I didn't short the stock but I can understand why someone would.
They are expected to generate over 90% of their value after 2020 [0]. There's the expectation that Elon Musk will definitely deliver, that Tesla market share will not be eaten up by other carmakers when they seriously start releasing electric vehicles. The expectation that electric and not another form of energy, such as hydrogen, will dominate, etc.
There's a lot that could go wrong and a lot of unknown variables. Then again everything might turn out fine, the point is that no-one know for sure.
> when they seriously start releasing electric vehicles
They've been "serious" for a long time. Chevy has been selling the Volt since 2010. If they were going to muscle out Tesla they would have done it by now. And it's not just about technology. Tesla has the customer reputation that companies like GM will never have again.
I own a Volt. Best car I've ever driven. GM doesn't care much for it. The only advertising they really do for it basically is trying to steal EV customers from Nissan's Leaf. Really dumb. And the dealers don't like it because 1) they don't know how to service them and especially 2) they almost never need servicing. If you run almost exclusively on electric, you only need like 4-5 oil changes in the entire life of the car. And the brakes last forever, too.
Actually, the reason GM "doesn't care" about the Volt (I'm exaggerating here; they obviously care a little bit) is because they're rational: electric cars are not popular with mass-market consumers, and it's far from clear that they're going to become popular.
GM is investing in what sells, and right now (i.e. for the last decade or two), that's SUVs and light trucks. Which doesn't bode well for Tesla, at least in the near term.
You can certainly argue that fuel prices are going to go up and make electric cars popular. The question is: does it happen before Tesla goes broke?
(Edit: downvoting doesn't change facts. From GM's own 2017 outlook [1]: "Ten all-new or recently redesigned crossovers are expected to drive GM’s sales and share higher in 2017, including the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain, which will compete in the industry’s largest segment." And they're not joking about that last part. As of February 2017, SUVs and Trucks dominate the list of most-popular vehicles sold in the USA [2].)
EVs are unpopular because cheap ones aren't very good yet. You have to choose between almost unusably short range, or a very high price. Something like the LEAF is affordable, but only useful as a city car. A Model S is a great car, but extremely expensive.
The cost is coming down. Chevy is now selling the Bolt, which has pretty good range, for under $40,000. Tesla's Model 3 is coming soon. More will follow. The high cost comes from the batteries, which are getting cheaper all the time.
I'm not sure that "unpopular" is quite the right word. A lot of people really like Teslas. Most of them can't afford them. The desire is there, the means is not (yet).
It's smart to invest in what sells right now... until things change and that's no longer what sells. GM is investing in what sells today. Tesla is investing in what might sell in a decade or two. Tesla's approach isn't certain but if they're right then GM is going to relive their experience of the 1970s where they take way too long to react to a changing market.
The whole point of advertising is to make something popular that isn't already or to maintain popularity for something that would otherwise decline in popularity. As long as all GM is doing is sniping at other electric cars while doing general broad-based advertising of their fossil fuel powered vehicles, they're not lifting a finger to expand the EV market.
I wouldn't worry about Tesla, anyway. Tesla has huge brand clout and advertises by making really awesome, inspiring vehicles. You want the fastest production sedan? There's only the Model S. And Model X is, after all, an SUV/crossover. And Model 3, which isn't, will be the basis for the Model Y, which /will/ be a crossover and/or light truck. Again, Tesla will be perfectly fine on the demand front.
I am an Volt owner and I approve your comments. GM with BoltEV and Volt has demonstrated they are up with the EV tech, did they make miscues? Yes, no doubt. But the market needs to educated and for now Tesla is the Apple of Cars and the only brand Customers are willing to be educated from. Nissan Leaf had a decent start, but they cut too many corners, and I do not recommend Leaf. i3 is too limited.
Even though I whole-heatedly recommend Volt esp. Gen2. The market is not ready yet, and GM is doing what an established Car company does. Tesla's life depends on pushing EVs, so they are who they are.
You're getting downvoted because you missed the argument that I presented.
It's not about what market segment that sells, it's that dealers have no incentives to sell electric vehicles since there's no margin on services and maintenance.
