The whole $TSLA thing was predictable. The bid was predictably fake and predictably dropped. It was literally the most obvious case of market manipulation by a large company I can remember since I follow the markets. The SEC will be a joke if it doesn't act hard on this.
— Paulo Santos (@ThinkFinance999) August 25, 2018
BOB LUTZ: It’s Time for Tesla to Replace Elon Musk.
The saga of Tesla, the cash-burning electric car producer and its mercurial CEO, Elon Musk, has taken a new, potentially disastrous twist. No longer content deflecting questions about embarrassing execution shortfalls with preposterous new “initiatives” (like colonizing Mars, Hyperloop, electric semi-trucks, a six-lane underground freeway, a joke proposal for a candy company, flamethrowers, etc.), Elon has lately become, well, unpredictable and very nasty, causing investors and the media to wonder about his health. As well they should, if they value their investment in the company.
TESLA WEBCAST REPLAY: Is The Worst Yet to Come? $TSLA t.co/0cIxecy7do via @hedgeye
— Keith McCullough (@KeithMcCullough) August 26, 2018
1 Thread on $TSLA's Q3 earnings. Recall that Musk was "highly confident" in Q3 GAAP profitability. Punchline: at the time of Musk's guidance on August 1, Musk already knew his guidance was false. pic.twitter.com/kk1cH5grG6
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
2 Despite being "highly confident", Musk predicated his guidance on 5k/week of Model 3 production, a rate that $TSLA has only fleetingly achieved to date:t.co/gtt21eePb6
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
3 Curiously, the press release issued Aug 1 guided for Model 3 production of only 4k/week, contradicting Musk's statements hours later on the call: pic.twitter.com/Dc4IB6UeUP
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
4 Later in the call, Deepak declined to confirm that July was cash flow positive, and Elon tellingly answered a question about *liquidity* that wasn't even asked: pic.twitter.com/UfOAUib7ex
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
5 The impression that emerges is that Musk is just making up numbers on the fly. Which brings us to Musk's infatuation with "force majeur", a term he used more times on the Q2 call than any other call but one: pic.twitter.com/3qcDAqHVGj
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
6 Did Musk already know that Q3 production was a disaster? As of late August, the dependable @skabooshka was reporting a weeks-long slow-down in Model 3 production:t.co/DmUwejwgjQ
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
7 Claims of a Model 3 slowdown were supported by an Aug 16 report from Business Insider that Model 3 workers were being sent home early, and that Musk's public statements were "laughed at" by $TSLA insiders:t.co/o8NACetHV3
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
8 Did Musk already know of a "force majeur" that would stymie Q3 production targets? One possible culprit is the Model 3 "SiC Power Module", manufactured by STMicroelectronics:t.co/XoU0RNkXUA
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
9 STM's Q2 call made it clear that the SiC supply chain is experiencing growing pains. Another possible culprit is the global shortage in Multi Layer Ceramic Capacitors: t.co/MMpx6pvWQu
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
10 I'm not smart enough to know if SiC modules and MLCCs are somehow linked. In any case, it is notable that demand for both products increased increased as $TSLA began AWD production in Q3
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
11 All of this brings us to a bizarre Musk Tweet from last night. The Tweet insinuates that Musk *had* worried about immature investors over-reacting to near term losses, but is now trusting those investors to be patient:t.co/xnWO8h9isX
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
12 Musk's blog post the same day removed any doubt that profitability remains a work in progress, rather than something already achieved. Look at his verbiage: pic.twitter.com/AhjODOomS1
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
1313 Summary: parts shortages and/or incompetence are constraining Model 3 production. Musk knows about this now. Musk also knew about it when he gave guidance on Aug 1.
— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) August 25, 2018
1. More $tsla work on the New York State Registration Database.
The first check is whether the data really is complete to the last day of July 2018. Based on raw number of records per rego date, it is the case. pic.twitter.com/1xSNqIIg5z— Justin (@Trumpery45) August 26, 2018
2. Registrations include new cars and old cars. In order to graph model S/X/3 new car sales, I use the VIN number to work out year of car and ignore rego records that appear to be for old cars. This may capture a few nearly new cars as "new sales".
— Justin (@Trumpery45) August 26, 2018
3. For 16/17/18 New York State sales appear to account for roughly 3-5% of national tesla sales (as reported by insideEVs) for S/X. pic.twitter.com/dvHxvBfeaH
— Justin (@Trumpery45) August 26, 2018
4. Now the plot per month. The last month of each quarter shows a sales push. All regos (sales) in July 2018 were very slow. Compare to April 2018 for example.
Model 3 Q3 production guidance of 4200/wk if sold suggests 455 regos a month even if new york is 2.5%.
END. pic.twitter.com/33G9JaOEdC— Justin (@Trumpery45) August 26, 2018