Is Tesla TOAST ?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Elon Musk is a show man and promoter in the spirit of P.T Barnum.
He may be the greatest such that has ever lived, and future generations may replace references to P.T Barnum with the name of Elon Musk.

He used his SpaceX heavy lift Falcon 9 rocket to launch a red Tesla roadster into orbit. It has a mannequin astronaut in the drivers seat, and the stereo is playing David Bowie on repeat. He has on board cameras live streaming video from the orbiting convertible as it circles the earth.
Credit where credit is due. Musk is to promotion as Leonardo Da Vinci is to art.

It's a stunt without any real significance, but perhaps the most magnificent stunt in human history.

https://youtu.be/m2p55BmwmJM

[llanlad2]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Elon Musk is a show man and promoter in the spirit of P.T Barnum.
He may be the greatest such that has ever lived, and future generations may replace references to P.T Barnum with the name of Elon Musk.

He used his SpaceX heavy lift Falcon 9 rocket to launch a red Tesla roadster into orbit. It has a mannequin astronaut in the drivers seat, and the stereo is playing David Bowie on repeat. He has on board cameras live streaming video from the orbiting convertible as it circles the earth.
Credit where credit is due. Musk is to promotion as Leonardo Da Vinci is to art.

It's a stunt without any real significance, but perhaps the most magnificent stunt in human history.

https://youtu.be/m2p55BmwmJM

I used to agree with you but what he did with that Space X launch was unbelievably impressive. Watching the twin rockets land on the pad was way beyond "showmanship". It was a freaking incredible engineering effort put together with a lot of private money at a fraction of the cost of what NASA spends. I've come to view him as a genuine guy but making Tesla work may be beyond him. The car industry is way more competitive to begin with. He's come a lot further than most anticipated and had a huge impact regardless. The PT Barnum moniker does him a disservice.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

I used to agree with you but what he did with that Space X launch was unbelievably impressive. Watching the twin rockets land on the pad was way beyond "showmanship". It was a freaking incredible engineering effort put together with a lot of private money at a fraction of the cost of what NASA spends. I've come to view him as a genuine guy but making Tesla work may be beyond him. The car industry is way more competitive to begin with. He's come a lot further than most anticipated and had a huge impact regardless. The PT Barnum moniker does him a disservice.

llanld2 it’s hard to argue with your position here.
SpaceX has built and operated an advanced heavy lift rocket in the same class as ariane, delta, and proton rockets.
Good on Musk and his team.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

What is going on with that starman video? Is it real? I thought the thing was supposed to be dumped in an orbit much further out than it could possibly have reached by now...

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

What is going on with that starman video? Is it real? I thought the thing was supposed to be dumped in an orbit much further out than it could possibly have reached by now...

I tried to stick to reputable sources, but the video is clearly no longer playing a live feed.
From space.com at this link https://www.space.com/39612-spacex-s...ive-views.html

Following the launch of the Falcon Heavy, the electric car and its dummy passenger were placed into orbit around the Earth. But in a few hours, the payload will be on its way into a solar orbit that will send it cruising by Mars

and

SpaceX's live webcast of the Tesla Roadster and its Starman mannequin lasted for just over four hours after the Falcon Heavy's launch on Tuesday, Feb. 6

from NBC news on 2/8/18

SpaceX hasn't publicly announced precisely where the Roadster is at this point in what will become a highly elliptical orbit around the sun. But Dr. Nahum Arav, a Virginia Tech physicist who works with NASA, told MACH in an email that his rough calculations show that as of 3:40 p.m. ET today the car had traveled about 450,000 miles from Earth, or roughly twice the distance from Earth to the moon.He said it would take at least six months for the car to cross the orbit of Mars, as shown in the trajectory Musk tweeted

It seem the roadster was close enough to earth for a few hours to stream that video and was then boosted out to its final highly elliptical orbit around the sun. But like most things Musk, it's hard to tell the facts from the hype, at least for me. I do believe he launched the rocket carrying the car and successfully got the car deployed into space. In the spirit of llanlad2 comments above, that's a pretty big achievement.

