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Articles re Tesla—Fact or Fiction?

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Robert.Boston

Model S VIN P01536
Moderator
Collectively we often address writings that sow fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about Tesla Motors in particular and the commercial viability of EVs in general. James and I are creating this new thread to provide a single place to shine some light on these articles. As always, comments about these works of FUD should refute (or substantiate) the arguments with facts and thoughtful analysis, rather than ridicule the writer (unless the writer holds himself out as a media personality, and then the gloves can come off—I'm looking at you, Cramer).
 
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Collectively we often address writings that sow fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about Tesla Motors in particular and the commercial viability of EVs in general. James and I are creating this new thread to provide a single place to shine some light on these articles. As always, comments about these works of FUD should refute (or substantiate) the arguments with facts and thoughtful analysis, rather than ridicule the writer (unless the writer holds himself out as a media personality, and then the gloves can come off—I'm looking at you, Cramer).

Fantastic name for this thread. As a suggestion I wonder if there's a way we can set up a wiki of sorts and link each particular FUD article/rumor along with referenced bulletpoint facts that dispel it. In other words, create a handy quick look-up that can be referenced conveniently.
 
Fantastic name for this thread. As a suggestion I wonder if there's a way we can set up a wiki of sorts and link each particular FUD article/rumor along with referenced bulletpoint facts that dispel it. In other words, create a handy quick look-up that can be referenced conveniently.

If someone wants to take the initiative on this, I don't see why not. At least, keeping the discussion mostly in this one thread should help people find what they need and avoid duplicated effort.

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It's nice to kick this off on a relatively slow FUD day. Over time we may see the daily volume of posts here in the Bunker as an indicator of FUD intensity.
 
"A spokeswoman said the company has prioritized deliveries of the P85D, but the short waiting time raises additional concerns about the strength of demand for Tesla’s products"

I don't see any logic in this statement. If you simply get put to the front of the line if you want to spend more money, I don't see an implication on overall demand. Someone else just gets their non-P later.

How would a thinking person reason differently?
 
Inaugural piece to kick off the discussion Tesla Posts Short Waiting Time for Upscale P85D Model S - WSJ

Overall a balanced article raising fair questions for the less informed... however the central argument of late March delivery orders could be easily explained with the fact that Tesla has frequently shifted North American deliveries in March/June/September/December to be delivered in time for quarterly reports.

This could especially be the case as they had a lot of vehicles in transit last quarter leading to all the recent noise about a high finished goods inventory number, thus a desire to lower it this time around to remove any doubt.
 
Parts of the article are correct but they are cherry picking data points to support the negative slant that their agenda requires.

It's equally as wrong as noticing the longer wait for a 60 or 85D and extrapolating that demand has increased.
 
Parts of the article are correct but they are cherry picking data points to support the negative slant that their agenda requires.

It's the same as noticing the longer wait for an S85 and extrapolating that demand has increased.

I suppose it does rule out a case of "P85D is so immensely popular we have X thousand on back order in North America alone". But agreed the May delivery for S85 shows a healthy order book going into Q2.
 
Can you give a specific, not superficial reason (like Bulls and Bears can argue this) why the main premise of this article is NOT FUD? May be I am missing something, but after following the delivery times posted by Tesla on their site for quite some time, I see none.

Waist of time, decision to move, delete, relabel as FUD or limiting discusion has been made.
 
Parts of the article are correct but they are cherry picking data points to support the negative slant that their agenda requires.

It's equally as wrong as noticing the longer wait for a 60 or 85D and extrapolating that demand has increased.

