Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has said it will pay electric carmaker Tesla close to €2bn to help it meet tough new emissions targets and has reported a 29 per cent drop in first-quarter profits.

The company will purchase credits from Tesla to help it hit carbon dioxide goals and avoid large fines in the US and Europe, at an estimated cost of €1.8bn.

Carmakers across Europe are striving to meet a 2020 EU target of average car CO2 emissions of 95g per kilometre. In 2018, average emissions were 120.5g per kilometre, according to data supplier Jato Dynamics.

Fiat Chrysler aimed to meet this target without the need for credits from 2022, banking on a strategy of making its own cleaner vehicles, as well as hybrid and pure electric models, said chief executive Mike Manley.

About 80 per cent of FCA’s CO2 compliance would come from purchasing credits from Tesla in 2020, falling to around 15 per cent in 2021 as the company’s sale of battery and hybrid vehicles grew, he said.

Exclusive: Tesla's solar factory is exporting most of its cells - document

May 15, 2019

The “great majority” of solar cells being produced at Tesla Inc’s factory in upstate New York are being sold overseas instead of being used in the company’s trademark “Solar Roof” as originally intended, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.

The exporting underscores the depth of Tesla’s troubles in the U.S. solar business, which the electric car maker entered in 2016 with its controversial $2.6 billion purchase of SolarCity.

Tesla has only sporadically purchased solar cells produced by its partner in the factory, Panasonic Corp, according to a Buffalo solar factory employee speaking on condition of anonymity. The rest are going largely to foreign buyers, according to a Panasonic letter to U.S. Customs officials reviewed by Reuters.

When the two firms announced the partnership in 2016, the companies said they would collaborate on cell and module production and Tesla would make a long-term commitment to buy the cells from Panasonic. Cells are components that convert the sun’s light into electricity; they are combined to make solar panels.

Tesla planned to use them in its Solar Roof, a system meant to look like normal roof tiles. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk billed the product as a cornerstone of the strategy behind the acquisition - selling a low-carbon lifestyle to eco-conscious consumers who could use the power from their Solar Roof to charge their Tesla electric vehicle.

But the company has installed them on just a handful of rooftops nationwide so far after production line troubles and a gutting of Tesla’s solar sales team.

California state data shows 21 Solar Roof systems were connected by the state’s three investor-owned utilities as of Feb. 28. Only a few others were connected in the northeastern United States, according to a former Tesla employee with knowledge of the matter, who was laid off during staff cuts earlier this year and asked not to be named.

Tesla declined to comment on the company’s purchases of cells from Panasonic and would not provide figures for Solar Roof installations. But a company official said in an email “the number of solar roofs you cite in the story is low and unrepresentative as we are actively installing the Solar Roof in eight states currently.”

The situation raises new questions about the viability of cash-strapped Tesla’s solar business. Musk once called the deal a “no brainer” - but some investors panned it as a bailout of an affiliated firm at the expense of Tesla shareholders. Before the merger, Musk had served as chairman of SolarCity’s board of directors, and his cousin, Lyndon Rive, was the company’s CEO.

Panasonic spokesman Alberto Canal declined to comment on the company’s sales to Tesla, but confirmed that Panasonic was seeking to use its Buffalo operations to fulfill demand for U.S.-made solar cells from foreign buyers.

Panasonic had said in a filing with the U.S. Department of Commerce in October 2018 that foreign demand for U.S.-made solar cells had sprung up after the Trump Administration imposed tariffs on overseas-made panels in 2018.

Panasonic also produces traditional solar panels at the Buffalo plant for Tesla, but has been selling many of them to other buyers since at least last year due to low demand from the California car company, Reuters reported in August 2018. Tesla last month reported a 36 percent slide in its overall solar sales in the first quarter, adding to previous big drops since the SolarCity acquisition.

Since Tesla purchased SolarCity in the fourth quarter of 2016, installations have dropped more than 76 percent, according to company financial disclosures.

After gutting its solar sales team and ending its retail relationship with Home Depot, Tesla last month announced a plan to counter the downward spiral by offering cut-rate prices on standardized rooftop systems and requiring would-be customers to order solar products online.

Panasonic’s move to diversify its solar customers is the latest sign of the company falling out of step with its longtime partner. Panasonic is Tesla’s sole battery supplier for its electric car business, but Musk last month blamed Panasonic for EV production delays. He has also said Tesla was looking for more battery suppliers for its new Shanghai car factory.

