compcoffee

The headline is misleading insofar as the real story is that the site is completely broken right now, and people (me) are unable to order anything. Kinda dumb for an infrastructure company.

We've been hearing about it forever. Let's see it. It's always "coming".

>"Musk is a fraudster/bullshit artist" wave that's hit HN and most online forums recently"

Give me a break. You're "wave" is my, finally, balance. Tesla, or more specifically Musk, has got far more postive press than they deserve. I never see any Nissan, Porsche, Audi, or rarely, GM articles on this site. Meanwhile, every time the Tesla blog/Electrek make a post, it's upvoted here.

That said, there's a big gap between "theoretically" profitable, and GAAP profitable. Tesla's problem won't be the margin on their assembly and parts; it will be the ongoing maintenance and potentially demand for cars that, up to now, are far more expensive than advertised.

Sorry you couldn't see through it.

My evidence is that it had to be bailed out by Tesla, then wound down. They spent vast amounts of money to grow; you know the old selling a dollar for $0.80. Borrowing short, lending long. Most of the time, that doesn't work. Solar power is a commodity, and prices are rapidly falling. I think the onus is on others to prove that it was a good business that couldn't handle short-sellers.

Again, if it was so simple to destroy a company through shorting, why isn't it happening everywhere, all the time?

Furthermore, who is "they"?:

>They are not shorting because they think Tesla will go bankrupt. They are shorting during specific periods when Tesla is most vulnerable, and covering when they fail to achieve their targeted goal. They are shorting to bankrupt Tesla.

I've been short TSLA twice (but net long through ETFs). The first time was early, and I lost money. The second time was in the recent run up after the 5k/week news, when I made a few bucks.

Was I trying to bankrupt Tesla?

SolarCity failed because it was a bad business. Shorts believe the same about Tesla, which may or may not be true. Do you think short-sellers randomly choose companies to sell, or do they look at fundamentals and decide the company isn't viable?

This idea that you can simply short a company until goes out of business is asinine. It's far riskier. The downside of shorting is unlimited. Fairfax still exists.

People like to bring up Chanos and Farifax when talking about Tesla, but they rarely mention he was also early on Enron.

Have you looked at Tweets directed at him? People ask him for all kinds of things.

Not a hint of irony, huh?

There it is, the crazy Musk fans going full out ad-hominem, just like they did on the BI journalist. Careful OP, these people are nuts.

2 articles about the useless submarine made the front page. Zero about the uselessness of it,and zero about his disgusting behaviour towards a journalist the day before this stunt started. As planned.

Do you say that because his wealth is tied up in the companies? Yeah, and Zuckerberg "finances" Facebook, and Larry Ellison "finances" Oracle, and Larry and Sergy "finance" Google...

Tesla has sold vast amounts of equity and debt. That's how the company is financed.

And if more journalists get murdered, I hope you eat yours.

Can you name anyone who uses Twitter this way besides Donald Trump and Elon Musk?

Because, although I am not a lawyer, there are legal ramifications to disseminating information on social media. For example:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/23/donald-trump-can...

Elon Musk has public events that demonstrate his thin-skin (unlike the poster you refer to). Like when he wrote journalists angrily because they didn't mention him as a co-founder of Tesla, even though, you know, he didn't co-found it?

He has an undergraduate degree in Physics. There is no focus on "energy storage".

In what sense? Because the companies he runs do great engineering? Was Steve Ballmer a great engineer because Microsoft built great things? What about Steve Jobs?

Elon Musk is great at a crucial skill for CEOs: selling a vision.

You can't be serious...

Musk's #1 trait, for better or worse, is promotion. Or do you really think he's the guy doing the engineering on all this stuff?

Yeah, good PR as a deflection of his Donald Trump routine the past couple days of attacking journalists who have criticized Tesla on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1014964102672801792

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1014923546210938880

https://twitter.com/lopezlinette/status/1014983757252780033

Business Insider has formally denied these allegations, but what does it matter in this day age of social media? The author is getting attacked by Tesla fans, death threats, misogynistic comments. It's off the rails. I don't know how people root for this guy, but here we are.

I'll grant you they could have an edge here, but would listen to arguments the other way. Plenty of talented software people out there, and Tesla has no monopoly

Semi-Truck Project

They were not the first, and are behind other companies right now. No capital to manufacture it.

Supercharger network

You're right, it's like owning the gas stations. And gas station owners will do the same. Installing chargers isn't hard. Very shallow moat.

Expertise in batteries/packs/Gigafactory

Most of which is Panasonic, but they do have some high tech pack management systems. Probably an advantage at this point.

Ancillary battery products, Powerwall and Powerpack.

Low margin, competitive space.

Solar Roof

Solar City bail out is complete and the company is being written off internally. Does the Solar Roof even exist? Last I heard it was still "in testing".

At the end of the day Tesla makes cars. Good, innovative, expensive cars. It's also a low margin, competitive space where companies operate at sometimes single-digit multiples of earnings.

Why are the people who are short the evil ones, but the people who are long the stock are never pumping it for selfish reasons?

All of it. Anyone following this story knew they would announce 5000 cars produced at the end of the quarter, hell-or-high-water. Do you think they will produce 5000 cars this week?

Honest question: where on earth do you get this idea? You actually think there is global demand for ~800,000 vehicles with an ASP of ~$55k USD?

What are you basing this insane demand off of? Tesla won't even report the current backlog numbers. If they were increasing, you don't think they'd be boasting about it?

Where does the unlimited demand come from?

>And when they finally do, in 2-3 years or so, are you going to take a chance on one of the first competitive EVs from VW, Mercedes, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Fiat, Toyota or Mazda or are you just gonna stick with Tesla, which by then comes with even better specs than today?

Wait, you're saying you're not going to trust manufacturers that have been building and servicing millions and millions and millions of cars for, some of them, over 100 years, but instead you will trust Tesla who hasn't even proven they can sustainably build and service the few hundred thousand they've got on the road? Aren't EVs supposed to be simpler than ICEs?

I simply cannot understand this thinking.

Honestly,how hard do you think it is for a gas station to provide chargers? It isn't rocket science.

That's funny, because I find the Silicon Valley attitude of "no one knows how to do anything but us" equally depressing.

Tesla is a great example of this hubris.

Personally, I don't see the significance of putting all-hands-on-deck to reach an arbitrary production number that they themselves set. Quality is already a question, and I can't see that improving under such circumstances.

Is "I don't own a car" the new "I don't own a TV" virtue signalling?

Seriously, you are offering up your opinion on a product you admittedly have no knowledge of,and no interest in owning.

Seriously,give it a try. Everything has bias,but RT does a better job covering global stories than most American cable networks.

Attacking the source is the weakest form of argument.

Then why are they producing cars in a tent in then first place? NUMMI was building 6000 cars a week at its peak,and Teslas are supposed to be simpler and the manufacturing process more advanced.

You have got to be kidding me.

Tesla is in the wrong, and even if their insurance is going to handle it, there is absolutely no reason for the service centre to absolutely ghost this customer. They are not returning calls or answering email.

They could call and say, "We are sorry this happened, the insurance will handle it, apologies." Simple. This is not a criminal trial.