that's some high level negotiating there. I bet the SEC thought they won.

Oh come on, the solar roof is not a fraud. I read a report recently that tens of them have been installed.

256.88

Gotta love the top responses to this tweet. Pretty unexpected and hilarious.

https://www.polestar.com/engineered/

Musk doing musk things...
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/17/elon-musk-intends-to-buy-20-million-of-tesla-stock.html

Tesla is now removing the "full self driving" option for new vehicle purchases. This has always been the lynchpin to the pie in the sky vision of Musk and his lemmings.

That and the fact that it's almost a pure profit add-on, some are speculating this is a forced move by the DOJ or SEC as part of their ongoing investigations. This is a very big deal.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/19/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-extreme-micro-manager.html

Looks like the company is full of Yes men. Musk isn't concerned with quality if it slows down production. Rushing bad product through. From this article volume and production numbers clearly take priority over quality.

Earning are tomorrow. Lots of rumors that they may be profitable now. Any predictions?

https://citronresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Citron-reverses-opinion-on-Tesla-story-too-compelling-to-ignore.pdf

MoparAg said:

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Earning are tomorrow. Lots of rumors that they may be profitable now. Any predictions?

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By liquidating their EV credits and selling cars at unsustainable ASPs, it's theoretically possible because nobody knows what the value of the EV credits they had. I think they still miss profitability, but it doesn't matter much because between EV tax breaks going away and ASPs dropping organically they won't be able to sustain profitability.

It's worth noting they've successfully manufactured "profitability" in a quarter twice already. It's still largely irrelevant if they were marginally profitable in Q318.

MoparAg said:

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Earning are tomorrow. Lots of rumors that they may be profitable now. Any predictions?

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Yes, that's been the prediction of many for most the year. But as indicated above by Gordo it is not real.

And as far as Left's comments today, he (if he's not just pumping into earnings) like many others are looking at the short term market share numbers and are losing perspective. People need to remember that this car has been advertised and hyped for 3+ years but is craming all that demand into a few months, now that they have finally achieved some degree of volume. It says nothing of the forward looking demand. If reservations were growing instead of shrinking it would be all over Musk's twitter.

UBS had a similar note yesterday. They think the Model 3 may be finally be profitable at the $49k (~$60k with options) but a lack of demand at that price point.

Musk has noted several times that there's only 2 American car companies that have not gone through BK - Ford and Tesla. Seeing that Ford has stopped producing sedans and is only surviving because it has figured out how to sell $50k trucks to consumers in a low interest rate environment, it doesnt bode well for Tesla's future unless they change their marketing.

Frankly I dont think consumers understand the long term economics/finance of EVs but then again if they did they may not purchase cars or trucks (high cost, accelerated depreciating asset) at all...

Q3 is in.

300 Million profit
Over 20% gross margin on the model 3.

I was expecting a small profit not this.

I was thinking the same.

What's going to keep this stock from soaring if they're profitable? Do they need another quarter or 10 to make believers?

It also came on a day when Ford was hit pretty hard.

I think it's false hope.

MoparAg said:

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Q3 is in.

300 Million profit
Over 20% gross margin on the model 3.

I was expecting a small profit not this.

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Meh. Huge inventory at the end of Q2. EV credit sales, and only premium priced cars, which again - there is no sustainable long term mass market for $55k+ cars. Certainly more than I was expecting, but I still think Q1-Q2 the bottom drops out in terms of demand for their cars at this price (you'll probably start to see it in Q4 a bit). What happens to margins when your ASP falls $15-20K? This is what I think happens, but I'm sure they'll use this as a giant capital raise so that they can miss their future fraudulent expectations ($35k model 3, FSD, solar roof, battery swaps, solar city bailout, funding secured, 100-200K model 3s in 2017, etc. as examples) Still think this quarter is largely irrelevant - similar to how Tesla has had profitable quarters twice before. Elon pulled out all the tricks, because he had to.

Haven't gotten a chance to listen to the earnings call. I'm sure Elon was stuttering his way through going off on random tangents talking about nothing, implying how genius he is, and taking calls from YouTube fanboys to stroke his precious ego.

Gordo14 said:

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MoparAg said:

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Q3 is in.

300 Million profit
Over 20% gross margin on the model 3.

I was expecting a small profit not this.

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Meh. Huge inventory at the end of Q2. EV credit sales, and only premium priced cars, which again - there is no sustainable long term mass market for $55k+ cars. Certainly more than I was expecting, but I still think Q1-Q2 the bottom drops out in terms of demand for their cars at this price (you'll probably start to see it in Q4 a bit). What happens to margins when your ASP falls $15-20K? This is what I think happens, but I'm sure they'll use this as a giant capital raise so that they can miss their future fraudulent expectations ($35k model 3, FSD, solar roof, battery swaps, solar city bailout, funding secured, 100-200K model 3s in 2017, etc. as examples) Still think this quarter is largely irrelevant - similar to how Tesla has had profitable quarters twice before. Elon pulled out all the tricks, because he had to.