SEPARATE OPERATIONS

Panasonic’s letter to U.S. officials last October accompanied a request to produce the cells in a foreign trade zone within the Buffalo plant that would allow Panasonic to import certain parts tariff-free because the finished cells would be sold overseas, not domestically.

That request was granted in April.

The zones help companies avoid, delay or pay reduced tariffs on imported parts in cases where it helps U.S. manufacturers compete with overseas rivals.

“It is fully anticipated that the majority of the cells to be produced” in the FTZ “will be exported,” the company said in its application.

Panasonic’s Canal said foreign solar panel manufacturers want the Buffalo plant’s cells because solar panels assembled abroad with American-made cells can be shipped to the United States tariff-free, according to U.S. trade rules implemented last fall.

. . . .

A Panasonic source said much of the exported material was going to a large Asian buyer.

Tesla inherited the factory, known as RiverBend, through its purchase of SolarCity, and is now required to deliver on investment and employment promises that SolarCity had made in exchange for $750 million in state subsidies.

The factory employs about 800 workers, and by this time next year it will be required to have 1,460 employees or pay millions in penalties.

. . . .

[ SNIP ]

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 16, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) today announced the successful completion of its previously announced offer to exchange all outstanding shares of common stock of Maxwell Technologies, Inc. (“Maxwell”) for 0.0193 of a share of Tesla common stock, together with cash in lieu of any fractional shares of Tesla common stock, without interest and less any applicable withholding taxes.


The exchange offer expired at 11:59 p.m., Eastern Time, on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. As of the expiration of the exchange offer, a total of approximately 36,764,342 shares of common stock of Maxwell were validly tendered in the exchange offer and not validly withdrawn, representing approximately 79% of the aggregate voting power of the shares of Maxwell common stock outstanding immediately after the consummation of the exchange offer. All shares of Maxwell common stock that were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn prior to the expiration of the offer have been accepted by Tesla for payment in accordance with the terms of the exchange offer.

Following to the completion of the exchange offer, Tesla completed the acquisition of Maxwell by consummating the second step merger contemplated by the previously announced merger agreement between Tesla and Maxwell. As a result of this merger, all shares of Maxwell stock that were not tendered in Tesla’s exchange offer were cancelled in exchange for the right to receive the same consideration paid for Maxwell stock in the exchange offer.

Musk details new cost-cutting plan

May 17 2019

Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk told employees on Thursday that he will increase scrutiny of the company’s expenses in his latest initiative to cut costs at the electric car maker.

Tesla earlier this month closed a $2.7 billion offering of stock and convertible notes, giving it much needed cash as it ramps up production.

Musk in an email to employees, seen by Reuters, said its net proceeds from the offering gave Tesla only 10 months to achieve breakeven at the rate it was burning cash in the first quarter.

“That is why, going forward, all expenses of any kind anywhere in the word, including parts, salary, travel expenses, rent, literally every payment that leaves our bank account must (be) reviewed,” Musk said.

The new initiative comes after a tumultuous year for Tesla which has seen analysts and investors cast doubt on its ability to produce, sell and deliver enough cars to make a sustainable profit.

Yes, Autopilot Was On in the Tesla Model 3 Crash in March, NTSB Report Confirms

May 16, 2019

• The National Transportation Safety Board has issued a preliminary report in the March 1, 2019, fatal crash of a Tesla Model 3 and a semi truck in Florida.
• The report, which includes a photo of the Tesla with its roof sheared off, confirms that the self-driving feature known as Autopilot was active when the crash happened, and the driver's hands had not been on the steering wheel for the eight seconds prior to impact.
• The NTSB said it will continue to investigate the accident and such factors as the driver's actions and highway conditions before giving a final determination of probable cause.

Moving into the CFO role at the electric vehicle maker is Zach Kirkhorn, previously the company’s vice president of finance. “I feel really good about Zach taking over,” Ahuja said. “He’s proven himself over the years with many tough challenges he’s worked on.”

Musk announced the change at the end of a conference call with analysts discussing the company’s fourth-quarter earnings results.

Kirkhorn said, “I’ve been deep in the operations of every major program of the company from Roadster to … scaling our energy business and more things to come. I feel we’re starting 2019 with a very strong financial foundation. We have enough cash to start new programs and develop new technologies.” Prior to joining Tesla in 2010, Kirkhorn was a business analyst at McKinsey & Co.

