Tesla stock spikes on battery factory, autonomous driving hopes

[ErikJ]

Source: San Jose Mercury News

PALO ALTO -- Already trading at record levels, Tesla Motors stock shot up nearly 20 percent Tuesday morning after a respected analyst predicted that the electric-car company's plans to build its own batteries and help cars drive themselves will more than double its value.

Tesla shares moved as high as $257.97 in Tuesday's morning session on Wall Street, a gain of $40.32, or 18.5 percent, from Monday's record closing price of $217.65. The stock closed at $248.00, up 13.9 percent.
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Tuesday's renewed excitement was credited to a note from Adam Jonas, a Morgan Stanley analyst known for his Tesla research. In the note -- titled "Nikola's Revenge: Tesla's New Path of Disruption" -- Jonas more than doubled his price target on the stock, from $153 to $320, and said Tesla could become dominant by manufacturing its own batteries and pioneering autonomous driving. "Tesla may achieve pole position for the two most transformational developments in the auto industry over the next 5, 10 and 20 years: electrification and autonomous vehicle technology," Jonas wrote.

Autonomous cars are also on Tesla's to-do list, with Musk admitting last year that he has spoken with Google about the Mountain View company's ambitions in that area, but decided against Google's sensor-driven approach. "It's better to have an optical system, basically cameras with software that is able to figure out what's going on just by looking at things," Musk told Bloomberg News.



Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_25224016/tesla-stock-spikes-battery-factory-autonomous-driving-hopes

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Sounds like Musk may make fossil fuel cars obsolete as buggy whips.

After reporting a $16-million adjusted loss for the fourth quarter last week, Tesla shares have soared and Monday hit a new high. They rose 3.8% or $8.05 to close at $217.65. A year ago, the stock closed at $33.80. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/02/24/tesla-stock-overvalued/5779359/
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“It’s truly a groundbreaking car,” Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports’ director of auto testing who oversaw this year’s review of 260 vehicles, said an interview with Bloomberg. “You get into it, and it really stands out. It’s the very best car I’ve ever driven.”

[onehandle]

1. A friend of mine has made about a million bucks on Tesla stock. nt

[The Wizard]

2. There are 2 electric cars

in Edison's estate in West Orange, NJ. Edison knew a few things about electricity. The biggest negative is how to dispose of worn out batteries in an environmentally sound manner.

[Fumesucker]

5. Lithium cells aren't particularly toxic and they recycle easily

Not to mention these days the cells are expected to last the life of the vehicle, plenty of hybrids running around with over 200,000 miles on the original battery pack.

[Mother Muckraker]

7. Teslas with battery problems

Tesla breaks down. Battery problem.

Edmunds Model S on 3rd drive unit and battery replaced. 18,822 miles
http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-test/2013-tesla-model-s-is-the-third-drive-unit-the-charm.html



.

[Fumesucker]

11. There's no such thing as a perfect technology

Each of those replaced packs has been subjected to detailed scrutiny to find the problem and analysis to correct that problem.

That's the way maturing a technology works, you run it until something breaks, do what you think will fix that issue and run it until either that breaks again or something else breaks. Lather rinse and repeat basically forever.

Moving parts are what breaks in cars for the most part, an EV has quite a lot fewer moving parts than does an intermittent combustion engine powered car.

[cosmicone]

3. Time to short the stock

The market value cannot be justified.

They simply don't have enough production capacity to create a return on investment. They also don't make their own bodies but OEM them from Lotus and VW.

This bubble has to burst soon.

[father founding]

4. slippery slope

Please don't slip on the oil slick on your floor.

[cosmicone]

6. Thank you

for that informative and analytical post written with logical and rational counterarguments.

[Mother Muckraker]

8. Cramer: Tesla investors are "playing with fire" - TSLA valuation based on hope

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101452106

[daleo]

9. Cramer doesn't get a lot of respect around here

In fact, his dissing of Tesla is likely to be seen as an affirmation.

[Mother Muckraker]

10. Tesla has only turned a profit for 1 quarter.

Tesla has only turned a profit for 1 quarter. They suffered a loss quarter after quarter; yet their valuation is a little more than 1/2 of GM. GM sells 9.7 million cars for 2013 while Tesla sells ~22,000 cars. TSLA valuation is well into bubble territory.

Tesla also has 5 fires to date and 2 industrial accidents (that we are aware of).

That's not "dissing" Tesla. Those are the facts.

[daleo]

12. Any successful startup will lose money until it makes money

Regular cars catch on fire, even explode with some regularity.

Tesla is overvalued, unless it's technology is the up and coming thing. Then it might even be undervalued. Time will tell.

As for Cramer, he has been wrong about a lot of stocks.