Tesla Stock Rises After Elon Musk Teases Reveal Of Electric Semi

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Tesla stock surged by about 3% to as high as $307.39 after CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the TSLA electric semi he mentioned a while ago in his “Master Plan Part Deux” could arrive sooner than most expect. The Tesla semi was perhaps the biggest surprise in the second part of his master plan, which he revealed last summer. As such, most thought that it would be years before we would even see it.

Tesla Stock – Tesla semi coming this year

However, Musk tweeted today that they’re planning to reveal the Tesla semi in just a few months.

The Tesla CEO said in February that they were making progress on the semi. When he originally revealed that they were working on a semi last year, he said that they believe the electric vehicle “will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate.”

Also today, Musk tweeted a response to a fan who asked about the Tesla pickup truck that was also mentioned in his Master Plan. He promised to reveal the pickup in 18 to 24 months.

So with the Tesla Semi slated for a September reveal, how long will it be before the electric truck hits the road? It certainly seems like the EV maker is beginning to innovate more quickly, but as always, it has set some ambitious targets.

Tesla Stock has surged on that news back to above $300 per share.

GM’s Mary Barra beat Elon Musk: Pabrai

Mohnish Pabrai of Pabrai Investment Funds has some interesting perspectives on Elon Musk and has pointed out that it takes quite a while for Tesla to go from the concept stage to the production stage. ValueWalk obtained a copy of the combined transcripts of Pabrai’s 2016 annual meetings. Autonomous driving and electric vehicles were hot topics, and he talked at length about Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne and was asked to weigh in on GM CEO Mary Barra.

Pabrai noted that Marchionne disagrees with Elon Musk about the Model 3. He doesn’t believe Tesla can make a profit by selling it at $35,000, and he isn’t one to get swept away by trends within the auto industry. And while Marchionne isn’t willing to risk investments in areas where the future is uncertain, Elon Musk has made his career out of it, and General Motors CEO Mary Barra is also willing to take risks.

However, Barra has the weight of GM behind her, and thus is able to get her firm’s concepts into the production stage much faster than Tesla is able to carry Musk’s ideas into production. Thus, it could be several years before that semi Musk tweeted about today enters production.

“The bottom line is that Mary beat Elon Musk at his own game, and in my opinion beat him by several years,” the Pabrai transcript reads. “GM’s execution of new products is only a few years. They can show a concept car, and then 22 months later have it in production. I’ve never seen a company so large like GM do this. For example, Tesla takes longer on the execution than GM. And GM’s battery costs per kilowatts is significantly lower than Tesla, and Tesla has been going at this for longer than GM.”

You may recall that in September 2016, around the same time as his firm’s annual meetings, Pabrai also had some harsh things to say about Tesla in general, saying that it was “blowing billions” on “dumb” ideas, although he clarified at the time that he liked Elon Musk. Tesla Stock is up nicely since that date, but the final chapter is yet to be written.

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