I did not leave the voting part out on purpose. It was irrelevant to the claim I quoted. Both parties are trending toward their radical fringe and leaving the rational people out in the cold. The left is certainly guilty of driving stupid agendas, but if he thinks he is going to get more mileage out of the right as a renewable energy CEO versus the left, then I do not know what to say. StockJock-e nailed that point a bit ago. No company is above reproach. If this is the road he wishes to go down, then investors might tire of it. Plenty of other fish in the sea.
I really wanted to let it go but I disagree strongly, you said he is not a centrist. It is very relevant that one of the most famous and successful businessmen in the world says he has voted Democrat his entire life then all of a sudden has a change of heart. What caused this change of heart? Instead of asking why, we simply attack the message because we don't like it. Many long time democrats I know are not happy with the direction of the party, he is far from alone and it is far from an extreme viewpoint. I agree with this 100% and this is the biggest threat to the future prosperity and success of this country. Both parties may be trending that way but one party currently holds most of the power and we are simply seeing the pendulum shift back. I really don't think rational non extreme leftists (the majority) are going to abandon Tesla over these comments. Especially after he walks them back a bit. Let's face it he is responding to being attacked regarding his Twitter deal and any rational person can see what is going on. The truth is Elon Musk wants to change the world, that will not happen if he only caters to the left. His goal is and should be to get everyone on board. As a Tesla investor we have to take the good with the bad in having an outspoken CEO willing to do things the average CEO runs from. There is great risk with Tesla, but as we have already seen also great reward.
I never said what he is. I do not know, and it does not matter much to me either way. The unfortunate changes in both parties are in plain view for all to see. His statement is a complete cop out. Nothing is new except perhaps his motives or plans. I do not know why he said it; I just know it's bullshit. As far as the viewpoint stated in his tweet, yeah it is extreme. It's also hilariously inaccurate. I fail to see how he is catering to the left. He is the most wealthy person in the world because he saw that ICE is a dying method of transport and built an empire before the the established companies could (or wanted) to move on it. That's not a left or right issue, it's a sound business decision. He has already changed the world. His technological and market vision is second to none and is key to his success. He needs to stick to that and not get bogged down in the political and egotistical mire. Finally, I think we agree on a lot. You find his motivation for posting that tweet to be meaningful, whereas I do not. Perhaps you will uncover one of his motives that would surprise me. We shall see.
And competition from VW has not ramped up. When most of us think "EV" we automatically think Tesla. The other car makers have a lot of brand awareness to do.
So many people, such as myself, preach a discipline of specifically avoiding market timing as a false religion. In the case of Tesla, it could easily quadruple in a year. It could easily halve in a year. It could do both. Tesla is a company you can cut a limit order for $550, leave it open for 120 days, and have a very strong chance of a fill. Getting the shares today or in 120 days is not relevant, since Tesla doesn't currently pay a dividend. I champion Spud's market timing on this. BTW, I predict Tesla will start paying a dividend soon due to Elon's personal finance situation. That will change the behavior of the stock. When the growth stops for a while, he is going to be squeezed and will need cash flow from somewhere. The obvious source is a dividend. He has sold some stock, and might do so again, but I have no doubt he is tempted to declare a dividend.
I was confused for a minute, thinking I was reading a post from 2017. Please consider this post from the light hearted perspective from which it originated. No disrespect was intended.
