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Tesla Surges Past $100 Billion Market Value, Usurping VW (bloomberg.com) 127

Tesla's market value has climbed above Volkswagen AG's for the first time to more than $100 billion. From a report: The electric-car maker's shares jumped as much as 4.6% shortly after the open of regular trading Wednesday. At the early intraday high of $572.11, Tesla's market capitalization was roughly $103.1 billion, exceeding Volkswagen's $99.8 billion and trailing only Toyota Motor. While Musk's skeptics view as absurd Tesla being worth more than a carmaker that sold almost 30 times as many vehicles last year, Volkswagen's Herbert Diess isn't one of those cynics. He's been arguably the most vocal CEO running a traditional carmaker to acknowledge that Tesla's expansion heralds a radical shakeup of the more than century-old auto industry.
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Tesla Surges Past $100 Billion Market Value, Usurping VW

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  • alright (Score:1, Insightful)

    by negrace ( 984807 )
    At this market cap they are supposed to deliver at least 2.5m cars in Q1.
  • by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @11:32AM (#59644198) Homepage
    It would be interesting having a list of all the articles in which someone predicted something negative about Tesla.

    It seems that, after every article, Tesla again demonstrates something positive.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      It's almost like someone is being paid to write negative articles. I imagine those someone(s) must have a really huge financial incentive to waste money like that, when the odds of a company succeeding in this market aren't really that high to begin with.

      I wonder.

      • by TWX ( 665546 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:36PM (#59644394)

        It's almost like someone is being paid to write negative articles. I imagine those someone(s) must have a really huge financial incentive to waste money like that, when the odds of a company succeeding in this market aren't really that high to begin with.

        I wonder.

        Don't forget that cars hit this weird confluence of brand-fandom, fuel/fire fandom, and specialized technical expertise.

        An electric car developed in an era with mass-communications is scary to someone that has been a shade-tree mechanic for years and years because they don't have the skills or experience to know how to work on it, they don't know what is achievable themselves versus what requires outside/manufacturer support, etc. Coming from a new brand, fanboys of existing brands will denigrate it because it's not from their team. People that are in to making RAAAAW POWAAH from upfitting their combustion-powered vehicles will denigrate it because they perceive it to be weak, even if that is a straw-man attack given how torque in electric motors works.

        My personal complaint about the Model 3 is that they threw in unnecessary technology that I expect to be failure-prone and expensive to repair. Things like electrically-operated door latches, and in the case of the back doors, only electrically-operated door latches. We can debate things like power-mirrors, power seats, power door locks, power windows, even air conditioning in certain climates, but c'mon guys, no one needs doors that have to be operated with an electric actuator. That's just asking for problems with broken doors years from now, presumably much more expensive to repair than replacing a $0.50 plastic clip like most car door latch mechanisms use to reorient forces.

        I would have liked to see an electric sedan that was simplified, not rendered more complex. The Model S-lite basically, and when the Model 3 came out I was disappointed by the lack of conventional dash cluster, by the massive floating screen off to the side, by the lack of tactile switches to control the vehicle features while underway, etc.

        • The door mechanism is much more complicated than you describe because of the frameless windows and the need to drop the window slightly when the door opens. The provides better sealing and hence quieter driving.

          The rear door switch is almost certainly cheaper than a lever and the switch for the front doors adds minimal cost.

          The design is better than the Corvette, which also has a switch, but the lever (on the Corvette) is in a place that is not obvious, and at least one driver has died because they could no

          • by TWX ( 665546 )

            I have a 1978 Chrysler Cordoba with frameless windows. A friend of mine has a 1980 Dodge St. Regis with frameless windows in all four doors, and many, many cars over the decades had frameless windows without requiring those windows to roll down.

            Even the modern Dodge Challenger has frameless rear windows and doesn't rely on an electric door actuator. It electrically detects when the door is being opened so to roll-down the window a half-inch, but the act of opening the door itself is not electric.

            • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @01:34PM (#59644596) Journal

              I also had a Subaru with frameless windows and no automated mechanism to drop the window when the doors open and raise them after the door closes.

              This type of window is noisier. In an EV, any noise is much more noticeable. You didn't notice the noise in your Cordoba and St Regis because of all the other noise.

              As for the Challenger, I suspect that Tesla's solution is overall cheaper.

              • by TWX ( 665546 )

                The Cordoba was pretty quiet, the general shape of the windshield, pillars, roof, and side mirrors meant that passengers aren't buffeted by massive amounts of air when driving around with the windows all of the way down, and the car is likewise pretty quiet with the windows up. I can attest, having had numerous mechanical problems with the powertrain, I was left coasting at freeway speeds more than a few times before I replaced the Electronic Lean Burn ignition with the predecessor Electronic ignition.

