Mega Thread for Tesla Investors

Well, it's the U.S. of A... anybody can sue anybody for anything, and sadly that includes trying to blame others for your own foolish and/or irresponsible behavior.

But it would be amusing to see this guy's excuse for why he ignored the very clear warning which Tesla gives you before you enable Autosteer on your Tesla car:



What part of "you need to maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle while enjoying the conveniences of Autosteer" did he not understand?

Was it the "control" part, or the "responsibility" part?
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Source: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-ne-tesla-autopilot-lawsuit-autonomous-driving-20181030-story.html

Shawn Hudson said he bought his 2017 Tesla Model S last year to get from his home to his job as general manager of a Nissan dealership in Fort Pierce, about two hours each way.
. . .
Morgan said Hudson’s manual suggested not activating the driver assistance feature at more than 50 mph, but claims that’s not how the dealer sold it or how Tesla markets itself.
. . . ​

I like his lawyer ... Tesla's best friend.

This is the second time I've suggested getting the court filing:
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Complaint-filed.pdf

The plaintiff makes claims about Tesla without offering written or physical evidence of those claims. Also curious, no insurance companies listed in the plaintiff list.

Bob Wilson

 

From the Los Angeles Times: "Tesla delivered an awesome earnings surprise. How come no one saw it coming?"

An excerpt:

When Tesla announced third-quarter results last week, it didn’t merely beat analyst expectations — it trounced them. Cable TV tickers flashed the news worldwide. The company’s stock price didn’t simply rise; it soared.

“They pulled this off very well,” said Anton Wahlman, an investor who goes short and long in Tesla depending on the price of its volatile stock.

Now Wahlman, other Tesla investors, Wall Street analysts and anyone obsessed with Chief Executive Elon Musk’s high-wire style all eagerly await the imminent release of the company’s official 10-Q report for the quarter.

​

 

IBID:

The better-than-expected results, said Bank of America’s John Murphy, are due to “transitory factors” that likely can’t be sustained.​

This is the kind of nonsense that led to their surprise. There are no "transitory factors".

Bob Wilson

 

I appreciate the effort it takes to track sales and enjoy the numbers. I'm patient and looking forward.

Bob Wilson

 

Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!

I should have posted a prediction that you would use the entirely predictable drop in last month's Model 3 sales to prop up your continuing predictions that Model 3 demand is declining. You trying to get mileage out of that predictable drop was as predictable as the drop itself. Serial Tesla bashers have been using data related to Tesla's 3-month production cycle as "evidence" of a decline in Tesla demand and sales, for years now.

There was a similar drop in TM3 deliveries earlier this year:
March: 3820
April: 3750

Did that indicate declining Model 3 demand or production? Hmmmm?

By now, TeslaInvestors, this is a very tired and very worn-out argument. The fact that you keep repeating it shows how intellectually bankrupt your pravduh propaganda is.

 

Just a reminder:

Tesla’s global automobile sales totals:
2012: 2650
2013: 22,300
2014: 31,655 (+41.95%)
2015: 50,580 (+59.8%)
2016: 76,230 (+50.7%)
2017: 101,312 (+32.9%)

We already know that the increase for 2018 will be more than +100%... that is, more than double least year's deliveries and sales!!

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I've noticed a sharp uptick in my own comments having to await moderation, too. That includes comments which are not pejorative or controversial in any way, and in response to comments which themselves were neither.

Glad to know it's not just me.

And for the record, it irks me that the term "Usual Suspects" will throw one of my comments into moderation. I include myself in the category of "Usual Suspects"; why would it be considered a pejorative?

But then, I'm not one of the ones doing the world of moderating on InsideEVs. They do the work, so they get to set the rules.

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Source: https://www.recode.net/2018/11/2/18053428/recode-decode-full-podcast-transcript-elon-musk-tesla-spacex-boring-company-kara-swisher

Just that you don’t like falsehoods.

Yeah. There are good journalists and there are bad ones, and unfortunately the feedback loop for good versus bad is inverted, so the more salacious that an article is, the more salacious the headline is, the more clicks it’s gonna get. Then somebody is not a journalist, they are an ad salesman. Not a journalist, an ad salesman.

What about things that are just critical of you that you don’t like? Do you think you’re particularly sensitive?

No. Of course not. Count how many negative articles there are and how many I respond to. One percent, maybe. But the common rebuttal of journalists is, “Oh. My article’s fine. He’s just thin-skinned.” No, your article is false and you don’t want to admit it.
. . .
And talk about that toll.

Pretty sure I burnt out a bunch of neurons during this process. Running both SpaceX and Tesla is an incredibly difficult ... You realize we’re fighting the incredibly competitive car companies. They make very good cars. They’ve been doing this for a long time. They are entrenched. Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Lexus, you name it. All those car brands. And the history of car companies in America is terrible. The only ones that haven’t gone bankrupt are Tesla and Ford. That’s it. Everyone else has gone bankrupt.
. . .
What I want to get at is why you’re doing that. It’s not a trivial … Why do you think you want to push yourself that hard?

Well, the other option would have been, Tesla dies.

Right.

Yeah. Tesla cannot die. Tesla is incredibly important for the future of sustainable transport and energy generation. The fundamental purpose, the fundamental good that Tesla provides is accelerating the advent of sustainable transport and energy production.
. . . ​

The reason this belongs here is to offer the Tesla skeptics a clue. But leading a horse to water does not make them drink.

Bob Wilson

 

Hmmm, I am just now listening to the podcase.

