagen’s ID.3.

And if you think China is the secret to the resumption of Tesla’s growth, let’s put that market in perspective even without the coronavirus problem: prior to a recent 10% sales tax exemption Tesla was selling around 30,000 Model 3s a year there, and “the story” is that avoiding the 15% tariff and that 10% sales tax will allow it to sell a lot more. There’s also a $3600 EV incentive available (which will be reduced over the next two years), but China just cut to 300,000 yuan the maximum price allowed for an EV to get it; Tesla is thus slashing its Model 3 price from 323,000 yuan to qualify and will now make little-to-nothing on the car, and thus all volume increases will be profitless. Meanwhile the rule of thumb for the elasticity of auto pricing is that every 1% price cut results in a sales increase of up to 2.4%. If we assume a 2.4x “elasticity multiplier,” domestically produced Model 3s that are 40% cheaper (than the original price at the 30,000/year sales rate) would result in annual sales of just 59,000 (40% x 2.4 = 96% more than the previous 30,000), meaning Tesla’s new Chinese factory would be a massive money-loser vs. its initial 150,000-unit annual capacity and the 500,000/year capacity it will supposedly have in 2021. Even if we were to increase the previous sales rate by 150% to 75,000 cars a year, it would be massively disappointing for Tesla bulls and the factory will be a huge money-loser.

Meanwhile, sales of Tesla’s highest-margin cars (the Models S&X) will be down by over 50% worldwide this year vs. their 2018 peak, thanks to cannibalization from the less expensive Model 3 and direct high-end competition (especially in Europe and China) from the Audi e-tron, Jaguar I-Pace, Mercedes EQC and Porsche Taycan, with multiple additional electric Audis, Mercedes and Porsches to follow, many at starting prices considerably below those of the high-end Teslas. (See the links below for more details.)

And oh, the joke of a “pickup truck” Tesla introduced in November won’t be any kind of “growth engine” either, especially as if it’s ever built it will enter a dogfight of a market.

Meanwhile, Tesla has the most executive departures I’ve ever seen from any company, including in June its VP of Business Development; here’s the astounding full list of escapees. These people aren’t leaving because things are going great (or even passably) at Tesla; rather, they’re likely leaving because Musk is either an outright crook or the world’s biggest jerk to work for (or both). And in January Aaron Greenspan of @PlainSite published a terrific treatise on the long history of Tesla fraud; please read it!

In May Consumer Reports completely eviscerated the safety of Tesla’s so-called “Autopilot” system; in fact, Teslas have far more pro rata (i.e., relative to the number sold) deadly incidents than other comparable new luxury cars; here’s a link to those that have been made public. Meanwhile Consumer Report’s annual auto reliability survey ranks Tesla 23rd out of 30 brands (and that’s with many stockholder/owners undoubtedly underreporting their problems—the real number is almost certainly much worse), and the number of lawsuits of all types against the company continues to escalate-- there are now over 800 including one proving blatant fraud by Musk in the SolarCity buyout (if you want to be really entertained, read his deposition!).

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tesla-no-longer-even-growth-121604978.html

New record high for Tesla stock today!

 

[mike2000 is back]

This thread is a joke. Seems more like wishful thinking to be honest.

 

[Globenim]

Um no. He has already explicitly said China didn't have anything worthy.

wow a video from 2011 never expicitily saying any of your bullshit about China not having "anything worthy", and instead agreeing that competitors are ramping up, just not on par in his opinion with his product as any salesmen would claim about his own product and only talking about competitive pricing in the ranges of 10-20% difference regarding supply chains and logistic cost in an emerging industry not any absence thereof

8 years before the company Musk said in this video would be on the brink of dying became one of the steady top 5 ecar producers.

8 years before China has even started to heavily invest into the logistics to support global supply after securing domestic production capabilities

6-8 years before Musk decided to move one production line after another to China rather than oh so more competitive 2011 America.

that certainly proves reality wrong

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

wow a video from 2011 never expicitily saying any of your bullshit about China not having "anything worthy", and instead agreeing that competitors are ramping up, just not on par in his opinion with his product as any salesmen would claim about his own product and only talking about competitive pricing in the ranges of 10-20% difference regarding supply chains and logistic cost in an emerging industry not any absence thereof

8 years before the company Musk said in this video would be on the brink of dying became one of the steady top 5 ecar producers.

8 years before China has even started to heavily invest into the logistics to support global supply after securing domestic production capabilities

6-8 years before Musk decided to move one production line after another to China rather than oh so more competitive 2011 America.

that certainly proves reality wrong

LOL! More like refuting the explicit bullshit that Tesla is reliant on Chinese parts.

The sad story is BYD promised the world electric passenger cars back in 2009.
So much so they suckered Warren Buffet into giving them money.