> GM is investing in what sells, and right now (i.e. for the last decade or two)
Yup. They haven't adopted the Andy Grove/Bill Gates/Larry Ellison philosophy of "Only The Paranoid Survive," yet. They are banking on the expectation that if/when consumer interest spikes they'll be able to use their influence to jump to the front of the line, like they did with past ICE competitors.
The question is... will the electric car market be more like the ICE market where paranoia is (apparently) unnecessary, or the semiconductor/software markets where it is (apparently) quite important.
I'm having a hard time connecting the facts with the discussion. Are you saying that GM should have made a crossover instead of the Volt/Bolt? Are you saying that Tesla doesn't have a crossover?
This kind of proves the thesis. EV is a hobby for the legacy guys that competes with much more powerful (by revenue) business units in the company. It's like expecting Kodak to compete and win with their own digital camera.
I'm about to buy a Volt as soon as VW buys my dieselgate car back from me. I have had to go through a few different dealers to find someone who is serious about selling the thing.
The platform looks amazing. It boggles my mind in all the years this vehicle has existed that they haven't made more vehicles based on it.
Agreed. A pickup based on the Volt technology would be fantastic. Electric can allow crazy good torque. And you have a nice big battery, backed by a quiet and efficient built-in generator that only needs to run occasionally, to run power tools off of.
I'm a small minority market, but I'd love an electric replacement for my 30hp diesel small compact utility tractor.
It's a natural fit. The extra weight is a positive not a negative. The tractor is already a hydrostatic transmission in order to get continuous torque across RPMs and some in this market already use an electric motor for hydraulics (powered from a generator via the engine). It's only used for short bursts of activity so doesn't need a particularly huge battery even.
I'm on a work visa here in the US, and I couldn't get financing on a Volt because GM Financial insisted on doing > 30 months lease on their hybrid cars (and my work visa expires before then, though it's likely to be renewed anyway).
Go figure. It's not like I can't afford the monthly payments.
Will bear that in mind for next time, thanks! My other consideration is I am still trying to build a credit history, and don't really want more hard hits on my file than necessary...
Sheesh. When I bought a Prius (admittedly, 2007), I was here on a fiancee visa. Toyota Financial had no problem okaying a three year lease even though my visa was (technically) three months (but available for extension).
Ah, interesting. A colleague had a similar experience to me getting an Audi (his lease doesn't extend beyond the H-1B expiration) so I wonder if the regulation is tightened up by now.
Then again, maybe statistically people on fiancee visas are more likely to end up with permanent residency than people on H1B?
Very interesting points. So as the other comment has pointed out, traditional automakers will have difficulties selling through their dealerships. Do any of the established players have any plans for their own dealerships / showrooms?
They can't as the rights to having local dealerships has already been split out. They'd have to buy out their dealers and probably change a bit of State law to accommodate that.
Is there something special about the brakes? Less maintenance needed makes sense, but I would have thought the brakes are no different than gasoline cars?
GM isn't a threat to tesla unless Cadillac starts selling something to compete with the model S. As a Tesla shareholder what keeps me up at night are Mercedes, BMW, and Lexus.
> Tesla has the customer reputation that companies like GM will never have again.
Tesla is more like a luxury brand so its biggest potential competitors will be the big 3 in Germany and possibly Lexus (which all have a pretty good reputation), and currently none of them propose that many options.
Audi and Lexus have none. BMW has two, but only one of them can sort of compete with Tesla (can't go far with the i5 battery). Mercedes only has one (if I'm not mistaken). It really feels like they're only getting started, and if/when they start releasing really compelling models, it will be something more to deal with for Tesla.
In short, German carmakers' historical expertise in designing good internal combustion engines are worthless if electric cars take over. The auto industry is ripe for some serious disruption.
btw. mercedes buys the batteries from asia and their engine did come from tesla, however they broke up and now they have a new partnership which helps them.
german manufacturers have no interest in selling electric vehicles to the masses.
Before automaker were only focusing on the fully urban, second car. The like of Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe, even BMW i3.
Tesla has opened up a slice of the market the traditional maker didn't expect would work: primary car. This has a feel of Apple with iPhone in 2007.
Even if Tesla ramp up tremendously and try getting in every car segment simultaneously, they will not have the capacity to provide all the cars that people are looking for, so the rest of the companies will likely continue to provide the bulk of the car market. Which is not a negative for Tesla, the market is simply enormous: it would take Tesla to produce over 2 million cars per quarter to even get over the single digit market share.
