Tesla/Lithium stocks discussion

Sabre Man

JPMorgan advises investors to short Tesla, calling for 40 percent share downside over the next year thanks to possible share dilution and mounting competition.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/01/jpmorgan-has-a-new-short-idea-tesla-shares-to-fall-40-percent-in-12-months.html

He may be right about dilution, depending on further Model 3 production issues, but I don't see any real competition in the next few years.

el diablo

Definitely not a buy at current prices. Tesla would've failed years ago if not for unlimited government subsidies, free loans and support.

Tesla cars riddled with defects straight off assembly line, former workers say, in push for speed over quality

Quality checks have routinely revealed defects in more than 90% of Model S and Model X vehicles inspected after assembly, former employees say

SAN FRANCISCO — After Tesla‘s Model S sedans and Model X SUVs roll off the company’s Fremont, California assembly line, the electric vehicles usually make another stop — for repairs, nine current and former employees have told Reuters.

The luxury cars regularly require fixes before they can leave the factory, according to the workers. Quality checks have routinely revealed defects in more than 90 per cent of Model S and Model X vehicles inspected after assembly, these individuals said, citing figures from Tesla’s internal tracking system as recently as October. Some of these people told Reuters of seeing problems as far back as 2012.

Tesla Inc said its quality control process is unusually rigorous, designed to flag and correct the tiniest imperfections. It declined to provide post-assembly defect rates to Reuters or comment on those cited by employees.

Tesla’s Elon Musk says he can’t remember where he stashed his Bitcoin — oh, and he’s not cryptocurrency’s creator
Tesla’s newest promises on Semi Truck, Roadster break the laws of batteries
Tesla is blowing through US$8,000 every minute amid Model 3 woes
The world’s most efficient automakers, such as Toyota, average post-manufacturing fixes on fewer than 10 per cent of their cars, according to industry experts. Getting quality right during initial assembly is crucial, they said, because repairs waste time and money.

At Tesla “so much goes into rework after the car is done … that’s where their money is being spent,” a former Tesla supervisor said.

The Silicon Valley automaker said the majority of its post-assembly defects are minor and resolved in a matter of minutes.



Tesla has enthralled consumers with sleek designs, clean technology and legendary acceleration on its pricey cars. A Consumer Reports survey found 91 per cent of Tesla owners would buy again.


Still, the magazine and market researcher J.D. Power have dinged the company on quality, citing troubles such as faulty door handles and body panel gaps. Bernstein analyst A.M. (Toni) Sacconaghi, Jr. test-drove one of the company’s new Model 3 sedans earlier this month, writing that the fit and finish were “relatively poor.” Tesla owners have complained on web forums of annoying rattles, buggy software and poor seals that allow rainwater to seep into the interior or trunk.

We (have) been building a Model S since 2012. How do we still have water leaks?



Auto industry experts say the company’s survival now depends on its ability to crank out high-quality cars in volume as it begins to build its first mass-market car, the Model 3, which starts at US$35,000.

Tesla has never turned an annual profit and is burning through US$1 billion a quarter. That is unsustainable without fresh cash or a big increase in sales to mainstream customers who may prove less forgiving of potential defects.

“We’ve never doubted Tesla’s ability to make exciting products with top specifications, but there’s a difference between unveiling something and then actually making it perfectly in large volume. Tesla has not perfected the latter yet,” Morningstar analyst David Whiston wrote earlier this month.

Musk has vowed Tesla would become “the best manufacturer on Earth,” helped by a new, highly automated assembly line and a simpler design for the Model 3. However, production woes have slowed deliveries of the much-anticipated sedan.


A Tesla Model S electric car. Handout, Tesla
Snags are normal with any new launch. But chronic defects with Tesla’s established Models S and X show a company still struggling to master basic manufacturing, workers said.

Known as “kickbacks” within Tesla, these vehicles have glitches as minor as dents and scratches to more complex troubles such as malfunctioning seats. Easy fixes are made swiftly on the factory floor, workers said.

Trickier cases head to one of Tesla’s outdoor parking lots to await repair. The backlog in one of those two lots, dubbed the “yard,” has exceeded 2,000 vehicles at times, workers told Reuters.

Tesla denied to Reuters that such “repair lots” exist.

