Porsche 911UK Forum

Welcome to the @Porsche911UK website. Register a free account today to become a member! Sign up is quick and easy, then you can view, participate in topics and posts across the site that covers all things Porsche.

Already registered and looking to recovery your account, select 'login in' and then the 'forget your password' option.

Tesla - Where do you start ?

Main Force Patrol

Well-known member
Joined
10 Dec 2017
Messages
301
In the last year or so I have been following the ups and downs of Tesla, from both a business and technical car perspective it's a great story.
One of the many things I have learned is that there is tremendous passion of either sides of the discussion, although I'm not always sure the passion is based on facts :?:

From a business perspective there is no doubt in my mind that as a business they are sailing very close to the wind with regard to accounting standards and board responsibilities.
The actual cars seem to be a bit of 'bodge' if you ask me, they appear to be based on existing technology but to solve problems they simply throw a load of investors money at an engineering issue.
And to cap it off I find their green claims weak to say the least.

Would love to hear what other people think, you Guys are far better qualified to comment than I am :worship:
 
My holiday would've been hell this year if I'd gone in a Tesla. Can you imagine sitting in a French services whilst your car charges when all you want to do is get there.
 
To meet his production targets and to ensure investors money is reaping some reward, he has ordered new production to be set up in a "tent", i.e. a temporary easily erected soft structure.....hardly the forward thinking mindset of an entrepreneur.

My two cents says that because electricity is "mostly" made from burning fossil fuels (nuclear 5% (?) and renewable's (11%) excepted) which is known to be only 47% efficient, we will never get to a point where electricity will be the main fuel for cars, until;

* Nuclear or some newer technology (fusion) is increased.
* Battery power changes significantly to match the mileage of liquid fuels.
* Charging station infrastructure is increased exponentially.

The governments targets of 20% renewable's by 2020 will be missed.
The governments target of no new petrol/diesel cars by 2040 will be missed.
The way forward is hybrid (generate your own electricity) using fossil fuels.
(until some new technology comes along)

There you go, I've put the world to rights, further contrary comments on a postcard please to ........ :popcorn:
 
Bob on! :thumb:
 
alex yates said:
My holiday would've been hell this year if I'd gone in a Tesla. Can you imagine sitting in a French services whilst your car charges when all you want to do is get there.

The way things are going, from March 30th next year you'll have more to worry about than how your car is fuelled :thumbs:



But hey, at least you'll be able to have a blue passport. Like Croatia already has :D
 
Main Force Patrol said:
In the last year or so I have been following the ups and downs of Tesla, from both a business and technical car perspective it's a great story.
One of the many things I have learned is that there is tremendous passion of either sides of the discussion, although I'm not always sure the passion is based on facts :?:

From a business perspective there is no doubt in my mind that as a business they are sailing very close to the wind with regard to accounting standards and board responsibilities.
The actual cars seem to be a bit of 'bodge' if you ask me, they appear to be based on existing technology but to solve problems they simply throw a load of investors money at an engineering issue.
And to cap it off I find their green claims weak to say the least.

Would love to hear what other people think, you Guys are far better qualified to comment than I am :worship:

I lost some money earlier in the year by shorting TSLA. Unfortunately, no matter how big the fleas are on this dog its share price has far too much volatility for me. Will they meet the model 3 production targets, won't they? Will their be another rights issue/won't there.. Regardless of what the actual fundamentals say, if Elon says something to the contrary then the stock price moves. He has a similar effect on share price as The Donald.

They are one of the trades which is floated by consumer enthusiasm. Elon will need to go and ask for more money in the next 12 months (via a rights issue) which will step the price down again, but who knows what it will be by this time. In the first quarter earnings call he was on about increasing production line speed to 20mph instead of the walking pace it currently runs at in order to ramp up Model 3 production. If they could produce the units they would become profitable but I think Elon needs to be moved on for this to happen.
 
DeLorean........ :whistle: Just sayin..... :dont know: :grin:
 
Can't wait for you to prove me wrong Paul.
 
alex yates said:
Can't wait for you to prove me wrong Paul.

When have I never? :dont know:

Anyway back on topic. If it's not Tesla it'll be someone. Electric cars are now part of our future whether some on here like it or not. They may never fully replace ICE vehicles in our lifetime. But in time they will. Agree we need to continue to invest more in renewables and nuclear. But as the old gammon who deny climate change die off, politics will change and it'll be normed.

Interestingly the taxi which took me to Heathrow last Saturday was a Tesla. He loves it. 300 miles between charges. A fast charge takes 45mins, during such he takes a break anyway. All his servicing is covered under a single charge. The customer service is the best he's ever known. And so long as he uses a Tesla charging station, so is the electricity.

If I was in the market for a brand new car I'd certainly consider one.

