I’d say Occam’s Razor - they’re running out of oil and they know it. Their mandate is to diversify while they have mountains of cash.

We’ve had problems with all of our allies - they’re not sycophants. Britain, Canada, Mexico, France, you name it.

I’m not supporting the Saudis, I just don’t see them as a threat to our freedoms or way of life.

Tesla is suing the Ontario government. We recently elected a new premier that immediately canceled the electric vehicle rebate. Tesla feels singled out by this, so they sued. (Disclosure: I didn’t vote for him, and I think the rebate was a good thing.)

https://business.financialpost.com/transportation/tesla-files-lawsuit-against-ontario-government-over-electric-vehicle-rebate-program

Here’s something to shock the nay sayers. Tesla isn’t the only electric car beating the all mighty hellcat on the strip.

LOL...I hope you're just trolling. That "prius" has a gasoline hellcat engine in it. It's not electric.

Um ... if you'd even watched the video, let alone bothered to read the description, you'd know from the audio that it was using a V8. As the video's description confirms, it's literally just a shell. It's RWD and using an 800bhp V8, and no electric motors or batteries.

Anyway, drag racing is boring and pretty pointless in terms of advancing automotive technology.

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This on the other hand is pretty impressive. The VW I.D. R smashing the Pikes Peak absolute and electric records.

Their e-Golf is a nice little car, too, even if it is a compliance car.

VW pulls these stunts once in a while but doesn’t seem to do much about it commercially. It’s a shame, really. They did that 100km on 1 liter of fuel stunt while they had that car of theirs for sale that got something like 80 mpg, but didn’t they take that car off the market?

Now that we have the out thread, hopefully all the negativity can be taken there.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/who-is-out-on-tesla-model-3-

Should be renamed to "Who is short on Tesla model 3".

Seriously? Does everything have to be so divisive and shitty now? EVERYTHING?

I don't play golf. Should I go around starting threads about how I don't play or give a shit about golf? No.

O-din just has a fuck ton of free time on his hands and likes to stir the pot.

I totally agree but that is just kinda the current climate these days. People are happier to shit on something than take pleasure in it. Lot of miserable people out there I guess. I was just trying to give a few posters the hint that there is a thread that might be more suited to their agenda with regards to Tesla.

It's just crazy that, there are so many people who hate this car, most of these people couldn't have possibly driven one let alone been in one.

This car isn't for everyone, no one car is, but I don't know a single person who has driven one and called it "bad." Not even some of the harshest car reviewers out there, even the tough ones give the car generally high scores.

I'm immediately skeptical of anyone who "hates" this car.

I love mine. I've always enjoyed working on my cars and will miss that aspect of Tesla ownership, but will never buy another ICE car. This is the future.

I don't recall anyone really hating on the cars in this thread. I love the Model S and X. I haven't driven a 3 yet to from an opinion. Most of the discord, wouldn't call it hate, is discussing the business, not the car. Tesla dropped another 8% today...I don't want to see a US compay fail. But I believe Tesla is going to get worse before it gets better.

There is one poster that I recall that has been a regular basher.

Mods scratches that itch a little, I just picked up new struts for the frunk from this video.

Done a few other little things, it's not the same but its something.

There have been several. They generally go away when confronted with facts.

It's really sad that we can't have a rational discourse anymore in society. People are too proud to say "Yup, I was wrong" when confronted with facts. You get called names for defending actual verifiable facts.

Agreed....I've been called a troll several times in this thread by Tesla supporters, so it does go both ways. I'll be the first to admit I'm ignorant on some issues. I learned from you in fact about how far Oregon has advanced alternative energy. I was not aware prior to this thread. I enjoy a healthy debate because I tend to learn more...it forces me to do my own research on topics I'd otherwise take at face value.

Amazing how that works isn't it? Same thing could be said for socialized single-payer health care, reasonable gun control, and so many other "common sense" things. Must be human nature to ride a bad position right into the ground.

Thread topic asks "who is in on a tesla model 3?"

So don't be surprised when people answer the question and bring in dissenting and differing opinions.

If the thread was called "Tesla fanboy thread...only kool aid drinkers allowed" I could see your point.

Any one you like. Go for it. It would be great if you kept to facts or questions.

If any other CEO of any other company tweeted the exact same content, they too would be scrutinized by all and investigated by the SEC.

Very well.......since you asked......

“Funding secured”.

It wasn’t anywhere near “secured”, much less discussed with the board.

I think in most other cases, the board would have already dismissed the CEO / President and locked them out of the offices.

I’ve never had the manager of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund push me for two years to take my company private, so I have no idea how those kinds of discussions go down, and I’m fairly confident nobody on this forum has either, so we’re just speculating.