Reuters interviewed nine current and former Tesla employees, including a former senior manager, with experience in assembly, quality control and repairs on Model S and Model X. All requested anonymity because the company required them to sign non-disclosure agreements. Four of the people were fired for cause, including two last month as part of a mass dismissal of hundreds of workers for what Tesla said was poor performance. Sacked workers who spoke with Reuters denied they were poor performers.

People with knowledge of Tesla’s internal quality data shared those figures with Reuters. The news agency was unable to confirm the information independently.

Defects included “doors not closing, material trim, missing parts, all kinds of stuff. Loose objects, water leaks, you name it,” another former supervisor said. “We’ve been building a Model S since 2012. How do we still have water leaks?”

BUILD FAST, FIX LATER

Tesla disputed workers’ portrayal of the automaker as struggling to produce defect-free vehicles. A spokesperson described a rigorous process that requires all cars to pass more than 500 inspections and tests. Any reworking of cars after assembly reflects the company’s commitment to quality, the spokesperson said.

“Our goal is to produce perfect cars for every customer,” Tesla said in a statement. “Therefore, we review every vehicle for even the smallest refinement. Most customers would never notice the work that is done post production, but we care about even a fraction of a millimeter body gap difference or a slight paint gloss texture. We then feed these improvements back to production in a pursuit of perfection.”

Employees who worked on Model S and Model X described pressure to keep the assembly line moving, even when problems emerged. Some told of batches of cars being sent through with parts missing — windshields in one case, bumpers in another — because there were none on hand. The understanding, they said, was that these and other flaws would be fixed later.

Quality inspectors would sometimes find more defects than those reported by workers in the internal tracking system when a car came off the line. “We’d see two issues, that’s pretty good. But then we’d dig in and there would be like 15 or 20,” one person said.

One persistently tricky area was alignment, where body parts had to be “muscled,” in the words of the senior manager, to a certain degree of flushness. Not every team follows the same rule book, workers said, resulting in gaps of different size.

Tesla denied that its quality control is inconsistent and said its “extensive” process for locating and fixing errors was “very successful.”

Some workers traced the challenges to Musk’s determination to launch vehicles faster than the industry norm by shortening the design process, skipping some pre-production testing, then making improvements on the fly. Such improvisation leads to high repair rates, employees said.

For a March report called “Beyond the Hype,” J.D. Power found creaks, scratches and poor door alignment on new Model S and Model X vehicles, issues it blamed on the company’s lack of manufacturing experience. The overall quality of Tesla vehicles, it concluded, was “not competitive” within the luxury segment, lacking “precision and attention to detail.”

Such sloppiness is a rarity in luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW, said Kathleen Rizk, director of global automotive consulting at J.D. Power.

“Those companies have been manufacturing forever,” she said. “They have stopgaps.”

Tesla said its high customer satisfaction proves it is building the “safest and best-performing cars available today.”

© Thomson Reuters 2017

el diablo

http://business.financialpost.com/transportation/autos/tesla-reports-biggest-ever-quarterly-loss-struggles-to-overcome-production-bottlenecks

Tesla reports biggest-ever quarterly loss, struggles to overcome production bottlenecks

The company said in October it missed its Model 3 production goal, producing only 260 vehicles compared with an earlier target of 1,500

Nov 1 (Reuters) — Tesla Inc reported its biggest-ever quarterly loss on Wednesday as the electric-car maker spent more to speed up production of its more affordable Model 3 sedan.

Led by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk, Tesla is struggling to overcome production bottlenecks as it builds the Model 3, seen as key to the company’s long-term profitability.

The company said in October it missed its Model 3 production goal for the third quarter, producing only 260 vehicles compared with an earlier target of 1,500, and Musk said last month the car was “deep in production hell”.

Tesla posted a net loss of US$619.4 million, or US$3.70 per share, for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 compared to a profit of US$21.9 million, or 14 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose to US$2.98 billion from US$2.30 billion.

© Thomson Reuters 2017

Thargor

PLS on a bit of a run lately, Lithium price climbing, Lithium X bought out by a Chinese company, resource upgrades all round, new gigafactories being built, good news all over.

Sabre Man

Tesla semi orders are coming in thick and fast. UPS just ordered 125.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/19/ups-tesla-electric-semi-truck-customer/

dingdong1234567

PLS - what currency are you guys buying them in? AUS or EUR?

Thargor

AUD, there seems to be okay liquidity and tracking of the SP in Frankfurt if you want to stay in Euro though.

b4bmm

My baby finally on the move. Tawana has a big year ahead of it.

