RV_

I have been on that since the beginning too, and await the final outcomes. I read at least two or three articles a day on them and not the chicken little ones alone, although I do read them to see what all the brouhaha is about. Here is one that pretty much agrees with my position on it being long, and buying more on the volatile lows if any more present themselves. http://seekingalpha.com/article/390151-tesla-6-reasons-why-put-options-look-undervalued-relative-to-the-risks?source=yahoo It may present with one more panic sellout and subsequent buy opportunity before the Model S debut.

I don't know either. If true, I would imagine we would or will see more substantial reporting, with names and locations. I know that RV owners make a stink all over the Internet when they have manufacturer lemon problems. I would expect the same from luxury carowners of any type. Perhaps that is forthcoming?

Whoa! Tesla is sold out until March 2013 with the Model S. For those with the no one will buy them refrain that is not even on the radar screen of Tesla. They debuted their Model X SUV. OMG! Two motors, all wheel driver, falcon wing rear doors, and performance that beats the Porsche Carrera! Yep you read right. Pricing is to be about the same as the model S. Here are two articles with videos that show the Model X in person with interviews and articles: http://www.cnbc.com/id/46332448?__source=yahoo%7Cheadline%7Cquote%7Ctext%7C&par=yahoo This next one is a video only but has some better pics of the inside and a different interview with Musk: http://money.cnn.com/video/pf/2012/02/09/pf_w_tesla_model_x.cnnmoney/ And here is the Tesla website for the Model X with more technical info and pics: http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=

I knew when Toyota bought into Tesla in 2010 and then Tesla delkivered the RV4 SUV prototype as promised to Akio Toyoda, the new top dog in Toyota. I juast read another article about him and found this bit: "Akio shrank the board of directors by half and took out layers of management. Funo revealed a more significant development: Akio has begun meeting informally with his five top advisers every Tuesday morning to review the company's operations. They work so closely together that Funo called it "pit work" management. No agendas or written reports are allowed, and decisions are made on the spot. "Basically, the six people have a very strong personal bond. So it's not a very emotional or heated debate as we have a very good understanding among each other." They can move quickly. After Akio visited Tesla Motors (TSLA) in California in 2010, the Tuesday morning meeting signed off on a $50 million investment in the electric-car maker. Subsequently Toyota agreed to buy $60 million worth of Tesla batteries to power its all-electric RAV 4 crossover." OK, I am slow but I get there. They already had most of the engineering done for an SUV in December 2010. (slaps forehead DOH!) That article about Toyota is here: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/02/09/toyota-akio-toyoda-comeback/?source=yahoo_quote

Bob, Thanks. Sorry I did not see your post as I was composing when it posted and was checking mine and left last time. Just saw it. I will do that when I think it is advantageous. As you know however, the trick is timing, and that is just a guess, or a conservative withdrawal and "never look back and wish." To me that is the greed that breaks bank accounts, not banks. They get a get out of jail free card, and keep ill gotten gains anyway. Or pay a relatively smaller fine than the profits to the SEC, and press on keeping their profits from those they bankrupted. Anybody that took my advice and bought Tesla a few weeks ago at 22.25 (when it hit the low I missed, until it was too late, and it was up to 25 in after hours trading before I even realized it had tanked,) could sell today if they choose and make almost exactly ten dollars per share as it just went to 32.27. Tonight Investors are getting a live preview of the Tesla Model X online at 8 PM PT. 10 my central time. I didn't even know they were working on a Model X, or any other Model other than the Model S coming out this year. I just got the email announcing tonight's live webcast which is open to the public if they stumble upon it on the website here: http://www.teslamoto...et&utm_campaign= I had heard of a future SUV but not this soon! http://news.investors.com/Article/600566/201202081933/tesla-motors-partners-with-toyota-daimler.htm?ven=yahoocp,yahoo Tomorrow it may go through the roof. That is not a prediction like my earlier one that it will tank once, if at all, more, and it did, before the model S comes out. I don't think it will tank again before the Model S at this time. For me it is now hold.

