I wrote a lot of this article about two months ago. After the prior earnings call, a number of bears dug into the 10-Q and decided that Tesla had played with warranty numbers to attempt to show a profit. I ended up not publishing it because by the time I had done all of the research to feel pretty solid in my conclusion, it seemed like no one was pushing that Tesla had inappropriately played with its warranty accrual numbers anymore.
Over the last couple of days, as Tesla continues on this monstrous run, the media seems to have been noting that Tesla is now more valuable than any US automaker’s market cap ever. (Tesla is currently almost exactly the market cap of Ford and GM combined, around $88 billion.) Even though I would now plant myself firmly in the “bull” camp, this is completely untrue, and I think it paints a problematic picture of Tesla.
Since November 22, the day after the Cybertruck reveal, the stock is up over $130, or 27%. It’s been quite the run. But, as I pointed out with an article on December 19, it still seems no one knows exactly why.
The headline isn’t exactly true, but if you are reading the various daily analyses of the stock this week, that’s sure what it seems analysts are saying. Analysis is coming so quickly and voluminously as the stock continues to increase — over 10% as I write this — that even though I’ve been doing research each night, by the time I’m halfway ready to publish an article, the news has changed and the stock is rising even more.
Tesla stock has been on a solid run and the bears are claiming this is in large part driven by Elon Musk’s claims regarding new Tesla products that won’t come true, or will but will be ultra late due to “Elon Time,” commonly understood to mean that Elon makes a claim and then Tesla is always late on it. I wanted to take a quick look at that, so here goes…
The Cybertruck rolled out, looking like nothing else ever seen. Seemingly before the event ended, detractors were stating it couldn’t be built without extreme modifications. Can it?
At this point, we’ve all seen it — the Tesla Cybertruck reservation is just $100, and it’s also refundable! Therefore, many argue that very few will go through with the purchase, especially compared to what we saw with the $1,000 reservation cost for the Model 3.
Following the Cybertruck reveal, I went to bed not being sure exactly what I had just seen, and woke up still thinking about it. My oldest son took one look and said it was the “sickest” car he had ever seen (this is a good thing), and my wife thought it was far more interesting than I expected.
I broke down in an earlier article why I have a hunch that the Tesla Cybertruck is going to include a battery pack that is costing Tesla around $108.26/kWh at the pack level (or better!), but I decided to keep running the math to calculate what it would mean for other Tesla products.
I really didn’t know what to think of the Cybertruck when it was revealed, and you can even follow that in my writing. At the conclusion of the reveal liveblog, I said, “It won’t win over a huge segment of the pickup truck drivers, but I can definitely see this selling well for the company,” referring to the fact that it ticked the boxes I wanted it to tick for a contractor truck. However, an hour or so later when I published the Cybertruck press photos and specs, I was already hedging my bets…
