Yeah, and the Model 3 crushes all of it's competitors like the BM 3, MB C, and Audi A4 in sales. By a lot. The BMW M3 is 70k. The performance version of the Model 3 is in that same ball park price range as the M3 and it whips the M3 in performance/testing #'s.
Tesla is a luxury brand. They only make 3 models and two of their models- the 3 and the S- absolutely dominate the competition in sales. The Model S far outsells the BMW 7, Audi A8, or MB S Class, and the Model 3 far outsells the BMW 3/4, Audi A4, or MB C-Class. Tesla Model 3's are 39.5k just like the MB C-Class is 41k or the BMW 3 Series is 40k. By the time you add any options, those MB C-class and BMW 3 series are 50k+. Same thing with the Tesla. The 35k luxury EV is a pipe dream. Great marketing ploy for a company that spends $0 on advertising. They'd need to cheapen the F out of the car to sell it for $35k.
I think that's a pretty big exaggeration to say that Tesla won't be around in 3 months from now. This is a company that went from $200 million in revenue in 2011 to $22 billion in revenue in 2018, and they've been in far greater trouble many times in the past than they are right now and pulled through every single time.
Tesla in Q1 saw their deliveries drop like a rock, despite opening up Model 3 shipments to Europe and China. Including those Model S and X cars (the high margin ones) which dropped to half their normal quarterly run rate. They lost $700M last quarter, which would have been $900M if not for sales of GHG emissions credits they've been sitting on.
They may be great vehicles... I get that they have acceleration numbers that are pretty damn good. And yes, they're a luxury brand. But the message from Elon [at least before last week] was that getting the ability to profitably make the Model 3 SR a mass-market car was the funding engine that would push them into everything else. Well, it's not. They were barely profitable in Q3 and Q4 last year [a lot of it also came from ZEV credit sales], and everything fell off a cliff in Q1 right around the time they actually opened up orders the 39.5K Model 3.
They might be able to make a profit with the high-margin Model 3 (long range and performance versions), but they exhausted their order book for the profitable cars in Q3 and Q4, and can't seem to make profit with a $39.5K Model 3.
And this is what I said on May 1:
But I'm pretty sure without a capital raise SOON, they're headed for a bankruptcy filing.
On May 2, they announced a capital raise. It was only $2.7B (they only expect to net $2.3B in proceeds due to the actions they had to take to make this raise viable). That's enough for maybe 6 months unless they get their financial house in order.
If they can magically turn profitable, then it's fine. But given the hole they dug in Q1, and the fact that Q2 isn't projected to be profitable, Elon Musk will have to pull a rabbit out of a hat in order for this relatively modest capital raise. Because even his promises (Model Y and robotaxis) aren't likely to materialize until mid-2020 at best.
We'll see, though. Supposedly they're still guiding for 90-100K deliveries this quarter. If they manage to hit that, it suggests that Q1 was a blip. If they manage to be at least CLOSE to profitability, even if they end up with a loss, it suggests that Q1 was a blip.
But as I said, I've been getting into this soap opera, and it's a company that seems to be ever desperate in their actions to try to stay afloat.