Good observation John. My good friend who also had to come off the road because of health and never won investing in his life but does penny stocks advised me to buy more Tesla anyway and that violated my rule of buying low and selling high. His reasoning is that if you buy at 30 and it goes to 40 then you still made money. But I am not a Pollyanna thinking all will turn out 100% of the time. I fully follow that and can explain it this way. It is like an airplane pilot when thinking about a malfunction. He would rather fight wind-shear at 30,000 feet than on take off and landing. Why? Because then he has the time to make corrections that he would not have time to try if he did not have the altitude. It takes me less than a week to forget to check my stock, and so I missed a buy opportunity. But note that it dropped, as before, to definite level and then stopped. The bottom has been 22-23. Sure it may crash and go out of business, but I doubt that before the delivery of the Model S. So I buy at a point where I think I can stand to get out in a permanent crash with at least my original principal or close. If I lose it all I am not jumping out of any windows. That would just add insult to injury. We live in a one story dwelling! Please don't point out a million disaster scenarios, I have considered them and also know that it could be wiped out in an hour, and no one see it coming. So could GE as we just saw with Kodak. But I doubt it. Fear and hubris, they never caused problems at any time in our history have they?

Thanks Ron, No harm, no foul. You did have me completely confused there. I am really just a beginner and able to kill two birds with one stone. I could finally participate in Tesla when they IPO'd. Something Space X still hasn't done despite their success and contracts for launches. And yes I am aware of the funds being way too conservative for me. But I am married and I only recently have proven to my SH that you don't profit or lose until you sell. Two weeks ago when Tesla tanked and I missed what may have been the last buy opportunity for more at cut rates, she was frantic and would have sold at a break even had I not been around. I let her switch the funds on the advice of the financial advisors there in 2008 when we were buying as much as we could and that was a lot by our standards. For the past three years they were a good pick for the volatile period we are exiting now. So yes it is time to move them back into more aggressive areas. Before we had it in four funds with a heckuva diversification. I control the cash with her having equal say. She controls the assets in the nest eggs with me having equal say, and she handles all the accounting. It works for us. I have a simple way to see my assets invested or banked which used to be almost the same, just more secure. I look at $10k and figure the actual money gained. Most don't but since I think in round figures, that works for me. Several years back I realized that my performance index accounts had fallen to below a percent, but once I figured out what I was making on each $10K, at one point recently $108.00 in interest per year for every $10k I had in the account! I was outraged. If I wanted to borrow money it was at much more and if I used my own money to guarantee the loan it was still ten times what they paid me to use my money for loans to others. Thus my foray into the wonderful world of individual stocks, which if i sold today outperformed my old way by leaps and bounds. I can lose it all I know. And i don't like any of the other options I have been shown thus far. My insanity for one day in believing my own press (Overconfident in the emotional article) demonstrated to me that I am not immune to hubris. It might make billions for anybody that gets into it. But one of them won't be me. And once I am through with Tesla and Space X I think I will retire my investing in individual stocks once the performance index accounts start paying again. See, I am boring and can't be taught to talk the talk.

Amen Jack

Everybody else, I wanted to do this one company. Period. You all can gamble and/or invest all you want on paper only scenarios, or for real, online or off, and call it whatever you choose. If you win I will be genuinely happy for you. I am paid up, paid off, and set for life whether I make a gazillion bucks from this investment or not, which is not my substantial money. I see no comments on the articles about the emotional reactions of those who call themselves investors, written by experts, nor the Buffet Quotes, nor the crazy ignorant reviews by the investment experts who would advise and could not tell an EV from a hybrid. (BTW I did the review of his son's album "Imaginary Kingdom" for Boomers International online in 2009: http://boomersint.or...ffettReview.htm , I never met him just corresponded a few times via email.) All I can think is this: http://home.earthlin...ylike/id66.html

Jack, I call it making money. Seriously Jack thanks for making it clear. My substantial money is in those diversified funds above. I am happy for anybody else here who is making money today, whatever they call it.

