Investor's Corner
Tesla Doubles Down on Demand Generation
A couple of weeks ago, Tesla Motors unveiled the mobile, “pop-up” concept store in Santa Barbara in hopes to deliver product knowledge and buzz to the public for its electric, Model S cars. According to Green Car Reports, Tesla’s pop-up concept is stationed in Santa Barbara for one month, before heading to its East Coast summer destination, the Hamptons on Long Island, NY.
Tesla Motors pop-up store in Santa Barbara, CA [Source: Tesla Motors]
The pop-up announcement came late in the week, right before the long holiday weekend and I thought it was a bit odd for Tesla, considering such a novel marketing play. Why so quiet?
The answer could be that Model S demand may be soft for 2015, especially with recent posts on Tesla’s site showing a hefty amount of scheduled test drives, and a new wrinkle – partnerships with destination charging hotels. Solid marketing moves, but it seems Tesla is playing down its marketing efforts.
Of course, Tesla’s Fremont production facility may be hitting its stride this year with the Model S, but Musk may want a production hedge with the Model X. Musk hinted that by Q4 2015 they could have a steep ramp of Model X deliveries of 1,000 per week, but Musk is known for over-promising and missing deadlines with SpaceX, Telsa, etc…
From the Q1 earnings call:
Musk: I mean, actually with Model X production ramping up quite heavily in Q4 depending upon how that ramp goes and obviously it’s difficult to predict that with perfect clarity, but our volume essentially doubles in Q4.
Musk: For the S, we had quite a long ramp from–we’re like six months from the very first deliveries to a significant volume. We’re trying to compress that to maybe like two months or three months at most….Once we start delivering cars en masse, because we’re going to go from a small number of cars to like 1,000 a week pretty fast.
As documented on Teslarati, hotel destination charging partners have been working with Tesla Motors to install Tesla’s high-powered charging units at various hotels for the last year in the U.S., Europe and China. So the new wrinkle is partnerships with hotel destination properties and regular hotels for numerous Model S test drives this summer.
Here’s an interesting passage from a Pennsylvania media outlet covering a recent hotel test drive:
…But not until the California-based car manufacturer and Normandy Farm Hotel in Blue Bell partnered up did he (test driver) make any serious inroads into possibly buying one. First step, of course, was the Wednesday morning test drive, hosted by Normandy Farm.
“I put (a test drive) off because I knew I’d love the car,” said Corbett “But I’m absolutely satisfied with it. If I had the cash I would have had one already. It’s something I would budget for to make happen. It’s that impressive.”
The company is taking the product out on the road. Other upcoming hotel events include the rolling hills of Sonoma County at the Best Western Inn, which has three Chargepoint charging stations in Healdsburg, Calif.
So Model S demand may be lacking in China and other parts, but it looks like the Tesla marketing machine will be busy this summer.
*Author’s note: The Elon Musk biography is a must-read!
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero and Musk just told us what broke
Four Raptor engines failed to ignite at T-zero, forcing SpaceX to scrub Starship Flight 13 Thursday.
SpaceX scrubbed the Starship Flight 13 launch attempt Thursday evening at the last possible moment, after four of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite during the startup sequence. The 90-minute window had opened at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, and the countdown had proceeded without issue all day, with more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen being fully loaded into the rocket before the automated abort triggered. SpaceX’s launch directors posted on X, “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt,” and shut down the livestream shortly after.
Musk confirmed the root cause within hours. “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” he wrote on X. “To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed and replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.” SpaceX engineers began draining propellant tanks immediately and Booster 20 was rolled back to its hangar for inspection.
The timing adds a layer of significance that did not exist during any of the previous 12 Starship flights. This is the first time SpaceX has attempted to launch Starship since the company made its stock market debut in June, listing under ticker SPCX at $135 per share. Public investors are now watching every Starship outcome in real time, and a last-second abort carries more visibility than it would have six months ago.
Flight 13 was designed to be one of the most consequential tests in the program’s history. It was set to carry 20 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational payload Starship has ever attempted to deploy. Six of those satellites carried external cameras to photograph Starship’s heat shield from the outside during flight, which would act as a self-inspection approach SpaceX has never attempted before. The mission also needed to complete a Raptor engine relight in space, a step SpaceX skipped on Flight 12 in May after losing an engine during ascent. That Flight 12 booster also flipped 90 degrees off course during its boostback burn when five engines failed to reignite.
SpaceX has not announced an official next launch date. Musk’s “early next week” window points to July 21 or 22 at the earliest, pending the engine swap and a return to the pad.
Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli responded to rumors of an imminent bankruptcy that was reportedly being mulled after a report stated the automaker was working with the firm AlixPartners to iron out its next steps.
The company felt a massive loss on Wall Street yesterday, as the report essentially pushed the stock down as much as 55 percent on Tuesday.
The report, published initially by Eletric-Vehicles.com, claimed Lucid was essentially in dire straits and was told by AlixPartners, a commonly used restructuring advisor, to either take shares private or file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Lucid’s head of Communications, Nick Twork, immediately challenged the report and stated the company “has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year.”
Now, the company’s CEO is chiming in as well, stating that the report is “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Napoli said:
“Lucid is not considering bankruptcy or a transaction to take the company private. Those reports are false. The Board did not explore either scenario. Period.
As disclosed in our most recent quarterly filing, Lucid has sufficient liquidity to fund its operations well into next year.
We work with outside advisors to improve operational performance and execution. They are not advising Lucid on a take-private transaction or bankruptcy, and any suggestion that they have recommended either course of action to management or the Board is false.
My priority is clear: turn this company around. That is where the leadership team and I are focused.
I look forward to providing a full update during our quarterly earnings call on August 4th.”
🚨 Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli calls rumors of financial issues “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Read his full remarks here: https://t.co/t3Pg1NHvzy pic.twitter.com/LvHUPhO4Qf
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 15, 2026
It seems pretty clear that Lucid is confident things will be okay, and, to be honest, they should not have much to worry about, especially considering the company has been backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) for years. It has solid financial backing, and its sales, while weak, are pretty much right on par with a company of this age.
Lucid also sent a Cease & Desist letter to the publication for their report.
Lucid shares have rebounded nicely and are up nearly 21 percent at the time of publication. As soon as the company dispelled the rumors of bankruptcy yesterday, the stock began to climb back toward more reasonable levels.
Electric vehicle maker Lucid Group has denied rumors of an imminent bankruptcy after a report from this morning sent the stock on a dramatic drop on Wall Street, seeing losses of more than 40 percent during trading hours.
Lucid’s Director of Communications, Nick Twork, responded to the report from Eletric-Vehicles.com, which stated the company’s restructuring advisor, AlixPartners, was asked to review two decisions: taking Lucid shares private or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The report also claims AlixPartners told the Lucid board to “concentrate on Gravity production while improving its quality, and to temporarily hold back the Lucid Air, the sedan that has defined the company since its launch.”
Twork said:
$LCID The rumors are completely false. The company has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year, as recently published in its last quarterly filings, and it has not formed any special Board committee to explore the scenarios reported today. Our focus is…
— Nick Twork (@ntwork) July 14, 2026
Shares rebounded after the response to the report, halving its losses as the trading day neared 3 p.m. Eastern.
Lucid has struggled to get its sales off the ground and into more respectable numbers, but the company is in its early years, when things are hard to begin with. It is also backed by several notable investors, including the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has nearly limitless money and likely would not ditch an investment of this size so soon.
Lucid shares were down just 14 percent at the time of publication, a far cry from the 55 percent its losses topped out at during the day.
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