But I have sold companies that I had substantial equity positions in to publicly traded companies for what most people would agree is a hell of a lot of money. How about you?

Having said that, if that person made an assertion that they would buy my company out, I think I would be justified in saying ‘funding secured.’

I think it would have been better for him not to tweet it.

You think. When has a board /ever/ physically locked a CEO out of their offices?

Have you ever served on the board of a public company? Have you ever been on a board of any company? Have you ever taken a company public? Have you ever owned a company?

There are very strict rules that revolve around not only public disclosures, but also the corporate governance of said transactions. For good reason too. If these rules were not in place, fraud and stock manipulation could legally exist on a massive scale.

So, the short answer is “no”, you would not be justified, in any way shape or form.

It has now come to light that this matter has only been discussed in very broad, general terms with the board. The was no offer to even discuss.

Elon Musk is a VERY smart man. He obviously knew the implications of public disclosure. But yet, he sent out that tweet.

So we are now left to open speculation on why he would do such a thing. He has a well known fixation and seething hatred of shorts. Fair enough. When you couple that with revelations (in NYT interview) about his work load and personal life, it is pretty clear that he made an egregious error most likely induced by sleep deprivation and stress.

The board shares blame for this. They HAD to be aware of what kind of hours Elon was putting in, and what kind of stress he was under. Why didn’t the board delegate others to oversee some aspects of production and relieve Elon?

It really doesn’t matter now, as the damage is done. All of these lawsuits from shorts in the past are meritless. But the latest ones after this tweet could be company killers.

May 6, 2013. Meritor, Inc. (NYSE: MTOR) Hilarious. Security escort waiting.

You’re conflating two things. I agree that stock manipulation should not be allowed, but you’re incorrect to say that stock manipulation does not exist on a massive scale. It has taken place on such a grand scale against Tesla it is astonishing.

As I said, if the manager in charge of making decisions at the Saudi wealth fund had been lobbying me for two years and told me they would take my company private and made the assertions that Musk says they did, I would feel justified in saying ‘funding secured.’

I also said that it would have been better for him not to tweet about it, but he asserts that he wanted to disclose it publicly to level the playing field. And I can’t even begin to appreciate the stress he has been under.

Tesla and Musk will weather this just as they have weathered other challenges. It’s an unfortunate distraction, given how incredible the company has been performing.

I don't think it was an error at all. He lied, fabricating something that didn't exist. The reasons seem fairly obvious.

About as obvious as what should be the repercussions .... his 'error' is that he seems to think he can get away with murder and do whatever he wants, when he wants, with no consequences, and that everyone will just fall in line. Classic narcissism.

The supreme irony is that he delivered a huge win for the big hedge funds and megabucks bears that are shorting Tesla. Both for their shorts, they'll have stuck with them after the spike ... then fall as the lies became clear, and gifting a potentially hugely lucrative lawsuit to them. He's not as bright as he likes to think he is.

He will have cost a lot of smaller investors a lot of money with his lies, though, in triggering their stop-loss. This is why, despite Tesla being massively over-valued, in difficulty financially, and Musk being a slow motion car crash, I have not shorted them. He can't be relied on to make truthful or representative statements ... and that's very risky if you have to deal with mandatory stop-losses (they tend to be mandatory unless you have huge collateral).

On the contrary, it seems that there has been a concerted effort from the Saudis to take the company private. SoftBank lobbied Tesla similarly last year.

“feel” vs. LEGAL

As CEO, you cannot just DO things based upon feelings.

All of us “feel” justified in doing a lot of things on a daily basis. But we don’t take action because we know that many of them are illegal. It is no different in the world of corporate governance.

The problem with what he did goes beyond potential monetary damages. Now potential investors and lenders go from a “maybe” to a “no thanks”. Increased risk affects bond ratings. This list goes on.

For this reason, I expect Musk to be removed as CEO. That clears up some of the latter issues I mentioned. However, Tesla will still be on the hook for monetary damages should the SEC and courts find violations.

I agree, he will resign or be removed. This is textbook stuff. Fines galore will take the stock price down further. Then Lawsuits against Musk and the BoD's will follow.

However, these lawsuits for breach of fiduciary duty will likely result in nothing except Lawyers making a killing.

I think you have quite a rosy view of corporate behavior, particularly in the auto industry.

He didn’t personally gain from the statement, so in the grand scheme of corporate malfeasance, this rates pretty low. It hardly justifies an ouster.

I expect he’ll get a slap on the wrist and this will blow over like everything does.