Sabre Man

How are your lithium sticks doing? Looks like there is a risk of falling lithium prices. I'm long ALB by the way, which is down 8% today.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/01/17/why-lithium-stocks-sqm-albemarle-and-fmc-dropped-a.aspx

At least TSLA is doing well.

Thargor

Lithium taking a bit of a hammering but only back to where it was a couple of weeks ago, irrelevant if you holding, news of increased production from Chile spooking the market. I'm going to start buying again if it goes much lower, I still feel like this is one of the rare opportunities that come along, all of Asia is going electric with the rest of the world right behind.

jackbhoy

Macquarie and Paragon have also called lithium players such as PLS their best short tips this year in Aus media so that probably added to the spooking.

Edit: checked today's ASX short table and PLS is currently 58% short sold. Someone is making decent bets against them (again).
http://www.asx.com.au/data/shortsell.txt


I'd probably take profit in KDR if it gets above $2 again. Hold a few small others including TAW and AVZ which I think will have good bit more to give if their operations go well and start shipping in next couple of months. There was amazing value in this space on ASX over last 12 months but it's become quite expensive, in the last couple of months especially. Too much growth being priced into fairly average and highly risky companies imho.

Sabre Man

Only 6.5 million shortable TSLA shares left.

https://www.investopedia.com/news/tesla-shorts-may-soon-lose-their-attractiveness-s3-partners/?utm_source=news-to-use&utm_campaign=www.investopedia.com&utm_term=13130419&utm_content=05/07/2018&utm_medium=email

I think a squeeze is coming.

b4bmm

If you want leadership you don’t have to look any further than Tesla. Musk just bought $10M Tesla shares. After all his talk of a huge short squeeze coming, this will really **** with shorters heads. Hahaha.

It’s probably as much a publicity stunt and a middle finger to Wall Street as anything.

https://electrek.co/2018/05/07/elon-musk-buys-tesla-tsla-stock-short-squeeze/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

OwlsZat

Musk is gas. He majorly missed the mark on his max robotics angle but if they can increase ramp speed still plenty back orders to fill.

Sabre Man

Tesla will be buying lithium from Kidman Resources Limited, which has a 50/50 joint venture arrangement with Chilean SQM.

https://electrek.co/2018/05/17/tesla-secures-dea-lithium-australia/

Sabre Man

Tesla shorts have ‘about 3 weeks before their position explodes’, says Elon Musk
https://electrek.co/2018/06/17/tesla-tsla-shorts-position-explodes-elon-musk/

b4bmm

Elon is going to make a dick out of every one of them. Tesla will be the biggest company in the world by 2025-2030

el diablo

b4bmm wrote: »

Elon is going to make a dick out of every one of them. Tesla will be the biggest company in the world by 2025-2030

They'll more than likely be bankrupt long before that.

el diablo

Especially now that the subsidies and free loans are starting to dry up and other manufacturers are catching up with their electric tech.

Lawrence Solomon: How Tesla’s Elon Musk became the master of fake business
Musk’s genius is primarily in the subsidy-seeking realm. By 2015, U.S. governments alone had given his companies US$5 billion through direct grants, tax breaks, cut-rate loans, tax credits and rebates

The fastest-growing industries over the last two decades have been fake industries, those that thrive despite having few customers willing to buy their products except at fire-sale prices. The fake industries all have the same angel investors — governments — and the same promoter touting their wares — again governments. These fake industries, the brainchild of subsidy entrepreneurs, also tend to be dazzlers, the better to wow their politician backers and the stock market speculators betting on cash flows of government subsidies.

Today’s fake-industry leader is Tesla, the electric car developed by subsidy entrepreneur Elon Musk, who also heads SolarCity and SpaceX, other government darlings. Musk’s genius is primarily in the subsidy-seeking realm — by 2015, U.S. governments alone had given his companies US$5 billion through direct grants, tax breaks, cut-rate loans, cashable environmental credits, tax credits and rebates to buyers of his products. Counting subsidies from Canada and Europe, the government bankroll could be double that. Counting indirect subsidies — such as electric-vehicle-friendly infrastructure — the subsidies soar ever higher.

Speculators who bet on Musk’s ability to continue to get government backing have been well rewarded — Tesla’s stock value has skyrocketed, so much so that its market valuation topped that of BMW this year. Tesla stock is now valued at US$801,000 per car sold in 2016, compared to $26,000 per BMW sold and $5,000 per GM car sold.

