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Summary: 1. Terrible first-quarter deliveries data was reported. 2. Cash and cash equivalents are shrinking. 3. The CEO's eccentric and whimsical behavior (and SEC scrutiny) taking focus off of running the business. 4. How long has Tesla really been in trouble? Investment Thesis: Despite producing and selling approximately 600,000 vehicles (including in 1Q19), Tesla (TSLA) has been unable to secure a path to financial safety. Using a relatively simple methodology, The Altman Z-score, plotted quarterly since 2010, shows us just how perilous the company's situation is.

Elon Musk and his corporate empire, much of it financed by taxpayer dollars, is very much in the news. Most of it is not good. And it may be getting worse. Tesla spends $1 million annually on Washington lobbyists. Its cars are financed by over $280 million in federal tax incentives, including a $7,500 federal tax break and millions more in state rebates and development fees. SpaceX has also received over $5 billion in government support. It has over promised and under delivered. SpaceX rockets, for example, are far less reliable than many of its competitors. This is outlined in...

Disgruntled Tesla employees have reached out to the United Automobile Workers, claiming they work long hours for low pay under unsafe conditions while the electric vehicle company sets aggressive production deadlines. California lawmakers have also questioned Tesla for making its employees sign broad confidentiality agreements, which they say chill worker communications.

Joshua D. Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio, died in the accident May 7 in Williston, Florida, when his car's cameras failed to distinguish the white side of a turning tractor-trailer from a brightly lit sky and didn't automatically activate its brakes, according to government records obtained Thursday. Frank Baressi, 62, the driver of the truck and owner of Okemah Express LLC, said the Tesla driver was "playing Harry Potter on the TV screen" at the time of the crash and driving so quickly that "he went so fast through my trailer I didn't see him." "It was still playing when...

A new report suggests that young educated South Africans plan to leave the country to work abroad, rather than plough their knowledge back into the local economy. The report comes from PPS, an insurance, investment, healthcare and financial planning specialist for graduate professionals. The company’s latest Student Confidence Index (SCI), conducted among over 1,500 South African students, revealed that 54% of the respondents plan to move abroad for work purposes in the next five years following their graduation. It follows a report published by New World Wealth, which showed that white millionaire numbers have decreased dramatically in SA – from...

"Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute's annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering. The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk all attended. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory...

Reducing 1.2 tonnes of CO₂ on the EU emissions trading system costs £5; but instead, the UK Government subsidises each car with £4,500. All of the world’s electric cars sold so far have soaked up £9 billion in subsidies, yet will only save 3.3 million tonnes of CO₂. This will reduce world temperatures by 0.00001°C in 2100 – the equivalent of postponing global warming by about 30 minutes at the end of the century. Electric cars will be a good idea, once they can compete – which will probably be by 2032. But it is daft to waste billions of...

CARSON CITY — Independent auditors concluded Tesla Motors Inc. met all conditions for tax abatements and credits during the eight months after lawmakers approved the perks in a special 2014 legislative session. The audit by accounting firm Grant Thornton calculated Tesla has earned $9.6 million in transferable tax credits for the period Oct. 17, 2014, through June 30. Tesla, in partnership with Panasonic Corp., is building a $5 billion lithium battery factory east of Reno in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center. To lure the electric carmaker led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to Nevada, state lawmakers last year approved $1.3...

Within walking distance of Tesla Motors' Palo Alto headquarters and across the street from Hewlett-Packard, Ford Motor Co. has set up a new Silicon Valley outpost. With a team of 100 reporting to a former Apple engineer, the Detroit giant is researching how humans experience machines, running autonomous-vehicle driving simulations and testing software that examines how bicycles and cars interact. "For 100 years, automobiles have been a mechanical engineering industry," said the center's director, Dragos Maciuca, who on his morning commute drives past a nearby research center of German automotive electronics and parts supplier Bosch. "Now, there is the shift...

The government has defended its move to gradually phase out tax breaks on electric cars as a way to make things fairer for car owners, but the maker of Denmark’s most popular electric model has slammed the plan as anti-competitive and a death knell for the industry. A political agreement reached on Friday afternoon will see tax breaks on electric cars phased out over the next five years. As a result, the costs of some popular electric models will skyrocket. The hardest hit will be the luxury model Tesla S P85D, which will more than double in price from 875,000...

