Over the last two years Jim Chanos has shorted Tesla and mounted a relentless negative media attack. It has been somewhat effective. A week ago, it came out that Chanos is now long on the company and... wouldn't you know... CNBC is starting to present some positive news about Tesla. Tesla has been an epic demonstration of harvesting honey from the hive of media followers.
It's phenomenal how wrong the liars are about Tesla. It's a shame because it makes it easy to dismiss them summarily when a bit of well thought out criticism is always a positive thing. There is a narrative going around that Tesla has not been the fastest ramping automobile manufacturer in history. As the narrative goes, Ford scaled more quickly. Of course, they did not. 1903 -> First year of Ford large scale production -> Ford produced 1700 cars 2010 -> The year of Tesla IPO -> They had been R&D since starting up in 2003 and they developed a lot of technology for Toyota and others but did not have a high production car of their own until 2012. They sold 1500 roadsters by 2010 but they were hand built. Ford was also engaged in R&D long before 1903 so starting the Tesla clock at IPO is actually being generous to Ford. To be fair, it should have started at the model S in 2012 but this makes the point more clear. 1911 -> 8 years into Ford's production ramp -> Ford produced 69,762 cars 2018 -> 6 years into the model S production ramp (first large scale production car in 2012) -> Tesla produced about 350,000 cars 1912 -> Ford produced 78,440 2019 -> Tesla is on track to produce about 400,000 cars I'm sure there is some way that Jim Chanos followers can verbally disqualify most of Tesla's production from being relevant or perhaps find a way to justify multiplying Ford's early production but the reality is that Tesla is a Cinderella story. It's difficult to imagine a larger success story than Tesla. If it was a bad company producing bad cars on nonviable technology, they probably wouldn't have passed the half million car production milestone a while ago.
Goldman Sachs continues to beat the "lack of sustainable demand" drum. I hope other market influencing sources pile on and beat Tesla back below $200. I'm cashed up and ready to go.
Even before the Goldman Suchs call, selling came in at resistance before reaching the supply line of the downtrend channel....eager sellers, including GS and their favorite clients I suppose. Daily bars:
GF3 update. More exterior work happened this week than last but still extremely little. There is a lot of standing moisture and mud. It appears the rainy season has hit. There are still no doors and only a half dozen windows. Roof still not finished but nearly so (about the same as last week). 90% of the work is happening inside. I haven't seen too many pics but it appears there is still a whole lot to do. In light of this, the September assembly line trials no longer seem like a slam dunk. Time will tell.
Tesla is in a downtrend. Now Tesla is trying to overcome resistance on the Tenkan line. The stochastic has already risen high and is ready to move down. If the price breaks off from Tenkan, the trend will continue. Weekly
I guess I look at markets more simply; just price and volume, e.g., the trend trumps and the last weekly bar closed well off its high at horizontal and diagonal resistance. The stoch, like most indicators, is a function of price and will follow price, i.e., the tail doesn't wag the dog. So I don't understand what you mean by "The stochastic has already risen and is ready to move down...". Why? What am I missing?
Tesla truck looks pretty sweet! I wonder what kind of torque that thing puts out? https://electrek.co/2019/06/25/tesla-semi-prototype-pictures-frunk/
CNBC reports Tesla is trying to produce it's own cells and become less dependant on Panasonic. As you would expect, they found a way to spin it negative. lol! https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/26/tes...ery-cells-to-reduce-panasonic-dependency.html CNBC is 10 steps behind and dumb as a brick. I'm embarrassed for them.
I blame Tesla for not pushing the "made in America" angle, then criticize all the other media who attack them for being unpatriotic. Im available for PR work Elon!
The investigation into the Shanghai fire is complete and it turned out to be the fault of the vehicle. From the summary I read, it sounds like the car was parked hot off a supercharger and the forward battery module caught fire shortly after the vehicle was parked. I was one of the people thinking the event looked like sabotage. It was an extremely fast fire and perfectly in the frame of a security camera, just prior to a Tesla publicity event. The report concludes there was no sabotage. Tesla has issued a firmware update that probably reduces the charge rate, particularly at the end of a charge cycle. The report reads, "help protect the vehicles’ batteries while improving longevity". Batteries heat from within, while charging. This causes delayed temperature readings, as sensors inside a pack do not monitor internal cell temperatures. When a sensor picks up rising heat, charge current can be reduced but heat internal to the cells is going to get out. I've seen this with my own packs. If you cut off charging when pack telemetry reads 45C, that pack could easily show 65C a few minutes later, despite all current being stopped. The heat was there, even when the pack read at 45C, it just took some time to get out of the tightly wrapped cells and get to the sensor. Here is a quick note on lithium charging dynamics. Lithium cells can take a lot of current during the first 80% of the charge cycle. During this "bulk" phase, resistance internal to the cell is low, therefore, heat loss is also low. As the cell approaches fully charged state, internal resistance increases causing increased heat loss during charging. For this reason, lithium cells are specified to be charged with diminishing current during the "finish" phase of the charge. This is why EVs charge quickly during the first 80% of the charge cycle and then charge slowly. It's also why Tesla limits to 80% charge at busy supercharger stations, as the remaining 20% of the charge is done at a slow rate.
Two years ago, the USA television production NOVA had a fascinating program devoted to battery charging technology in an episode entitled "Search for the Super Battery." It's a good watch in general, but I think even more so for anybody investing in battery storage technology (or dependent) companies. It does a good job of explaining conventional and new-technology battery thermal properties. Among other things, it demonstrates how lithium battery technology (like in mobile phones) can catch fire. And they give a glimpse of what needs to happen in advances in the physical sciences to make batteries in general more efficient and safer.
Sunday GF3 update. More exterior work this week than last, but still not complete. I see another dozen windows installed and two sets of doors but it's early days for closing the apertures. Noticeably more siding is on. Progress is visible. I can see more of the floor poured in the interior. 6 more weeks like this and the exterior will be complete. Curiously, two more medium sized buildings are being erected at the east end of the lot. There is a lot of reinforcing steel, form work, and structural steel in place. The skeletons look to be nearly complete. I have no idea what these buildings are for but I'd guess they are wok houses to keep cooking grease out of the factory space. Update: The larger of the two buildings is an electrical substation. I do not know if the smaller structure is part of the substation. I can also see what appears to be a supercharger station going in. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend.
Continued. Several weeks ago, one of the workers said he was going to stop work on the factory in about a month and work on a power plant. I assumed he was referring to a project for the Shanghai electrical facility. Now I realize he was referring to the substation on the Tesla property. I assume it's a Tesla facility but the largest of the two buildings is being constructed with concrete walls and an unusual roof structure that I believe will also be concrete. It will be a heavy duty structure.
Here is a shot of the GF3 substation. Close-ups reveal it is more than a box. It is going to have protruding sections and what appears to be loading docs at ground level.
In a few days, Tesla will announce their deliveries for 19Q2. At that point, I expect the price to go up, briefly. After a brief rise, media streams will re-start their fountain of feces and relentlessly beat down this American company again.
Sounds like a pre-excuse for failure to place a stop-loss order. In a mark-down phase all the news is bad news.
Lol! By the end of August, I expect the pickup will be presented, gf3 will be producing pre-production cars by late september, and the next generation model S will be presented in September or October. The negative narrative is going to ring pretty hollow in the second half of 19. The anti-Tesla crowd need to hit the smear campaign as hard as they can after the delivery report because they will be slapped down pretty hard by the end of summer.
