Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Tesla

Tesla's stock has zoomed to over $100.
It has a P/E over 100 and looks way over bought. Is that price sustainable? Will it drop?
I think the stock's bubble might pop soon.
As far as I can determine, Tesla loses over $10K per car sale but it is only making money on selling carbon credits to other car makers under California’s "Zero Emission Vehicle" law.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-13/tesla-profit-aided-by-sales-of-california-u-s-emission-credits.html

BTW. Tesla's cars actually emit as much CO2 as other cars, although not at the car's tailpipe. 
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1418421-is-the-tesla-model-s-green
http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/reduced-carbon-footprint
That article calculates it produces more CO2 than a regular BMW 535 or a Porsche 911  if all factors are fully analyzed.

Tesla lost $91M on selling cars, but, gained $103M ($68M + $17M + $11M + 7M) in government credits and one-time gains.
The stock has had huge gains the past few months.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=TSLA+Basic+Tech.+Analysis&t=6m

Tesla's market cap is about 1/4th GM's even though Tesla's
monthly sales of 1,200-1,500 are about what GM sells in 1 day.


Another way to look at it -- Tesla's market cap equates to about $7M per car sold per month.
I think traders are realizing that Tesla may have saturated its market niche so growth will flatten.
TSLA dropped 5% today even though the general market was up.
One reason, besides the reaction to its extreme price, is that the plan for a chain of recharging stations will be expensive to build.  Each "Supercharger" station will cost $300K to build.  And then there is the additional costs for the property, operational expenses like salaries and insurance, and the cost of powering the recharging.

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