Elon Musk our billionaire, whose Stimulus funded Tesla Motors, Solarandra City and (only option to Russia, NASA is out) Space X has received $4.9 billion in FedSlush. Is Elon Musk a billionaire welfare queen of Federal grants, discounted loans, tax breaks, government RICO & Carbon credits? Tesla is set to receive an incentive worth $1.3 billion from the state of Nevada. Anyone who buys a Tesla gets a $7,500 federal income tax credit, Californians receive an additional rebate of $2,500 from the state. In all, Tesla Motors Inc. has received close to $2.391 billion in form of government subsidies. SolarCity,...

Fast-growing Tesla Motors has leased a Fremont building once occupied by Solyndra before the solar company’s high-profile implosion, the Silicon Valley Business Times reported Thursday. The 500,000-square-foot facility, at 901 Page Ave., was the last of Solyndra’s former buildings to remain empty. Seagate Technologies snapped up Solyndra’s main factory — built with $528 million in federal loans — in 2012. And earlier this year, SolarCity leased a two-building Solyndra complex at 47700 Kato Rd. Tesla CEO Elon Musk chairs SolarCity’s corporate board.

Space makes for strange relationships. With NASA’s Space Shuttle shuttered since 2011, American astronauts have hitched rides to the International Space Station inside Russian Soyuz rockets for the past four years. But ever since Russia claimed Crimea and supported a separatist movement in Ukraine, the United States and Russia haven’t exactly been on great terms. Congress passed punitive sanctions on Russia, and in retaliation, Russia forbade the sale of rocket engines to the American military. Yet the Pentagon, which is currently supplying the Ukrainian military with vehicles, now needs a little help getting its military satellites to space. So it's...

“The Batteriser has boost circuitry that will boost the voltage from 0.6 volts to 1.5 volts and will maintain voltage at 1.5—which is a brand new battery,” Roohparvar says. “There’s actually no IP [intellectual property] in the boost circuitry. Our technology is really a miniaturization technique that allows us to build the sleeve. We have some IP in some of the IC circuits that are in there, but the key is we’ve been able to miniaturize the boost circuit to a point that no one else has been able to achieve. “ To prove that he’s not peddling snake oil,...

There are many stories comparing South Africa to a time bomb ready to explode from the deplorable conditions and slow genocide of the whites. The delicate situation of crime, corruption and poverty increasing throughout the land raises concern. Living under a communist government led by a president who rules over nepotism, lining his pockets and destroying everything the apartheid government built.There is the element of the South African Communist party affiliated to the governing African National Congress (ANC) who have not sidetracked from influencing the Zuma administration and turning South Africa into a one-party state. Julius Malema kicked out of...

3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, is likely to revolutionize business in the next several years. Often dismissed in the popular mindset as a tool for home-based “makers” of toys and trinkets, the technology is gaining momentum in large-scale industry. Already it has moved well beyond prototyping and, as I explain in a new HBR article, it will increasingly be used to produce high-volume parts and products in several industries. Since I prepared that article, new developments have only strengthened the case for a 3-D future – and heightened the urgency for management teams to adjust their strategies. Impressive next-generation technologies...

Los Angeles entrepreneur Elon Musk has built a multibillion-dollar fortune running companies that make electric cars, sell solar panels and launch rockets into space. And he's built those companies with the help of billions in government subsidies. Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support, according to data compiled by The Times. The figure underscores a common theme running through his emerging empire: a public-private financing model underpinning long-shot start-ups. "He definitely goes where there is government money," said Dan Dolev, an analyst at...

According to Consumer Reports, Tesla Model S owners are highly satisfied. In fact, the 99 out of 100 owner-satisfaction score gathered from 600 owners is the highest the agency has seen in years. This is somewhat surprising in light of what seems to be a high level of maintenance and service appointments that Model S owners are experiencing. To be fair, much of the maintenance seems to be due to hyperactive proactivity and misdiagnosis as the company learns to properly diagnose problems unique to its electric cars. Still, as a young vehicle manufacturer, there is certainly room for quality control...

From the start, little has been typical about Tesla Motors' plan for a $5 billion factory to make batteries for a new generation of electric cars. It's not just the project's massive scale, the cutting-edge technology, or even the bonanza of 6,500 good-paying jobs. It's how Tesla is deciding where to build. Through a series of unusual plays, Tesla has five states bidding up subsidy packages to land the coveted plant. The winner is expected to offer the luxury car-maker publicly financed incentives exceeding a half-billion dollars.

(Phys.org) —Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new and unconventional battery chemistry aimed at producing batteries that last longer than previously thought possible. In a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, ORNL researchers challenged a long-held assumption that a battery's three main components—the positive cathode, negative anode and ion-conducting electrolyte—can play only one role in the device. The electrolyte in the team's new battery design has dual functions: it serves not only as an ion conductor but also as a cathode supplement. This cooperative chemistry, enabled by the use...