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07-11-2020, 07:44 AM
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#41
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Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Chicagoland
Posts: 40,706
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Let’s watch the rhetoric please.
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07-11-2020, 07:52 AM
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#42
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 3,931
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RetiredAtThirty-eight
Are you saying the 99% are stupid? That they don't understand value for their money? That they are too poor to afford electric vehicles? That they don't appreciate convenience and cleanliness?
It sounds like you are trying to say the 99% are stupid barbarians who can't afford (or don't deserve) anything nice. I don't believe that.
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I said none of that - you did.
You said that nobody buys economy cars these days. I say that 60% of the US population do not even have $1000 in savings.
The 99% are not going to be shelling out $39,000 for a commodity needed to simply get them from point A to point B safely and reliably.
You might want to tone it down a little, otherwise this discussion will not be very productive.
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07-11-2020, 07:54 AM
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#43
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Mar 2020
Posts: 368
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ERD50
I published a list of failed auto companies from the early 1900's. I think I stopped at the "C"s, it was a long list.
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Yes, it's a long list of bankrupt American auto makers. In fact, there are only two American Automakers who haven't gone bankrupt. Care to guess which two?
That's right, Ford and Tesla. Now Tesla was founded 17 years ago so they have only been around about 1/7 as long as Ford but Tesla is profitable and Ford and not.
Do you want to guess who is most likely to go bankrupt next? That's right, Ford. Because they failed to innovate fast enough. There are huge barriers to entry in this industry and Tesla has made it through the most difficult part and come out the other side without crippling debt. This achievement alone is literally unbelievable.
Why is it unbelievable? One look at your long list of failed American auto manufacturer's will tell you why!
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07-11-2020, 07:58 AM
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#44
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Moderator
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 13,913
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Most of us here are in the top 5% financially, and you'll find a vast majority have cars that cost well shy of $39k. And even few of us shopping in the Model S price ranges.
Tesla does make are lovely cars, we've just chosen to stay $30k and under for our cars, so far. And our gas consumption/mileage is negligible in ER.
In the US, the most popular new vehicle purchases are still dominated by pick ups and small SUV/Cross overs. The cars that are most popular are civics, camrys, elantras, etc.
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07-11-2020, 08:06 AM
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#45
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Mar 2020
Posts: 368
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Quote:
Originally Posted by njhowie
You said that nobody buys economy cars these days. I say that 60% of the US population do not even have $1000 in savings.
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60% of the US population that doesn't have even $1000 in savings are not new car buyers, they buy used cars!
Auto manufacturers know that people without even $1000 in savings are only their customers for car parts when stuff breaks or wears out.
So I find this argument disingenuous. People that buy new Pickups and SUV's make up over half of the new car market and the average price they spend is $40K. The average is brought down to $37K when you include all new car sales. Yes, these people really can afford a new EV!
You are using an argument that is outdated. Tesla has continued to increase production over the last two years and they STILL sell every car they make almost as soon as they make it. The demand is bigger than the supply.
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07-11-2020, 08:17 AM
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#46
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Dryer sheet aficionado
Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 41
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Still hoping Old Shooter expounds on his Amazon mention above.
I don’t view AMZN as being in the company of those other companies.......but I’m no expert.
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07-11-2020, 08:23 AM
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#47
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Mar 2020
Posts: 368
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aerides
Most of us here are in the top 5% financially, and you'll find a vast majority have cars that cost well shy of $39k.
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I only have the average prices spent on new car purchases for the national (US) market. I've never surveyed fellow forum members! I know many here don't even buy new cars at all - many only buy used cars or trucks.
Quote:
In the US, the most popular new vehicle purchases are still dominated by pick ups and small SUV/Cross overs. The cars that are most popular are civics, camrys, elantras, etc.
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Exactly! The Model 3 is starting to displace sales of the popular cars you mentioned but it can only displace them as fast as production volumes can be ramped. They sell everyone they can make. And the Model Y crossover SUV was just released right as the pandemic was starting to hit but it's already selling like hotcakes. People love the new Model Y but Tesla can only sell them as fast as they can make them!
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07-11-2020, 08:34 AM
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#48
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Mar 2020
Posts: 368
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas Proud
Just looked.... market cap is 286.5 billion... but it is still losing money...
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You are looking at outdated numbers.
Tesla has made a profit in the last 3 out of 3 quarters and is widely expected to announce a profit for the fourth straight quarter on July 22. If they announce their first loss in a year, then I agree with you, the stock will go down. Because no one is pricing a loss into the stock value.
If they announce a profit as expected, they will be inducted into the S&P 500.
