Tesla and Uber Unlikely to Survive...

[Yipper]

Great article in The Economist this week, showing how Tesla has a 75% to 99.9% chance of failure, due to its gigantic debt load.

History suggests companies with big debt and big losses, over multiple years, like Tesla and Uber, rarely thrive or survive.

Such firms have charismatic leaders just winging it on debt.

Tesla and Uber are statistically doomed...

https://jalopnik.com/it-d-be-a-business-miracle-if...

https://www.economist.com/news/business/21730446-f...

[Yipper]

Todd Bonzalez said:

Does anyone know why people give Musk so much credit for stuff? I find it slightly cultish and weird. Seems to only exist in car companies that are stuff to do with the "tech world." Dyson and Jobs are two other notable ones that spring to mind. In reality, they're generally good capitalists who throw other people's money at the right people sometimes and just force through things that are not necessarily brilliant.

I've been working in this industry for the past decade and it's so odd to see it happening. It also seems to be a hugely Western phenomenon and I don't recall it happening with NextEV/Nio, Faraday and Lynk & co etc. Is it just celebrity culture now becoming part of everything and us needing false idols?

Been wondering for a while. Fully expect people to blindly defend the CEOs ITT and find it really interesting.

Yes, this is the crux of the Economist article.

Tesla, Uber and similar others are just charismatic salespeople selling a distant vision while burning other people's money.

At the end of the day, Tesla is just a rebadged Merc or Lotus, while racking up billions in debt.

When Apple, Google, VW, Mercedes, Audi, Porsche and others get their electric cars revving, Tesla (and its huge debt / losses) is toast.

Think Blackberry or Palm -- everyone sucked their corporate smartphone wiener... until Google and Apple turned up and wrecked the party...

[Yipper]

J4CKO said:

Sometimes I get the impression, the anti EV bandwagon grabs any negative article, or makes some up like that picture of a vast open cast Copper mine that was allegedly a Lithium mine.

A lot of what I read has a subtext of "But I love Engines"

Its like when Jim Jefferies sums up all the various and tenuous arguments from the US gun lobby as "But I love guns".

The article is about business. Not about tech, or some distant pipedream.

And the business case for Tesla is shaky. History shows that companies with big debt and big losses over many years (like Tesla and Uber) rarely survive in the long run.

In business terms, they are a mess.

[Yipper]

Dr Gitlin said:

babatunde said:

The only reason Mercedes, Jaguar, BMW Porsche etc are bringing EVs to the market is Tesla, they dominate the sales charts in the USA for premium saloon cars, if you didn't feel that they were a genuine contender you wouldn't be looking at one, there are 101 things they could do better

This is a really misleading data set. The Model S isn't a 7 Series/S-Class/A8 competitor, it's 5 Series sized.

If you look at Tesla Model S overall EV USA market share, it's tanking. Down a third from its peak. Tesla S has peaked.

[Yipper]

AstonZagato said:

red_slr said:

Just been looking at the numbers for Tesla. They are in a bad way. Never knew they were so close to the wire financially. They are a big outfit and they have put a lot of money into production so I just hope they scrape through. Does make me a bit worried about my model 3 deposit but for a grand I think I will take that chance and back them on this as its just not like anything anyone else is doing.
.

Don't read this then:

The shorts are sharpening their knives:
https://seekingalpha.com/amp/article/4122890-tesla...

Will they make a killing or stab themselves in the foot?

It's a very one sided account and the chap obviously has an axe to grind. But some interesting stats.

It's all about the funding - a bit like Roadrunner and Wile E Coyote running off the cliff. Roadrunner doesn't look down and sails across. Wile E Coyote stops and falls. If Musk can keep going until Model 3 is pumping out and his cashflows improve, he's golden. Right now, with a $53billion market cap, I think people will fund him till he gets there.

Meep, meep.

A very good article from SA.

Basically echoing The Economist article posted previously.

Tesla is furiously spanking other people's money while racking up huge debts, huge inventory and huge financial losses.

It will almost certainly end in tears.

[Yipper]

Uber lost $1-2 billion in Q3 2017, losing marketshare to Lyft, and growth slowing. Looks precarious, as predicted.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-results/ub...

[Yipper]

AstonZagato said:

Depends if you think they are making cars or in a "land grab". If it is the latter, then trying to get an unattainable lead on their competitor makes sense. It is currently possible because others such as Amazon have trodden that path and won. But Amazon also lost 95% of its value in 2000-2003. Investors seem to have forgotten that (there's an old saying that there are two types of investors: those with short memories; and those with none).

Amazon's online store is still losing money today.