                Now

                • Now if a car is designed such that driving with the windows down buffets the occupants, then obviously the airflow over that part of the car is passing those window seals much closer and it matters a lot more.

                  I think that you will find that is the case for all modern cars. In order to reduce aerodynamic drag, the airflow in modern cars makes window seals more important for noise reduction.

                • If you have not yet ridden a Tesla, please do. The quietness is eerie, you would not say Cordoba was pretty quiet, the very definition of what is quiet has been fundamentally altered by the Tesla.
                  • by TWX ( 665546 )

                    I have ridden in one, one of the bosses has one and we occasionally all go to lunch. It's quiet, it's nice enough, but I still don't like many of the choices that Tesla made in its design. Seats are far firmer than I'd like, but he does have the performance package, so no idea if the base sedan's seats are more cushy or not.

                    Admittedly I like driving my livingroom-on-wheels. I don't feel tired by the end of a journey in my '95 Impala, which amusingly was considered 'tuned' towards sport for being a full-s

                    • I have ridden in one, one of the bosses has one and we occasionally all go to lunch. It's quiet, it's nice enough, but I still don't like many of the choices that Tesla made in its design. Seats are far firmer than I'd like, but he does have the performance package,

                      The Performance package includes lower-profile tires, which are noisier.

                    • Interior is pretty much the same, in all the model 3s. Same vegetarian leather upholstery. Same minimal, nay non existent, dash.

                      Drive one to feel the difference. The instant torque has to be felt, it is indescribable.

          • by rjr162 ( 69736 )

            VW did this just fine

            • VW did it in a similar way. The point is the same, similar complex failure modes exist with electronic interaction with the process of opening a door. Tesla isn't the first to do this. Hell Tesla didn't exist as a company when cars started doing this.

        • The rear door latches also have a mechanical opening mechanism, but it's not connected to anything. The resaon is that if there was an emergency disconnect, it would bypass the child protection locks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
          • by TWX ( 665546 )

            Yet somehow the child safety locks on my '95 Impala SS work just fine while being fully mechanical.

        • Things like electrically-operated door latches

          You know about half of the cars I've driven in the past 5 years had these. Heck I believe SAAB came out with them first on their convertibles in the 80 to allow the windows to be frameless. Certainly BMW has included switches and electronic actuators on door latches in some of their models for longer than Tesla has even existed as a company.

          The type of latching component we are talking about is incredibly reliable from an electro-mechanical perspective. Far more reliable than most components in a car. It re

        • I agree on a lot of your points. Electric pop-out handles? An iPad glued to the dash instead of control buttons? Fart noises? They spent all this damn time and money, but kept thinking they had to do things 'different' and 'cool', even if it was worse. My next car is going to most likely electric, maybe even a Tesla (but probably not for a decade, I keep my cars a looooong time), but I hope that the other car manufacturers don't go too far down the uber-technology path of Tesla.
        • I would have liked to see an electric sedan that was simplified, not rendered more complex.

          It exists.
          It's called a Nissan Leaf.

      • It's almost like someone is being paid to write negative articles.

        It's almost as if you think that couldn't ever happen for real.

      • Of course itâ(TM)s short sellers, thatâ(TM)s not even a secret. The dirty short sellers used to do things like spread false reports to tank a stock and make money, but the SEC really clamps down on that. On the other hand, thereâ(TM)s no law about writing factual information around that and adding opinion, with the same goal of trying to initiate a sell-off. When a company has a market cap bigger than a competitor delivering 30x the product, you have to objectively agree thatâ(TM)s a fla
    • Major events list (Score:5, Informative)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:45PM (#59644438) Homepage Journal

      It would be interesting having a list of all the articles in which someone predicted something negative about Tesla.
      It seems that, after every article, Tesla again demonstrates something positive.

      I've been studying the market for a couple of years, and to make the exercise valuable to me I purchased some Tesla at the start and have been following it (and the news) closely.

      Every article saying something negative about Tesla has turned out to be a manipulation attempt to drive the stock price lower. If you drill down into the source of the article and read contrasting opinions, you find that all of the Tesla negative hype has been unfounded(*). Google "Tesla tweets that didn't age well" to see a representative sample.

      The recent-most example of this is the over-hyped "NHTSA opening an investigation into Tesla deaths" which turned out to be: a short seller who doesn't own a Tesla scraped the web for examples of sudden-acceleration and filed a petition without any owners' knowledge. And then wrote an article about it.