Unfortunately, the other American automakers are not profitable - Tesla is the only one that is. This pandemic has been really hard on auto sales.
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07-11-2020, 08:39 AM
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#49
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Northern IL
Posts: 26,887
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MRG
One thing I firmly believe is if the internal combustion engine didn't exist in ~1900ish, and the automobile didn't exist until now there would NEVER be an ICE auto.
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Odd hypothetical, but you are aware that Electric and ICE cars were on equal footing back in the early 1900's? There were even hybrids back then. And (for better or worse) the ICE won over the next hundred years.
For your hypothetical to even come close to any sort of validity, we would also have to assume that electric motors, modern solid-state motor controllers, and modern batteries (and maybe even the modern electrical grid) also didn't exist until today, and all would have to go through their evolution of improvements. Which takes us right back to the 1900's. That experiment already played out.
I don't see any relevance to today.
-ERD50
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07-11-2020, 08:44 AM
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#50
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Northern IL
Posts: 26,887
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RetiredAtThirty-eight
...
Exactly! The Model 3 is starting to displace sales of the popular cars you mentioned but it can only displace them as fast as production volumes can be ramped. They sell everyone they can make. And the Model Y crossover SUV was just released right as the pandemic was starting to hit but it's already selling like hotcakes. People love the new Model Y but Tesla can only sell them as fast as they can make them!
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I was interested to see how the demand in the US for the Model 3 played out, once the early adopters and fans got their fill, and the subsidies went away.
But COVID has really made it hard to make any good comparisons I think.
-ERD50
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07-11-2020, 08:48 AM
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#51
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Conroe, Texas
Posts: 18,727
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ERD50
Odd hypothetical, but you are aware that Electric and ICE cars were on equal footing back in the early 1900's? There were even hybrids back then. And (for better or worse) the ICE won over the next hundred years.
For your hypothetical to even come close to any sort of validity, we would also have to assume that electric motors, modern solid-state motor controllers, and modern batteries (and maybe even the modern electrical grid) also didn't exist until today, and all would have to go through their evolution of improvements. Which takes us right back to the 1900's. That experiment already played out.
I don't see any relevance to today.
-ERD50
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The "D" list you posted above has several electric car builders on it that go back a long time. I'll bet of one reviews that long list of defunct auto manufacturers (A-Z) you will find scores of EV builders gone away. EV's were here in the early 1900's, but people preferred ICE cars, as they do today.
And whoever says $39K is not much money and can buy you a Tesla is wrong on both counts.
__________________
*********Go Yankees!*********
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07-11-2020, 08:50 AM
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#52
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Mar 2020
Posts: 368
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ERD50
For your hypothetical to even come close to any sort of validity, we would also have to assume that electric motors, modern solid-state motor controllers, and modern batteries (and maybe even the modern electrical grid) also didn't exist until today, and all would have to go through their evolution of improvements. Which takes us right back to the 1900's. That experiment already played out.
I don't see any relevance to today.
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I tend to agree with you.
The reason cars powered by gasoline won out (just barely) was that all EV's around the turn of the century were powered by flooded lead acid batteries with limited range and lifespan. And they were very heavy.
The renaissance in electric cars is due to breakthroughs in lithium-ion batteries in EV's of today which provide the necessary range and longevity, without excessive weight, to be able to displace gasoline cars in the marketplace.
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07-11-2020, 09:03 AM
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#53
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Mar 2020
Posts: 368
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aja8888
And whoever says $39K is not much money and can buy you a Tesla is wrong on both counts.
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Ha! No one said $39K is not much money! New cars are not cheap. That's why most people buy used cars!
But, yes, you can buy a new Tesla Model 3 for $39K before tax and license. I just configured a 2020 Standard Range Model 3 for $37,990. If you add on the $1200 Destination and Document Fee charged on all new cars it comes to $39,190 (which is the "39K" I quoted). Most new car quotes don't include the destination and document fee, just MSRP. I've bought two Model 3's using the online configurator so I know this is accurate.
Not only that, even this, the least expensive Tesla comes with Autopilot so it can take a load off your shoulders on long trips. It's surprisingly well equipped with safety and convenience features in most other ways also.
So the good news is you really can buy a new Tesla for $39K. The bad news is Tesla's are in such high demand there is currently a 4-8 week estimated wait. The good news is the deposit is refundable and is only $100.
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07-11-2020, 09:10 AM
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#54
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 11,078
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ERD50
Odd hypothetical, but you are aware that Electric and ICE cars were on equal footing back in the early 1900's? There were even hybrids back then. And (for better or worse) the ICE won over the next hundred years.
