A lot of people are saying that it will be impossible for Tesla to make a profit on the 35k M3.
Most of Tesla's profits in its most profitable quarter were from US government carbon credits that it receives on EV sales.
Those have pretty much gone now as the end of 2018 was the deadline to be able to receive most of the money from them.
This is also on top of the low demand/price cuts on Tesla cars that has now emerged from a build-up of 2 years worth of ordering that's now pretty much been fulfilled (aside from the 35k orders)
New York Times auto-car reporter said this about the new "Storeless Tesla" plan.
https://twitter.com/nealboudette/status/1101320366201425920
This is not an adjustment to strategy. This is a total reversal. They had a retail plan 2 months ago and concluded they had to tear the whole thing up and come up with a radical new plan. What does that say about the company?
This seems to be the system Elon has, always with new exciting sounding announcements of new plans that either take years to come through or are some kind of vaporware. Tesla was just celebrating new Tesla store openings last December.
https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/1072297925957554176
11 new Tesla stores opening this week
Stop by for a test drive, no appointment needed: https://ts.la/visit
Victoria Gardens, Rancho Cucamonga CA
Del Amo, Torrance CA
Fashion Square, Sherman Oaks CA
Roseville Galleria, Roseville CA
Dallas Galleria, Dallas TX
Cont'd...
Musk announces a $35,000 Model 3, closure of most retail stores, and a no-profit quarter
https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-35000-model-3-20190228-story.html
Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?
https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-elon-musk-sec-contempt-20190226-story.html
One wonders if something similar is driving Elon Musk’s deliberate taunting of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has the authority to seek his removal from the management of Tesla.
In the latest development in this long-running saga, the SEC on Monday asked a federal judge in New York to declare Musk in contempt of court. The SEC hasn’t said what penalty it would like to see imposed on Musk, but its motion isn’t good news for Tesla, which as we write is off by about 1.5% in early Nasdaq trading, to about $294.
It’s possible that the market is getting fed up with Musk and his shenanigans. “If anyone else antagonized the SEC twice they would call for his removal,” CNBC trading guru Jim Cramer tweeted Tuesday morning.
^I really like this article because it's basically what my Elon Musk/Tesla conspiracy theory is, that is, Musk wants to get kicked from his own Tesla company just so that he can have the moral/legal? right to sell his shares at a good price/while they are still high.
This was my conspiracy theory on Musks odd behaviour so he could sell his shares in Tesla by getting kicked back my in October post rant https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=70349&start=550#p1419997
The Scary Side of Tesla’s Big Reveal
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-scary-side-of-teslas-big-reveal-11551400304
Tesla’s Model 3 sedan for $35,000 raises unsettling issues about its finances and customer demand
By Charley Grant
Feb. 28, 2019 7:31 p.m. ET
Tesla finally has achieved a longstanding corporate goal. Its investors, however, should hold their applause.
Tesla said on Thursday it is, at long last, unveiling its standard range Model 3 sedan for $35,000 before incentives—a price the company first promised in 2016. The company said it is “incredibly excited” by the achievement. It mentioned a few things that should make investors feel a little less enthusiastic.
Seems like almost everyone has pretty negative news on Tesla, only Bloomberg will hold out I would say, their pro-clean energy/renewables tech coverage is just ridiculous for a financial news reporting company as far as I am concerned. I guess it was a deliberate business decision.
To me my main interest in seeing if Tesla fails or not isn't because I have a strong opinion on the EVs as I kind of like them, but I don't actually feel any safer out there on my bicycle with Tesla's out there, but as people say its statistically better than human drivers.
I can't help but feel though if someone could program a Tesla to individually identify me while on autopilot and auto-run-me-over they would
All that said, I pretty much HATE combustion cars.. But the fact is what I personally think about Tesla can't affect its existence at all.
My main interest in Tesla failing is the whole grid/Powerwall battery business.
ABC news has been a pretty big supporter/brainwasher on Tesla Powerwalls to save the world in local broadcast media.
So despite the already existing subsidies from state Labor governments on Tesla Powerwalls, I will be expecting the coming federal election in 2 months that Labor party will do some kind of promise of along the lines of "power walls for everyone subsidy".
But it wouldn't look like such a smart plan if there are headlines in the news that Tesla is in bankruptcy etc
https://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/tesla-says-powerwall-now-eligible-for-s-a-home-battery-scheme/
While all governments do dumb things at times, there has been some truly remarkable dumb things the last government did on mining commodities/gas energy exports.
That is, they ditched traditional royalty taxes on gas/mining exports (which means the exporting company has to pay the government money per cubic foot of gas even if the company doesn't make money), to instead a "super profits tax", where the government would technically get more money than the traditional royalties tax system if the gas-mining-commodities exporter made a large profit, which the government expected.
But this was incredibly dumb, because this was at the time when global companies like Apple etc were all being discovered for deliberately setting up overseas shell companies and then lending money to themselves at deliberately set very high-interest rates from the overseas country/shell-company and thus never "register a profit" for tax locally.
The mining companies achieved this by getting loans at over 14% interest (from their own overseas shell companies) to fund mining (most notably huge natural gas/energy operations) activities in Australia that of course based on 14% interest loans will never make a profit, ever.
https://youtu.be/6IuJb2jr2jk
[youtube]6IuJb2jr2jk[/youtube]
The mining companies just couldn't believe how dumb Labor was to deliberately decide to change the tax system from traditional royalties based system to a new "profits based" tax system that could only, in theory, deliver more money to the government if there was a big profit from the mining company, but of course the mining/gas export companies copied Apple and deliberately engineered the setup so there was never a profit to pay tax on. The government gave up guaranteed commodity export royalties revenue/income in the hope for more money and wound up getting absolutely nothing instead on a lot of huge mining operations.
To me it was so dumb I almost think there was a conspiracy theory behind it. But at the end of the day, it just seems to be the people who were government had no real-life experience for their government job.
So now I am just wondering if somehow the next government could be dumb enough to hand over a few billion dollars upfront to Tesla for massive new Australia-wide Tesla Powerwall rollout or something of that nature, because of their remarkably insane trusting nature in the past.
More on how large companies avoid paying tax with shell companies. Normally this is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid with traditional royalty style tax systems on exporting mining companies but the previous Labor government found a way to be that dumb.
https://qz.com/769794/apple-is-shocked-shocked-at-a-massive-tax-penalty-that-everybody-saw-coming/
This is a pretty good doomy article on Tesla from some from some kind of investment blogger/adviser.
From what I see here, this seems to be the general mood/believe of fund managers that are in some kind of "short bet" on Tesla.
End Of The Road…
http://adventuresincapitalism.com/2019/03/01/end-of-the-road/?utm_source=AIC&utm_campaign=27408c19ce-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_03_01_07_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cb61762784-27408c19ce-27447701
One of the most interesting things in the article...
-yet another Tesla has lost a wheel due to “Whompy Wheel” (google it). “Whompy Wheel” is a well-documented fatal Tesla flaw with dozens of occurrences, caused by poorly engineered suspensions (they’ve paid hush money to victims so they’re complicit) where wheels fall off Teslas during normal driving, leading to multiple fatal crashes.
-after the car crashed, the driver was burned alive due to faulty door handles that wouldn’t open once power was down
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/02/25/tesla-driver-dies-in-fiery-florida-crash--and-cars-battery-still-burns-a-day-later/#6c89be642c05
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/tesla-model-s-driver-dies-in-fire-door-handles-fail/
Pretty good CNBC chit-chat/news video about Tesla's issues that just came out.
Tesla shifts to online sales, lowers price of Model 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW5FbBFzVLE