
Q2 2020 Update - marc__1
https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/f41f4254-f1cc-4929-a0b6-6623b00475a6
======
itsoktocry
The difference in the narrative versus the financial data is stark:

Quarterly revenue has not shown any growth for nearly 2 years, despite
introducing more models and expanding global deliveries. Their sales of
regulatory credits _this year_ is greater than all of the net income ever
earned in their entire history.

~~~
marc__1
Tesla posted positive free cash flow (CFO - capex) for 4 of the last 5
quarters (page 24) and it the only company with increase in # of deliveries
among the 10 largest autos globally (page 7). Gross margins >20% is also best
in class in the auto industry

The list goes on in terms of growth & profitability

~~~
ckastner
> "The list goes on in terms of growth & profitability"

It better. Tesla has a market cap of 4x that of VW, a car maker with €256bn
revenue and ~€17bn profit in 2019.

It is beyond me why anyone would buy this stock over VW, let alone pay 4x the
price for it. Even if Tesla could put out _900K_ cars in a quarter instead of
the current 90K, they'd still not come even close to the competition is terms
of financial success.

Tesla would need to utterly dominate the car market to live up to its current
valuation. Dominate as in market share, not relative quarter-to-quarter
growth.

~~~
qeternity
For bulls, TSLA isn’t a car company. It’s _the_ climate change company. They
are the best bet right now to upend the entire power mix.

I’m not saying I agree with this. Even if achieved, the amount of future
success being priced in today is extraordinary. Combine that with a stock
that’s become “cool” to own with retail, and the huge short interest...and
well it starts to make sense.

TSLA price action at the moment is really down to a lack of sellers. Shorts
have been bent over in a way not seen at this scale since (ironically) VW.
Simply put: everyone who has said TSLA is overbought has paid dearly. The
bubble will burst, but it’s never shorts that pop bubbles.

~~~
thecopy
>It’s the climate change company

What does this mean? ELI5 pls

~~~
WJW
They mean that in the mind of "the general public", Tesla is the foremost
company "doing stuff" about climate change. Therefore, by owning Tesla stock
you can get warm glowy feels about making a difference. You might also gain
coolness points by mentioning that you are "a Tesla investor" to people that
care about such matters.

~~~
ncallaway
I may be wrong—I own no TSLA and I'm pretty much the furthest thing from a
professional investor—but I didn't think the comment about being "the climate
change" company was actually about warm fuzzies, I thought it was about the
potential financial upside.

My understanding is that very likely—whatever green energy technologies win
out—energy storage and load shifting will be a major issue.

The entities that can build energy and power storage effectively and at scale
will have a new and large market opening before them.

Tesla is in a decent position—by being near the front-edge of battery
production and scaling there's real room for Tesla to be a major player in the
world energy market.

------
_ph_
Some comments to the results:

\- Production was very limited in Q2 as the Freemont factory was completely
down for quite some time. Getting the delivery count they managed, was a small
miracle, of course helped by the ramping up Shanghai factory. So making still
a profit is a great result. If the factory does not get closed down in Q3,
sale numbers should be quite a bit better.

\- Yes, they certainly moved all profits they could legally book into Q2 to
help the numbers, that is a quite normal practice, the booking rules set clear
limits to what is possible.

\- Tesla won't make huge profits however good the business will be going, as
they are investing a lot into growth. They are still extending the Shanghai
factory, building the Berlin factory and just announced in the earnings call,
that they are starting to build the next factory in Austin, Texas. Tesla is
going from 1 factory in 2019 to 2 in 2020 and possible 4 at the end of 2021.

------
lubujackson
TSLA in some ways reminds me of Amazon at the beginning. Way overpriced, but
kept reinvesting into new things as it went and the stock price kept going up
and profits stayed zero forever while the company kept building itself bigger
and bigger. So I can see the bull perspective.

However...

Car manufacturing is not the same as slinging books online. Profits are
consistently thin and Tesla's only edge is in battery tech and being a status
symbol. So it is trying to be the Apple of cars but also grow like Amazon. And
their aren't breakeven without credits, so it is kind of like if 2004 Amazon
was able to reach breakeven only because Barnes & Noble had to pay Amazon for
not having a website.