Ron, The strategy was to switch many years ago from the Putnam funds we held and were screwed by Putnam over, to USAA funds managed by our people. Our strategy with our funds as long as they are making money was to switch our more aggressive USAA funds over to the USAA Income fund and the USAA Target retirement fund 2020 in late 2007 and buying all the extra shares we could for two years (2008/9) while they were at rock bottom. Which was good as I was working at a great position and we had no debt, no house note, no car notes, our only expenses being food and utilities, so we banked most of it and put the rest in retirement funds. (We paid off our property within a year of gaining possession in 2003/4 as an additional investment diversification. Home is on 5 acres) Once the interest rates dropped from 4% on our performance index accounts we needed a place to put the money and were very happy that the Tesla IPO came along as I had been following their progress for the previous five years or more. It turned out perfectly as a vehicle for those funds in the previously performing index and money market accounts. USAA funds rated 4 and five star by Morningstar: https://www.usaa.com/inet/imco_mutualfund/ImMorningstarFunds The two funds we bought heavily in 2007/8/9 http://quote.morningstar.com/fund/f.aspx?t=USAIX http://quote.morningstar.com/fund/f.aspx?t=URTNX I am not an investor as I have said many times before here. And certainly no expert which I also have said here many times before in this thread. I do not advocate IPOs in general and invested in only one as a vehicle to make more than less than half a percent. I did feel very good about my activity in TSLA over the past year and a half. And the rest is in those two funds because I prefer to have money managers doing mine. They were bought when we saw the markets turning and on advice of our USAA people who are salaried not commission income financial advisors based on sales. I have found them over the years to be exactly what they claimed to be which was what I was looking for. "When it comes to investing, you want results. Our disciplined approach to mutual fund management and performance stems from our military values of honesty, integrity, loyalty and service. The following USAA mutual funds have earned four or five stars from Morningstar based on their performance." You see USAA is open only to military and retired military and their children. They are rock solid, in the top insurance and banking top five picks for places to work or to do biz with or both. Our bank was the first to provide scanning checks to deposit from home. They pioneered it long before the other banks provided it free to their customers and using their own home all in one machines. So I have never played the stock market, IPO or otherwise, except by proxy through my edumacated fund managers at USAA and my advisors there, except for once. My Tesla investment. I was looking forward to their IPO for years. I bought in at around 20 and 22 and had a safe haven thus far for my one play. At its lowest a few weeks ago when everybody panicked I would have bought more had I known about it. I truly wish I had someone who had called me gloating thinking I would be hurt but instead I could have bought a lot more. I am writing rather long here because I am completely confused about your post. You wrote: "As several famous people have said, "Hope is not a strategy". Betting on IPO is mostly for gamblers and speculators - not investors. Regarding the excitement over the upcoming Facebook IPO consider the following from today's Barron's:" That after quoting me about hoping my funds continue to do well. I first said I was going to invest in Facebook, and then retracted that and said essentially I was just feeling good about my Tesla position. I would not have lost if I sold when they were down a couple of weeks ago. (Well broke even is losing, I know) So if you think I am advocating buying IPOs I am not. I only recommended stocks twice and both times here. Apple in 2005 and then Tesla. I have not bought a single share of any stock since I bought Tesla, and never bought a share of stock in my life before it. If you go to the links of the funds we socked away a lot of money in when they were down perhaps you can understand what I meant when I said I hope they continue their upward climb overall for a few years more, and I think they will and much more as the world economies recover slowly, which they will IMHO. I agree with Facebook being a bad deal, and disagree with folks who say it is going to be the next best thing. I could be wrong 100%. I don't worry because I am 100% right for me and my money. Once more, I hope they continue to do well for us as they have so far through tough times. When times get a lot better we may go back to our other investments and start flipping houses again. We do all the work and keep all the profits (and mineral rights, we will continue to get monthly checks from the Gas well companies for drilling under our properties.) I don't gamble at the local casinos and consider the lottery to be a tax for the math impaired. I also except this once don't gamble in the stock market personally. I will leave that to you.