How did he NOT gain? Isn’t he like 20% owner of Tesla? Doesn’t his job performance hinge on stock price? If he said something to raise the stock price that wasn’t true, isn’t that a fraudulent attempt to raise the stock price?

@rubberducks has this one on the nose. Tesla needs a high stock price when the loans come due so they can pay the loans back in Tesla stock and not cash. That’s why they haven’t sold more stock to raise money even though they continue to burn cash.

When you load a company up with debt, bad things happen. (Radio shack, toys R us, etc). And this whole “you gotta lose money to make money” thing is not an unwritten business rule. It’s a new thing, applies only to a tiny amount of companies, and almost all those companies are losing that money to gain monopoly market share. (Uber and Amazon). Tesla is still a tiny company and it doesn’t matter how many cars they sell if they aren’t profitable.

He didn’t sell any stock. No gain.

Except for the fact they are selling billions of dollars of cars, and paying back this loan isn’t going to be an issue.

You’ve never run a company I’m guessing.

Comparing Radio Shack and Toys R Us (retailers crushed by a disrupting technology, the Internet and a company, Amazon) is kind of silly, since Tesla is the disruption here. Look at FedEx (once under crushing debt, losing money like crazy) and Amazon.

No you’re right. It’s a written business rule, on page 1 of Business 101. Debt has always been used to grow a company. How else do you grow a company?

Tesla was small once, but they sell more cars that Jaguar or Porsche now. Are they small?

Doesn’t matter what amount of dollars he’s selling cars if it costs him more to make the cars than the cars sell for.

I work for a company started with cash, and who bootstrapped their sales and grew through zero debt.

Good thing it doesn’t cost them more to /make/ the cars, as has been covered here about a dozen times.

Independent groups have torn down the Model 3 and the parts cost is $18,000 with $10,000 in assembly costs. Do the math on the profits on a $55,000 car. Ford’s average profit per car is $800.

Tesla is investing in production, distribution networks, charging, research. That’s why they have debt. In return for that debt they have the undisputed market lead and a hell of a lot of assets.

Congratulations to the founders of your company. I’ve done this many times myself, but then again, I never had to build multi billion dollar factories, distribution networks, a massive charging infrastructure, etc. etc. etc.

What are the annual revenues of your debt free company? Under 100 million per year? What does your company sell?

Does Tesla have to pay anything for R&D, Capital, Tooling, Legal fee reserves, taxes, amortization costs?

Look this explains very clearly what Tesla is doing and their business model :

No, they get that all for free, part of their trajillion dollar subsidy from the federal government. /s

I said they were in /debt/ because of the investments they're making. Their profits are more than enough to cover SG&A, etc. And I specifically called our research as contributing to their debt. But asking you to read is too much I guess?

What's your point, anyway?

"The engineers estimate a total of $28,000 in costs to build the Model 3: $18,000 for materials and $10,000 for labor and production. “If Tesla manages to build the planned 10,000 pieces a week, the Model 3 will deliver a significant positive contribution to earnings,” said one test engineer. For a car eventually supposed to retail for $35,000, that sounds like a pretty profit for Tesla.

But it won’t be, argues Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. The margins on the Model 3 must still pay for a cost structure that legacy carmakers don’t have, including planned factory expansions, new automation investments, and its own dealership network. While Tesla has its own advantages, like integrated solar and energy storage products and no costly pension liabilities, the company is counting on fat gross margins of 25% to stay in the black. (Ford by contrast has 10% margins.)

The $28,000 estimate for building the Model 3 “shows there’s some possibility of making money at the low end,” said Gordon. “But it actually doesn’t leave very much [money] per car for all the other expenses. If they’re selling it for less than $50,000, I don’t think it’s a good business.”

The most expensive problem the electric carmaker faces is the ballooning cost of automation at its Fremont, California, factory. CEO Elon Musk boasted in 2016 that Tesla’s highly automated Fremont facility would be the “most advanced” car factory on the planet. He’s since admitted Tesla overreached, and had to rip out parts of the assembly line.

“We had this crazy, complex network of conveyor belts,” Musk said in a CBS interview aired in April. “And it was not working, so we got rid of that whole thing.” The company bought the German automation company Grohmann to help get things back on track.

The supposed cost advantage is turning into a financial sinkhole, argues the Wall Street firm Bernstein Research. “Tesla seems to be spending over 2x what a normal [auto manufacturer] would invest per unit of installed capacity,” the March 28 report stated, citing $2 billion in recent facility investments. “The reason Tesla has spent all this money, the reason it bought Grohmann and the reason it can’t build Model 3s are all linked. Tesla has tried to hyper-automate Model 3 production.”