Also, I am unconvinced that one car brand will be the "Apple of cars" since
there is no ecosystem lock-in and at the end of the day it is a fashion/trend
symbol - precisely when unemployment is nuts and the economy is in the
shitter. It quickly could become more of a overly flashy negative than cool
aspirational thing, kind of a rich-is-bad type of reach that Hummer had with
gas-is-bad.

Maybe Elon pulls it off, but at this price it is really investing in a future
that hasn't been built or even imagined yet.

~~~
spectrum1234
No, their edge is their factories (manufacturing innovation). This is the real
product. The cars don't really matter. Seriously.

~~~
fomine3
Factories not for cars but for batteries?

------
ehsankia
I know the domain name is there, but shouldn't the post title contain "Tesla"?

~~~
bobsoap
Seconded. A hint that it links to a PDF would also be welcomed by everyone on
a phone.

~~~
dhritzkiv
Out of curiosity, why is viewing a PDF unwelcome on a mobile device?

~~~
swrj
Some browsers and apps auto download the pdf.

------
jennyyang
Revenues down Year over Year, and yet their stock price is 8x. Profiability
increased, but its market cap is larger than Toyota which has over 10x the
revenues. This stock is truly one for /r/wallstreetbets.

~~~
danhak
You realize their factory was shut down for much of this period, right?
Comparing YOY quarterly figures here is very disingenuous.

~~~
jennyyang
Their stock price rose 8x. There's nothing in these numbers that justifies
this type of meteoric rise exception pure, unadulterated speculation. They
wouldn't have even been profitable if they couldn't sell their regulatory
credits. How is that justifiable for an 8x YoY increase?

~~~
sacred_numbers
The potential upside for Tesla is huge. If they can become the Apple of
electric cars and if electric cars become standard, they could be worth
trillions. The reason their valuation was not in the trillions is because
there is a risk that they will go bankrupt, that other companies will take the
lead in EVs, or that EVs will not be where the market is headed in the
foreseeable future. The reason for the jump in valuation is that those risks
are being steadily reduced. EV competition is scarce, Tesla's cash reserves
and consistent free cash flow hugely reduce the risk of bankruptcy, and the
market is continuing to demonstrate that it wants electric cars (at least
Tesla electric cars, that is), even during a pandemic. There is certainly an
element of speculation and retail investor FOMO, but if Tesla's institutional
investors didn't think this valuation could be justified at all they probably
would have sold by now. Time will tell how reasonable the valuation really is,
but betting against Tesla has not worked out very well so far.

~~~
yoavm
But why would they become the Apple of electric cars? Why do you think they
have better chances than anyone else? The market, to me, seems to show that
most people still buy non-electric cars. Once that flips, any other much
bigger car manufacturer could start producing more electric cars. There
doesn't seem to be any rocket science to it.

Back in the 90s I bought a Rio PMP300. Before anyone knew what MP3s were, it
was the first mp3 player out there. That didn't help them when people _did_
care about mp3 players - bigger players just came and ate the cake. I'm not
sure what makes Tesla a different story. Seems like it was supposed to be
"Autopilot", but we all know how good that's going.

~~~
stingrae
I do think Tesla is way over valued at the moment. How could they be worth
more than the market cap of all the vehicle companies combined? There isn’t
going to be largely more numbers of vehicles bought each year.

As to why Tesla could be the winner? One reason is that all the other
automakers are failing to produce mass market EVs that anyone wants to buy.

~~~
ckdarby
My wife & I are considering our next vehicle our last non-electric one.

We consider every vehicle brand a joke aside from Tesla.

~~~
jennyyang
There are many reasons why Tesla is not optimal. If you get into an accident,
your car will be in the shop for months. Literally months. I have a Tesla with
a minor trim at the bottom of the car got damaged. It took 3 months, and they
had to take apart the entire car. Literally even the back seats were taken
apart just to change the trim on the bottom. It cost over $10,000.

Tesla's quality has dropped so much that JD Power's latest survey ranked it
near the bottom in terms of quality. Everyone that has a Tesla says that they
are fun to drive (they are) but they feel cheaply made.

