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Comment by std_throwaway | Hacker News Reader

The company itself seems to be in a downward spiral getting hit from multiple sides. To me it's unclear if they'll make it.

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Can you provide a citation? If they make their 5k/week production target by the end of this month (which it looks like they will), they’re on their way to being cash flow positive, and also not needing another capital raise in the near term.

Challenges for sure, but “downward spiral”? Hyperbole.

I am not sure why you think it's likely they'll hit 5k/week by the end of the month, considering Musk has been promising that for the better part of a year now. I admittedly do not know enough about the financials to know if that will truly make them cash flow positive, but even if it does they still have to pay back over $1 billion in debt at the beginning of 2019.

Tesla is going to need to raise more money in less than a year (probably less than 6 months). If you truly don't believe that, I will happily take a bet.

Based on Musk’s track record, he delivers. Late? Sure. But always delivers.

Disclaimer: TSLA investor with extremely high limit order set in order to prevent my shares from being lent to short sellers

Do you think he will deliver on FSD eventually being available on already sold model 3's?

If FSD is possible at all, yes.

Hmm. I can easily see the case of FSD being possible with (supposedly very expensive) LIDAR-enabled Waymo hardware stack, but out of reach with hardware that goes into Tesla model 3.

That what makes this particlar Musk promise so interesting and so challenging. It's too late to change the price or hardware set. He has to deliver with software-only solution...

Not necessarily. Assume that LIDAR becomes a requirement in the future, while the cost of LIDAR is decreasing very rapidly (a quick Google search will confirm this). The retrofit then becomes much cheaper in the future vs today.

It’s similar to how renewable projects are being bid on and sold today, with the price of the power being determined by what the equipment will cost several years in the future when it’s installed.

Respectfully disagree. While LIDAR price is going down, retroffitting all FSD-enabled cars won't be cheap. It's like a recall, but instead of fixing or changing some part, you need to install new part, do all the wiring (which may include a lot of disassembling and assembling again) and test it. I can easily see 10-20 hours of human labor per car (plus cost of LIDAR itself, of course)

Why don’t you want to lend to short sellers?

Mission over economic/market efficiency. Short sellers are out only to profit, Tesla needs to profit to survive, but is out to electrify transportation. Make vultures suffer.

https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

This is a cult like speech. Its management has fiduciary duty to its investors to do their best to give them return. It’s not a non profit foundation.

This subject comes up frequently on HN, but Tesla does not need to maximize their profits to ensure shareholder fiduciary requirements are met. I invest because it’s a cause that matters to me.

So you think people who work hard for Tesla do not want/expect to make money on their stock options? It’s literally a part of compensation package.

Employee compensation is valuable consideration of course. I prefer to not enable short sellers from profiting off of Tesla’s challenges, if that wasn’t clear.

Sidenote: Tesla employees with stock comp are going to do very well when a short squeeze drives the stock price up. And they deserve that comp.

Sure. But Tesla isn't the cult. Tesla is a fellow member. If St. Musk's vision doesn't pan out, I don't care much that I won't be the richest man in the wasteland.

To people like myself, those who short Tesla aren't short an unprofitable car company. They're short a better future. I make no apologies for being willing to take a small loss to cause them a big one. Anyone considering shorting this stock should consider that I'm not alone in that sentiment.

Longs aren't out to profit?

Different time scale and interests.

I like Tesla's short sellers in particular. They make the stock cheaper for actual investors :) (like me soon hopefully).

Tesla cars being sold with 'full self-driving capable hardware' will NEVER reach level 4 autonomy. If you can create a bet around this with reasonable terms (so not waiting 50+ years because 'never' is a long time) I will put my life-savings into it.

How does high limit order prevents your shares from being lent out?

It ties the shares up as an open order.

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-putting-a-high-limit-s...

This link does not provide evidence that it would prevent broker from lending out your shares. This “lock” is only placed internally in the broker’s internal system, there is nothing preventing the broker from lending out your share anyway. If they can’t get your shares back in time before your order triggers then they would just compensate you.

Where did you get this idea from, anyway?

I confirmed it with my broker. They answer any questions I might have pretty quickly.

You should really buy lottery options on TSLA if you are going that long and dedicated. You would make millions easily.

Look for TSLA to break $330 and it is going to make a move.

> and also not needing another capital raise in the near term.

It's very probably they need to raise cash for their foray into China.

> If they make their 5k/week production target by the end of this month

How many months/years is that behind schedule? Even Twitter will eventually be profitable.

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