A former Tesla employee said Musk ignored Kirkhorn’s prudent financial advice at least once. Musk wanted to allocate some $7 million to an automation project at the company’s plant in Fremont, California. Kirkhorn had viewed the idea as as nonessential, and after it was thought that Musk had forgotten about it, the funds were used to cover overages on other projects already under way.

Elon Musk owes $507 million to banks helping Tesla raise capital

May 2, 2019

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk personally owes $507 million to Wall Street banks involved in Tesla’s stock and debt sale, backed by his stake in the electric car maker, a company filing showed on Thursday.

The lending was disclosed in Tesla’s prospectus on Thursday to raise up to $2.3 billion with new shares and convertible debt, and it was $117 million less than the personal loans to Musk disclosed in Tesla’s previous prospectus in 2017.

Still, Tesla said that if the price of its stock falls and the banks force Musk to sell some of his shares, that could create additional pressure on the stock.

Tesla jumped over 4% after Tesla disclosed capital raising plans, which soothed investors’ recent concerns about the Palo Alto, California company and pulled its stock up from two-year lows.

Musk, who owns 20% of Tesla, has taken personal loans from Wall Street banks for years. A Tesla 2017 prospectus showed $624 million in loans to Musk.

The filing on Thursday showed Musk owed money to three banks working on the capital increase.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc has $213 million in loans outstanding to Musk, while he owes Morgan Stanley $209 million, and another $85 million to Bank of America Corp . Goldman was not mentioned as a personal lender to Musk in the 2017 filing.

Those loans are backed by Musk’s shares in Tesla, currently worth a total of around $8 billion. If Tesla’s stock declines, then Musk could be forced to sell some of those shares under terms of the loan, according to the Tesla filing.

Mark Williams, a professor of finance at Boston University, said that investment banks can run into conflicts of interest with their deals with companies, their founders and CEOs, testing their rules to keep different businesses separate.

“This is particularly true in the case of Tesla where you have an aggressive and vocal CEO who is prone to pushing the legal limits and gain terms that might run counter to Goldman’s conflict of interest policies,” Williams said.

Goldman and Citigroup Inc, the top-line book runners in Thursday’s capital raise, both have “sell” ratings on Tesla’s stock, which is unusual but not exceptional on Wall Street.

At the end of 2018, Musk and his trust had 13.4 million Tesla shares pledged as collateral for personal debts, according to another filing. That is down from 13.8 million shares at the end of 2017.

Tesla, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs declined to talk about the loans. Tesla has a policy that caps executives’ borrowings at a quarter of the value of the shares pledged as collateral.

With Tesla repeatedly pushing back forecasts for turning a profit, its stock has dropped 27% year to date.

Musk plans to buy another $10 million worth of shares as part of the sale announced on Thursday.

...
In practice, we found that Navigate on Autopilot lagged far behind a human driver’s skill set: The feature cut off cars without leaving enough space and even passed other cars in ways that violate state laws, according to several law enforcement representatives CR interviewed for this report. As a result, the driver often had to prevent the system from making poor decisions.
...

Tesla brings back Free Unlimited Supercharging again to sell inventory cars

May. 21st 2019

After moving away from its free Supercharging model due to sustainability concerns, Tesla is now again bringing back free Unlimited Supercharging as a way to sell some inventory cars after the upgraded drivetrain.

For the first few years of the Model S and Model X program, unlimited free Supercharging has been one of the top perks that Tesla was offering to its customers.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the perk wasn’t sustainable and he even admitted that they should have ended the incentive earlier:

After that, Tesla still brought back free Supercharging as an incentive to sell inventory cars and even Model 3 during a few periods last year.

For a while, ‘Free Unlimited Supercharging’ was also linked to Tesla’s owner referral program, but the automaker has since ended the program.

When relaunching the referral program earlier this year, Tesla again used free Supercharging as an incentive but only with credits for 1,000 miles (5,000 miles until the end of the month).

Now, Tesla is bringing back the full Free Unlimited Supercharging as an incentive separate from the referral program.