[santafe2]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Yeah, Tesla is toast but Elon is moving us in the right direction.

[wayiwalk]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

I've been fortunate to be working in Florida the past 2 1/2 months, and the last 6 weeks out here on the east coast about an hour south of Cape Canaveral. The first launch I saw was of Falcon 9 from the beach down by where I'm staying. It was at night, so the visuals were real eye candy. As the rocket got higher, a crowd of seniors (yes, lots of seniors where I am) burst out into a joyful rendition of "God Bless America". I also saw the Space Heavy launch, although from further south than I had hoped due to an earlier business commitment.

It's exciting to be here while this is happening. I agree with the assessment that what Musk is doing IS exciting, he throws out a lot nonsense to see what will stick, but the fact is, Space X has been successful. I also loved the visual of seeing the two boosters return in parallel and land back near the launch pad. That was freakin' great. Like out of Thunderbirds are GO! or something. He seems to have a great team working for him....and certainly does better in markets that are more tech and less commodity.

Florida rightly gets a bad rap for its nonsense that hits the tabloids, but on the other hand, the strong presence of the space industry doesn't hurt.

All in all, it is a pretty great place to be, and not just for on-the-cusp-of-old farts like me.

In the past month, four of the six millennial young adults in our family (my own kids and their cousins) were here either for college (1) or internships (3), while two others visited. They're pretty talented kids, I think the state must be doing something right to make the state attractive to our youth. Two are of the mindset, "I'm never going back to the northeast"; and I expect at least one of them to settle here.

[BK]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Please. Elon is moving us in the right direction while he defrauds the public with his Tesla shares. It will be very interesting when the Tesla Bubble pops.

Elon Musk is making PT Barnum and Charles Ponzi look like amaetures.

Does anyone remember the halo that surrounded Ken Lay of Enron?

From June 2000 http://www.rediff.com/business/2000/jun/05enron.htm

"Kenneth Lay: The energetic messiah

send this business special feature to a friend
Exactly a year ago, the top brass from big oil and gas companies gathered in London. They brainstormed a bit, gossiped a lot and drank too much coffee. But when Kenneth Lay rose to speak, there was pin-drop silence. As the chairman of Enron sketched his vision for how liberalisation and deregulation would transform the world's energy markets, his rivals were busily scribbling notes. Some nodded dumbly. Others shouted out half-baked questions. Having expanded Enron's market capitalisation nine-fold over the past decade, asked one boss, could he possibly top that? "We'll do it again this coming decade," he responded coolly. Mouths fell agape."

[GRG55]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

That rocket launch and recovery was truly impressive, no doubt about it. But the car company is an entirely different matter imo.

[jk]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

That rocket launch and recovery was truly impressive, no doubt about it. But the car company is an entirely different matter imo.

that picture has a great caption! lol

[GRG55]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

that picture has a great caption! lol

I was wondering if anyone would catch it. Should have known you would! :-)

[GRG55]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

The heat is on.
Hard to believe it has been exactly two years since the Model 3 was unveiled and people started putting down deposits for it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ressures-mount

Tesla Makes Last-Ditch Model 3 Deliveries as Pressures Mount
April 1, 2018, 2:10 PM MDT

With pressure escalating after one of the worst weeks in its almost 15-year-history, Tesla Inc. raced to manufacture and deliver its mission-critical Model 3 sedan to burnish the numbers it’s about to report to rattled investors.

Tesla’s Fremont, California, delivery hub was packed with people Saturday evening as the last hours of the quarter drew to a close. Red couches and tall white tables were set up outside, a DJ played music and a truck selling Vietnamese food was on hand. Behind the scenes, a company that’s struggled to figure out how to mass manufacture cars implored workers to get production on track and prove the doubters wrong...

...Since starting Model 3 production in July of last year, Tesla has pushed back production goals for the car several times, citing issues with battery output and automating its assembly lines. The company forecast back in January that it would likely end the first quarter making about 2,500 units of the car a week.

