Investors don't work that way. They only care about making money(I know I don't care if tesla succeeds or not, but I'm certainly bearish on it). People are shorting it because it's an impractical car from an ROI perspective. Albeit a very sexy and cool one. Like others have said, you can get a BMW with more features and all the gas you want for less than a tesla(minus the wizbang PC interface) It's yet to be seen if a tesla for the masses will catch on. Maybe it will, but a lot of investors still think this is a fad due to the impracticality.
Remember, sometimes the market does funny things and it takes a long time for fads to die(nintento wii). That doesn't mean that the investors were wrong. It just means the public reacted in irrational ways, which happens with fads.
The gasoline powered car was impractical once, before there were gasoline stations everywhere. That didn't stop the automobile revolution.
Electricity is everywhere. It just has to get into the car. This is not a hard problem to solve if people are willing to pay to get it. And the cost of electricity substantially favors this business model.
Right, so investors have perfect judgement based on rational economic evaulations and if anything funny happens its because of fads and the public being irrational coughcough2008CDOscough
In all cases? no. I thought we were talking about Tesla's and EVs here. The business case doesn't make sense for these when you consider the numbers. It's more expensive and it's less convenient. Tesla is succeeding right now, because a few early adopters who can afford to plop down 60k on a car simply due to it's wizbang features want it to do well. The concern is what will happen when Tesla trys to market this anywhere outside the valley and new york. I'm bearish on this working in places like OK, GA, or TX. Most of us drive a lot more than our counterparts in CA.
That said, I hear Tesla is planning a truck geared towards contract work. Now, that could be a game changer.
edit: Up 27% on Nasdaq at 12:47 ET