Yes if you bought at the lowest. However we have a lot of IRA funds that are looking very nice and we hope will continue on their upward trend until we both hit 62 or 65 in the next couple of years. (I turn 60 this May and my SH is 2 years my junior.) OK I posted this before but it makes total sense to me and I was guilty of falling for my own hubris when I said we would surely do the Facebook IPO. Right now I can sell and make more than 9 bucks a share averaged across my two buys. That is an actual increase of 38.88 percent and the profit is an actual 27.2% profit. If I sell now I will be fine, but I know that the Model S debut when it actually happens will drive the stock through the roof. So my choices are to sell when I double my money and walk away and never look back unless it tanks and I think it will come back again later. Or to hang on and see if it climbs with the success and my initial plan was to ride it out through the end of this year and cash out. Or I can hang on longer term. I agree that it is a tad bit more complicated than buy low sell high. I said it is about knowing the industry and knowing the players and their track records for several years if not decades back. And that investing is being a partner in my mind. But it has been changed into a high stakes computerized game of numbers, with little knowledge of the players beyond some supposed expert comments. All I am saying is that most folks are way too emotional, and think their calculators can take the place of having a feel for the players at the helm of a prospective company. If cynical I could say that the CEO boys club is a rotation for 3 to five years to add another golden parachute reaping to the chain. And that is somewhat true until you get to disruptive technologies, and industries. How do you decide a Pay Pal is the way to go before it is developed and as the VC for the first round of financing? To me an IPO is the final release after the beta of the venture capital being paid off, or to pay it off and letting others in as partners. Like the military, no matter what technology we have, we still need boots on the ground, and people at the helms. I like having rocket scientists running a company, people who understand the engineering both hardware and software. But even that isn't enough the person needs to have a business background and a track record. The guy runni9ng Tesla is all of the above. Go here and scroll down to Elon Musk's two para bio: http://www.spacex.com/company.php My next investment is going to be in rockets I hope. I don't invest. I don't know the markets. But I will say this. I agree that we would all be Warren Buffets if we could actually buy low and sell high. I just know Tesla and Musk, among a few other companies I may invest in. But Tesla and Musk have been my focus and until they IPO'd I could do nothing more than watch them actually make it happen. Warren Buffet shares his methods but folks don't seem to listen. I have said I am in it for the long term but that can change. http://beginnersinve...arrenquotes.htm What I am talking about when i say that folks don't seem to buy low and sell high is what this page is all about and I posted it here many weeks ago already: http://www.tflguide....situations.html That would be funny if it were not totally true. Do we have any Warren Buffets here? Seriously anybody who can't lose? I can.

You beat me to it Ed! Nasdaq reaches 11-year high; Dow at highest level since before 2008 financial crisis http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/markets/stock-futures-jump-after-us-jobs-report-shows-lower-unemployment-strong-job-growth/2012/02/03/gIQAYroimQ_story.html?wpisrc=al_comboNE_b Now since I started buying triple the shares monthly starting when the crash in share prices came in 2007/8 and kept on doing that until last year when I jumped into my first stock pick, it has been pretty amazing. I am sitting on a Tesla close at 31 plus up from the 22.25 of 16 days ago. That just North of what I pad for my second block last August. My money is doing a heck of a lot better than it did earning less than .5% interest in a bank money market account, or the what? - 2% max for long term CDs? No calculator methods. No strategies. Just buy low, sell high. I will never know how low they will go, nor if they will go higher. as said no one can predict the market timing. I don't need to as long as I buy low and sell high. It seems to me that when the least ripple happens to frighten people they sell at a loss following the herd stampede. Then, when the prices are high they feel more secure and buy in case they can make a small profit, but are like a cat on a hot tin roof. Just plain jumpy. I used to have an answer for folks looking for a shortcut in shooting competitions. I would tell them that the trick is to shoot out the middle of the ten ring, and then once you have done that, shoot all the rest of your bullets off the target completely so no hits outside of the ten ring show up. Then they have to count all the ones they can't see holes for as going through the middle shot out hole. Some never figured it out. Buy low sell high has the same simplicity. If you can shoot the middle out, you don't need a shortcut. If you buy the right stocks by knowing the companies, not the picks of others, and have a feel for the industry you choose to own some of, then buy when stocks are down, and sell when they are up, you win. Greedy is when the trouble starts. And we will never be big enough to get first dibs on the presale of IPOs as they offer multi million dollar preferred customers. In the casinos they call them high rollers. Six months ago I did get an email from one who played with a small block of Tesla and wish they had bought more. Now I know they are happy. But don't look for me to be right again, in fact I already decided that Facebook is not in my future for many reasons, but this article says it best. http://www.techrepub...156?tag=nl.e101 I almost started believing I knew something about the stock market and I don't. I knew something about Apple when they announced they were going to switch to Intel chipsets and what that meant. I knew a lot about Tesla and where they have been before IPO and who Elon Musk is. But I got cocky when I wrote that and that won't happen again. I prefer to be a dummy and make a bit of profit than a greedier gambler and have to know when to fold em. Hope all have a great weekend!

