... It is my job to question everything I hear about the company, whether it comes from the CEO of the company, stock analysts, other investors, competitors or Tesla short-sellers...
At the end of the day I make my decision after deciding which info I find credible and which info seems unfairly biased. This is my job as an investor and if I am not good at it, I lose.
Yes. A guy is responsible for his own investment. And he is free to invest his money as he likes.
Many good people were fooled by the Tesla "hit pieces" as the naysayers tend to have very loud and forceful voices. I'm glad I wasn't fooled by them. I will say I had a huge advantage over most potential investors in that I had two Tesla at my disposal to drive and inspect and have spent more than a few hours inspecting hundreds of new Tesla freshly delivered to delivery centers...
I stopped being a "car guy" in my late 30s, and treat cars as a commodity which takes me from point A to point B. I am not interested in any car, and although have not set foot inside a Tesla, have read many articles on the Web that I come across to know about its novel features, because of my technical inclination more than as an interested consumer.
What I find is that while Tesla cars boast
many innovative ideas, many very useful, its fans also make many attributions that are wrong or at least exaggerated. And if someone points that out, they don't like it.
I have talked about the self-driving technology in the past, and will not bother to repeat that here.
Here's the most recent example. There's much talk about the "million-mile battery" in the media recently. Quite a few articles have in the title the phrase "Tesla million-mile battery". What is that all about?
A quick search shows me that China's CATL announced this long-life battery in early June. And Tesla is now known to be working with CATL for the Chinese car production. Tesla fans are so quick to claim credit for the company for everything that they hear. Is that a misinformation campaign to pump stock? Hah!
Interestingly, as a car brand, Tesla was found to be more "American" than any other automaker in terms of the origin of the parts and labor that go into a car:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgor...for-2020/?ss=logistics-transport#224e10b79785
That's good. For the future, while building cars for the Chinese and European markets, Tesla will have to use local labor and parts. That's just the way these countries demand it.
People like to see American companies doing well. But it does not mean that Tesla is the only company whose well-being will be good for the US. People forget that much of Tesla competition is domestic such as Ford and Chevy in the car business, and Waymo and Cruise in the driverless technology.
There are many American companies that one can invest in. Tesla is not the only one.
PS. About the long-life battery, it has been well-known that LiFePO4 chemistry, also called LFP for lithium ferro phosphate, has a much longer life than the type of lithium-ion battery that is commonly used in consumer products and in Tesla cars. However, LFP battery does not have the same energy density, and the EV would be heavier and has a shorter range.
Now, Chinese companies have been very big in LFP chemistry, while other well-known battery companies like Panasonic, LG Chem, Sony, etc..., are not. I don't know why that is, but LFP battery is very popular in the energy storage business, where one does not care or worry about the battery weight.
LFP battery is also very safe. When abused, an LFP battery does not explode in flames like the common lithium-ion battery. I have 22-kWh worth in my DIY solar storage system.
Just finished pulling out 8 of the 64 modules that I hand-built to measure their capacity after 2 years of use. Very little degradation, despite the heavy daily charge/discharge. The cells were made by Tenergy. The manufacturing date is 2013, but I only purchased them in 2017 as NOS, and put into use in 2018.
And so, I am very interested to learn more about CATL battery, to see if it is of the LFP chemistry. There's this talk about "nano phosphate", which I have not researched.
