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Tesla Tops GM by Market Value as Investors See Musk as Future (bloomberg.com)
Tesla became the largest U.S. auto maker by market value on Monday, overtaking General Motors -- a feat that would have seemed highly improbable 13 years ago when the electric-car maker first began tinkering with the idea of making a sports car. From a report: Tesla climbed as much as 3.4 percent in early Monday trading, boosting its market capitalization to about $51 billion. The company was valued at about $1.7 billion more than GM as of 9:35 a.m. in New York. The turnabout shows the extent to which investors have bought into Musk's vision that electric vehicles will eventually rule the road. While GM has beat Tesla to market with a plug-in Chevrolet Bolt with a price and range similar to what Musk has promised for his Model 3 sedan coming later this year, the more than century-old company has failed to match the enthusiasm drummed up by its much smaller and rarely profitable U.S. peer. No matter, say investors who like the stock. Tesla is a technology player with the ability to dominate a market for electric cars and energy storage. To those same investors, GM and Ford are headed for a slowdown in car sales that will erode profits. "Is it fair? No, it isn't fair," Maryann Keller, an auto-industry consultant in Stamford, Connecticut, said of GM ceding the market-cap crown. "Even if Tesla turns a profit, they will eventually have to make enough to justify this valuation."
If you made money on it, good for you. The company is grossly overvalued. Get out while you can.
Tesla has cars on the road, it's not vaporware company. His other companies are also progressing with their goals too.
If you want to talk about something that took a lot of people's life savings and that was completely legal, let's talk about the fucking banks. Not only did they ruin people's lives but they also got more money for bailouts. Banks, the very place that's supposed to be about managing money, fucked everyone and got more money on top of that. I wonder why the people at the top didn't get the firing squad.
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>I wonder why the people at the top didn't get the firing squad.
because they are in control of the single american party.
Different people have different reasons for hating on Electric Vehicles. The Petrocar dealerships are threatened because a large part of their revenue stream is based on post-sales service. And the electric car is a hellava lot less prone to the little issues that hit petrocars.
Many Politicians hate Electric Vehicles because tax revenue from petro sales goes down, and those taxes are easier to hide while railing against other taxes. A lot of people have severe inertia issues. "If leaded gas was good enough for Grandpa, it's good enough for me." Anything new is anathema.
And some people are just plain nuts. How are we gonna go "coal rolling in an EV? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Where these insane idiots like to do this when they see an Electric vehicle or hybrid.
It is just going to take time for the normal people, and the actuarial tables for the lunatic fringe to die off - probably via black lung or COPD for the coal rollers - and EVs will take over just like Petrovehicles took over from the horse and buggy.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'm trying to find the current backlog for Tesla cars and it seems to be somewhere north of 400k vehicles with close to a billion in deposits for the orders. Nobody else has that kind of traction (if you'll excuse the pun) for current, announced or planned vehicles - in comparison, in 2016 Mercedes sold 374k vehicles in the US.
Yes, the investors are taking a risk on Tesla, but isn't that part of the job description?
Along with this, there seems to be a significant demand for electric vehicles. I don't expect them to overtake fossil fueled vehicles any time soon, but at least 10% of buyers are seriously interested in EVs and Tesla is the number one name there with generally great reviews for products compared to the competition (ie the Leaf makes you feel like you're settling for less and the Volt/Bolt just don't have the cachet), the company is serious about renewables/reducing customers' carbon footprint and a rock star CEO.
You can say it's a fad stock, but there are some solid fundamentals there in terms of backlog and customer demand which justify a high stock price.
Maybe if the Model 3 turns out to be a lemon, things will change with regards to the stock, but as I said, part of the job description for an investor is to take risks and people seem to think that there will be a reward at the end of the day.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
You wanna know why GM abandoned the EV1? They developed the EV1 because the California Air Resources Board (CARB) mandated that by 2000, a certain percentage of each auto manufacturer's sales had to be zero-emissions. If an automaker couldn't meet that requirement, either they'd have to buy credits from another automaker, or they'd be locked out of the lucrative California market.
GM built the EV1 (using a lead-acid battery). Ford and Chrysler bet on hydrogen fuel cells, which didn't pan out (still haven't). The Japanese automakers tinkered with EVs, but decided the technology was unfeasible at the time and focused instead on hybrids.
1999 came around and GM was the only company with a car which would meet CARB's emissions-free requirement the next year. GM had invested over a billion dollars developing the EV1, but they stood to make many times that in licensing fees from 2000 and on. Everything was looking rosy for them.
Then the whole thing collapsed. The other automakers convinced CARB that the zero-emissions requirement was technologically unfeasible with year 2000 technology. And that the best they could do at the time were hybrids, which used a battery to improve efficiency, but still got all their energy from the ICE. CARB agreed and rescinded the zero-emissions requirement, instead using a less-stringent low emissions vehicle and ultra-low emissions vehicle requirement (LEV and ULEV).
Basically, CARB pulled the rug out from under GM. They'd coerced GM into investing over a billion dollars in the technology, then on the eve of GM hitting paydirt, CARB changed the rules making it impossible for them to recoup their investment. This is why companies hate government regulations - because unlike real-world physics which remains constant, regulations change based on politicians' whims. You spend a billion dollars trying to comply with an upcoming regulation, then they suddenly change the regulation making all the money you spent irrelevant. CARB even had the unmitigated gall to ask GM to continue selling the EV1 after pulling this double-cross.
Do you understand now why GM recalled all the EV1s and had them destroyed? CARB was trying to get the benefits of the technology developed for the EV1, while denying GM the promised financial payout for developing the technology in the first place. GM wasn't playing that game. If they were going to take a billion dollar bath on the project, there was no way in hell they were going to let CARB derive any benefit from the whole shenanigan.
Tesla is no different. The only reason they made a profit for two quarters, and aren't even further in the red in the other quarters is because they're able to sell carbon credits to automakers who don't meet CARB's zero-emissions requirements. In other words, Tesla's "success" is an artificial regulatory construct. The only difference between Tesla and GM is that CARB stuck with the ZEV requirement this time. If they'd abandoned it at the last minute like they did with GM, you can bet the Musk would've given CARB the middle finger as well and abandoned Tesla.