I sure hope some folks heeded my advice to buy Tesla if it hit in the low 20's, specifically 22 dollars a share or thereabouts when it dropped to that exactly two weeks and one day ago. It is back up to over 30 today and will likely close at a price where anyone who did buy a block at 22.25 when it dropped can make 8 dollars on each share bought at that price. I missed it completely and it never did give me a second chance to buy that low. Motley Fool has been cheering anything negative about Tesla since they IPO'd and then admitting that maybe they are looking at it wrong and then doing a 180 on that. Seeking Alpha at least had some people who stayed the course and even invested themselves as told by disclosures. Now Motley is at it again. I believe that they have changed their advice at least 12 times in 12 months! Now here they are again changing their mind. Excerpt: "Tesla = Apple? A little more than a month ago, fans of electric-car pioneer Tesla Motors (Nasdaq: TSLA ) got shocking news: Morgan Stanley, long a fan of the stock, had turned coat on Tesla. Downgrading from an overweight rating, Morgan skipped right past the traditional pit stop at neutral and went straight to an underweight rating on the stock. (Wall Street-speak for "sell.")Key to Morgan's sell thesis was a major rethink on the popularity of electric cars. According to the analyst, as far out as 15 years from now, we're still probably only going to see e-cars making up about 5% of global car sales. Pretty small beans considering some of the companies that have been talking up the concept, but not everyone agrees with this downbeat assessment. Case in point: Yesterday, at the break of dawn, rival banker Jefferies & Co. initiated coverage of Tesla with a buy rating and a bold pronouncement: "If Apple made a car, this could be it! Tesla's strategy is based on a combination of technology, performance, unconventional marketing, and a 'cool factor.'" The way Jefferies sees it, comparing Tesla's (old) Roadster or (new) Model S to the green econoboxes on offer like Ford's (NYSE: F ) Focus, Toyota's (NYSE: TM ) Prius, or General Motors' (NYSE: GM ) Volt is entirely the wrong way to look at these things. Tesla's real rival, writes Jefferies, is not any of the profitable mass-market vehicle makers, but rather luxury-car builders such as BMW (OTC: BAMXY), noting the appropriate economic question is "Would you buy a Model S with similar price/performance to a BMW 5-series and the ability to use cheaper electric fuel?" And more to the point, would you buy Tesla's luxury e-buggy over BMW's premium gas-guzzler if you knew that, say, Leonardo DiCaprio owned a Tesla? Because, as it just so happens, he does. And so does Dustin Hoffman. And Jay Leno. And Matt Damon, Sergey Brin, and... Condoleezza Rice. Fact is, there's a whole website devoted to spotting "cool" celebrities in their Tesla-mobiles. And if Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the upper echelons of the Washington, D.C., elite all think that Tesla is cool, maybe you should, too." They go on to a surprising conclusion that is nothing more than an attempt to save face. See, they like others have mistakenly been lumping the Tesla in with the greenie econocars since Tesla IPO'd. Here's the article in full: http://www.fool.com/...downgrades.aspx I bring this up because were I a regular or a novice investor trying to choose my first investment, and listened to the "experts," I would be losing my butt. Motley says buy Tesla when it is almost at the highest it has been pre Model S release, and they always say sell or stay away when it drops because of investor panic. I missed my price because as the latest comments suggest I sure could not time the market, but I have been saying all along that it would drop once more before the debut of production of their second model after their successful Roadster series was sold out. Watch them change 180 within the month. Almost every so called expert had no clue as to what an EV was versus a hybrid, no understanding of the technologies in use, and no clue who held the patents for the important part . . . the battery tech. And these were the self proclaimed experts. No wonder folks lose their shirts in the market. They are listening to idiots with no clue who are listening to idiots with no clue and the only thing all the idiots have in common is they have a lot of money and want to hang onto it by dealing in only things they know like housing and oil. After all, they couldn't fail to make big bucks in that even when they failed the investors and destroyed the companies that were too big to let fail. And not one of them went to jail, they took big bonuses for getting the bail outs! I do know the industries and technologies I have followed and until lately, and by that I mean in the last two weeks, the articles were as if written by elementary school children. It is because IMHO the people feel very threatened because this technology is disruptive. We will perhaps just begin to see how disruptive in the next 365 days. Anyway I hope someone here did get a block at that price even though I was too late. But that is OK. We are saving that block and are adding to it to buy into the Facebook IPO or back into Tesla if it drops once more before debut. I have finally learned that when you want to buy if a stock drops all I have to do is put a buy order in and the buy happens automatically when it reaches that low. Had i not been paying attention I would have missed my second big block price however. I had to raise my bid a nickel to get my shares. So having a buy order can fail as well.