Haven't gotten a chance to listen to the earnings call. I'm sure Elon was stuttering his way through going off on random tangents talking about nothing, implying how genius he is, and taking calls from YouTube fanboys to stroke his precious ego.

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You seem to have a conclusion you need to wrap the facts presented to fit, or make some up as needed. The fact is they are killing it, and the future of vehicles is shifting electric. There were only 3,000 fewer vehicles in transit in q3 than q2, so about 3-5 days production. Also, there were only 50,000,000 in ZEV credits, which posts above stated would be the difference maker.

Tesla also starts shipping to Europe in Q1, so while they have met some of the demand for NA, they haven't scratched the surface of their demand.

If ASP falls by $15k? Then they'll be selling for break even if the costs are the same. Presumably, since their biggest cost is battery, and the cheaper version has a smaller battery, those costs will go down.

Either way, time will tell. I hope you aren't putting your money behind your mouth. It'll likely hurt.

Here we go again

Its just interesting that they finally figured out theyre operating expenses. I mean, its been plaguing them for decades. And in one quarter, boom.

I'm highly skeptical. I also think its telling that they have never updated their reservations since way back when. They give vague statements, but no real numbers. Not for years now.

And do people really believe that the model 3 will literally replace every Audi, Mercedes, BMW, etc? Bc thats what it will take for them to maintain te demand they project. Until the initial "pent up" demand is gone and we see what the real steady state demand is, I can't buy into the hype. Especially since every buyer is a fanboy. They have to start winning over non-fans. Can they do that?

Also, the CAO quitting a month ago, ahead of "most profitable, awesome" quarter ever casts a lot of shadows. What kind of options did he walk away from? And why would you do that if you knew eternal profits were 45 days away?

I think there's a lot of bull****ting that just went on with these numbers. They make no sense and were basically completely avoided in the conference call instead of celebrated. This looks highly manipulated.

I'm curious how they make no sense.

Endo Ag said:

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I'm curious how they make no sense.

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SG&A, OpEx, and A/R are well, well out of normal range for this company. Have to wait for the 10q to really tell much.

Another good day. Larry Ellison discloses his second largest personal investment is in Tesla.

And a criminal probe alleging they misstated production numbers starting in 2017...it's always something w/ TSLA

That news is really hurting the stock price today.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/10/how-tesla-proved-cash-flow-critics-wrong/

What are your thoughts on this? I find it interesting that while their were so many wrong estimates, there were a number of non-professional who were pretty damned close.

At this point, it's pretty clear that the company isn't Enron. They are making a legit product that has ridiculous demand. Barring no path to profitability at any point, I don't see much reason for them be be fraudulent. If that were the case though, they are going through quite the charade building a giant factory and selling all those cars. Based on the number of industries that they stand to disrupt (oil producers and car manufacturers primarily), there are a lot of people with a significant interest in their failure and it seems more likely they are being smeared than that they are executing a billion dollar fraud. I'm surprised the natural gas lobby hasn't figured out that they should be Tesla's biggest cheerleader.

Either way, I'm a spectator enjoying the show. I quit investing in individual stocks long ago when I realized I was just dumb money to be manipulated. I do like the company and love my car.

LCE said:

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That news is really hurting the stock price today.

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God help anyone trying to evaluate this company honestly. It's impossible to tell where truth begins and ends.

One side is from " people familiar with the matter say."

The other side says "We have not received a subpoena, a request for testimony, or any other formal process, and there have been no additional document requests about this from the Department of Justice for months," the spokesperson said in an email."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-probe/tesla-says-it-has-not-received-subpoena-on-model-3-production-idUSKCN1N02LO?il=0&utm_source=reddit.com

You cannot even pretend to get neutral coverage when things like this are out there.

I definitely don't think they're anything like Enron but let's not forget the US Gov literally just sued them for fraud.

LCE said:

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Another good day. Larry Ellison discloses his second largest personal investment is in Tesla.

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Ellison??? The guy who got completely swindled by elizabeth holmes? And also the same guy who's dying to be the new COB?

LOL. Keep digging that hole. I really hope no one takes your advice on stocks

TennAg with more money than Ellison!

LCE said:

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LOL. Keep digging that hole. I really hope no one takes your advice on stocks

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What hole am I digging? Larry Ellison was Elizabeth Holmes' mentor and one of her strongest backers. She's about the biggest fraud that there's been.