I read the WSJ article, and I was immediately reminded of Rita Skeeter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supporting_Harry_Potter_characters#Rita_Skeeter), the tabloid journalist of the Harry Potter series, who slanted any information to make the subject of that information appear in the worst possible light.
 
keep-calm-and-buy-tsla.png

The only thing keeping me 'in' at this state in time, is a belief in Elon. Not in his genius, but in his genuineness. When he speaks, I feel he is being 100% honest. Before the end of q4 I received a "cold" call from Tesla in Vancouver, asking if I wanted to buy a model S as they had some inventory/testers they were 'trying to move'. ( I am on the X reservation list). I thought it was strange at the time, but also really try to question is there ANY validity to suggest there is a problem with demand. ie. What if Tesla is not sandbagging Q1 guidance. What would happen then to the stock? I ask as i have been down that road before, without asking.

I lost a lot of money in GTAT. The board there would put down and diminish "FUDsters" and essentially silence them. This board is much more balanced but occasionally i feel sometimes mislabels NEWS for FUD. I only mention this as I made a huge mistake believing everything labelled FUD was indeed labelled correctly. Now we have a FUD bunker, and it will be interesting to see what lands there. The first article already seems to stir the debate between FUD or news.
 
Waist of time, decision to move, delete, relabel as FUD or limiting discusion has been made.

This is not at all an attempt to limit discuss. It's an attempt to hold discussion in a focused way. Some people thought that having a technical analysis thread was a way to limit TA posting, rather it was a way to encourage a focused discussion among those who have genuine interest in TA.

I would also point out that there is already a thread that routinely follows vehicle wait times, Website wait times for delivery change. It would have been appropriate to post the WSJ article there, if the point was merely to discuss website wait times.

FWIW, I did check Tesla's website to confirm that it is posting a late March delivery for P85D. This is a bit surprising to me that Tesla would be able to fulfill any order in such a short timeframe, especially if this involves shipping to the east coast.
 
I lost a lot of money in GTAT. The board there would put down and diminish "FUDsters" and essentially silence them. This board is much more balanced but occasionally i feel sometimes mislabels NEWS for FUD. I only mention this as I made a huge mistake believing everything labelled FUD was indeed labelled correctly. Now we have a FUD bunker, and it will be interesting to see what lands there. The first article already seems to stir the debate between FUD or news.

I've always viewed the GTAT tragedy as different than the situation with Tesla Motors, for one reason: as far as I could tell, GTAT had no opponents that attacked it on ideological and/or political grounds, while Tesla Motors has been been relentlessly attacked by large swaths of the conservative-leaning press, automotive dealer associations, and some conservative politicians.

The unfortunate truth is that many people oppose Tesla because they oppose the existence of global warming, and see EVs as part of some kind of conspiracy related to global warming. There are many people who oppose Tesla because they think the company has wrongly benefited from government subsidies at taxpayer expense. There are many people who oppose Tesla because it threatens their livelihoods, whether that is in the oil industry or the car sales business. GTAT's big bet on sapphire manufacturing, on the other hand, threatened some specialty glass makers, like Corning and Asahi. GTAT never threatened to up-end anything like the personal transportation industry.

I have never seen such seething hatred of a company before. Even Apple and Steve Jobs never attracted this kind of ire.
 
This is not at all an attempt to limit discuss. It's an attempt to hold discussion in a focused way.

Sorry, I disagree. As this thread is labelled "FUD Bunker" anything that gets moved here is automatically labelled as FUD by the mods and by definition there's not likely to be much discussion. In the case of Lump's post it was apparently moved before any discussion had taken place so it's a reasonable point of view IMO to say that discussion has been curtailed, albeit by well intentioned motives.

- - - Updated - - -

Collectively we often address writings that sow fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about Tesla Motors in particular and the commercial viability of EVs in general. James and I are creating this new thread to provide a single place to shine some light on these articles. As always, comments about these works of FUD should refute (or substantiate) the arguments with facts and thoughtful analysis, rather than ridicule the writer (unless the writer holds himself out as a media personality, and then the gloves can come off—I'm looking at you, Cramer).

I appreciate the intention but if an argument is substantiated then it isn't FUD, even though it's been labelled as such by the thread title. Hopefully some discussion will be allowed to play out before they automatically get moved here (and therefore labelled as FUD)?