The Best Tesla Short Thesis You've Ever Seen

Nathan Weiss of Unit Economics casts a critical eye on Tesla's green cred, management performance and financials in a presentation at the March 5 Subscriber Investment Summit in Toronto. Photo credit: Brian Solis

[billplatypus]

Nice to see this now to see how wrong this guy was.

[andrepoon]

Sometimes the Stockmarket is just amazing. You put your money where your mouth is... and when you are wrong... you pay for it... if you are an idiot... you pay... thanks for funding my Model 3 short sellers!!

[daorym]

Why did you skip the added pollution of petroleum fueled cars?  It takes power to remove it from the ground, process oil to useable forms, then to transport it across oceans, countries, pump into storage facilities, move to gas stations, and then transfer to cars. And what about people like me who have enough solar to cover their entire use of electricity?   What about the continued improvement of our energy grid?  What about people who only buy renewable energy?  Did you know that was even possible?  Also, where did you hear that energy produced at night is dirtier?  Do you think they turn off the hydro electric, nuclear and wind plants at night so they can burn coal instead?  Night energy loads are so low that prices are less at night.  Your argument simply sounds made up.

Very one sided argument you have made.  Why is it that people like you keep trying to justify your own lack of effort to slow pollution?  What is your goal?  What are your grand children going to say about your lack of concern for their future?

[Kankasin]

I remember samethings said about newspapers vs online, amazon vs real shopping, online advertising vs tv. And guess who are almost out of jobs.
This is future and some people just not wanna admit. Tesla is not numbers game cause its not only a car company which they cant or dont wanna understand.

[RawandCookedVegan]

Mr. Weiss definitely has an axe to grind. LI batteries can be recycled. The model 3 will be a significant reduction in weight compared with the model S. Tesla has already significantly improved battery quality after only a few years producing cars. That will only continue. A grid based on coal will not be the power source forever. Hopefully it will become largely solar and if much solar is generated at the individual home, as Tesla hopes, the transmission line issue will be eliminated but for long distance travel and associated charging. Tesla is not the only company getting subsidies. All companies selling electric cars get subsidies. If Weiss thinks those subsidies should be abolished, fine, but then also end subsidies for the fossil fuel industry and nuclear power and institute a carbon tax. The perk Tesla got for building plant in Nevada is spread out over 10 years. All states give large companies incentives to build. To suggest that Tesla is alone or special in this regard is absurd.

[drivesolarworldwide]

I hereby wish to express my utmost gratitude to Nathan Weiss as well as all the other short-sellers and OF COURSE to Elon for together creating a massive short squeeze that will finance my Model 3! I am very happy to participate in the green revolution by investing the losses of the short-sellers directly into Tesla and guess many other Tesla-fans are so wise to do the same!

[goldreverre]

Three years on we can see that the bear 2016 case was completely wrong on every single point and the bull case was proven correct. How strange that the price is still lower regardless of the huge success of the model 3...shares in June 2019 at $220 are absurdly undervalued.

[zezizarjaars]

Well, you don't need to be any intelligent to understand this guy doesn't have a clue what he's talking about

[dwolff]

Most of what he says about inflated numbers and falling short of projections is correct. Elon, very consistently, oversells his information. What Nathan Weiss is missing is that TESLA is creating an entire INDUSTRY. You aren't just jumping into the auto manufacturing ring producing a new model. This is creation of the electric vehicle industry (not the concept, but as a global mainstream to compete with ICE). I never pay attention to presentation of points unless they produce a BETTER alternative to achieving the same goals. Buying Solar City was the BEST move to the future. Exactly how many years and how much money does Mr. Weiss think it takes to not only put a half million vehicles on the road annually but create the ENTIRE infrastructure to supply it? The analogy would be Ford needing to develop EXXON Mobile at the same time it's building worldwide gas stations to provide their new fangled ICE cars with energy. Also missing the mark on exponential expansion of the solar industry as a whole providing an exponential DROP in the carbon footprint of production...and not just for electric vehicles. The Gigafactory is built. The model 3 has half a million orders with production of 5000 a week projected by mid July. Everything Elon has said has come to fruition....just not in the timelines he has specified. In 20 years from inception Tesla will have taken a concept industry and made it globally mainstream. Investors believe this. Pessimists don't. Progress and innovation don't wait for ignorance to catch up.

[dirksaenen]

now this is full of bullshit. Just one example : 8:57 : "idle power consumption of 3.5kWh/day"
Where's the proof of that ?
I just left my Model-S on a parking lot for 28days. That would be 28 days * 3.5 kWh/day = 98 kWh.
Would be difficult with a 85hWh battery.
Luckely, this statement is so wrong, the car just lost 7kWh. - so the figure is wrong by a factor of 14.
Guess the other data is about the same....

[electricjoe]

I drive a Nissan Leaf. I have 60 thousand miles on it and yet to get any service done by the dealer or anyone. I am sure that a Tesla is as reliable as a Leaf.

[MrKevinw]

Now that the cheap-money party is over and TSLA seems to have to rely on its fundamentals rather than its meme popularity and unicorn dust, I thought it would be a good time to rewatch this video.

[davidsc]

Oh my god! No, I'm gonna sell all my TSLA shares. Oh wait, it's 2022 and I'm rich. Hahahahaha

[samguapo]

This video is exactly the kind of presentation where "hard data" can be skewed to suit the presenters objectives instead of a holistic viewpoint.

[BZT-]

On a side note, I usually distrust opinions of guys with a loose shirt collar. that obviously means he doesn't wear suits regularly and is likely he was picked up just because he did some work on a TSLA short. I'm not saying he's biased, but probably hired by a biased sponsor.

[puma.will.pounce]

Question: On the CO2 emissions slide @ 8:44, you calculated 216g of CO2 per mile driven because U.S. electricity generation emits 577 g per delivered KWh (577 x .375 = 216g). Okay, fine.

So my question is does the CO2 calculation for gasoline combustion engine cars (i.e. Jeep Grand Cherokee @ 443 g/mile) also calculate in their CO2 emissions equation for gasoline to include delivery to the pump via tanker truck emissions and the CO2 emissions generated from oil refinery operations to convert crude oil to 87-octane gasoline? If not, then this is a false comparison because you are docking Tesla for CO2 emissions that come from the generation of electricity at the power plant, but not doing the same thing for gasoline vehicles with respect to how much CO2 is emitted per mile in the refinery and delivery via tanker trucks to the pump at the gas station.

[jdelacruz]

Love watching this old videos to see how wrong the smart people were.

[Skalete]

Why are you not including how much it would take to produce the engine for the Jeep?

[pwc-doctorznostradamus]

BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA Tesla = Ford + GM worth...lol

[brandoYT]

Reminds me of a Mark Twain comment. If you don't read [newspapers] you are ill informed and if you do read [newspapers] you are misinformed.

This is the most misinforming talk I think I have ever heard. Just amazing.