      On the other side, *almost* every positive thing said about Tesla has turned out to be based on smoke and mirrors. Comparing Tesla to $OtherCarCompany, looking at historical trends (you should sell Tesla now, because in the past it has always dropped after a rally!), whether it made as many cars as experts *predicted* it would make(!), personal opinions (in our view Tesla will go to $2000), and on and on.

      From the perspective of information there's a whole lot of noise going on, and very little that is valuable.

      The things that *are* valuable are analyses that are based on major events that really do move the stock. Here are some upcoming ones of interest:

      1) Tesla's quarterly report (next Wednesday), which is expected to show a profit and exceeded delivery expectations.
      2) Tesla completed the China gigafactory in less than a year
      3) Tesla just recently purchased land for a gigafactory in Germany (Just outside Berlin)
      4) Tesla got certification to build/sell vehicles in China
      5) Tesla will enter the S&P500 very soon, probably this year (missing one requirement - on track to have it)
      6) Possibility of massive short squeeze
      7) Tesla is still production limited - they have more demand for cars than they can build

      On #2 and #3 above, a reasonable prediction would be that Tesla will have the German gigafactory up and running in less than a year. And then it seems reasonable that they will begin a couple more in various places around the world.

      What will these upcoming events do to the stock?

      The possible negative events (that I can think of):

      1) Something happens to Elon Musk physically (gets sick, dies in an accident or something)
      2) Something happens to the China gigafactory (such as China nationalizing car production)

      These are quite unlikely to happen. If you know of other potential negative events, please post them as a response.

      So the outlook is that Tesla stock still has a bit of an upside, and should get an appreciable bump as each of the listed major events happen.

      (*) On a positive note, I now do that for virtually *every* claim I read on the internet - and discovered that over 80% of article headlines is outright non-factual, and intended to sway opinion to one political view or another in contradiction to common sense. In reality, both the country and the world is doing quite well and there's little reason to be outraged over anything. And this includes our current president, mass firearm murders, terrorism, coronavirus, immigration, economic policies, and Brexit. To name a few.

      • by robi5 ( 1261542 )

        > What will these upcoming events do to the stock?

        The ever current market price already factors in future expectation - and the surrounding uncertainty - , so, the baseline answer is, any uplift will be proportional to the amount of uncertainty there is about these outcomes - ie. what's still unknown. In other words, a long bet on these specific factors is a bet that Germany will not impose more regulation and restrictions on GF4 than China did on GF3 etc.

        • > What will these upcoming events do to the stock?

          The ever current market price already factors in future expectation - and the surrounding uncertainty - , so, the baseline answer is, any uplift will be proportional to the amount of uncertainty there is about these outcomes - ie. what's still unknown. In other words, a long bet on these specific factors is a bet that Germany will not impose more regulation and restrictions on GF4 than China did on GF3 etc.

          The textbook assessment doesn't account for psychology.

          When a news article pops up later in the year saying that the German gigafactory is online, the change will appear discrete to investors: Tesla used to have 2 gigafactories, and now they have three.

          Human psychology is based on events, not continuous values. When each of the listed events occurs, it will be viewed as a step-wise change in Tesla company value, with a corresponding change in the stock value.

          There's some run-up effect when information is le

          • When a news article pops up later in the year saying that the German gigafactory is online, the change will appear discrete to investors: Tesla used to have 2 gigafactories, and now they have three.

            And Ford has 65 gigafactories. And Toyota has 51 gigafactories. Why is Tesla more valuable?

      • Nah, Germany isn't China, I expect their factory needing more than one year to completion.
      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by mobby_6kl ( 668092 )

        1) Tesla's quarterly report (next Wednesday), which is expected to show a profit and exceeded delivery expectations.
        2) Tesla completed the China gigafactory in less than a year
        3) Tesla just recently purchased land for a gigafactory in Germany (Just outside Berlin)
        4) Tesla got certification to build/sell vehicles in China
        5) Tesla will enter the S&P500 very soon, probably this year (missing one requirement - on track to have it)
        6) Possibility of massive short squeeze
        7) Tesla is still production limited - they have more demand for cars than they can build

        VW already has all of that and sells 10x as many cars and makes a profit, right now. Despite being pretty incompetent at actually making cars, I do think Tesla has a good potential, but IMO at this point the value is driven by pure speculation and expectation that they come up with some magic unicorn farts (autopilot taxis maybe?). I'm not going to bet against it going to $2k/share, but that's one of those "markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" things. Maybe they can maintain like a

        • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          Tesla makes an operational profit. That's why it's so valuable. It's profiting where everyone said they couldn't. That's rare, and special. That they are "losing money" by investing in growth isn't the negative your take on it makes it.
      • by AK Marc ( 707885 )

        Every article saying something negative about Tesla has turned out to be a manipulation attempt to drive the stock price lower.