It applies to “new inventory” Model S and Model X vehicles that are not equipped with the recently announced hardware upgrade:

Elon Musk Acquires More Tesla Stock — and the Bears Make More Noise

May 23, 2019

Shares of Tesla are down about 6% this week. As that’s happened, CEO Elon Musk decided to dig in further. On Monday, according to an SEC filing, he acquired 175,000 shares by exercising options with a $31.17 strike price. The options were connected to his 2012 compensation agreement and had been set to expire in 2022. The transaction brings his ownership to 34.1 million shares. Musk pointed out in the filing that he paid the exercise price in cash and that the transaction generated a tax bill of about $20.4 million.

That follows a $25 million purchase of Tesla shares by Musk in connection with the company’s recent fundraising actions.

Tesla Plunges as Analyst Delivery Warning Adds to Week of Losses

May 23, 2019

Tesla Inc. dropped 4.4% in U.S. pre-market trading as analysts at Loup Ventures and Morgan Stanley gave increasingly bearish commentary on the U.S. electric-car maker.

Loup Ventures co-founder Gene Munster wrote in a note that Tesla will probably miss its 2019 delivery target range as sales shrink in China amid a trade war between the two countries. The analyst cut his estimate for Tesla’s full-year global car sales by about 10% to 310,000 vehicles, versus the minimum 360,000-unit target the manufacturer set in March. The shares are poised for their seventh day of losses and are down 27% over the past month.

“We are lowering our numbers as a precautionary measure related to two unknowns,” including China’s probable imposition of tariffs on Tesla car imports as well as other impediments such as new regulations on sales or a potential consumer boycott of U.S. goods, Munster said. Loup’s pessimism on the import fees is a “minority view,” discounting most investors’ expectation that Tesla will remain exempt because of its investment in a Chinese battery factory, he said.

Compounding woes for the company, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, who earlier this week said that Tesla stock could plunge to as low as $10 in a worst-case scenario, held a private call with investors Wednesday in which he said the company is “seen more as a distressed credit and restructuring story.”

Tesla is likely to survive as the worldwide electric-vehicle market surges, Loup’s Munster said. Recent fund-raising gives the manufacturer a two-year cash cushion as long as deliveries exceed 300,000 a year through 2020, though the protective timeframe narrows if vehicle sales fall below that level, he said.

Investors Helped Build Tesla. They Could Undo It, Too.

May 24, 2019

The reasons Tesla Inc. climbed so far and is now stumbling are one and the same. The auto pioneer relies on investor confidence the way its cars rely on electricity.

The stock closed at $190.63 Friday, good for a decline of 42% this year, at a time when technology investors have mainly been upbeat. The company has shed some $30 billion in market value since last summer.

Tesla’s shares now have a negative return over the past five years, and the gloom appears to be deepening: Two Wall Street analysts said this week that, in a worst-case scenario, the shares could fall to $36 or less. Another called the company’s problems a “Code Red.”

Such language is dramatic, but the reasons for it aren’t hard to see.

Tesla burned through more than $900 million of cash in the first quarter. The company says it will stop consuming cash and start generating it in the rest of the year, even while raising capital expenditures. There is a lot riding on that resolution: It has only a year’s worth of cash left if its current burn rate doesn’t change, even after a financing deal in May brought in $2.4 billion.

In less than a decade as a public company, Tesla has spent about $10 billion cumulatively on running its operations and capital spending and has turned just four quarterly profits. It owed nearly $10 billion to long-term debt holders and another $3.2 billion to suppliers at the end of March. It also has billions more in obligations that don’t show up on the balance sheet, such as its battery purchase contract with Panasonic .

The fall in Tesla’s stock and bond prices isn’t only a symptom of skepticism but, in a sort of adverse feedback loop, itself a cause for alarm. Tesla’s business model has never worked without investors willing to provide the cash that its operations didn’t.

Here is the problem: Building a midprice, mass-market electric car consumes significant amounts of cash, and Tesla’s resources are running low. Tesla still hasn’t mastered the just-in-time logistics necessary to produce a low-margin automobile, a game in which cars sitting on a lot equal lost money. In the first quarter, it made 22% more cars than it sold, and said it expects production to outpace deliveries for the rest of the year.

Detroit has struggled to make money lately even on traditional sedans. Part of Tesla’s plan to do so on pricier electric-powered ones was to eschew the usual dealer network of service centers. That strategy boosts profitability up front, but it has now left the company on the hook for expensive warranty repairs.

For a traditional car company, service is a cash cow — a way to get customers into the dealership to buy a high-margin product. For Tesla, it is a cash pit. The company lost more than $190 million in the first quarter in the business segment that includes after-sale services.