The biggest risk now for Tesla is not being able to reach critical mass fast enough. I can understand their valuation and their need for cash. I can understand the shorters too, unlike the smartphone market, car purchase has at least a 4 years cycle and even in the first world, a car purchase is one of the biggest investment.
Hydrogen is unlikely to win, it's fair to say that it has already lost [1]. The hydrogen economy was mostly a myth [2]. 95% of hydrogen is made from natural gas [3].
> ...that Tesla market share will not be eaten up by other carmakers when they seriously start releasing electric vehicles
Tesla has been around long enough that it can no longer be replaced by a large company that just throws a ton of money and talent at it. They're too far ahead. There's no substitute for the raw amount of time Tesla has spent developing its product.
ahead of who? There are several low-end electric cars already on the market (Chevy, Nissan, BMW), and one high-end (Tesla). They are meeting in the middle
I think that a surprising number of people buy stock based on how they feel about the company rather than how they feel about the company compared against the current price.
They are expected to generate over 90% of their value after 2020
This is true of many startups, especially in a low rate environment. It's the "Terminal Value" in the calculation that drives value. Of course the Terminal Value also is extremely volatile, and changes a lot to small changes in inputs.
I have a small investment in TSLA stock. What I'm betting on is that in addition to being a car manufacturer on the scale of Ford/GM that TSLA will also be the world leader in AI/driverless cars. I don't have a huge position, but intend to hold onto it forever.
The year is 2051, SpaceX has made significant progress on building out infrastructure on mars. In the last 25 years we have seen the explosion of Musk's empire across the solar system. Starting with the seed efforts on earth, robotic rockets have been flowing to Mars in droves. The exceptional thing is how they have delivered the infrastructure to the planet once there.
These rockets are far superior to their ancestors. With orbital factories around earth, and regular deliveries of colonization supplies, the network is vast, complex and efficient.
Starting with battery manufacturing on earth, all the colonization components required of earth are delivered to the orbital factories where humans and robots work in a beautiful synchronized effort to prepare each packet to Mars. Batteries and other components are delivered to orbit. They are then constructed into the various machines to be delivered to mars on the massive Falcon-33s that will haul them to Mars.
The autonomous Tesla Landers are quite complex, they have impressive batteries, but its their job which is more impressive.
Once orbiting Mars, the payload shall be unpacked and deployed to the surface, where they will continue the construction of the massive solar arrays which already have a large contingent of batteries to slurp up the solar energy and store it for all the other needs of the build-out.
The project has been going on for decades, but we are starting to see some serious results in this phase...
The original idea was laughed at, but it was all backed by sound science and a simple phased approach:
* Develop seed infra at home; Batteries, rockets, robots
* Consumerize these to fund later phases
* Proof-out orbital autonomous delivery services via the ISS
* Commoditize space tourism, popularize it with celebrities
* Exploratory missions to Mars
* Develop orbital manufacturing capabilities, where supplies can be delivered autonomously
* Build Ultra-heavies in orbit, modularly to avoid launch costs from surface (required tethering technology to be developed)
* Deploy communication relay probes between spatial bodies
* Deliver initial robots to surface of Mars, they prep for solar install
* initial solar install to feed robot population already on surface
* Add batteries
* further infrastructure to follow, but with a working autonomous robot service group ready to build out
We are now at the deployed battery stage, the Organization is now preparing the life support systems for long-term human colonization, and within the next 25 years, we will have a permanent Human Civilization2 on the planet Mars... perhaps, Again?
Funny, but silly. Why would people want to live in other places in the solar system? Earth, the Moon, and Mars are the only places that really make any sense at all. Even Mars is iffy because the gravity is rather low, it's far from Earth, the atmosphere is barely there, it's cold, and there's no radiation protection without going underground. The Moon is even worse, but at least it's close to Earth so it'd be really useful for mining or offworld/low-g manufacturing, and it's close enough for quick trips back to Earth.
Venus is far too hot to be useful for anything besides dirigible cities, and what are you going to do there except sightsee the yellow clouds? Maybe it could be terraformed to something livable, but that would take a long time. If that could be done though, it'd be a great place, since it's close to Earth's size and gravity.