As for long distances. I've done plenty of road trips across Europe and I've yet to see a fuel stop take less than 45mins when you account for large group 'faff' time and the bladder control of the over 40's :wink:

And I'd happily take an extra 20 mins for a stop if I was in my own, if the charge is free :thumb:
 
It is supposedly the most shorted stock out there, which certainly says something in that a lot of people are worryingly confident that it is a matter of when rather than if it collapses. As far as I can tell they have literally been floating on Elon Musk's cult of personality for a while now, but how long can that persist? How much more Other People's Money will they be able to get hold of to burn through? For me the flashing warning signs stem from an escalating tendency to announce things that they simply don't have the capital to deliver (the truck, the sports car and the model 3 in poverty spec {the last I heard, only more profitable up-specced were coming off of the line so far}). Hype is great for Twitter traffic, but accountants tend to see straight through to the risk.

The situation is coming to a head now though. Once the major manufacturers (particularly the premium brands) start producing model 3 rivals in volume at the same or less what Elon wants to charge : the game could surely be up? How many of those 100s of 1000s of people are going to want their deposits back so that they can get a car from someone else now rather than waiting for an undetermined number of years? Should that happen it could very well trigger the equivalent of a run on a bank - everyone desperate to get their money out driven by fear of losing it in a collapse, so precarious (and extensively reported) is their financial position...

It will be very interesting to see how much effect the Jaguar I-Pace will have on Model X sales though. If X sales decline and the Jag sells well, that could look like the beginning of the end :?:
 
ragpicker said:
Main Force Patrol said:
In the last year or so I have been following the ups and downs of Tesla, from both a business and technical car perspective it's a great story.
One of the many things I have learned is that there is tremendous passion of either sides of the discussion, although I'm not always sure the passion is based on facts :?:

From a business perspective there is no doubt in my mind that as a business they are sailing very close to the wind with regard to accounting standards and board responsibilities.
The actual cars seem to be a bit of 'bodge' if you ask me, they appear to be based on existing technology but to solve problems they simply throw a load of investors money at an engineering issue.
And to cap it off I find their green claims weak to say the least.

Would love to hear what other people think, you Guys are far better qualified to comment than I am :worship:

I lost some money earlier in the year by shorting TSLA. Unfortunately, no matter how big the fleas are on this dog its share price has far too much volatility for me. Will they meet the model 3 production targets, won't they? Will their be another rights issue/won't there.. Regardless of what the actual fundamentals say, if Elon says something to the contrary then the stock price moves. He has a similar effect on share price as The Donald.

They are one of the trades which is floated by consumer enthusiasm. Elon will need to go and ask for more money in the next 12 months (via a rights issue) which will step the price down again, but who knows what it will be by this time. In the first quarter earnings call he was on about increasing production line speed to 20mph instead of the walking pace it currently runs at in order to ramp up Model 3 production. If they could produce the units they would become profitable but I think Elon needs to be moved on for this to happen.

His behaviour on the investor calls is beyond childish apparently, he doesn't answer questions that relate to past promises or regarding how he intends to move away from his cash heavy business model.
Although the figures may stack up in the long run ( they also may not ) they all hinge on the assumption that eventually they will do an Amazon and sheer critical mass will be enough :?:
I don't think Musk has the patience or the humility to accept that he is ever wrong and needs proper planning ( business and manufacturing) to make Tesla work.
Agreed, the share price is ridiculous
 
Meanwhile my Shell B shares continue to produce four dividends a year..... :D

I'm pretty sure someone will get there in the end with a flexible (charge anywhere), efficient (long battery) and fast (they already are) electric car. It may just take a while yet. I mean, it took a while to put a man on the moon didn't it?........Oh crap here we go again..... :popcorn: :grin:
 
New997buyer said:
alex yates said:
Can't wait for you to prove me wrong Paul.

When have I never? :dont know:

Anyway back on topic. If it's not Tesla it'll be someone. Electric cars are now part of our future whether some on here like it or not. They may never fully replace ICE vehicles in our lifetime. But in time they will. Agree we need to continue to invest more in renewables and nuclear. But as the old gammon who deny climate change die off, politics will change and it'll be normed.

Interestingly the taxi which took me to Heathrow last Saturday was a Tesla. He loves it. 300 miles between charges. A fast charge takes 45mins, during such he takes a break anyway. All his servicing is covered under a single charge. The customer service is the best he's ever known. And so long as he uses a Tesla charging station, so is the electricity.

If I was in the market for a brand new car I'd certainly consider one.

As for long distances. I've done plenty of road trips across Europe and I've yet to see a fuel stop take less than 45mins when you account for large group 'faff' time and the bladder control of the over 40's :wink:

And I'd happily take an extra 20 mins for a stop if I was in my own, if the charge is free :thumb:

That's really interesting..... in a positive way about customer service

I guess the thing that worries me from what I have read is that post warranty everything gets very very expensive very quickly.
So while in warranty the drive motor goes and the door handles breaks they replace them no problem, customer v happy. But then you realise that post warranty you can only get parts from them and the handles are $800 a pop and motor is $16,000 a go :eek:
 
.....and the value of your cherished Tesla is 8p
 

New Threads

Forum statistics

Threads
124,350
Messages
1,439,423
Members
48,707
Latest member
race911turbo
Back
Top