The European car manufacturers are coming out with electric cars and I think
they're ability to create a luxurious feel will make a big dent to Tesla's
sales. Case in point, the Porsche Taycan looks amazing and will be a
competitor to the Model S.

~~~
ckdarby
Nobody in my circle of aged 25-35 North American friends talk about buying a
Tesla because it is only an electric car. It is the whole package that gets
people to buy it. Not only does it look good, it feels smooth while driving,
it actually feels like it is a modern vehicle, the software updates and
"autopilot".

Every known vehicle manufacture outside of trucks & SUVs have no brand value
to "millennials". I don't know anyone I communicate with who is excited to buy
a ford, toyota, and or even a porsche car.

------
xoxoy
So many red flags

Profit is all regulatory credits, actual auto sales flat to down, accounts
receivable balance is now 1.4B or >20% of revenue, interest income is $8M
(down -20%) even though global interest rates were cut to near 0 in Q2, R&D
and service spending down despite dozens of projects the company claims to be
working on.

~~~
unixhero
Maybe it's red flags when you make conservative measurements against a
traditional industry proxy measurement - and applying classic investment
banking logic.

However you have got to remember that this is not just another company, it's
not just another brand. They've already changed the world, it's all there in
their track record.

~~~
realtalk_sp
They don't have any significant monopolistic advantage and they're operating
in a highly price-sensitive, competitive market.

My personal theory is that Musk knows this and his real objective is to
provoke car manufacturers into competing on electric. From Musk's point of
view, the win is likely not Tesla making any significant amount of money for
shareholders but instead it driving the whole market towards electric, thereby
achieving the "real" objective of lowering emissions.

Many of his behaviors over the years suggest this could be the case:
publishing a 'master plan', releasing Tesla's patents, noting the stock price
was "too high", and sinking all of his PayPal money into SpaceX, Tesla, and
Solar City (and then borrowing to pay his rent).

~~~
Already__Taken
I'm pretty sure musk had literally said this is not your theory. that's why
there was there patent stunt. It not some plot rather being the change you
want to see, a even if Tesla collapses they moved the EV needle.

~~~
realtalk_sp
I can assure you that Musk has at no point intimated that Tesla is not a
worthy investment and that he's not interested in profit maximization. He has
only ever hinted at this peripherally, as described.

------
JMTQp8lwXL
I've seen a great deal of speculative investment in Tesla as of recently. I
pray no middle class people will lose their entire net worth, much less in the
middle of a crisis.

~~~
jeffbee
Old people on my Nextdoor are asking whether they should buy some TSLA, which
was as good a signal as any I've ever seen when the same people were asking if
they should maybe get some bitcoins (at $20k each). TSLA like every other US
equity right now is supported by retail momentum alone.

~~~
xnx
TSLA is absolutely the present-day BTC.

~~~
notJim
I really need to get better at getting into these asset bubbles. I'm too late
for Tesla, and it doesn't look like BTC has been going anywhere lately. Anyone
got any tips for me?

~~~
simonebrunozzi
I'm not sure if you're trying to be sarcastic, otherwise, I don't think a
straight answer can be satisfactory for you.

Also, it might not be the best use of this forum.

------
chollida1
Pre Close:

\- From Bloomberg re Robinhood and TSLA "number of Robinhood accounts holding
Tesla shares (in some form) is at an all- time high of 496,890. Tesla is the
second-most popular stock on the platform over the last 24 hours, and the
19th-most popular stock over the last 7 days."

Looking at:

\- if profitiable check for amount of regulatory credits that Telsa gets from
other automakers, this could be the difference between profitablity and not,
though if this is what puts them over them edge then be a bit concerned

\- Is Texax truck factory happening or not? If so, what kind of tax incentives
did they get as these types of tax deals are the first thing that could get
cut if reports of Texas', um Texas sized, budget gaps exits, Tulsa is the
other option, maybe with the SC ruling Tulsa is native land there could be
some weird tax deal there??

\- Tesla's capex was cut way back from almost $3B forcats to under $1.3, helps
make them look profitiable last year at the expense of that having to be made
up this or next year, look for capex to be much higher

\- Model Y and X and S are only made in Fremont, though Shanghai will start
producing the Y soonish, still lots of geographical risk as the pandemic and
factory shutdown illustrated, Musk must do better here

\- Model Y was discounted and its brand new, Model S and X were discounted as
well, TSLA really pushing to make their quarter for cars delivered, watch for
gross margins to be down but numbers to be very juiced for a large beat

Numbers:

\- Rev $6B vs $5.5B, down from previous highs, but with teh lock down, pretty
darn good!!

\- profit of 50cents per share on a GAAP basis, nice, though credits really
juiced this

\- 4 quarters of profitability, though not always pretty or organic is really
nice to see

\- Net Income was $451M vs ($74M), nice but mostly a factor of major
discounting of cars and credit sales

\- Cash and cash equivalents @ $8.5B, nice!!!

\- Solar, yawn, 27 MW installed, why even bother at this point?

\- handed over 90,000 vehicles, different from produced

Outcome:

\- market cap is now $320B, wow!!

\- stock is flat on day as one would expect with so much vol leading up to
announcement. The Post earnings drift traders are probably staying away as you
need nerves of steel to trade TSLA earnings:)

\- Musk is now able to exercise an additional 1.69 million stock options,
meaning he would reap a $2.1 billion gain if he exercised and could
immediately sell the shares.

\- S&P 500 here we come, so /r/wallstreetbets and robinhood, congrats you guys
did it!!!