        Just yesterday, I came across the "Tesla Model X cut in half by Nissan" covered everywhere after it went "viral". The real story should be "Model X totaled in high speed crash doesn't spark, leak or catch fire, unlike the massive number of FUD articles claiming that they explode if you look at them wrong", but the second is a little long...

        A more impartial coverage mentions that the Tesla driver walked away with bumps and bruises. And was "safe" for the driver, with no fires. Though even then, they fail

    • by jythie ( 914043 )
      Different audiences. Tesla has a pretty powerful marketing dept itself, and produces a lot of pro-tesla material for the people they want to target like investors.
  • by Freedom Bug ( 86180 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @11:32AM (#59644202) Homepage

    A better measure of a company's value than Market Value is Enterprise Value, which is how much money it would cost you to buy the entire company. When you buy a company you assume their debts and get to pocket their cash, so EV = MV + debt - cash. The EV of Volkswagen is $260B, the EV of Tesla is $108B.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      That makes no sense. If the EV of Volkswagon is $260B, and you can purchase all of the shares of stock for $99.8B and own the company, someone would have spent the $100B to buy a $260B company. Simple math.
      • by crow ( 16139 )

        Your simple math is wrong. If someone bought VW for $100B, they would then have VW, but they would also have the VW's debt of $160B. (I'm ignoring VW's cash, as it would be used to pay any debt over $160B, so the simple math is the same.) So if today you have $0 debt, and you want to buy VW, you borrow $100B, buy all the stock, use any of VW's cash to pay off debt, and then you take on VW's debt, and you end of with a debt of $260B.

        So the Enterprise Value is what you look at if you want to buy a company,

    • by AnonyMouseCowWard ( 2542464 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @11:49AM (#59644238)
      The interesting thing here is that if you look at them as companies, and not as numbers, Tesla is just much much smaller than VW. Tesla had revenues of $24B in 2019, and no profits (actually lost $800M), delivering less than 400K cars. VW had revenues of ~$280B (converted from 236B Euros), over 10x Tesla's, and 13B+ in profit, delivering 10M+ cars (more than 20x Tesla).

      I have no doubt Tesla is growing and will become a strong competitor in the industry (and not just the electric market), but Tesla would have to grow _a lot_ for it to be worth as much as VW, as a business. Whatever the MV is right now is irrational if you compare these 2 (just like how WeWork's desired valuation for IPO was irrational compared to any real estate company).

      Still, irrational exuberance can last for a long time, and there's likely too many people high on Tesla to bring the stock to a normal valuation...
      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @11:57AM (#59644270)

        I also think Tesla is currently overvalued, but it's not quite as ridiculous as it seems. Tesla makes cars, as does VW, but also makes the refuelling infrastructure, owns most of the refuelling stations, and owns companies/factories that make the fuel and the containers to store it in.

        It's hard to value Tesla because there aren't that many companies with that kind of vertical integration that are also in the business of producing physical goods.

        • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:10PM (#59644316) Journal
          Their utility scale batteries tech is unmatched. South Australian utilities have saved millions of dollars using Tesla's 50 MW battery pack. A motley collection of 1000 residential solar and their home batteries stabilized the grid when a big powerplant tripped unexpectedly. The project was at 2% completion stage. When it is 100% done, there will be no fluctuations in spot market price of electricity. That is a humongous deal. All electricity will be bought and sold at predetermined prices hours in advance. Enough time for companies to bid, utilities to compare the bids and award purchase orders. This will completely decimate the gas turbine power plants.

          How big is the market for utility scale batteries, utility scale inverters, and distributed networked management of batteries? Easily 500 B a year globally. Eventually we will make electricity by the day and store it for use all night in batteries. 20 TWh of battery storage. We need 600 Giga factories to meet that demand in one year. Realistically 20 Giga factories over 3 decades to do this build up. Who is the only player savvy enough to put it all together? Tesla.

          When battery production scales up to that kind of production, whats going to happen to the unit cost? It is going to fall below 75 $/kWh. ICE vehicles cant even compete for the sub 15,000$ econobox market at that price for batteries.

          • by radl33t ( 900691 )
            Maybe unmatched on cost and scale, but they have no technical or software advantages on stationary batteries compared to any other firms. I would argue that they are either playing their aggregation / virtualization cards very close to their chest or they are behind other players. If you're truly following utility markets (and not press releases about a specific Australian case study) you should understand this... Otherwise, Tesla is correctly valued for 10+ years of 25% YoY revenue growth. On that timescal
        • VW also builds charging infrastructure, their subsidairy Electrify America is building 36,000 stations as part of their settlement over dieselgate.