For your hypothetical to even come close to any sort of validity, we would also have to assume that electric motors, modern solid-state motor controllers, and modern batteries (and maybe even the modern electrical grid) also didn't exist until today, and all would have to go through their evolution of improvements. Which takes us right back to the 1900's. That experiment already played out.
I don't see any relevance to today.
-ERD50
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You disagree, that's OK with me. But you really baffled me. You have impressed me as a logical thinking person who loves facts.
Facts are today ICE vehicles carry around 2000+ parts thats are not needed for today's EVs! Why would you want to carry all the additional components and compompexity forward to Automobile 2.0?
I have always appreciated the simple solutions instead of complexity. Perhaps I experienced this in software development(overly complex solutions were overly "brittle")? Look at things like front end collisions, ICE vehicles have a complexity EVs do not with the engine, transmission, driveshafts, transfer case all being located where the crumple zone should be. Why solve all these issues when you can spend your time building solutions to better protect the occupants? Isn't that more important than "this was the best solution 120 years ago?"
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07-11-2020, 09:19 AM
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#55
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Mar 2020
Posts: 368
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MRG
Why solve all these issues when you can spend your time building solutions to better protect the occupants? Isn't that more important than "this was the best solution 120 years ago?"
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Some people don't like change, even if it's obviously for the betterment of mankind.
Did you know there are literally hundreds of thousands of Americans who get a significant part of their income passively from oil and gas leases (that are government subsidized), oil company dividends, royalties from oil and mineral rights and other passive payments from the fossil fuel industry? These are some of the people who don't want our country to move to sustainable forms of energy quickly (or at all). Because they don't have to work or lift a finger to recieve these recurring payments, most of which are directly or indirectly subsidized by the US taxpayer.
However, these changes will happen whether they like it or not.
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07-11-2020, 09:25 AM
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#56
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Sarasota, FL & Vermont
Posts: 36,361
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RetiredAtThirty-eight
You are looking at outdated numbers.
Tesla has made a profit in the last 3 out of 3 quarters and is widely expected to announce a profit for the fourth straight quarter on July 22. If they announce their first loss in a year, then I agree with you, the stock will go down. Because no one is pricing a loss into the stock value.
If they announce a profit as expected, they will be inducted into the S&P 500.
Unfortunately, the other American automakers are not profitable - Tesla is the only one that is. This pandemic has been really hard on auto sales.
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But to keep it real, the LTM profit will likely be less than $3/share... so for all intents and purposes it might as well be zero.
I like their cars, I think they are doing some real interesting things, but at the same time I think the stock price is way over its skis.
__________________
If something cannot endure laughter.... it cannot endure.
Patience is the art of concealing your impatience.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Retired Jan 2012 at age 56
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07-11-2020, 09:42 AM
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#57
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Southeastern PA
Posts: 766
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You might care if/when it's added to the S&P 500 ....
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07-11-2020, 10:13 AM
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#58
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Northern IL
Posts: 26,887
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RE MRG's earlier comment:
Quote:
Originally Posted by MRG View Post
One thing I firmly believe is if the internal combustion engine didn't exist in ~1900ish, and the automobile didn't exist until now there would NEVER be an ICE auto.
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-------
RetiredAtThirty-eight is referring back to my challenge of the above from MRG....
Quote:
Originally Posted by RetiredAtThirty-eight
I tend to agree with you.
The reason cars powered by gasoline won out (just barely) was that all EV's around the turn of the century were powered by flooded lead acid batteries with limited range and lifespan. And they were very heavy.
The renaissance in electric cars is due to breakthroughs in lithium-ion batteries in EV's of today which provide the necessary range and longevity, without excessive weight, to be able to displace gasoline cars in the marketplace.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MRG
You disagree, that's OK with me. But you really baffled me. You have impressed me as a logical thinking person who loves facts.
Facts are today ICE vehicles carry around 2000+ parts thats are not needed for today's EVs! Why would you want to carry all the additional components and compompexity forward to Automobile 2.0?
I have always appreciated the simple solutions instead of complexity. Perhaps I experienced this in software development(overly complex solutions were overly "brittle")? Look at things like front end collisions, ICE vehicles have a complexity EVs do not with the engine, transmission, driveshafts, transfer case all being located where the crumple zone should be. Why solve all these issues when you can spend your time building solutions to better protect the occupants? Isn't that more important than "this was the best solution 120 years ago?"