And since Chief Executive Elon Muskused Tesla to rescue SolarCity Corp., his solar-panel maker, in 2016, Tesla has been spending billions to fund SolarCity’s operations and pay its debts. In June, a loan of $180 million comes due. In November, it must repay $566 million in bonds. Both are thanks to SolarCity.

That financial situation makes a high stock price vital. The company needs an attractive currency with which to pay for, among other things, tech talent in a hot labor market.

A lofty and rising price also helps Tesla to order up cash when it needs it from investors: Since going public in 2010, Tesla has raised fresh funds through stock or convertible-bond offerings every year except 2018 — a total of more than $12 billion. Because the price has generally gone up, investors who put in cash before this year had been happy.

If the stock-price reversal sticks, raising cash in the future to cover losses would likely be harder and more expensive. And without profits coming in from car sales, the company needs new stock and bond investors to pay its bills. Such a juggle is hard to sustain.

The financial markets now turning so viciously against Tesla had put the company in an enviable position. Last August, its market value exceeded that of Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles combined, both of them century-old companies with several times its revenue. It was churning out cars and posted two quarters of profit in a row.

“I think we just became a real car company,” Mr. Musk said in October.

This year has rekindled doubts.

Sales in the first quarter dropped sharply from the final three months of last year, despite rounds of price cuts. Combined deliveries of the higher-priced Models S and X, which are sold at a profit, fell by 50% from the previous quarter. In February, Consumer Reports pulled its recommendation of Tesla’s signature Model 3 sedan over what the magazine called reliability issues.

Tesla’s plan to become a serious player in the global car market, as outlined in a 2006 blog post by Mr. Musk, called for the company to reinvest the early profits from its Roadster sports car to fund development of progressively less expensive models. That process would culminate in bringing to market an electric car that middle-class consumers could afford.

The plan faced steep odds. The automotive industry is notoriously competitive and requires significant capital to operate. Margins on modestly priced cars are low. Within a few years of Mr. Musk’s blog post, a global financial crisis would send two storied U.S. auto makers into bankruptcy court.

Investors who bought into Mr. Musk’s grand visions saw huge stock returns. Tesla had losses year after year, but investment banks published glowing research, and big institutional investors opened their checkbooks. Blue-chip mutual-fund companies such as Fidelity Investments and T. Rowe Price , as well as Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings , bought the stock.

Many seemed to conflate the quality of Tesla’s vehicles with that of the corporation that made them. Its luxury Model S sedan received widespread critical acclaim in 2012. “This is one amazing car,” read a review of the car published in The Wall Street Journal.

Tesla has long had its doubters — some 60% of available shares were sold short by traders betting against the stock in 2012, a huge number. Then a surprise profit in the first quarter of 2013 triggered a giant stock rally that inflicted painful losses on the skeptics.

“Seems to be some stormy weather over in Shortville these days,” Mr. Musk wrote in a gleeful Twitter post that spring.



Mr. Musk’s long-term plan, however, requires the mass-market Model 3 to be built — and sold profitably.

Earning an operating profit on a $35,000 electric sedan has proved much tougher for Tesla than on cars that sell for $80,000 and higher. The U.S. auto industry has for years de-emphasized sedans, where profits are minimal, in favor of sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Electric batteries add a drain on costs. Demand for elements such as nickel and cobalt has surged along with battery use for cars as well as other products.

The years Tesla has spent getting the Model 3 ready have given established auto makers a chance to catch up. Many are entering the mass market with their own electric cars, and Tesla now faces price competition.

Compounding the problem, the U.S. federal tax subsidy for electric vehicles peters out the more cars that are sold, which now disfavors early-mover Tesla just as cars are being marketed to more price-sensitive buyers. On Jan. 2, just days after Tesla’s tax incentive was halved, Tesla announced a $2,000 price cut on its U.S. product lineup.

Tesla was supposed to be profitable already. The notion that its mass-market cars would be profitable became embedded in the company’s share price, even though the financial bonanza kept being postponed.

While investors were willing to wait, suppliers and employees needed to be paid promptly. Tesla burned more than $8 billion in cash from running its operations and spending on its capital needs in the four years that ended in 2017. Fresh capital, as long as it was available on favorable terms, could plug any operating loss.

