| Well... If the profit margin guidance for the next quarters is correct, and they are not hit by anything unexpected, the company should be trading at around 15 P/E by the end of 2013 at the current share price. Which would be great... But that means that there isn't likely to be any significant share price growth until then. One problem with that analysis is that they have overpromised and underdelivered a bit in the past. Another issue is that they only got 6000 new reservations in the last quarter. For them to have significant growth they need a lot more. And this is in a quarter where they were awarded car of the year and got fantastic reviews (except that NYT one). I bet these reasons, combined with a standard sell-off of a stock that has increased by a lot the last quarter, and that you now really have to be patient for another or two quarters before anything significant happens, is why the stock is down today. Personally, I am disappointed by the number of new reservations. I think it is far too low for a car with such stellar reviews. I had hoped they would have more than 20000 reservations currently. 15-16000 is not even enough to use their full capacity for the year, so they need to start selling more. I had also hoped the production rate would have been higher. 400 cars per week is also not enough in the long run. Elon talked about reaching 500 by the summer, and that really isn't that great. He also said that theoretically they didn't need to get more reservations in 2013, as they would have enough to use up their capacity. That also worried me. I have seen analyst say they will produce 30000 cars in 2014. If that is the case, the share price is really not going to move a lot from current levels. Because the growth is just too small. So I think a lot of shareholders feel like me, that the growth isn't significant enough. I guess we need to wait another couple of quarters before we can say anything. |
To put their numbers in perspective versus their losses and debts, they want to sell nearly twenty thousand cards this year. Mercedes sold more than that in January just in the United States. Toyota sells that many cars in four days, US alone! There are also stories about supplier problems, something small volume cars suffer a lot.
Sure the luxury market doesn't put up those numbers but the brands there are well established and storied. Tesla is neither.
Tesla's fate is probably to be bought by Mercedes or similar. Someone who has the ability to put a large number of these on the road, with a large support network, and a trusted name