Thursday, August 19, 2010
One stock analyst says Tesla will fail like internet groceries
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors
Who remembers Webvan? Go ahead and raise your hands. Hmm, that's not a lot of hands. Well, Webvan was one of the biggest flameouts of the late-1990s dot-com bubble. After raising hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital and an initial public offering, it spent even more building warehouses and buying delivery trucks to take internet orders for groceries and deliver them to customers homes at the time of their choosing. Unfortunately, Webvan had management with no experience in the grocery business and the project was a totally unsustainable business model.
Writing for the The Street, Eric Jackson says Tesla is doomed to the same fate. Jackson points at the risk factors section of the pre-IPO S-1 filing and highlights a number of items as indicators of the electric car company's likely failure. The lack of experienced auto industry executives in the company - highlighted by CEO Elon Musk as a plus as Tesla tries a new way of building cars - is something Jackson believes is a huge mistake.
Jackson also highlights the slowing sales of the Roadster and the uncertain timing of Model S production as potential pitfalls as revenues will stumble until volume deliveries of the new car start. Even then there is no guarantee that Tesla can build the Model S profitably.
While all of these are valid points, Jackson never makes any mention of Tesla's relationships with either Daimler or Toyota. It's certainly possible that neither of these deals will amount to anything significant, but Tesla does at least have some intellectual property that might be of value, and while it may or may not survive as a going concern, it will almost certainly at least get gobbled up by another automaker.
In other Tesla news, the carmaker has selected Dimensional Control Systems to provide engineering software tools for tolerance analysis as it proceeds with development of the Model S. Read more about this after the jump.
[Source: The Street, Dimensional Control Systems]
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.
Who remembers Webvan? Go ahead and raise your hands. Hmm, that's not a lot of hands. Well, Webvan was one of the biggest flameouts of the late-1990s dot-com bubble. After raising hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital and an initial public offering, it spent even more building warehouses and buying delivery trucks to take internet orders for groceries and deliver them to customers homes at the time of their choosing. Unfortunately, Webvan had management with no experience in the grocery business and the project was a totally unsustainable business model.
Writing for the The Street, Eric Jackson says Tesla is doomed to the same fate. Jackson points at the risk factors section of the pre-IPO S-1 filing and highlights a number of items as indicators of the electric car company's likely failure. The lack of experienced auto industry executives in the company - highlighted by CEO Elon Musk as a plus as Tesla tries a new way of building cars - is something Jackson believes is a huge mistake.
Jackson also highlights the slowing sales of the Roadster and the uncertain timing of Model S production as potential pitfalls as revenues will stumble until volume deliveries of the new car start. Even then there is no guarantee that Tesla can build the Model S profitably.
While all of these are valid points, Jackson never makes any mention of Tesla's relationships with either Daimler or Toyota. It's certainly possible that neither of these deals will amount to anything significant, but Tesla does at least have some intellectual property that might be of value, and while it may or may not survive as a going concern, it will almost certainly at least get gobbled up by another automaker.
In other Tesla news, the carmaker has selected Dimensional Control Systems to provide engineering software tools for tolerance analysis as it proceeds with development of the Model S. Read more about this after the jump.
[Source: The Street, Dimensional Control Systems]
Continue reading One stock analyst says Tesla will fail like internet groceries
One stock analyst says Tesla will fail like internet groceries originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.
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