          • by TWX ( 665546 )

            VW also builds charging infrastructure, their subsidairy Electrify America is building 36,000 stations as part of their settlement over dieselgate.

            Good.

            Frankly they got a sweet deal considering they should have basically faced having their American corporate charter permanently revoked and their complicit officers and staff arrested and prosecuted, but better than nothing I guess.

            • I'd disagree, but I'm a former VW diesel owner. They gave me too good of an offer so I sold the car despite reguarly getting 10MPG more than what the car was rated for. US restrictions on NOx are quite high compared to europe.

          • by robi5 ( 1261542 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @01:09PM (#59644520)

            Unfortunately it's a BS effort. For example: https://electrek.co/2020/01/17... [electrek.co]

            You can count on the German car industry, and pretty much all legacy makers, to continue shooting themselves in the foot on every possible opportunity. The Tesla Model S came out in 2012 and Volkswagen, the loudest proponent of electrification, still just keeps promising EVs for 2025 and the like. The ID.3 is an uninspiring compliance car that can't even be sold https://www.tesmanian.com/blog... [tesmanian.com]

            Mercedes [3-letter soup] BEV sold like 55 cars (!) in Germany - according to some, these are purchases by competitors so they can check out how not to build an EV. The Audi Etron is yet another joke. BMW still has nothing between the entry level i3 (which has a petrol based range extender haha) and the rich folks' playtoy i8. The Porsche thing is at least reportedly on the road, but it's a niche luxury car with bad looking efficiency numbers.

            Considering that the writing has been on the wall for so long, and presumably all ICE car makers had 18 years to take apart a Model S, not much happened, besides kicking the can down the road. It might be to do with short-term sales / stock based incentives where managers can personally lose big if they bet the farm on the future, so they've been taking their sweet time.

            • VW has had the e-Golf on the European market for years now.
              BMW i3 and i6 have sold relatively well compared to a Tesla S.

              It wasn't really until the Model 3 came out that they had competition from an American company (the Renault Zoe is actually the most popular electric car in much of Europe, but that is being outsold by the Model 3 now too since finally there's a "normal" sized car for sale).

              Audi and Porsche have only electrified their prestige cars.

              But you are right about Mercedes. It got so bad that they

        • Tesla's valuation also includes Tesla Solar, which is incredibly well situated with California's solar mandate and newer lower-cost solar roofs going into production.

          • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @01:08PM (#59644518)

            Yup. None of the car manufacturers are actually car manufacturers. Apparently most of their money comes from financial services. Tesla is even less so, because their business includes making solar panels and grid stabilization systems, etc. There's not much point comparing the number of vehicles each company builds, any more than there is comparing Apple and Microsoft based on their mouse sales.

      • by lazarus ( 2879 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:45PM (#59644436) Journal

        "Still, irrational exuberance can last for a long time, and there's likely too many people high on Tesla to bring the stock to a normal valuation..."

        Whenever stories in the media come up about the market capitalization we get a back and forth discussion about what it means and it swings from people (who don't know anything about the market) thinking the company is "worth" that much on paper to people who understand that it doesn't mean that but believe the price is driven by zealots / market hype, etc.

        Stock price is "perceived future value". The share price of Tesla right now is currently being driven up by financial analysts who believe it will end up somewhere between $800 and $900 / share (of perceived future value). This perception is being driven by a couple of things:

        1. An expectation that they are going to do very well in China. This is largely a pretty safe bet at this point given their success and strategy so far.
        2. The recognition that they are much further ahead in the EV market than the mainstream auto manufacturers expected (as in: "we can do an EV too, looks easy. Oh wait, this is all about the software?")

        As the summary stated, the one company that fully understands and has admitted publicly to #2 is VAG (Volkswagen Auto Group). If we fast forward 10-20 years I think you're going to see VAG and Tesla as the two dominant and primary "personal mobility companies". The lead that Tesla has in the market is just now becoming understood and VAG is betting pretty much everything that Tesla is right and they need to catch up.

        $0.02 and all that...

        • by robi5 ( 1261542 )

          Your forecast may play out well, but I frankly don't understand the positive sentiment around the VW group, it's easy to say things, and still relatively easy to make business plans, run projects, sign contracts etc. toward some future goal. But it's not that difficult to make promises for 2025 in 2019 when they realize they're already 10 years late. They have the extra PR incentive to try to greenwash themselves and look super progressive after the emissions scandal. But all these are anal retentive, react

        • Oh agreed, all I'm saying is that Tesla as it stands today is not worth the MV, the MV has a lot of growth built-in. The problem is I'm paying today to get a share, and the intrinsic value of the business will match that amount only in a few years; in the meantime I'm getting 0 dividends, and I'm just hoping that I'll be right in a few years and Tesla will be worth even more.

