{"id":58287,"date":"2018-02-08T04:54:20","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T04:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=58287"},"modified":"2018-02-08T04:54:20","modified_gmt":"2018-02-08T04:54:20","slug":"elon-musk-fiddles-while-tesla-burns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/elon-musk-fiddles-while-tesla-burns.html","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk fiddles while Tesla burns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk fiddles while Tesla burns<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Elon Musk is fiddling while Tesla burns. The entrepreneur has recently pulled off successful PR stunts for his other firms. And he has just broadened the electric-car maker\u2019s funding options. But Tesla looks set to incinerate truckloads of greenbacks this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fourth-quarter results unveiled on Wednesday show the maker of the Model S and Model X ended 2017 with $3.3 billion in cash on its books. That\u2019s only slightly less than at the end of September.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Musk has already had to push back Model 3 production targets three times in recent months after warning last summer of \u201cat least six months of manufacturing hell.\u201d And he has also committed the company to a number of other projects, including its Semi truck and an all-new Roadster. As a result, Tesla may set fire to almost $4 billion of cash by the end of December, reckon Barclays analysts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, carmakers are starting to spend a good chunk of money to secure increasingly expensive or hard-to-get raw materials for electric batteries. Last month a Toyota unit agreed to spend $240 million to take a 15 percent stake in Australian lithium miner Orocobre. Tesla has discussed building a lithium-processing plant in Chile with Santiago-based miner SQM, Reuters reported last week. And last year Volkswagen tried to secure 10-year supplies of cobalt, Reuters exclusively reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

The cash shortfall Tesla faces isn\u2019t the kind that can be rectified with gimmicks that have worked elsewhere. Musk, for example, just raised $10 million for his tunneling firm, The Boring Company, by selling 20,000 flamethrowers \u2013 in reality, pimped-up, overpriced roof torches. SpaceX is likely to benefit from another of his stunts: on Tuesday its Falcon Heavy rocket ship put a Roadster into space – an effective pitch to companies needing to take payloads out of the Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

He and finance chief Deepak Ahuja have also taken Tesla on a successful trip to the asset-backed securities market, raising almost $550 million last week with a deal that reduced the company\u2019s funding costs a tad.<\/span><\/p>\n

Keeping the carmaker\u2019s focus solidly on the road ahead, though, requires more than just tinkering. Another multibillion-dollar stock sale is fast approaching.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-tesla-results-breakingviews\/breakingviews-elon-musk-fiddles-while-tesla-burns-idUSKBN1FR39L<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t