Tesla Motors' Stock Finally Falls
Wall Street's favored child of the year has finally hit some rough terrain. Third-quarter earnings were meek, causing stocks to tumble 20.9 percent on Tuesday in after hours trading. Now, a third fire in six weeks in a Model S is causing more than a few heads to turn. The latest fire was in Smyrna, Tennessee where federal investigators are getting involved amid fears that there might be some fundamental engineering problem.
Tesla has been the symbol of the potential and progress made in marrying high-end technology with excellent design in automobiles. If these fires continue, though, then the stock price and public good will may never fully recover. Generally speaking, car fires are very, very unlikely, but roughly 33 still happen every day. Given the sheer number of vehicles on the road that are actively used, that still leaves a Tesla Model S several times as likely to catch fire over the past six weeks than any given regular auto.
A recall or retrofit might be necessary based on federal investigation findings – both of which would be catastrophic for the young automaker.

I hope the company succeeds in a pure sense. I mean selling a lot of quality vehicles. They are one of the biggest driving forces behind electric vehicles in the US right now. But they do concern me. Every time I hear about them I get a queasy feeling something bad is going to happen, like there's gonna be a disastrous scandal to come out. May be the case of right message and wrong messenger as far as changing the car and energy culture.
The motor is in the back, as are the high voltage power regulators. They are water cooled with radiators in the front. In the front you have the cabin/battery air conditioner, electric steering, a small compressor (maybe for the optional air suspension, maybe for the brake booster, not sure), lead acid acessory battery somewhere, etc.
It will be interesting to see what got hot since it wasn't the battery this latest time I don't think.
Come on Tesla, you got this.
By the Way, Now would be a great time to buy a few shares. Tesla is definitely going to put effort into this and when their stock jumps right back up, you'll be happy you bought a few shares. Of course this is the most optimistic outlook.
Why have fossil fuels been so successful? Because they contain a lot of energy per pound, contain a lot of energy per cubic foot, and are extremely stable in their liquid form.
Batteries of today are just too heavy and expensive. Much of the economic gains found from using electricity generated from coal powered boilers and other high effeciency methods, is wasted by having to expend energy accelerating the mass of the batteries. Compound that fact with the astronomical prices of batteries and any chance of commercial viability goes out the window.
The vast majority of these green technologies are scams coming from people looking for easy government money. If something needs government money to get off the ground, the free market already has a better solution.
The real future lies in something like light duty fusion power or antimatter collection, containment, and power generation techniques. It might take decades or even centuries to get there, but we'll still have safe and affordable fossil fuels available as an option until then.
They are ecologic disasters. A thousand pounds of toxic waste that has to be replaced every 3~5 years in each vehicle. Preferred to be powered by either Coal/Oil Electric plants, or Nuclear Power. Of the three Nuclear Power is "Greener" but produces a lot of toxic waste. Solar does not currently produce enough energy in their life time to warrant their manufacturing. Wind does not produce a lot of energy and requires vast areas of open space.
If Electric cars would be adopted by the majority of people, we would have a HUGE waste problem.
Best alternative I have heard is Hydrogen powered cars, but they require a rare mineral as a catalyst.
They are ecologic disasters. A thousand pounds of toxic waste that has to be replaced every 3~5 years in each vehicle. Preferred to be powered by either Coal/Oil Electric plants, or Nuclear Power. Of the three Nuclear Power is "Greener" but produces a lot of toxic waste. Solar does not currently produce enough energy in their life time to warrant their manufacturing. Wind does not produce a lot of energy and requires vast areas of open space.
If Electric cars would be adopted by the majority of people, we would have a HUGE waste problem.
Best alternative I have heard is Hydrogen powered cars, but they require a rare mineral as a catalyst.
Any gaseous fuel, hydrogen included, is a terrible idea for vehicles traveling 65+ mph. You know how car accidents look in the movies? You know, 25 mph impacts result in huge fireballs and cars getting blown serval stories into the air. That's how it would be in real life if small cars traveling at highway speeds were powered by hydrogen.
Your comment about nuclear power generating a lot of waste is rather silly too. To put things in perspective, if we could make a 250 hp nuclear engine for a car that had the same power to waste ratio as the typical nuclear power plant, that engine could run at full power for 24 hours a day for an entire year and only produce 8 pounds of nuclear waste. A typical nuclear power plant produces about a gigawatt of electricity and only produce 20 metric tons of nuclear waste per year.
If your smart and have disposable income to invest, there is a lot of money to be made. Remember the Google IPO? $85 a share. Should have got a loan, 85 thousand invested... would be over a million dollars now.
Twitter just went public, I'm throwing ~10 grand at it, after it settles down and trades sideways for a bit.
That would be like Bill Gates coming over to your house on poker night; "just trying to make some extra money"... Lol
Exxon Mobil has so much money they can't even do anything with it(antitrust laws). And if they gave it all away; in a couple of months they would have enough money to buy every share of Tesla. As they make almost a billion dollars per week(profit).