The billions Tesla raised gave it time to build a sustainable enterprise, but it also piled debt on the balance sheet. Tesla’s total liabilities, including debt and accounts payable, now top $22 billion. That eventually will be need to be paid back by running the business profitably. Its cumulative losses are approaching $6 billion.

There was reason to believe the investor spigot would stay open. The Model 3 unveiling in March 2016 generated hundreds of thousands of deposits, a sign that buyers were eager to wait for a game-changing product.

All clearly wasn’t well, even when Model 3 sales began to accelerate last year. Mr. Musk cut off several questions from analysts on an earnings call that spring. Last August, he famously said in a Twitter post that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share and that funding for the transaction was “secured,” though it wasn’t. The post sent the stock briefly surging but led Mr. Musk into a messy scrap, only recently settled, with the Securities and Exchange Commission.



Fears of a cash crunch are evident in the price of Tesla’s 5.3% bonds due in 2025, which recently fetched 80.5 cents on the dollar, according to data provider MarketAxess .

The story isn’t over yet. Tesla said in April that it expects to be free-cash-flow positive in the second quarter and in following periods. The May financing round gave the company some time to win investors back.

Yet Mr. Musk may need to accomplish that goal in a more traditional fashion this time around — by generating profits and positive cash flow from normal business operations.

Supplementing that with fresh cash from the capital markets will be a challenge. Buyers of the convertible bonds and common shares it just issued are nursing steep losses. Its current bond prices suggest it would have to pay a rate of 9% or more for new debt.

There have been rough patches before, and Mr. Musk has shown great flair in raising animal spirits. Lately, though, he has struggled. When Tesla unveiled a hatchback design in March, the Model Y, it generated minimal enthusiasm. Mr. Musk’s vision of a self-driving taxi fleet, which he has predicted will cause the value of used Tesla cars to rise rather than depreciate, hasn’t lifted the stock either.

Tesla’s delivery results for the second quarter, due in early July, could help the stock rebound. While deliveries will likely increase from the first quarter, the bar to impress is high. Analysts expect more than 92,000 deliveries, according to FactSet. That would be a quarterly record for Tesla.

On Wednesday afternoon, with shares once again falling precipitously, Mr. Musk took to Twitter and posted an emoji of a winking face. Perhaps he has another surprise up his sleeve.

For a company still dependent on raising the billions of dollars needed to operate, the financial markets need to be persuaded. More than any production or financial indicator, that spells trouble for the car company the bull market built.

Today we're going to be talking about Tesla and taking a look at the data behind the company's sales to get a look at how they're doing relative to the competition and how this thesis of them becoming the Apple of the automotive world, dominating the shift to electric vehicles is actually playing out in the data...

...there's a huge amount of skepticism surrounding demand for the company's products and I just think generally the media has portrayed this picture of Tesla, you know, really struggling and you know doing poorly and things are going horribly wrong at the company when in reality I almost think that couldn't be further from the truth.

From a product perspective, you know, Tesla's vehicles, and this is the data we're gonna look at today, about 30 charts lined up, is dominating the electric vehicles niche and I think this is the data that, at least personally as an investor, convinces me that their leadership in the electric vehicle space has never been stronger and Tesla's never been better positioned to take advantage of this paradigm shift into electric vehicles..

...as a whole, yes this Q1 was weaker than expected but remember we had the first international shipments and we had the end of the U.S. tax credit and even so Tesla was able to post, you know, the 3rd best quarter in its history.

... This is what I'm expecting for the next 3 quarters and so without those you know Q1 overhangs, I think Tesla's, the growth in Tesla's quarter deliveries is set to continue , and they are on track to post record deliveries at some point in this year and it is worth noting that my estimates are actually far below the company's managements official guidance. . .

. . . .

On an annual basis, here are the sales numbers behind Tesla... we have a company that went from selling a couple thousand units a year to hundreds of thousands of units per year in less than a decade. . .

. . . .

Moving on to my estimates for 2019, I'm expecting deliveries of 330,000 cars. I hope Tesla proves me wrong. This is far below the mid point of 380,000 units, but I think it's important to be conservative, and even with these conservative estimates, even if Tesla misses the low end of its guidance by about 10% which is what I'm assuming, we still have tremendous growth over the long term in their core EV business...

.... huge growth in Model 3 is overwhelming a huge decline in Model S and X which I assume only continue selling at Q1 pace which is the lowest in years.