I detest Facebook. I will be buying Facebook when it IPOs in a couple of months. I missed that one day buy opportunity for Tesla for a final block and I doubt that there will be any more buy opportunities before the Model S comes out and the hard decisions have to be made. I don't know the market or investing but I do know what tech most likely will do for several companies new and not so new.

Tesla moved to the United States in 1884. When he arrived, he worked as an assistant to Thomas Edison, then in his late 30's. Edison had just invented the electric light bulb, but he needed a system to distribute electricity to houses. He designed a DC (direct current) system, but it had many bugs in it. Edison promised Tesla lots of money in bonuses if he could get the bugs out. Tesla took the challenge and ended up saving Edison over $100,000, which was millions of dollars by today's standards. Edison later refused to keep his promise. Tesla quit not long after that, and Edison spent the rest of his life trying to discredit Tesla (which is the main reason why he is so unknown today). Edison not only welched on his bonus promise and lost Tesla, but he spent the rest of his life discrediting him to good effect. His late instabilities are tied to that frustration. Tesla won out with AC, but not with radar, and a thousand other things. Here is a very good and short history of him with some other links. He was more than interesting in my book, and suffered at the hands of JP Morgan withdrawing support, as well as Edison etc.: http://www.electroherbalism.com/Bioelectronics/Tesla/TeslaversusEdison.htm

I put in a buy order and am ready now for the next dip. I missed it and it was over 23 in after hours trading, opened this morning at 26.62, has been as high today as 27.34, and is now almost to 27 and up 4.00 and is climbing again. :( I learned to have a buy order in before a stock crashes to buy when that is my desire. I know, my inexperience shows. On edit: "Today's noteworthy upgrades include: Tesla Motors (TSLA) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman...Tesla Motors upgraded to Buy from Hold at Wunderlich" http://finance.yahoo...160635.html?x=0 <sigh> Missed it. Take my advice, I am not using it right now anyway. On another edit: Talk about rubbing salt in the wound: http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/11378289/1/buy-tesla-after-share-price-collapse-analysts-say.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA It never got down to my buy price of 22.5 and I did not adjust slightly up as I did not know it crashed until after hours. It is now up 4.43 at 27.21. People who grabbed it Friday are ahead from opening today by 19.44% <groan>