Mercury is too close to the Sun and too hot. You could put a city on the dark side, but the city would have to move constantly to stay on the dark side.
The asteroid belt might be useful for mining, as would other places farther beyond, but anything that far out is going to be very cold, because it's so far from the Sun. Also, the Moons of Jupiter are bombarded with massive amounts of radiation from their planet. And all those places have horribly low gravity too, which probably won't work well with human biology, unless perhaps we genetically engineer ourselves to fix that.
Space exploration is great for science and maybe resource extraction, but I just don't see the point of colonization except for a couple of somewhat-convenient places, at least not in this star system. I really can't imagine an "empire" across this solar system. Now it would be really cool if we could explore the TRAPPIST system and maybe find livable worlds there.
Yes. Short-selling pioneer Bob Wilson nailed the key insight on these situations. They are "manana stocks," Wilson declared, way back in the 1970s. Their valuation is premised on the notion that something wonderful will happen in the future. Time horizons keep being pushed out, but the stocks' fans don't mind.
Shorts can get very cranky and righteous about each little bit of slippage. But as long as new enthusiasts keep showing up, and old ones feel lenient, it's hopeless to insist on strict accountability. Even a short-lived burst of optimism is sufficient to arrange more funding, so manana always seems within reach.
Worst case: you're shorting Amazon. The bulls were right, and you go broke.
Best case: you're shorting something like Energy Conversion Devices, which eventually did run out of money and file for Chapter 11 in 2012. Shorts had been predicting its demise since the 1970s. That is a long time to wait.
Best case: you're shorting Sun Microsystems at the beginning of 2000, and it goes from $300/share to $3/share in the next 3 years. (http://www.1stock1.com/1stock1_211.htm)
My advice is to just not touch tech stocks; going short on them is just as dangerous as going long.
Even the best case wouldn't have you more than double your money, if you put up 1:1 collateral. I guess you could have less collateral than this, but in that case, given a growth stock, you would be wiped out if there was a modest increase. I don't see the risk/reward curve for long-term shorting.
When the price starts dropping, you would have to sell more shares to maintain a 1:1 ratio. For example, you can double the number of shares each time the price drops by half, and make up to 200%.
Every company these days is a tech company in some respects, but I don't think Tesla fits the bill in the general sense. Tesla is a green energy manufacturing company.
The only reason I think this matters is their finances are a lot different than a tech company. You are correct that Tesla is currently priced like a tech company though, so maybe I'm way off!
"Technology ("science of craft", from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia) is the collection of techniques, skills, methods and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation. Technology can be the knowledge of techniques, processes, and the like, or it can be embedded in machines which can be operated without detailed knowledge of their workings."
You can argue that that isn't accurate, but I don't see how you can argue that the categorical statement "tech companies have server costs" follows from it (I can't even find the word "server" on that page, or on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech)
Yes, but even they can't keep up with the projected demand for batteries which is why Tesla is building out its own factory [1] in partnership with Panasonic [2] to manufacture batteries.
They changed their name this year from Tesla Motors to Tesla Inc. to indicate a wider focus on technologies, not just cars (solar panels, batteries). How do they not qualify as a tech company?
Knowing the company's core competency is very important. Stray from that, bad things happen. Is Tesla an electric car company? or an electric supply chain company? or what? If EV manufacturing, then focus on the car construction & experience, doing what's needed to power the thing (battery production, home solar services) but realize those can/should be ejected when better solutions arise. If a "tech" company, then we'll see Tesla stray into solar strip mining, long-distance delivery, app writing, and a host of other activities utterly unrelated to EVs - eventually dropping the EV part altogether.
Apple dropped the "Computer" from its name when moving firmly into a market (pocket supercomputers) which was a natural extension of its real core competency (high-UI/UX computers), but which (phones) were deeply perceived by the public as something profoundly different from "computers". Steve Jobs rediscovered the company's core competency, focused on it, and adjusted name & strategy accordingly.
Kodak thought its core competency was photochemical consumables. That was a pivot away from imaging, and into oblivion when the imaging technology shifted.
Smith Corona's competency was typewriters. We still need typewriters, but because SC tried to compete with computers (a spreadsheet on an electric typewriter is a non-sequitur), rather than being the best product for a shrinking yet enduring market, the biggest world brand vanished overnight.