[Yipper]

Yipper said:

Amazon's online store is still losing money today.

Yipper (and the others like you) I have a question -

DO you want Tesla to fail? You all seem very excited with the prospect of people that have never made a thing in their lives shorting the stock. You seem delighted over very little bit of negativity.

My guess is that in "real" life you're losers but I'm interested if it extends beyond primaeval hatred of the new or different.

Ah, the old "ignore the post, attack the poster" trick

Tesla are gifting, not selling.

Anyone can take a Merc, bolt some Panasonic batteries on the side, and spank billions of other people's money on it.

Anyone who has been to Silicon Valley in recent months will have heard the phrase...

"Elon can make everything but a profit"...

[Yipper]

Tesla burned ~$5,000,000,000 of free cash in 2017, up from ~$0.1b in 2010.

Tesla finished with ~$10,000,000,000 of total debt in 2017, up from ~$0.1b in 2010.

Model 3 is way, way behind schedule.

No profits coming for years and years.

It is the 75th anniversary of Nikola Tesla's death in 2018. He'll be turning uncomfortably in his grave...

[Yipper]

Tesla results are a disaster.

Total Tesla car production fell -1% YoY in Q4 2017.

Tesla S and X global sales are shrinking. And output of the 3 is not rising fast enough to offset their declines.

Tesla is burning ~$1,000,000,000 every few weeks.

It's shaky ground is getting shakier.

[Yipper]

ReverendCounter said:

Yipper said:

Tesla results are a disaster.

Total Tesla car production fell -1% YoY in Q4 2017.

Tesla S and X global sales are shrinking. And output of the 3 is not rising fast enough to offset their declines.

Tesla is burning ~$1,000,000,000 every few weeks.

It's shaky ground is getting shakier.

DELETED: Comment made by a member who's account has been deleted.

Whatever this thing is, we've all seen how it spits out grossly misleading bullst throughout PH day in, day out.

I think the reason it does this is to ensure that it will be fed the correct information by humans. I think it's an experiment.

Personally I think it's time for mods to take a much tougher stance against this misuse of the forums, especially where misleading info re: legal matters is concerned.

It is time to clamp down on the self-important, oppressive, self-appointed, forum police.

The facts are correct.

What's more, Tesla today posted its biggest every quarterly loss in its history, some $675,000,000 of losses.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/07...

[Yipper]

Too Drunk to Funk said:

Are you suggesting the non-believers should be banned?

[Yipper]

Have a couple of Tesla graphics, after their Q4 2017 results this week.

[Yipper]

hyphen said:

I wonder how the accounting is being done between the 3 companies.

With regards to the launch - did Tesla pay SpaceX for the publicity? Did spaceX buy Musk's car from him? Lot of scope for shifting cash around I reckon, engineers at the different companies are known to collaborate on each others problems.

Doing a big SpaceX rocket launch the day before Tesla's record losses and more Model 3 production delays was a total coincidence.

Have another graphic.

[Yipper]

RobDickinson said:

Heres Johnny said:

You know the shares were down over 8% today?

The whole market is in free fall I wouldn't take today as worthwhile data.

Tesla share price has plunged almost -20% in 4 months!

That is good shorting business.

[Yipper]

hyphen said:

Yipper's source: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4144481-first-loo...

Yippers source said:

Disclosure: I am/we are short TSLA.

DELETED: Comment made by a member who's account has been deleted.

Lol.

Musk received $3,000,000,000 to $5,000,000,000 in free cash subsidies from the US government. It wasn't his money and he didn't build the rocket himself.

[Yipper]

RobDickinson said:

Yipper said:

Tesla share price has plunged almost -20% in 4 months!

That is good shorting business.

more bks 4 months ago (2nd november) tlsa listed at $299 a share even now they are above that ($315).

It is down from $385 to $315 in 4 months and 20 days

[Yipper]

liner33 said:

Wow the power of the "Cult of Elon" is strong in this thread

Even the great one thinks the stock is overvalued

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/17/elon-musk-teslas-s...

Others explain why they are think Tesla and the stock value is vulnerable

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/7-big-worries-th...

There is defo some cultism around, blended with a whiff of hysteria.

Structurally bankrupt, major quality issues, free subsidies starting to fade, old models have peaked, delay after delay after delay to new models, and classic diversionary tactics with flashy rocket launches... and, still, some people continue to stick their head in the sand and oppress the non-believers.

Signs of cultish mania and group hysteria.

[Yipper]

Uber (also the subject of this thread) lost $4,500,000,000 in 2017!

https://news.sky.com/story/rough-ride-for-uber-in-...

[Yipper]

New video of Elon Musk with a semi.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-542...