I'm not the only one. Here is an article from Seeking Alpha: Excerpt: "I already have a small position in Tesla, having recommended the stock on a few occasions last year. However, I intend to use the current weakness in the stock price to build a significant position ahead of what should in the end be a solid launch of the Model S." http://seekingalpha.com/article/319621-tesla-stock-collapses-but-looks-massively-oversold?source=yahoo And this grudging agreement with my assessment from Motley Fool: Excerpt: "Tesla, of course, is on track to launch its all-electric Model S sedan later in 2012 -- a launch that will be the make-or-break moment for the audacious Silicon Valley startup. That launch will almost certainly be a success, at least initially -- Tesla has thousands of preorders (and $5,000 deposits) and has already said that the initial production run is sold out -- but for Tesla to succeed as a business, the Model S has to get sustainable sales traction, to find customers beyond the circle of well-heeled gadget geeks and early adopters who ponied up all those deposits." http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/01/14/did-ford-just-crush-tesla-motors.aspx That article is titled "Did Ford Just Crush Tesla?" All through my posts I clearly stated that my position is until the cars are delivered and then the hard decision comes. When to sell if ever? So buying more now cheap is the only way to go. There will be good profits for me once the cars start to get hwy time. Which is what I have said all along. And this is the last pre debut buy opportunity in the next week or two before the stock climb to, and likely higher than the $35.00 high they reached previously. But that is opinion. It could go to 30 or 34 and tank for good, or not have a single problem and be at 200 a year from now. The question isn't is it a good buy now, or whether it will go up significantly. Even the naysayers agree it will have a good launch and profit this year with the Model S. So the make money and get out crowd has an opportunity to make ten bucks a share or so. As always the question is when to sell if ever. Of course remember I am not knowledgeable so anybody taking my position needs to do so on their own. My disclosure is that this is my first, and most likely only, venture into direct buying and selling of stocks. My only reason was that I followed the company and the technology as well as the owner from day one almost. I watched them, before their IPO, design, test, manufacture, and deliver, the first all electric high performance super car successfully in 2008 like they said they would, and on time, exceeding all performance expectations and beating the higher priced 911s and most of the Ferrari, and Lamborghini in the process for million less per car. No one doubts they will do the same again. The recurring theme is that it is a passing phenomena. I don't think so, and I am not alone. So I may goof in the future. But it is unanimous about this year to debut and production.

Smitty all I can say is thank you! I missed it completely and if you read back I have done that every time it dropped like a K-mart thermometer in a blue norther. I saw it doing its normal stable upward climb. I just did put in a buy order but I only have half of the amount I did before that I was able to scrape together to get ready for this. I bet it opens above my 22.5 again and I have to wait again. Dang, you'd think I would be ready. I honestly thought it would not again since this is the year but it is doing what I expected. I got caught unawares once more. Yes I am buying low and thank you for alerting me as I might have missed it all weekend. I just saw that it started bouncing back already after hours. It turns out that two key personnel left the company today but confidence seems restored again. But thanks for the heads up because if it does dip again Monday I will get my last lot. Here is the story on it I just found on reading your post: http://news.investors.com/article/597826/201201131504/tesla-stock-falls-as-engineers-leave.htm?ven=yahoocp&ven=yahoo Shoot! I cut my eye and was at the Docs most of the day. It will heal fine and I am on the eyedrops for the weekend. Dagnabbit! Did anybody else get some at the low?? That I did not expect at all. Thanks again Smitty.

Jim, Just one more digressing post as others may not know anything about him either. Here are some of the more interesting excerpts from that Wiki article you read. I studied Tesla in College when doing my degree in IE! I have always been a fan. The world would be much different had he won out over Edison. I think that frustration later wore on him and resulted in his problems. Yes they did name it after him and in cognizance of how much he actually did do. Two short Excerpts: "Because of his 1894 demonstration of wireless communication through radio[3] and as the eventual victor in the "War of Currents", he was widely respected as one of the greatest electrical engineers who worked in America.[4] He pioneered modern electrical engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance. In the United States during this time, Tesla's fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture.[5] Tesla demonstrated wireless energy transfer to power electronic devices in 1891,[6] and aspired to intercontinental wireless transmission of industrial power in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project." "After the FBI was contacted by the War Department, his papers were declared to be top secret. The personal effects were sequestered on the advice of presidential advisers; J. Edgar Hoover declared the case most secret, because of the nature of Tesla's inventions and patents.[120] One document stated that "[he] is reported to have some 80 trunks in different places containing transcripts and plans having to do with his experiments [...]". Altogether, in Tesla's effects, there were the contents of his safe, two truckloads of papers and apparati from his hotel, another 75 packing crates and trunks in a storage facility, and another 80 large storage trunks in another storage facility. The Navy and several "federal officials" spent two days microfilming some of the material at the Office of Alien Properties storage facility in 1943, and that was it, until Oct., 1945.[121]Tesla's family and the Yugoslav embassy struggled with the American authorities to gain these items after his death because of the potential significance of some of his research. Eventually Mr. Kosanović won possession of the materials, which are now housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum.[122]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Jack, Even I understood that, and the same for your comments John. I have nothing to add except that I agree Jack. Predicting the market is fruitless even when it is one stock and you know the plan and the predicted reaction. I told all that mine would tank in this time period and if it hits 22.5 or less I am buying one last block. That is only for this year and until I see what the full production goes like. However, I had a gut feeling that I should have sold it when it was at almost 35, and then bought later lower and ending up with many more shares. Instead I thought it could stay close or go up again and I lose shares. I am still firm in my estimation but who am I really? I accept the title, self proclaimed, as the least knowledgeable person in this discussion. I got an excellent treatise on the way that Jim did an analysis but to be honest it scares the heck out of me. But thanks Jim it was eye opening and maybe something I will use if I become an EV millionaire! As if . . . .