If a company is going to pivot (which a name change absolutely signifies), then it better pivot around its core competency. Tesla's "tech" need be absolutely about either electric cars (by which batteries and solar are incidental and expendable for more suitable power sourcing), or solar (by which the consuming device may be far different than just a car), or power storage (source and use of power being incidental). Tesla is only "tech" insofar as they're pushing the limits of technology for building & powering electric cars. Stick with the cars, with solar ONLY as a means to free their power sourcing (and extra powering one's home), and they'll do fine; self-identify as a "tech" company, and they'll die of confusion. Musk is smarter than that mistake.
Interesting sidenote -- after reading the keyboard.io adventures-in-manufacturing emails, what really jumps out at me are the extent to which Apple's true brilliance these days is on the manufacturing/supply chain end of things.
While my wife was getting her MBA, she one day turned to me and without context asked "what do you think of supply chain management?" Having no idea what she was talking about, I instantly retorted "I think it is evil and should be banned."
Now that I know what she was talking about, I'm deeply impressed by Apple's mastery of the subject, and see why Tim Cook is running the place.
I'm curious about what you would consider a tech company.
For me a tech company is any company that uses the development of technology as a competitive advantage. Solar is not, major solar companies are not developing innovative technology. Tesla is, they do not have an advantage in scale or low prices, but have advantage in how their vehicles function.
For me a tech company is any company that uses the development of technology as a competitive advantage.
So then is Ford a tech company? If not, then I'd be interested to hear why not, based on that criteria. Their cars are technology and they continuously develop and improve them as a competitive advantage.
I think people think of Tesla as a tech company because the founder is Elon Musk. If Tesla were a spin-off brand of GM or Ford, it would be another car company.
This is why you should purchase put options instead of short selling. Exposure to short selling is theoretically infinite. Exposure to put options is just the price you paid for the option.
Shorting generally should only be for companies whose solvency is in doubt.
This is wrong. You should not be trading options if you only have a directional view of a stock, as you will get eaten alive. Options pricing involves much more than just the underlying stock. Most importantly, as another poster said, there is implied volatility. There is also time risk and interest rate risk priced into the option.
With options, you could be right on direction, and still lose money.
With put option you pay a big premium for the right for someone else to take that risk. If the company has a high volatility like Tesla you will pay a big premium to buy that option.
Is anyone actually short Tesla to a significant degree? I can understand the normal hedging positions and daily trading, but shorting a stock with so much positive sentiment is folly...
31 million TSLA shares are currently held short, which represents somewhere in the region of 20% of the non-insider shares. (Yahoo finance says 38% of the float, so I guess it depends how many shares you consider freely available on the market).
There are some reasonable bets here. Russia has a vested interest in climate change... their biggest liability is cold and ice, a rise in sea level and 5 degree bump in average temps would give them a much bigger role in agriculture and shipping. Add that to the petrodollars from selling their oil reserves and you've got a game changer for them economically.
China probably loses at least temporarily in the runaway climate change event due to destroyed cropland and refugees. The U.S. has exposure on both sides so it's a little more moot for us. We'll lose quite a lot of biodiversity, and may take a big hit to agriculture but we're banking petrodollars and have so much upside when people move to virtual reality we'll be fine. If we were horribly exposed Dems/Reps wouldn't be split on the issue, as clueless as they are.
And of course there are the Saudis and corporate/investment petro interests you allude to.
Russia/Saud/Exxon vs China with U.S. on the sidelines... not sure who wins there.
I really hope we can transition to sustainable energy, but there are big players that stand to gain from delaying it until the reserves are burnt. It's not a bet I would take but I understand why people would bet on there being plenty of feet sticking out to trip up Tesla and co.
Isn't the time to short a stock when there is too much positive sentiment? I would never short stocks because I don't believe in timing the market, but if I were to, I wouldn't seek out stocks with overall negative sentiment as those would seem to have the most upside.
Positive sentiment is often an excellent signal that the emperor has no clothes. Most people will ignore what they can see with their own eyes if everyone around them seems to see something different.
This was not a capital raise. Read the filing. Tencent acquired most of the shares on the open market and the remainder in the round that was announced earlier this month.