          Again, no doubt that Tesla will be a mainstay in "mobility" as you put it, as the car market becomes all electric (and yes Tesla has
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Yep, it's a bubble. Lots of new EV manufacturers getting a lot of money thrown at them, and while Tesla is doing well it is massively over-valued.

        A lot of that perceived value is based on the technology promises, particularly Full Self Driving and the robotaxi service that is supposed to be starting this year. However they announced these things would be ready in 2017 and then again in 2019 and it looks like they are not even close right now.

        Which is a shame because if one thing could break Tesla it's that,

        • I wonder if Tesla and Waymo won't end up teaming on self-driving cars. I know Waymo is partnering with others so far, having ordered 62,000 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans. These make sense for an operator-owned robotaxi service. But when the time comes for actual self-driving personally-owned vehicles, people will want something more like a Tesla and less like a hybrid minivan.

          I see others like Tesla (and formerly, Uber) developing their own autonomous driving technology, but they don't really seem

      • ...and will become a strong competitor in the industry

        Right but not yet; that's why their "future competition" are shitting themselves in panixk, prematurely rolling out "737 Max's" like the I-PACE and the EQC (and nevermind Audi; nobody ever bought a Quattro for the quality of their electrical systems *snicker*)

      • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        Tesla has a large amount of "profit" but spends that profit and more in self-investment. If Tesla were to stop investing tomorrow, it would be very profitable. They are "not profitable" on paper because they are very profitable in operation, and spend all that profit, plus some credit, on growth.

        They are correctly valued because if they can continue this growth, then they will be bigger than VW in the future. When the growth slows, they will (or should) reduce investment, and turn into a VW, squeezing o
  • STONKS (Score:2, Troll)

    by iONiUM ( 530420 )

    Stonks only go up, didn't you get the memo?

  • by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @11:53AM (#59644256)

    Tesla sells, batteries, solar panels and cars. So comparing them with automakers is irrelevant, they have a vertical market stack. It's like comparing Apple to Intel, it doesn't make sense, they are in different parts of the market, but have some crossover.

    • by crow ( 16139 )

      Yes and no.

      I expect every major auto company has some non-auto businesses. GM has GM Financial. I'm sure there are many other examples.

      But you do have a point in that Tesla is like an auto company plus a number of auto parts suppliers. Yes, they do buy parts from suppliers like other companies, but they do a lot more in-house.

      Of course, the big thing about Tesla is that it's a growth company. People aren't buying the stock based on what the company is doing today, but based on what the company is expect

    • The automakers still think they can win this by manipulating perceptions. They're idiots.
  • My message here remains the same. I love my model 3. The company doesn't move nearly enough vehicles nor have a balance sheet to justify the current price. This is pure cultish gambling, speculation and Greater Fool theory. I'm going to eat popcorn and watch the show. I have not and would never get involved in buying/selling a crazy irrational equity like Tesla. My stock in enterprise software already more than doubled in the last 18 months without the cheerleading and hatred on both sides of this one
    • by b0bby ( 201198 )

      I certainly agree that this is a speculative stock, and I only buy and sell it in my "gambling" account which I set up years ago. Maybe we're seeing a short squeeze right now, in which case I expect to see a rapid decline in price once the shorts are forced out.

    • The company doesn't move nearly enough vehicles nor have a balance sheet to justify the current price.

      Even factoring in the solar battery system, which every house in California will want now with annual rolling blackouts?

      Even factoring in the imminent fully self driving capability?

      Huh.

      • by tsqr ( 808554 )

        The company doesn't move nearly enough vehicles nor have a balance sheet to justify the current price.

        Even factoring in the solar battery system, which every house in California will want now with annual rolling blackouts?

        Even factoring in the imminent fully self driving capability?

        Huh.

        Find another strawman. Rolling blackouts were instituted in 2000, mostly as a result of shortages caused by manipulation of energy prices in the wake of the AB1890 (deregulation) and the collapse of Enron. As far as I can find out, the last rolling blackout not related to wildfires occurred in 2006. Do you really think that every homeowner in California will jump at the chance to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a battery backed-up solar system to mitigate the risk of a short-term blackout that most l

  • It is possible to believe both that "Tesla's expansion heralds a radical shakeup" AND to view Tesla's market cap as "absurd". Who doesn't believe that a "radical shakeup" of the auto industry is coming?

    Absurd market caps have been a thing for quite a while now, it's not a commentary on Tesla's prowess as an auto manufacturer.