Jim, Read below. Dang Duke! :lol: :lol:

Awww jeez Jim, Sure I would love to see it and see if I understand it.

Amen Jim. I have limited experience but I know to buy low and sell high. Emotionally it appears that investors sell low in a panic and buy when high because they think it is a success. We bought a lot of shares of our USAA Funds, from 2007 to 2010 when I was working because the shares were tanked. We bought shares for pennies on the dollar compared to several months before we started. We only recently bought our first shares of stock directly. That only because we believed in the man and the company, still do, and only one other time, Apple in 2005 when they announced they were going to be switching to the Intel chipsets. I posted here to buy Apple back then because allowed Windows to run on them. I came sooo close to buying then at $55 a share for a small $30k first investment directly, and chickened out at the last minute since all we hear about are the losses more so than the profits. The only other company and person I followed closely was Tesla and when they went public I finally forced myself to follow my gut, and not miss out like I did with Apple. Like last August it appears that it won't go below 22.5 soon but I expect one more tank before the Model S starts delivery this year sometime in mid 2012. They won't make any money until then and the losses are all in finishing up the production facilities at the factory and finishing up the safety testing etc. These last phases of testing and approvals is the same as they did for the roadsters and should pose no problems. Just like they did with the Roadster when it became the first Hwy capable EV in full production. But if it ever drops below 22.5 again I am buying more.

The Mayan prophecy? Naaah the power that made all this has a better sense of humor than that! One Baktun is over and another starts like our new year's in a few days. The world does not end, we hang new calendars and that staves off the end of the world for another year. One guy says that: " I can personally guarantee, with 100% certainty that our civilization will not come to an end on December 21st, 2012. How can I be so sure you ask? Simple… The divine architect, the Demiurge, universal creator, whatever title works for you, has too twisted of a sense of humor to let me off that easy. Like many of you reading this blog, I too racked up debt over the last decade or two. And like many of you, I have a mortgage to pay off. My Demiurge would never allow me to shirk my responsibilities so easily. Especially with so flimsy of an excuse as some apocalyptic end-times scenario." http://tekgnostics.blogspot.com/2009/11/2012-what-me-worry.html It probably won't. I have used that phrase for fears of hell, of radon, of cults, of the Mafia, of my heart stopping just for laughs, of that itchy mole, of the adverse side effects of every drug my doctor has ever prescribed for me, towing a big fiver with a 1 ton, and on and on ad nauseum . The preamble is always followed quickly, as am I, by a big but. I call that the BUT drop. But it might? I have lived through more than ten world is going to end scenarios that just didn't pan out. Sure I didn't believe any of them. But . . . I find that people like to scare others with what scares them, rational or not, because misery loves company. Stuff happens. In the meantime if you are near a beach when the sun shines, relax, and as the song says, "Don't Worry, Be Happy." As for me, I am going to do what I am going to do. Good point Ed. Should be a show worth watching , no?