I'm trying to go light on this, out of a deep respect for jock-e, so please do not consider this to be "I told you so", or any sort of endzone ball-spike/dance because it is not intended to be so, but.... My entire investing discipline is to look for the following three traits, in this order: honesty, hard work, smart I've been writing this since the first page of my blog and have been practicing it for 20+ years. (note: early in my investing career I looked for growth and arbitrage opportunities like everyone else) By ignoring 100% of what a company says it is going to do and focusing 100% on what a company does, I have prospered. - (honesty) What is the executive compensation? Did they set a compensation record during the GFC? Did they set a compensation record during the COVID bounce of 2020? Executives should share the pain with the owners during hard times but they rarely do. - (hard work) What is the company doing to improve their situation? Story: This is nebulous but there are some things I look for. In 2016, I purchased an oil field services company for pennies on the dollar when the price of oil was plummeting. The company had no debt and owned their equipment (not leased) after nearly going out of business 15 years prior in another period of market turbulence. The CEO was a strong-arm oil baron with little polish and a verbal approach so direct as to be off-putting by anyone who might use a doily on their coffee table. I believed in this man based on everything I knew about him, knew he would find a way to survive, and was impressed but not surprised to learn he made his own remote operational rigs in sea-cans (5 sea cans per rig, from memory) and shipped them to Papal New Guinea where he hustled up a contract to operate an LNG lease. He then offered contracts to any of his team who cared to work remote. Suffice to say, that move was rewarded. My $1.65 shares were sold around $20 when the CEO retired three years later. That company went from being a small cap to mid cap in a short period. - (smart) Smart is considerably less important than the other two traits and quantifying it can be difficult but we know it when we see it. In 2016, I communted a medium sized pension and put 100% of that money into Tesla based on the company being: honest, hard working, and smart. In order to out-compete Tesla, other car makers are going to need to be either more honest, more hard working, more smart, or a combination of all three. Think about that. I try to not be smug about Tesla but this market is Tesla's to lose; they earned it. I'm an investor. I don't know what Tesla is going to do today, tomorrow, or next year. I do know that they will do extremely well in 5 or 10 years time, if they continue to be honest, hard working, and smart.
There have been several announcements, indicating Tesla is back to full production in Shanghai. I did not mention them, as the pics I've seen show a tiny trickle of cars. Sure enough, those announcements turned out to be balloon juice. Tesla is just ramping up a second shift now. They are producing cars but at a very low rate. Hopefully, they will ramp shortly. I'm not aware of any other company that has so many fictitious reports. As best I can tell, 70% of all Tesla related content is total crap. I suspect most of what CNBC and Bloomberg publish is factual but I don't watch much of them so I can't confirm.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mentioned to Bloomberg she is considering selling her Tesla in favour of a different EV, after a Twitter exchange with Musk. I expect most of the Republicans here despise AOC but she is a bright light in the Democratic party and carries significant swing. There is no way AOC is going to directly impact Tesla with a move like this, should it happen, but change of sentiment builds over time. You just can't vilify half, or more, of your potential customer base. Discussing who is right is not the point. The point is, this is a losing game for Tesla.
"The Left is the part of division and hate!" *checks stock price "Gosh darnit.. y'all crazy! I love you all!!!
I'm looking at GM's Ultium battery platform. It seems to me, the cylindrical versus pouch debate has not been won. There are advantages to both techniques. Long term, I expect pouch to win but I would not stake my life on it. I think it's great that somebody is pushing the developing pouch cells. As for their speculation of pack cost and market dominance by 2025, I refer to Mr. T. Edison for an appropriate response. "Working on the latest, greatest battery brings out a man's latent capacity for lying." - T. Edison (1883)
I notice BMW is migrating to cylindrical cells for 2025. The i3 utilizes pouch cells. The iX uses prismatic cells (similar to a pouch cell). For all the bluster on pouch cells being the future, and this may be the case, it is a misleading sound byte. 2070 cells have far less pack overhead than 18650 cells. 4860 cells will have far less pack overhead than 2070 cells. The pouch advantages have pretty much evaporated. Cylindrical cells are more efficient to manufacture and also when packaging, as size increases. It is the same for pouch cells, also. Larger cells do reduce quality control possibilities, though. It's a shame so much EV news coverage is built on sound bites, such as "pouch cells are better than cylindrical cells". Cylindrical cells are more efficient to manufacture quickly and I expect this will always be the case. Also, the current 4860 cell should be around 10 amp hours or higher. That is 37Wh per cell. I believe that is more than most pouch cells so I don't see an efficiency advantage at this point. With 4860 cells in a structural pack, it's going to take a big breakthrough to produce a more efficient battery system.