Let's talk more about the Model 3 though because this is Tesla's most important product launch as a company.... This is the official quarterly global sales data from Tesla. As you can see, the Model 3 has gone from you know that production hell in late 2017 / early 2018 to now hitting over 50,000 units delivered for 3 quarters in a row. And these are more detailed estimates from the model I showed you earlier with me assuming about 280,000 deliveries for the full year.... on an annual basis, this is what the Model 3 deliveries have been according to my estimates which are, once again, way below Tesla's. . . . I wanted to look up how successful this was relative to other auto industry launches, 2 years to get to 280,000 units delivered. So now let's compare this to the Prius which was Toyota, the world's largest auto manufacturer by market cap... a huge company known for incredible manufacturing prowess. Let's talk about their entrance into the hybrid / green car space with the Prius. So here are the Prius sales by year and as you can see, they began selling in 1997, but they didn't hit 280,000 units delivered until 2007. It took 10 years for Toyota, in theory, the world's most advanced you know best at manufacturing auto company, to actually to get to 280,000 units. A decade. Tesla did the same thing in 2 years.

Let's quickly move on to the financials because this is what I want to sum up about Tesla as an investment.... I think about this as a growth stock, you know, a technology company attacking a huge opportunity, not making money today but eventually if they get big enough and reach their long term mission and potential, I think this can be a cash machine. So these are the quarterly financials. As you can see, strong revenue growth. 2 profitable quarters in Q3 and Q4. We did have a loss in Q1 but you know this is an incredibly rapidly growing company. To put things in perspective, these are the annual financials.... Tesla is showing they can rapidly scale into a 10's of billions of dollars vertically integrated manufacturing company, and I think eventually that will lead to significant profitability. He's a reason why. The gross profit for the company has been climbing every single year, and so, if you take out the SG&A... the profit potential , the earnings power to me is best gauged by this gross profit metric....

Yes, Tesla still has a lead and there is still strong demand for the Model 3 (not so much for the S and X), but you cannot look at Tesla from "a product perspective" alone. You need to look at the company's entire operation. Indicators show they're struggling with logistics.

Their 3rd best quarter is one where they lost $702.14 million dollars? That happens to be their 3rd biggest quarterly loss ever.

He says "there's a huge amount of skepticism surrounding demand for the company's products. . . when in reality I almost think that couldn't be further from the truth." Why then does he expect Tesla to only sell/deliver 330,000 vehicles? Why the need to be conservative?

Musk said Tesla would deliver between 360,000 and 400,000 vehicles in 2019. Why the skepticism? His estimate has Tesla delivering between 30,000 (8.34%) and 70,000 (17.5%) fewer vehicles.

The "skepticism surrounding demand for the company's products . . . couldn't be further from the truth," yet he expects Model S and X sales to continue at Q1 pace for the rest of the year, which happens to be "the lowest in years."

He never brings up the Model Y. Musk was so happy to brag about Model 3 pre-orders, but Musk hasn't mentioned what Model Y pre-orders have been, that I'm aware of. What's up with that?

Take out SG&A? Does this guy expect people to work for free or something? It costs money to run a business.

He doesn't touch on the fact that Musk said Tesla would be "sustainably profitable" starting from Q3 2018 onward, and that they would no longer need to raise capital. Even their CFO said "I feel we’re starting 2019 with a very strong financial foundation. We have enough cash to start new programs and develop new technologies.”

As we now know, that wasn't true.

Musk and Tesla always over promise and under deliver. They don't hit their promised goals until a good 8-12 months later. Even his guy doesn't think Tesla will hit their stated numbers. That's why you get a lot of short sellers.

Tesla’s electric vehicle lead is worrisome to some competitors and laughable to others, but BMW shareholders are now putting some pressure on the automaker.

German shareholder association Vice President Daniela Bergdolt said in a speech at BMW’s recent annual shareholder’s meeting (via Auto News Europe):The comment was reportedly received by loud applause from BMW shareholders.

On top of it, BMW’s board is reportedly considering replacing CEO Harald Krüger due to his role in the company’s slow rollout of more electric vehicle options.

At the company’s Annual General Meeting in Munich earlier this month, Krüger reiterated the automaker’s commitment to e-mobility, but he still focuses on plug-in hybrids.

BMW hasn’t released a new all-electric car since the BMW i3 in 2013, but the German automaker now says that it’s finally launching new fully-electric models.