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Yes, I also appreciate the simplicity of EV vs ICE. But my problem with your hypothetical is you seem to assume the ICE has not, and could not have advanced to its present state (of very high reliability, despite the complexity), but batteries, motors and solid-state controllers could have under the same scenario? But they didn't. So it just seems pointless to me.
A modern computer chip has millions of transistors, it's far more complex than an abacus. Who cares? It's results that matter.
Like any other product, if it can advance to fill a need it will succeed. EVs fill a need for some people today, as they advance that market segment will grow. But ICE/hybrids or some alternate tech are not standing still either.
It's not either/or, each will fill a market need for a very long time (decades).
-ERD50
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07-11-2020, 10:17 AM
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#59
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: City
Posts: 10,351
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluegrass
Still hoping Old Shooter expounds on his Amazon mention above. ...
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Sorry, sometimes life gets in the way of hanging out on e-r.org. Had a nice picnic on Bear Island yesterday and sliced and steamed the pastrami that I smoked the day before. Spectacular stuff!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluegrass
Two questions:
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Sorry to have been obscure. I'll amplify:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluegrass
What do you mean by “this kind of thing”? And why do you include Amazon on a list of companies that have for the most part crashed and burned?
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The "thing" is speculation that is not grounded in fundamentals. There is no news here; this has been going on far longer than my 50 years in investing. Warren Buffet's mentor and former employer, Ben Graham, discusses the problem in " Security Analysis," first published in 1934 and in " The Intelligent Investor," first published in 1949.
The scenario is always pretty much the same: A stock or a class of stock is levitated beyond any financially justifiable price based on speculative enthusiasm. Speculators seem to be of two types; "true believers" are enthused about the business and forget that a good business is not necessarily a good investment, and "traders" who bank on the "Greater Fool Theory." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory) Here is Graham (in " The Intelligent Investor") on the problem: " ... we hope to implant in the reader a tendency to measure or quantify. For 99 issues out of 100 we could say that at some price they are cheap enough to buy and at some other price they would be so dear that they should be sold. The habit of relating what is paid to what is being offered is an invaluable trait in investment. In an article in a women’s magazine many years ago we advised the readers to buy their stocks as they bought their groceries, not as they bought their perfume. The really dreadful losses of the past few years (and on many similar occasions before) were realized in those common-stock issues where the buyer forgot to ask “How much?"
Really, this is very old stuff. Think "tulip bulbs." (The first few chapters of " Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," published in 1841, are a fun and maybe even a worthwhile read.)
Sometimes speculators do win. That is why I included Amazon in the list. Nobody would play the slots either if they didn't win once in a while.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluegrass
Observation about Tesla: Seemingly lots of problems. The Stanphyl Capital letter to investors from June has a compelling list of reasons for its short position. But in my opinion, the CIO ignores a simple and obvious high probability aspect of our future. Y over Y for the next 50 years, electric cars as a percentage of total cars is gonna go up. In a post combustion engine world (20 to 30 years?) unless your thesis is Tesla is going out of business, I’d rather be long than short. And I also wouldn’t be afraid to enter even now. ...
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WADR, this is a classic but fallacious argument that implicitly assumes that a good company is automatically also a good investment. Try this: At $1, would you buy Tesla? I think so. How about at $1,000,000? I doubt it. So between those two there is clearly a price where you would judge that buying Tesla would be unwise. Any speculator who does not recognize this is not thinking clearly or has a "greater fool" strategy. Lots of money has been made by people counting on a greater fool coming along, but there is a always point where no more fools show up and the fun stops.
I don't have any strong opinions on Tesla itself except a sincere admiration for their self-promotional skills. Compared to other players they have nearly zero experience in building cars* and they have nearly zero in distribution and service networks. They are the first movers though and that often counts for something. My guess, though I don't feel very strongly about it, is that the stock will crash for some reason and that the car piece (with its valuable brand) and the battery piece will be sold off separately. A Sword of Damocles hangs over the battery piece, though, where its huge capital investment is vulnerable to being instantly destroyed by a significantly better or alternative energy storage technology.
It's been a long time since I played these games, though, so my opinion really doesn't matter.
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*From a quick internet search: Chevrolet produced about 2 million copies of just the the ill-fated Vega. This is roughly five times' Tesla's total production. Overall GM's annual production is about 25 times Tesla's lifetime production.
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07-11-2020, 10:25 AM
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#60
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Lake Livingston, Tx
Posts: 4,204
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A side note this JD Power survey does not speak well for Tesla. They ranked last on the quality survey.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/25/2...quality-survey
__________________
If it is after 5:00 when I post I reserve the right to disavow anything I posted.
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