Tesla reports production and deliveries results within a few days of each quarter ending. On Sunday afternoon, Musk tweeted to tease “important news in a few hours,” without giving any further detail.

Bloomberg is tracking the Model 3 rollout with an experimental tool that estimates production using vehicle identification numbers. The tracker estimates that Tesla is building about 1,190 Model 3s a week as of Sunday, though that figure may not capture a last-minute burst in output...

...The tracker shows an increase in production in the last few weeks as Tesla invited a limited number of workers from the Model S and Model X factory lines to volunteer to work on the Model 3. Heading into the final week of March, Doug Field, senior vice president of engineering, urged workers to safely ramp up output to more than 300 vehicles a day and to “prove a bunch of haters wrong.”...



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-output-target

More Tesla Analysts See Carmaker Missing Model 3 Output Target


Tesla Inc. will probably report next week that it missed Model 3 production targets for the first quarter, a growing number of analysts predict.

Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache projects that the electric-car maker averaged about 800 of the sedans a week in the first quarter, with the weekly run rate now approaching about 1,100, he wrote Thursday in a note to clients.

Loup Ventures’ Gene Munster sees output at 1,500 to 2,000 Model 3 cars per week, still below the 2,500-a-week rate that Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had been targeting for the quarter...

[jk]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

bond investors are a little more gimlet eyed than people who punt on stocks. tsla's unsecured bonds were just downrated to caa1, 7 steps below investment grade.

[GRG55]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

bond investors are a little more gimlet eyed than people who punt on stocks. tsla's unsecured bonds were just downrated to caa1, 7 steps below investment grade.

So Elon Musk takes a battery, connects it to an electric motor driving a wheel, packages it in an elegant, limited production, hand built luxury sedan (the Model S) and passes the whole thing off as some exotic new breakthrough in technology. And the market prices the stock at a high growth tech company multiple.

Now the inevitable grubby, grinding reality that is auto manufacturing is starting to reveal itself. Quelle surprise.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...at-the-factory

Elon Musk Is Back to Sleeping at the Factory

As for the bonds:


Philip Grant of Grant's Interest Rate Observer

...Then there’s Tesla, which burned through $3.5 billion in cash last year on just under $12 billion in revenue yet enjoys a massive valuation premium to other automakers. It issued $1.8 billion (upsized from $1.5 billion) in senior unsecured notes due in 2025 at a 5.30% coupon (a 320 basis point spread over Treasurys) in August. That was up from an indicated yield of 5.25%. Reuters quoted an anonymous banker who said that the five basis point bump “was a company decision to ‘sweeten the deal’ for investors who supported the transaction.”
The bond issue, which made its first coupon payment in February, has seen its price fall sharply in recent weeks amid product recalls, another highway death of a driver who was using the “Autopilot” feature, and CEO Elon Musk’s odd April Fool’s Day jokes declaring corporate bankruptcy on Twitter. Last week, Moody’s downgraded Tesla’s rating to B3 from B2 and the rating on the 5.3% senior notes to Caa1 (“judged to be of poor standing and are subject to very high credit risk”) from B3, while the notes have fallen to 86.5 cents on the dollar for a yield to worst of 7.73%..
The Aug. 11 publication of Grant’s (“’A masterly manipulation’”) took inventory of the bond market’s accommodative stance to the offering while Tesla was conducting its investor road show, drawing a parallel with UK Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George’s exertions in support of the 3.5% War Loan of 1924. The analysis noted that operating and financial problems aside, Tesla was an issuer in the right place at the right time.

With $9 billion in high-yield sales, July was the weakest month of issuance since January 2016. “There hasn’t been much new supply and investors have cash they need to spend,” a resigned Tom O’Reilly, Neuberger Berman Group, LLC’s head of non-investment grade credit, tells the Wall Street Journal.

Time flies when you’re having fun. We can surmise the corollary: For Tesla and Netflix’s creditors, 2025 and 2028 may seem far away indeed.

[touchring]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Would Apple buy what remains of Tesla and come up with an iCar?