Tesla Motors' Stock Finally Falls

[teh_chem]

I think the company is over-valued and has been for a long time. They were in the crapper not too long ago; though they apparently have paid back their loans fairly quickly (I'm astonished at that, btw), I don't think their car business is sustainable. I see Model S's on the road more than I would have expected. But you can sell only so many $65k+ electric cars, I'd suspect that market is probably already near saturation. They're going to need to make cheaper and more-affordable cars if they want their business to continue to grow.

 

[Rick_09]

Electric cars are the future and that future is getting closer and closer. The biggest concern is producing electricity in enormous quantities on the cheap, without drowning ourselves in our own pollution. As with any new technology, you are going to have bumps in the road. On the other hand, I do agree that it's not government trying to pick winners and losers that is going to change anything.

 

[npcomplete]

@rwinches

" Well the front of the car was on fire but no flames or smoke from under the car where the batteries are mounted. What does that mean? Did the hot motor ignite flammable car parts? Just what kind of road debris did the car hit? How do they keep the motor cool? I do know that electrical fires are wicked. "

The motor is in the rear, under the trunk, two relatively small cylinders right be the differential. Up front is frunk. Behing and under that are accessories like AC and some electrical equipment.

The motor doesn't need constant cooling because it's not constantly burning stuff and producing waste heat like an internal combustion engine.

 

[jacobdrj]

Tesla's goals are admirable. But they've always struck me as horribly arrogant and having too much self-importance from their spokespeople and leadership. The way some people have been hyping the Model S in particular (like whoever it was that decided it deserved a safety rating above their own scale) has been worrying. It's almost as if they're trying to hype it as much as possible to cover-up a problem.

I hope the company succeeds in a pure sense. I mean selling a lot of quality vehicles. They are one of the biggest driving forces behind electric vehicles in the US right now. But they do concern me. Every time I hear about them I get a queasy feeling something bad is going to happen, like there's gonna be a disastrous scandal to come out. May be the case of right message and wrong messenger as far as changing the car and energy culture.

I do agree that Tesla executives are pushing hard with bravado and fluff... But to succeed in the consumer automotive industry, particularly at the high-end, you kind of have to to be able to play with the established 'big boys'. How many new car companies have been started in the USA in the last 20 years, and of those, how many are still around/successful?

The only one that was (not USA based) sort of in the same line as Tesla was DeLorean (and that was more than 20 years ago too), and he ultimately failed, in part due to threatening the status quo, and from being a little too arrogant.

But Tesla started small, with off-the-shelf parts, and have been slowly building their brand and technology.

I'll let them be snobbish now, if it pushes the other auto-industry players to push alternative drive trains...


As a side note, at these prices, Tesla cars' value is NOT in their fuel savings. It is in their ability to save time of those people whose time is most valuable.... If you have a short commute, you make a couple hundred dollars an hour, and you literally NEVER have to EVER stop at a gas station again... Just go home and plug in... That 15 minute inconvenience every couple of weeks goes bye bye, WITHOUT having to get a limo driver...

 

[x2ruff4u]

Just wait for the stock to settle and then bam!!

 

[Chris Harmon]

Wind mills make people sick...ok lets not worry about drilling, fracking, coal plants e t.

I have noticed people want it both ways with green but the time is fast approaching where the choices none or few. Maybe after a few super storms drive the world into a recession or similar people will finally learn maybe those wind mills aren't so ugly and damaging. It is new tech on the car side and wind mill so I don't doubt there will be issues but like the early gasoline vehicles blowing when rear ended or pinning people inside when the gas caught fire we have found solutions though nothing is 100%.

 

[catswold]

Wind mills make people sick...ok lets not worry about drilling, fracking, coal plants e t.

I have noticed people want it both ways with green but the time is fast approaching where the choices none or few. Maybe after a few super storms drive the world into a recession or similar people will finally learn maybe those wind mills aren't so ugly and damaging. It is new tech on the car side and wind mill so I don't doubt there will be issues but like the early gasoline vehicles blowing when rear ended or pinning people inside when the gas caught fire we have found solutions though nothing is 100%.

OOH! Look at all the scary buzzwords . . . "drilling, fracking, coal plants" OH MY! LOL!!!

BTW There have been fewer violent weather events over the past couple of years than in the past; you just hear more about the storms that do occur. In the USA tornadic activity is down substantially and there were no real major hurricanes at all. The Arctic Ice is rebounding and global temperatures haven't risen in 17 years even though CO2 atmospheric level have continued to rise precipitously.

Man-made global climate change is a myth . . . a scam intended to frighten people into surrendering more power to our governments and to keep academics in their chinos and birkenstocks.

It is hubris of the most egotistical sort to presume that man can know enough about how our climate functions to make the sort of proclamations to which we have been subjected. Just today there is an article about how puzzled scientist are that, at a time when we should be seeing peak sunspot activity (the 11 year solar cycle is at "maximum" right now), we are seeing very low activity . . . the assumption that we should know all there is about our sun (or about Earth's climate) after the infinitesimal amount of time we have had to observe (on a galactic time-scale, mankind's existence is less than a blink of an eye) is laughable and the idea that we should conform our entire existence to theories based on that brief time is foolish and absurd.

Real science doesn't seek to stop debate, it invites debate. Real scientist don't seek to prevent dissenting articles from being published, they eagerly anticipate them.

The data don't match either the models or their predictions. . . . and any computer geek worth his salt should know that models merely reflect the biases of those who create them.

Electrical vehicles will become viable when the public market demands them and not because of some mythical--invented--crisis. If people wanted electric cars, private industry would be focused solely on building one that is truly viable. Today they are investing a tenth of what they would if that market already existed.

 

[Chris Harmon]

Wind mills make people sick...ok lets not worry about drilling, fracking, coal plants e t.

I have noticed people want it both ways with green but the time is fast approaching where the choices none or few. Maybe after a few super storms drive the world into a recession or similar people will finally learn maybe those wind mills aren't so ugly and damaging. It is new tech on the car side and wind mill so I don't doubt there will be issues but like the early gasoline vehicles blowing when rear ended or pinning people inside when the gas caught fire we have found solutions though nothing is 100%.