~~~
itsoktocry
> _if profitiable check for amount of regulatory credits that Telsa gets from
> other automakers, this could be the difference between profitablity and not,
> though if this is what puts them over them edge then be a bit concerned_

$400MM+ in regulatory credits.

GAAP Profit is around $120MM so far in 2020, with almost $800MM in credit
sales. Crazy.

------
russellbeattie
Anecdotal story: I registered to buy a Model Y. But then covid hit and I'm now
working at home and really have no need for a new car, plus with the economy
in freefall, I have no desire to pick up that much debt. Combine this with
Musk's threats to leave California, his other crazy rants, and tweets about
the red pill, there's zero way I'm going to buy a Tesla any time soon, if
ever.

I may or may not be representative of Tesla's target customer, but if you go
by the Warren Buffet school of investing in what you know, then I would
suspect Tesla's immediate future does not look good.

------
samfisher83
What are regulatory credits? I thought the 7500 credit ran out?

~~~
elil17
This is separate from the consumer EV tax credit.

Every car manufacturer must produce a certain percentage of electric cars. If
their actual EV sales aren’t enough to cover that requirement, they can
purchase “EV credits” from companies that exceeded their regulatory
requirements to avoid a fine.

Essentially this policy gets car companies that aren’t producing EVs to
subsidize the ones that are.

~~~
michaelmior
Interesting! I wasn't aware of this credit. How it's structured is fascinating
in that they essentially have to pay their competitors for not meeting the
quota. (Of course the markets for EV vs ICE is somewhat different, but not
disjoint.)

~~~
elil17
Yeah it’s an awesome system! Similar ideas exist for controlling carbon
emissions (like a cap and trade system, where, to oversimplify it, everyone
gets an equal amount of “greenhouse gas points” which you can either spend on
polluting or sell to others)

~~~
mamon
Actually, this system is counterproductive, I think. Starting production of
EVs costs you money, but it also takes time, and the penalties for not meeting
quotas are something you have to pay right now. So, in the end, the money you
spend buying "EV credits" is the money taken away from your R&D budget on EVs.

You might argue that the company receiving money for "EV credits" would invest
them in increasing the production, but that's often not the case - since they
have already met their quotas and are off the hook, they are free to simply
hand this money out to shareholders in form of a dividend.

------
AgloeDreams
Positive financial results, one surprise to be seen here is a massive
reduction in model S builds, more than 60% drop-off QoQ Presumably due to
COVID, but maybe not?

~~~
sbahr001
I would argue that the model S/X should be updated for their respective costs;
They pretty much sell a 6 year old interior that was "space age" at the time.
Since then their have been minor interior/exterior and looks extremely dated
as the competition has "caught" up and the cheaper models surpass it. The only
main changes to the car have been better battery and performance, the latter
doesn't improve the day to day experience of the car.

When your spending 100k on a car you expect Mercedes type of luxury.
Previously, Tesla didn't have to compete on that because the Model S/X were
ahead of its time an proof of concept cars, with the release of Model 3/Y
there is no reason to have one, unless you need the additional size and want
to have an electric vehicle on principle.

~~~
grecy
> _When your spending 100k on a car you expect Mercedes type of luxury_

This is the old way of thinking, and it illistrates perfectly why the other
auto manufacturers have been caught flat footed re EVs.