The fake industry leader is Tesla


That inflated stock value rests entirely on government subsidies, as seen by what happened last year when Denmark decided to reduce its subsidies. In 2015, Tesla sold 2,738 cars in Denmark; in 2016, after the government said it would be phasing out subsidies, Tesla sold 176 cars, a drop of 94 per cent. Tesla’s car crash was even more pronounced in Hong Kong. After the government there cut its tax break on April 1, Tesla sales plunged from 2,939 in March to zero in April and five in May

The Tesla, in effect, is a beautifully engineered toy for the conspicuous-consumption market, accessible to millionaires but beyond the reach of the commercial market. Neither it nor most other electric vehicles have any place in a competitive, free-market environment. As an indication of how economically injurious these playthings are to society on the whole, the U.K.’s National Grid estimated that Britain would need to increase its peak generating capacity by 50 per cent to meet the government’s plans for electric vehicles, the equivalent of building 10 new nuclear plants.

The driver of the electric-vehicle industry — government fixation on global warming — has spurred even larger fake industries, led by wind turbines and solar photovoltaic cells. Neither they nor the many other anti-carbon inventions such as carbon sequestration plants are in any business sense “real.” The global renewable-energy industry, having squandered trillions of dollars building economically unjustifiable infrastructure, represents the greatest loss of wealth in the history of commerce.

The Tesla, in effect, is a beautifully engineered toy for the conspicuous consumption market


Fake industries have always been with us, but today’s scale is greater by at least an order of magnitude. The previous record holder for wasteful enterprise was the nuclear power industry, which even today, more than a half-century after its launch, still is not viable. Just last month, two heavily subsidized reactors nearly half-built in South Carolina were abandoned after US$9 billion had been spent on their construction, on the realization they would never be able to produce power competitively. Ontario is still paying for the demise of its nuclear industry a quarter-century ago, which bankrupted Ontario Hydro and cost the province its Triple A credit rating.

Fake industries prey on government’s weakness, like Charlie Brown with that football, to never let constant failure stop it from trying to pick winners. An Elon Musk predecessor, Malcolm Bricklin, in the 1970s convinced New Brunswick’s premier to back a sports car with gull-winged doors for export to the U.S. It went bankrupt after producing 2,900 cars. In the 1980s, Philip Sprung, a Calgary subsidy entrepreneur, convinced Newfoundland’s premier to grow cucumbers in a greenhouse for export to the U.S. Two years and $22 million later, it too went bankrupt. In the 1990s, Ballard Power Systems convinced governments to back hydrogen fuel-cell technology. Its stock, which topped US$120 per share in the year 2000 amid hype that it would revolutionize transportation, is now under $3.

Subsidy entrepreneurs like the Musks of the world — often self-deluded true believers — should be distinguished from the Bernie Madoffs, who are fakes within real industries, and who prey primarily and illegally on private investors. The Musks are fakes in fake industries who prey primarily on taxpayers, a time-honoured practice that remains legal.

b4bmm

I suggest people have a read of this.
This is the current state of play, it’s not what your read in mainstream media who sell space to the highest bidder.

Mark my words these shorters will burn, violently.

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/29/1767826/-The-War-on-Tesla-Musk-and-the-Fight-for-the-Future

Thargor

el diablo wrote: »

Especially now that the subsidies and free loans are starting to dry up and other manufacturers are catching up with their electric tech.

Not a great article is it? The author seems to have a serious chip on his shoulder. Renewable energy is not a "fake industry" as he claims, that's just a lie, not even the worst oil industry shills bother with that angle anymore.

Likewise SpaceX isn't a fake industry, it's crushed Russia and Boeings offerings and slashed the cost of getting to orbit while making a ton of money like it was designed to do, I assume getting paid for all these launches by the DoD and other government departments counts as a subsidy or handout in that authors mind, very weak attempt anyway.

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

I didn't believe SpaceX were making that much profit (if any at all)? WSJ reported in 2017 that they were making a huge loss. They had some profit in 13/14 due to the NASA contracts. Has something change in the last year?