As usual it was all a typical Chinese scam. There was no "world car". Just smoke and mirrors. Not even any fast charge tech.

It's now 2020 and where are they?

Meanwhile Musk laughed and said he could do it much better.

Now Tesla's are sold across the world.

Musk never said BYD would be dying...they have plenty of Chinese consumers buying their regular cars to stay afloat. Outside China Chinese EV companies have been a failure overseas. When countries list the top EV model sales the Chinese companies marketshare is so low they end up all lumped in the "other" category. LOL!!

 

[Globenim]

LOL! More like refuting the explicit bullshit that Tesla is reliant on Chinese parts.

LOL More like thats what you asserted with the refuted bullshit you said before. Neither the bullshit I replied to before nor this claim is true and refuting anything.

Musks interview in 2011 does not refute reality in 2020. It cant. While you are living in your bubble of selfdelusion and lies, we live in a reality where time is a vector. Again. That video is from 2011 and he talks about an edge in competitive pricing of supply lines, logistic costs to ship parts overseas and explicitely only about one of Teslas models and plans not facts about future models. Nothing even related to anything you said was "explicitely said" before and now. Do you even know what the word explicit means?

Again 2011. 8 years before China has even started to heavily invest into the logistics to support global supply after securing domestic production capabilities

Again 2011. 6-8 years before Musk decided to move one production line after another to China rather than oh so more competitive 2011 America.

Its late 2020, in case you missed that trolling and posting vapid bullshit all day from your basement.

The sad story is BYD

has become on of the leading producers in the world? Its not sad for everyone.

It's now 2020 and where are they?

At the top with all the other "leading Western" brands and we know you hate it.

Musk never said BYD would be dying...

Musk did say BYD would be dying in your own video you didnt even really watch. He did explicitely refer to BYD being troubled, not could be troubled, being troubled and in conclusion that they need to be more concerned about not dying rather than competing with Tesla. He laughed in 2011. Now we are laughing about you.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Musk did say BYD would be dying in your own video you didnt even really watch. He did explicitely refer to BYD being troubled, not could be troubled, being troubled and in conclusion that they need to be more concerned about not dying rather than competing with Tesla. He laughed in 2011. Now we are laughing about you.

Yeah he said BYD should be more worried first about other competing Chinese EV companies kicking their sorry *** in China before they think about going global. Look at the current model sales and how their marketshare has tanked. They have about 10,000 total from this chart of over 50,000. You think it was that bad in 2009? One model in the top 10...

You think Musk's laugh is unjustified??? He called it 100% correctly. Now in 2020 the tables are reversed and they can't even beat Tesla in their OWN market. Meanwhile Tesla is the one dominating world markets...not BYD.

Playing catch-up they better hope the BYD Han is a winner.

 

[Globenim]

He called it 100% correctly. .

You sure seem to be as much pained that BYD is so far up there in the sales no matter how hard you try to spin it with your selfdeluding opinions wrapped around the contradicting facts and that Musk was wrong on BYDs troubles and inability to even compete, as you are about the Chinese suppliers making bank selling to Tesla on both the international and domestic market.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

You sure seem to be as much pained that BYD is so far up there in the sales no matter how hard you try to spin it with your selfdeluding opinions wrapped around the contradicting facts and that Musk was wrong on BYDs troubles and inability to even compete, as you are about the Chinese suppliers making bank selling to Tesla on both the international and domestic market.

When it comes to delusion of which EV companies have successful worldwide sales the Chinese members here have that covered in spades.

Not many people outside of China know any of your EV companies...never mind having seen one on their passenger cars on the street. BYD or any other of your EV companies are just complete nobodys.

A Chinese EV company like BYD should be the name people know...not Tesla.
THAT is what pains you guys...and is the reason for this thread.

 

[Cookie Monster]

It will crash 500-700 dollar in 1 day it's a massive Ponzi scheme

• World has enough oil to last 1,000 years

Not a good argument. World had plenty of horses and yet they still got replaced by cars.

It is the same with electric cars vs ICE cars. So far they are about neck and neck...with each having some pros and cons. Right now the biggest advantage ICE cars have vs electric is the recharge time takes a bit long. The technology at the R&D level rn will make it to electric cars in the next decade...and ICE cars will be on the losing end.

These sort of predictions have long existed about Tesla...and yet here they are after all this time. Regardless...whether or not Tesla keeps going strong or goes bust...electric cars are coming.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Not a good argument. World had plenty of horses and yet they still got replaced by cars.

..and $20 dumb phones...who would buy a phone over $100.

Answer: Seems like everybody.

 

[Cookie Monster]

..and $20 dumb phones...who would buy a phone over $100.

Answer: Seems like everybody.

Ppl get so hell bent on trying to disprove something that they ignore the obvious advantages of electric cars.