Tesla - Elon's Crumbling Field of Dreams

Key points of the short thesis are as follows: (i) Tesla are not good operators and are not good at manufacturing cars which will hamper their ability to scale; (ii) Autonomous driving is a potential threat to all OEMs; (iii) Electric Vehicles have structural medium-term cost impediments; (iv) Tesla’s balance sheet is very weak; (v) Cash burn coupled with foreseeable capital intensity of growth means Tesla has high external funding needs for the foreseeable future; (vi) High rate of staff departures are a red flag; (vii) Tesla has corporate governance issues; and (viii) Tesla is overvalued.

Is the forthcoming 12-24 months finally the time where the fundamentals will come to bear?

 
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If SpaceX is anything to go by Musk will be around for quite some time. Though certain shareholders want him out the major ones are still backing him. Not only that Musk himself has a 21% share in Tesla making it increasingly difficult to push him or Kimball out.

Is Tesla facing problems? Sure. But the major thing is Musk has been here before. When he launched his first successful rocket he had poured his last 100 million into the venture and yet he came out of it guns blazing.

Another thing that needs to be considered is the man himself. Even if Musk is replaced it will be extremely difficult to replace him. Not only is he very smart but also an incredibly hard worker who puts in 16 hrs each day and has been doing it over the last couple of years.

Yes, he does have his disadvantages like his personality which leads to a high turnover. But if there's one person that can take Tesla forward is him because simple speaking there are no replacements.

It will take some major fuck up for Tesla to go down because not only are they one of the leading anutonomous service providers but also the leaders in EV.

Given how the automobile industry is moving towards such a future I just cannot see why Tesla won't be around given they were literally the first major company in this market. So Tesla will always find backers.

This is a post from 5 years age when the same points were put forward and yet Tesla is cruising on: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/long-tsla

Edit: Added link

 

The Elon Musk approach is revolutionary for the world. Taking a blank sheet of paper to established rules allows him to constantly innovate better solutions. The problem with this is that sometimes the way things are being done (and being incrementally improved) currently is actually best practice. Tesla is striving to be a vertically integrated car scale manufacturer and have over automated Fremont risking billions in stranded capex.

Musk is great, Tesla cars are awesome, but it is very difficult to see how the stock stays at $300+ in the next few years given the challenges ahead

 

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