For many decades what you said held true - more money on a car meant a higher
quality interior.

Now things have changed dramatically, because what we thought of as a "car"
has changed so much.

You can now spend 100k to get a car that never emits a single toxic chemical
while being used. A vehicle that much cheaper to drive and own. A vehicle that
requires significantly less maintenance, a vehicle that is silent and less
fatiguing to drive, etc. etc.

This are all the reasons besides "I got a more luxury interior", and they're
the kind of reasons that make an EV compelling.

~~~
rconti
The Model 3 and Y make that (mostly) moot (size aside).

We've got a Model 3, I've had S loaners and my dad's got an S, and I've driven
the S as far back as maybe 2013?

There are things I like about both. It's not at all clear to me that if you
made me choose a free car to receive, that I'd choose the S over the 3.

If you're making me spend my own dollars, 3 all day. I just don't like the S
twice as much.

~~~
marvin
Musk said a few conference calls ago that Tesla doesn't really have a long-
term ambition to make a significant fraction of their profits from S/X. I
believe he said "keeping them around for sentimental reasons", which is
probably overstating it a bit.

But they're clearly not worried about cannibalizing their own product line.

------
xchaotic
Purely anecdotal but we are in the market for a new car when our current lease
runs out. We were looking at Tesla and the quality is not there and
dealerships means we can’t test etc. The valuation is crazy, VW can literally
flip the switch and start producing more e-Golfs etc when the demand is there.

~~~
BbzzbB
Not to defend TSLA's valuation, but the argument of other car giants being
"able to flip a switch and make something better" has been proven wrong many
times. There are plenty of rational "TSLAQ-arguments", that one is no longer
on that list.

~~~
marvin
I think we're beyond TSLAQ by now. Are you saying there is a high likelihood
that Tesla will go out of business? (The 'Q' means de-listed from the stock
exchange).

Maybe the valuation is a bit steep, sure. But there aren't many reasonable
arguments left for the company going under, apart from perhaps investment
overextension due to some future initiative, or some magical and incredible
accounting fraud.

~~~
BbzzbB
True, I still use it to designate the short-TSLA/anti-TSLA crowd which
tirelessly uses this argument despite the evidence that it is false. As for
the chances of Tesla going under being slim to none at this point, which I
agree with and believe explains (partly) the stock's repricing, I think it's
still a popular argument for the die-hard Tesla shorts à la Einhorn.

------
Animats
OK, they're profitable, and sales are flat to decreasing. Viewed as a mature
company, what are they worth?

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
These are not normal times: flat sales during Q2 is quite an achievement when
all your competition tanked by ~30%.

~~~
Animats
The question here is, what's it worth without assuming great future growth?
Tesla is in the price range of BMW, in the midrange luxury segment. Assume
they stay there. What's Tesla's value?

~~~
bryanlarsen
> Assume they stay there

Hopefully that assumption doesn't hold. Quoting from the earnings call:

"Our cars are not affordable enough—we need to fix that. We are making
progress in that regard. We need to not go bankrupt, obviously, but we're not
trying to be too profitable. One or 2 percent, it's not too crazy. Slightly
profitable and maximize growth, making the cars as affordable as possible"

~~~
Animats
Tesla's price movement has been in the other direction - upward. The Model 3
was originally supposed to sell for $35,000. Now, it's "$39,990 - $56,990".

~~~
reducesuffering
More recently there were 2k cuts on 3 and Y and major cuts on S and X.

~~~
marvin
There's also been some inflation since the Model 3 was announced.

------
kccqzy
Off topic but why is the document written with painful amount of tracking? (By
tracking I mean in the typography sense, i.e. letter spacing, not that the
document is tracking you.) It almost seems like they don't want people to
actually read the document.

~~~
eyesee
I suspect they're not embedding the correct font in the PDF, leading to
strange spacing.

~~~
cozzyd
Indeed, it's using some font named GothamSSm which is not embedded and getting
replaced by some random Sans font by your PDF viewer. What idiotic PDF
generator doesn't automatically embed non-standard fonts? (apparently
Powerpoint...)