Thargor

Currently profitable but only by a few million, obviously like Amazon the vast investment into expansion and other developments negates any paper profit, company value has shot up to €25 Billion dollars due to them capturing 65% of the commercial orbital launch market with their superior product and pricing in a few short years with no end in sight though, hardly the actions of a fake company as the author claims.

lucky john

EM has said that Tesla have produced 5000 M3 in a week. Official confirmation possibly today. Going to be another interesting week for TSLA

zpehtsfd

Musk has completely lost his mind. Now he's accusing Journos of bribing ex-employees for insider info. He really needs to stay off twitter and concentrate on hitting targets.

Looks like he cut some corners to reach that 7000 vehicles a week target.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/03/tesla-skipped-a-brake-and-roll-test-in-rush-to-hit-model-3-targets.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain

Sign of desperation. imo

lucky john

zpehtsfd wrote: »

Musk has completely lost his mind. Now he's accusing Journos of bribing ex-employees for insider info. He really needs to stay off twitter and concentrate on hitting targets.

Looks like he cut some corners to reach that 7000 vehicles a week target.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/03/tesla-skipped-a-brake-and-roll-test-in-rush-to-hit-model-3-targets.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain

Sign of desperation. imo

IMO you are incorrect. Musk is engaged in a serious battle with short sellers that are trying to bankrupt TESLA. Jim Chanos and his friends are spreading as much false info as possible to undermine the company in an attempt
to have them starved of cash by having them excluded from the capital markets. That is why the mad ramp is on. that is why 10% of the workers were let go. That is why Musk is calling out shoddy and one sided analysts and journalists. That's why Model Y and the Semi development have been delayed. He is in a race to be cash positive before Chanos and friends win. Chanos has form in this. He tried the same underhand tactics with Fairfax in Canada and got caught out.

Every cars brakes are tested on a track rather then the line for now. No test was skipped. Tesla cars strive to be the safest on the roads. Not only that, when the brakes on the first M3's were found to be not the top spec Tesla solved the problem over night with a simple software update. Before you say "well didn't a Tesla driver die in a accident in California"
Yes. 40,000 Americans die in various cars each year but only one makes front page news.

Sabre Man

Model 3 brake issue explained by CNET. The journalists making a big issue out of it either don't understand it properly or are spreading misinformation wilfully.

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/2018-tesla-model-3-brake-roll-test/

lucky john

Worth reading if you "want" to know what is going on with Musk v Shorts.

https://insideevs.com/tesla-short-sellers-media-crusade/

zpehtsfd

lucky john wrote: »

IMO you are incorrect. Musk is engaged in a serious battle with short sellers that are trying to bankrupt TESLA. Jim Chanos and his friends are spreading as much false info as possible to undermine the company in an attempt
to have them starved of cash by having them excluded from the capital markets. That is why the mad ramp is on. that is why 10% of the workers were let go. That is why Musk is calling out shoddy and one sided analysts and journalists. That's why Model Y and the Semi development have been delayed. He is in a race to be cash positive before Chanos and friends win. Chanos has form in this. He tried the same underhand tactics with Fairfax in Canada and got caught out.

Absolute nonsense. I never in my life heard of a legitimate viable company driven to bankruptcy by short sellers. In fact a lot of companies that blame short sellers for their performance (or lack of) end up on the scrap heap.

Race to be cash positive? There is absolutely no urgency to be cash positive when you have equity leverage like Musk has. The "mad ramp" to produce the 7000 vehicles a week was all Musk's doing and had nothing to do with short sellers. He's an egomaniac and his loyal supporters are now starting to see that he cares more about his credibility then he does creating a viable car manufacturing company (or should i say tech company? :rolleyes:). One minute he's telling the world about his fully automated assembly line then the next he's building cars by hand under a tent. He needs massive production and to be cash flow positive now because WS are getting tired of his nonsense. It's a sign of desperation. imo

Remember Solarcity that Musk and his cousin were up to their eyeballs in stock in. Here's an update:

https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/11/01/teslas-solarcity-buyout-looking-worse-by-the-day.aspx

How he managed to convince Tesla shareholders to approve that merger was some feat. He said whatever it took and it worked. There is no doubting his genius but the guy is a shyster. imo

zpehtsfd

lucky john wrote: »

Worth reading if you "want" to know what is going on with Musk v Shorts.

https://insideevs.com/tesla-short-sellers-media-crusade/

Solarcity would have been bankrupt within a few months if Musk didn't get his way. The recent article i posted says it all. There was no conspiracy in that case. The guy is either really bad at math or a shyster.

Tesla has benefited massively from this bull market. Will be very interesting to see how it raises money when the capital markets start to tighten.