Apple has about $100B in debt and pays out a dividend. Are they about to go bankrupt? It makes perfect sense for a company to use debt for financing in this era of historically low interest rates. If they don't have the cash flow to service that debt(see Tesla) then it becomes a problem.

Ford and GM have billions in the bank. Their revenues are many times more than Tesla's. They pay a dividend. You can't compare outstanding debt between Tesla and them. The only reason Tesla is compared to Ford or GM at all is because of its ludicrous market cap.

When making the argument on costs of mileage between gasoline and BEVs, people tend to forget to factor in the cost of a new battery for the BEV.

For lending Tesla $1,000 at 0% interest and using you to advertise an artificial "reservation count". In turn, helping lift the stock price so Elon could borrow hundreds of millions against it while insiders(like brother Kimbal) could cash out at a crazy valuation. Feel honored, the last time Musk thanked the shareholders was when they bailed him and other insiders out by tying the failing SolarCity albatross to Tesla's neck. The question now is, who's going to bail out Tesla?

Keep this in mind depositors; in a bankruptcy you are an unsecured creditor. And given that the Fremont plant was just put up for collateral, there will be very little(if any) left once the secured creditors are paid.

The one thing that sets Tesla apart is that there is no $35K Model 3. It's complete vaporware and can not be bought. People were suckered into giving Tesla an interest free $1,000 loan thinking they'd get a $35K Model 3 with the $7.5K tax credit, all to get as high of a reservation count for Musk to crow about and push the stock price ever higher.

A reservation count that when probed a bit and asked by an analyst about the actual conversion rate when a holder is asked to configure, Musk prefixed his response with a full 15 seconds of silence before saying the question was, "too dry" and decided to spend the next 20 minutes allowing a dozen questions by a YouTube fan boy with a whole 51 shares to his name. It doesn't take Freud to know that the truth was something not supportive of the narrative Musk is trying to push.

I recommend people listen to the archived 1Q18 conference call, including the two previous. If you're not an investor they are very amusing. If you are then they scream run for the exits. It's fun to go back and read Musk's comments about, "productizing the factory", listen to him rant about "stepped exponential production" curves and "air friction" being a potential limiter, and then read his short tweet admitting that he has no idea what he's doing and wasted billions of investor dollars trying to over automate final assembly. It's too bad we're not going to have too many more calls to laugh at.

The amusement rides and hats might be the only thing he can make a profit on. Carnival barker, indeed!

Matthew Schwall, director of field performance engineering, has left Tesla to go work for Waymo. He was the contact point for safety regulators. A role that has perhaps more stressful given the multiple investigations going on regarding accidents. Petty soon it'll just be Musk and his cyber dragon.

On second thought, maybe the fact that Parkinson is still alive might have some bearing on who won the award.

I'd mod this up if I had points. Roger Easton is the inventor of GPS and a better pick for this award.

I'm sure billions of dollars eases the butt hurt. But really, why is one surprised when someone wants to buy your project for a fortune and they then want to monetize it?

Pretty soon Elon will be wearing all the hats. Or maybe he'll assign his cyborg dragon to fill some of the roles.

The Model S/X battery packs are 'overbuilt' in comparison to cheaper BEVs. When new, the BMS never completely discharges(and may never completely charge) the cells to help preserve them. Don't expect the Model 3 battery packs to last as long since it's a less expensive vehicle. It's also the reason Tesla made sure to state warranty for the battery pack in Model 3 only applies if the battery pack loses over 70% of its capacity with in the warranty period. Of course, who knows what entity may be around to service that warranty in a few years.

At least there's no risk of the government going bankrupt and you being stuck as an unsecured creditor.

Both for their cars and their factory. They're getting sued for their FSD fraud, and they've wasted time and money over auto mating their Fremont factory for the Model 3 line. Now Musk is going to have a 24/7 shift for the Model 3 line. How ever close they were to positive margins on the $60K Model 3 have now become that much more elusive. And the $35K Model 3? Phffft.

Even if Tesla's market cap falls to $5B(less than $30 a share, assuming no further dilution), nobody will buy it given its $24B in liabilities. Assets will be sold piecemeal after reorg.