Mercedes Dumps Tesla; Will Beat Tesla At Its Own Automotive Game; Audi To Challenge Tesla -- August 19, 2015

Updates

August 26, 2015: the trouble with Elon Musk, over at The Coyote Blog. 

August 21, 2015: it's very possible TeslaBattery's biggest competitor will be Apple when it's all said and done. I doubt the average person knows how deeply involved Apple is with battery technology. Inadequate batteries drove Steve Jobs nuts; seldom reported. This should really scare Tesla: Apple and Mercedes may partner. This comes out just days after it was announced that Mercedes dumps Tesla. My hunch is that Mercedes saw something with regard to Elon Musk or Tesla that truly bothered them, and they thought it was time to get out. Macrumors is reporting:

Amid rumors that Apple is working on a top-secret automotive project ranging from its own electric car to a CarPlay-related technology platform for vehicles, Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler AG remains open to "different types" of cooperation with Apple, reports Reuters.

Later, 6:41 p.m. Central Time: wow, that didn't take long. Literally, just minutes after posting the link/note below, I run across this note/link from The Drudge Report: Audi to unveil 310-mile electric SUV to rival Tesla Model X.

The problem with Tesla, among a number of other things, it did not have a very big moat. With regard to building cars, it had no moat: there are a dozen automobile manufacturers selling a lot more cars than Tesla. With regard to batteries, it had no moat: Panasonic, among others, have been working on batteries for a long, long time. This house of cards is about to fall.

Note: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment or financial decision based on what you read here. The problem I have with Tesla is this: scam.
 

Original Post

 

Regular readers know my feelings about Tesla. Here's a new report that raises the question -- what does Mercedes know that the rest of us don't know. From Seeking Alpha, first the summary:

• Auto Motor Und Sport, the leading German auto magazine, reports that Mercedes will stop buying Tesla powertrain components - batteries, motors, etc;
• Tesla's recent 10-Q and 10-K filings provide numbers that help an investor quantify the financial impact to Tesla of lost sales to Mercedes;
• adding insult to injury, the article also says that this new all-electric Mercedes will get approximately 310 miles of range;
• the timing of this new all-electric Mercedes is uncertain, but is unlikely to arrive in US dealerships in the next 12 months; and,
• for Tesla to lose its Mercedes revenue, and to gain a new long-range electric car competitor, is not a positive incremental investment development. 

It will be interesting to watch TSLA over the next few days.

Note: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment or financial decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. 

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