    • The radical shakeup already happened with the Toyota TS050, who destroyed the competition so hard, the ACO had to create another class of race-car to bring the competition back.
    • Radical shake up is obvious. But it isn't certain by any means that Tesla will be at the forefront of this new industry.

      If Tesla does make it, then we'll have a lot of shorters jumping out of windows. Seemed like a foolish gamble to me. We'll see the signal that Tesla is going to stabilize when Musk steps down as CEO and they replace him with someone either from the auto industry or even from an industrial technology sector (industrial machinery, medical equipment, chip manufacturing, etc). Pretty much anyo

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:00PM (#59644282) Journal
    Elon Musk's pay package from Tesla is very unusual. He will get paid only in stock, nothing in cash above legal minimum wage. He would get about 350 million dollars if he can get TSLA market cap to 100 billion dollars. And 350 million more for each 50 billion market cap upto 600 billion. Basically his investors (including himself owning 20% of Tesla) must get 50 billion for him to be paid 340 million. There are provisions to prevent gaming the market. Spikes do not count. Even the much publicized "Funding Secured" did not sustain the price hike. Market cap must be above 100 billion based on volume weighted average price for the trailing six months and trailing one month for the payout to trigger.

    Today in the pre market trading it has crossed that threshold. It has to stay above in VWAP for six months.

    Tesla supporters are happy, but still many of us are not able to fully explain this SUA, Sudden Unexpected Acceleration in the stock price. The company is doing well, met its guidance on deliveries for 2019, much anticipated and hyped Tesla Killers turned out to be duds. It has become patently obvious the competition is years behind Tesla. Sony pulled a rabbit out of the hat, revealing a cool BEV in CES, showing the ground rules have changed, and the barrier to entry is not that high anymore and the legacy car makers don't have a moat protecting them. All analysts are revising their guidance and stock price upwards. The usual bulls are talking about insane valuations like 600 billion and 1 trillion. The usual bears are revising towards 40 billion to 60 billion range.

    Yet, it looks incredible that the company is valued at 100 billion now.

    • by monkeyxpress ( 4016725 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:12PM (#59644322)

      That's not an uncommon way to pay executives at all. I think Steve Jobs famously took a $1 salary (apparently he had to have a salary for legal reasons). Also, minimum wages doesn't generally apply to director positions.

      The main reason they don't care about this, is because it is hugely more tax advantageous to be paid in stocks (capital gains) rather than payroll. Apart from the lower headline tax rates, the shares can also continue to accrue capital gains until he cashes out, rather than him having to pay income tax on the payout before it can be reinvested somewhere else (it's not like he can spend $350m on consumption). Also, holding shares in trusts or holding companies opens up a lot more avenues for tax minimisation. I'm not an expert on all teh schemes he is probably using, but make no mistake, the whole 'no salary' PR feel good thing is just smoke and mirrors.

      In all the countries I know of, salaried employees are the suckers who get absolutely hammered the most when it comes to taxes.

      • Only very few top honchos take ALL their pay in stock and options. They all have a guaranteed cash component. Also the benchmarks they need to hit is not all that difficult to game. In fact it is designed to be gamed. Take for example the volume weighted average price. It is very difficult to game. Further the period, six months, and also one month. That is unusual. Even Steve Job's package had issues that he back dated some of the contracts etc. Elon's package has been fully disclosed. Also note it is the
      • by k2dk ( 816114 )
        Exactly. Getting payed in shares isn't really a sacrifice. Moving your income to a capital gains, is just a tax dodge.
      • The main reason they don't care about this, is because it is hugely more tax advantageous to be paid in stocks (capital gains) rather than payroll.

        No, it's the same, at least at point of grant. When the shares are granted, they're taxed as ordinary income. Of course, they continue to increase/decrease in value until sold, and the difference between price at the point of grant and price at the point of sale is treated as capital gains.

        Also, holding shares in trusts or holding companies opens up a lot more avenues for tax minimisation.

        Perhaps.

    • many of us are not able to fully explain this SUA, Sudden Unexpected Acceleration in the stock price.

      ...

      It has become patently obvious the competition is years behind Tesla.

      And you answered your own question. That and 95+% satisfaction rating from Tesla owners who became raving salesmen for free.

    • by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:27PM (#59644360) Journal
      That's not quite how it is, IIRC. Musk doesn't get a payout in cash, he gets the right to buy stock at a fixed price which translates to $350M if he sells them right away. Except he is not allowed to, those options only vest in 5 years. So he'll have to keep the stock price up fin the long term if he's to see an actual payout.
    • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:36PM (#59644390)

      Sony pulled a rabbit out of the hat, revealing a cool BEV in CES

      It's apt you compare it to a magical trick - because that car will never make it to market in that form, just like any other awesome concept car.