Gotta say, I agree with Musk on journalists. It's appalling how much even mainstream media has shifted away from "We just want the facts, Ma'am" to what has been dubbed "infotainment". Whether or not a news report is actually true has become less important than the ratings; the popularity of the show.

Simply appalling. "With great power comes great responsibility." The news media has been granted great power by the U.S. Constitution, but fewer and fewer journalists these days take their responsibility seriously.

And as Elon rightly points out, this emphasis on controversy and sensationalism has infected even the most respected newspapers. He complains about a front-page WSJ article (I presume about Tesla) which simply isn't true. I'd like to know exactly what he's talking about, but I don't doubt it what he says.

I would hate to see freedom of the press restricted, but if they don't voluntarily clean up their act, then restrictions and regulations need to be imposed on them. I've suggested licensing and self-policing by journalists, in the same manner as lawyers and doctors, with the Bar Association and the American Medical Association.

Elon's suggestion of a website which rates the accuracy (or lack thereof) of different media sources would be a good first step in the right direction there.

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If it could start with Facebook ...

Bob Wilson

 

The more I learn about FaceBook, the more I think it is a destructive force that humanity would be far better off without. It has become increasingly clear that the site is designed with the primary purpose of collecting personal data on its users, and using that data to target them with advertising... even selling that data to third parties for whatever purpose they want to use it for. Including, for example, Cambridge Analytica used the data to conduct information warfare against the Hillary Clinton campaign in the last election, in order to help get the Big Cheeto elected.

"The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, explained with a simple diagram"

Oh, and it's not just FaceBook... it's Twitter, too.

People need to wake up to how information is being weaponized in the new information wars. This isn't your grandpa's propaganda; this is a whole new level of psychological manipulation, with software used to tailor the weaponized info to best subvert and brainwash the individual, based on their FaceBook profile.

Am I being alarmist? No, I don't think so. The way anyone who uses FaceBook and other social media platforms is being targeted by information warfare is not only insidious, it's becoming pervasive. I don't think this very forum is entirely free of it, either. Some of the anti-Tesla smear campaigns have more than a faint whiff of information warfare about them.

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I just did a quick survey of article titles in Yahoo Finance about Tesla and found these derivatives from the "recode" article:

• Elon Musk opens up in interview with Recode editor-at-lar...
• Absurd! Absurd!' — Elon Musk gets real about Tesla
• In sweeping interview, Elon Musk says Tesla will be cash-flow positive ‘all quarters going forward’
• Elon Musk wants to make supersonic vertical-takeoff electric jet but says his 'head would explode'
• Elon Musk: “Some people use their hair to express themselves. I use Twitter.”
• Elon Musk plans a truck he says looks like something out ...
• Elon Musk says he won't change much about how he uses Twitter
• Musk Says Apple Losing Luster; Ford May Fail in Next Recession
• Tesla's pickup truck will be like something out of 'Blade Runner,' CEO Elon Musk says
• Elon Musk says he probably wouldn't take Saudi money
• Elon Musk Says He Wouldn’t Take Money From Saudi Arabia Now

Bob Wilson

 

"Bitter, table for one."

Feeding the trolls: https://realmoney.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/tesla-s-main-product-isn-t-cars-it-s-subsidies-14769263?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO&yptr=yahoo

. . .
This all compares to Tesla reporting a $312 million profit for the third quarter. Subtract the $713 million in U.S. subsidies, and Tesla's results would be far weaker. . . .

How much is this on a per-car basis? Divide $713 million by the 69,925 cars Tesla sold in the U.S. in the third quarter, and you get $10,197 per car. Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Heartland America, you have just subsidized a bunch of millionaires living in California's most expensive coastal ZIP codes to the tune of $10,197 per car. I'm sure they are sending you a thank-you card.

Actually, no, they're not sending you a thank-you card. They're probably voting Tuesday to destroy your pocketbook and lifestyle even more.​

Complimenting this resentful bile: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-04/electric-cars-face-a-6-trillion-barrier-to-widespread-adoption

. . . Households most likely to buy a battery-powered electric car have an income of $300,000 a year or more, according to a UBS survey of around 10,000 people in the six largest auto markets. Only 41 percent of households with income of $150,000 to around $200,000 plan to make such a vehicle their next auto purchase. The biggest barrier to buying cleaner cars is still the high price.
​

These are the same folks paying the bulk of taxes the freeloading "Mr. and Mrs. Heartland" are not paying.

Bob Wilson

 

Thats a lot of folks planning on buying elec.

 

Awaiting "moderation" is my comment to the "Real Money" article:

On page 6 of the 2018 Q3 report we find these three lines:

$6,824,413 (thousand) - Total revenue
$5,300,748 - Total cost of revenue
$1,533,665 - Gross profit

You start with this number before getting into the 'Net profit' calculations. Digging into 'Total revenue', we find $326 million for "Services and other" which is much less than the proposed "$713 million in quarterly subsidies" a number from the author's imagination.

Reading a quarterly report is not that hard but making stuff up is a lot easier. Taking great exception to the Federal Income Tax Credit, he could have pointed out they are ending next year and at the same time ignores how many times tax savings are used to attract companies ... another type of subsidy.

The goal of this article is to blow smoke up "Mr. and Mrs. Heartland America" and champion "Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado or RAM 1500." Yet he neglects the '25% chicken tax' that has supported pickups since LBJ imposed it. Breitbart, FOX, and now "Real Money" share the same bad habit of omitting facts and data to mislead the reader.​

Bob Wilson