I don't need to read a filing to know that when you create shares out of nowhere, and sell them, diluting current shareholders, it's a capital raise. What else would you call it?
>Do you understand that's not what happens when shares are acquired on the open market?
Do you understand that Tencent bought shares in a secondary offering? Apparently you do, you said it. Not sure what you're arguing. Do you understand the purpose of selling shares is to raise money for operations?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Your comments suggest to me that you think there was yet another secondary offering associated with this news.
> The 8,167,544 shares of Issuer common stock were acquired by the reporting persons in a registered offering of common stock by the Issuer on March 17, 2017 and through open market purchases, for an aggregate purchase price of $1,777,842,836 (including commission).
That means Tencent acquired its position at an average price of $217 / share. The March 17 secondary was priced at $255 / share. Algebra tells us that > 98% of Tencent's position was acquired on the open market and the rest via the March 17 offering.
Over the next year or so, it should be clear if they'll be left in the cold, or very wealthy. Pretty much everyone seems to agree that the Model 3 needs to do well in an unprecedented way (not impossible), or Tesla is in very deep trouble (not impossible). It's hard to imagine the BMW and Mercedes aren't working on things too, and they won't have horror stories of their cars being in the shops for the better part of a year.
This is still so uncertain, and I for one wouldn't feel comfortable even guessing, never mind guessing with real money.
The raise will dilute earnings for common shareholders, so definitely a downward force on stock price. That being said, this investment and the recent raise you alluded to should clobber the put skew.
This is not a new raise. The filing indicates shares were primarily purchased on the open market and then topped off by the Goldman-led round earlier this month. No new dilution here.
fair enough. so if it's not new shares, put skew should remain strong as there is still non-trivial risk Tesla runs out of cash. And probably at least a small positive push to stock price as investors would reasonably bet that Tencent could be called on to buy more shares.
>The raise will dilute earnings for common shareholders, so definitely a downward force on stock price.
The stock is detached from reality.
It's my understanding that this was another offering, so, essentially, Tesla sold 5% to Tencent at an average price of $217 and change. Current shareholders get diluted. Prices go up.
I don't get it, but I'd love an explanation. Were people, prior to these capital raises, concerned Tesla couldn't raise any more money? That would make sense, but certainly isn't the sentiment I gathered from my travels.
How is that really any different from any Silicon Valley company raising a new round of money? So long as the valuation goes up enough to compensate for the dilution, the per share stock price will be the same or higher. I'm not saying the valuation is correct but the fact that dilution happens and stock price goes up isn't that had to reconcile, right?
>So long as the valuation goes up enough to compensate for the dilution, the per share stock price will be the same or higher
But per stock price is the "valuation".
My comment re: being detached stems from the fact that on Day X, you can buy Tesla for price $Y. Then Tesla sells more shares (dilution). So now each individual share represents a smaller proportion of company ownership...yet the next day people are willing to pay more for that smaller ownership.
Obviously there are far more dynamics at play; but generally, dilution should cause the price to drop.
It seems to me that people viewed Tencent's purchase as signifying confidence in Tesla from a legitimate, cash-stacked player.
As a result, it was all aboard the hype-train for retail investors to secure their seat in yet another speculative rocket ship.
Tesla's ability to deliver has been in question for a bit. This cash will be used as fuel to prevent the rocket ship from experiencing a sudden, gravity-induced trajectory into the earth's crust
One of life's little mysteries is that you almost always lose money if you invest internationally. A friend of mine says it is because the locals know what is going on better than you do.
Tencent was a major investor in Magic Leap and the Saudi Sovereign Fund invested heavily in .coms in early 2000. It is definitely not a sell signal, but I would not buy what Tencent is buying.
Most of my investments are in stocks and funds outside of where I live (Netherlands). Guess which parts of my portfolio aren't doing so well? The EU bonds.
They are expected to generate over 90% of their value after 2020 [0]. There's the expectation that Elon Musk will definitely deliver, that Tesla market share will not be eaten up by other carmakers when they seriously start releasing electric vehicles. The expectation that electric and not another form of energy, such as hydrogen, will dominate, etc.
There's a lot that could go wrong and a lot of unknown variables. Then again everything might turn out fine, the point is that no-one know for sure.
[0] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UBQtFu...