      Whatever finally reaches production will be nothing like what you saw at CES, the same as any other Tesla killer concept car.

      • You are most likely right. But the fact that some electronic company can design and build a car would be very scary to the BMWs and Daimlers of the world.
        • That is true. The days when the old car companies could say "There is no competition that we can not do a better job." is long gone.
        • But the fact that some electronic company can design and build a car would be very scary to the BMWs and Daimlers

          Not even a little, because nothing matters until you SHIP a car.

          What Tesla has managed to do, is not only build a cool electric car but ship it in volume. Now THAT is scary to the BMWs and Daimlers of the world...

      • by robi5 ( 1261542 )

        What do you mean, Sony clearly stated they've no intention to make and sell that car, or a street legal version. The GP's claim was that it showed it's not as difficult for a competent non-auto firm to come up with a BEV car as it would be to come up with an ICE car. (Which I don't really agree with, as it's easy to make a polished-looking prototype with electric motors, while designing and making a car with manufacturability, logistics, safety, mileage, charge time, charge cycle count and economic constrai

        • It's not hard to make a car that moves, I could grab a welder, a few steel pipes and cobble up something that would be drivable, even with an ICE. It's very hard to make a car that moves properly under load, suspension engineering is really important, specially with heavy EVs.
  • What if Tesla cheated on emissions? Would they still be ahead of VW?

    • What if Tesla cheated on emissions? Would they still be ahead of VW?

      Well yeah, but I'm not sure how investors will react to measuring HFPM** coming from Tesla.

      (** = Human Farts Per Million)

      • by radl33t ( 900691 )
        Well, Teslas are much less environmentally and economically attractive when they charge at night on coal power, even when your a cool cat in southern california and you pretend your coal plants in utah are california renewables. I wouldn't call it cheating, but they certainly benefit from common misunderstandings of efficiency, fossil fuels, and the electric grid.
  • Not real things, like how much work you are doing, how good you are at your work, nor how many items you are selling or how high the quality of your products is from a scientific measured standpoint.

    But what the gamblers who hold the shares tell you you should pay them for those. By acting as if "it is" like that.

    Hey, look, I have this frozen solid turd here. Its market value just rose above ten quadrillion! It magically became an independet life form and lifted its own physical value up physical mountain,

  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:42PM (#59644424) Journal

    I mean seriously, if this is the yardstick investors are using to determine "what's a successful company" no wonder our entire (western) economy feels like it's built of smoke, mirrors, and constant flim-flammery.

    Are facebook and alphabet really multiple times the value of, say, Coca Cola or P&G or Royal Dutch Shell?

    • Are facebook and alphabet really multiple times the value of, say, Coca Cola or P&G or Royal Dutch Shell?

      Given the increasing value of a digital soul vs. the Sugar Pimps at Coke, I'd say Hell Yes.

      You can live without Coca Cola products. And many do. Easily. Try and convince a few billion humans to stop using Facebook or Alphabet/Google.

      • by radl33t ( 900691 )
        How about Apple? What justified their doubling last year? When do we get to see Apple's revenues to double? Their new TV channel is worth 3 Disneys?
    • I used to be like you. I'd look at something, decide if it were worthwhile, and act accordingly. When Pokemon cards first came out, I thought they were the dumbest thing ever. A friend of mine agreed - just ink painted on cardboard. Confident in my zero-value evaulation, I ignored them.

      My friend saw things differently though. He realized that although he thought the cards were worthless, that didn't mean they were in fact worthless. The market value of something is the highest price someone will pay
  • by Tulsa_Time ( 2430696 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:44PM (#59644430)

    Markets can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

    • by radl33t ( 900691 )
      Not true. I have a high degree of confidence my solvency can outlast irrational perspectives on TSLA. It is possible to hold a bearish attitude and simply not participate.
  • GREAT! (Score:2, Troll)

    by Brett Buck ( 811747 )

    If everything is OK now - can we please *not fucking hear about Tesla anymore*. One slavering post after another, all with the sort of financial analysis you would expect from the type of people who invented Bitcoin. And nothing on-topic.

    The vast majority of people reading here *do not care one way or the other about Tesla*, the "haters" are not "shorts" (a term which almost no one here actually understands, but makes them look smart, because Elon said it between tokes),

  • You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
  • This is silly. Anybody buying stock at this price is being a fool. It WILL drop.
    Oddly, THIS is a good time to actually short Tesla.
  • VW has them, Tesla doesn't. Hello paper tiger.

The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh

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