------
giacaglia
Given their net income is positive, what is the probability that they are
added to s&p500?

~~~
marc__1
High, because of the Criteria to join the S&P500[0]:

\- a market cap of $8.2 billion \- its headquarters in the U.S. \- the value
of its market capitalization trade annually at least a quarter-million of its
shares trade in each of the previous six months \- most of its shares in the
public’s hands \- at least a year since its initial public offering \- the sum
of the previous four quarters of earnings must be positive as well as the most
recent quarter.

[0]
[https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/documents/methodologies/me...](https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/documents/methodologies/methodology-
sp-us-indices.pdf)

~~~
jfengel
If they are added to S&P 500, does that mean that a bunch of index tracking
funds buying it all at once?

I would assume that's already been priced in, if so.

~~~
knrz
It does, but the rebalancing occurs in September I think.

~~~
hrpnk
A company can issue new shares for the index funds instead of requiring those
to buy the shares on the market. Otherwise, with the low free float, such
demand would move the price higher.

~~~
jcheng
Is there a reason the company would want to do that? Why wouldn't they just
let the price move higher?

~~~
mrep
To raise capital and fuel their growth. They raised 2 billion earlier this
year at a price of 767 (1650 now) to fuel their growth because they thought
there share price was high then. It seems like a perfect time to announce
another massive capital raise to fuel their growth now that their share price
is double what it was back then and this page [0] lists 1 trillion dollars
worth of sp500 index funds and I know vanguard sp500 etf (voo) which isn't in
that list has another 250 billion. sp500 is about 27 trillion so that list
alone represents about 4.6% of the market.

TSLA joining the sp500 means those index funds alone will have to buy about
4.6% of TSLA to rebalance so this to me looks like an amazing opportunity to
raise a ton of cash to fuel cybertruck/semi/roadster growth. 4.6% of TSLA 300
billion market cap could fuel a 13.8 billion dollar capital raise which could
be announced after sp500 inclusion as a quick way to get those funds to the
proper weighting.

At least that is my idea. During the call, they said they have 8 billion in
cash so they don't need to raise any more capital. But then again, elon also
said that right before their 2 billion dollar raise earlier this year so...

[0]:
[https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/101415/4-best-...](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/101415/4-best-
sp-500-index-funds.asp)

------
pvelagal
Regulatory credits ? I don’t understand the motivation behind them. How do
selling and buying these help any emission standards ?

~~~
yyy888sss
It's just a punitive tax on the producers of heavy emitters, with the proceed
going to Tesla instead of the government. Tesla is treated very generously as
their cars count as emitting 0g Co2, which is not the case unless they are
recharged with renewable energy.

------
xondono
Why is “making most of your money from interest” better than “making most of
your money from credits”?

If you asked me what’s more likely, for interest rates (to customers) to fall
or for emission credits to stop, I know where I’d put my bets

Edit: It’s an actual question, not just rethorical

------
donor20
Wish they would fix their customer service story.

------
neverlandMan
well, and all this is after the ceo said they are overvalued a couple of weeks
back!

~~~
xyst
He said that about his company 2 months ago (not weeks).

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/01/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-says-
sto...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/01/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-says-stock-price-
is-too-high-shares-fall.html)

------
jt94mf90d
infinity squeeze time

------
RivieraKid
120M net profit and 782M in regulatory credits in 1H 2020.

------
Kareem71
I remember Elon at one time claiming that model y demand will outstrip model
3, x, and s combined. It’s getting harder and harder to believe his claims

~~~
jeremiahhs
Well the Model Y has been on sale since March in the middle of a pandemic. The
Model 3 has been on sale for 3 years.

I think we'll have a better view on Model Y demand in the coming year.

------
bitxbit
Can we be realistic here? I am 100% behind zero emission electric vehicles.
However, we are still 10-15 years out from even reaching the necessary
infrastructure to support more than 10% market pen. Certain patents will have
expired by then. I also despise the fact that Tesla was largely funded by US
tax payers and they will likely shift majority of manufacturing abroad in the
near future.

~~~
stingrae
Why do you think they will shift manufacturing abroad in the near future? The
factories in China are building for the Chinese market to avoid import duties.

~~~
bitxbit
A) When it’s significantly cheaper to produce vehicles outside of the US due
to regulatory and labor costs, Tesla will do what’s economically rational. B)
US auto manufacturing is subpar. A big reason why I liked Tesla in the
beginning was the narrative of US manufacturing revival. Thought they were
serious about producing quality vehicles here. Past two years showed that’s
not the case.

