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Highflying stocks such as Tesla and Virgin Galactic are getting hammered in the coronavirus-related stock market selloff. But it isnt a sign of investor capitulation regarding stocks with high valuations. Bearish investors cant claim people are coming to their senses. The worst-performing stocks are getting hit just as hard as the highflying names.

Tesla (ticker: TSLA) stock, however, is off 21% over the past week. Virgin Galactic (SPCE) is down 36% over the same span. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, for comparison, is down 9.1% and the S&P 500 has dropped 8.9%.

That might sound like capitulation. What's more, shares of large companies up more than 50% year to date are down about 16% on average over the past week.

But Tesla and Galactic shares are still up more than 85% and 100%, respectively. The average gain for stocks in the plus-50% year-to-date club is 86%.

The other highfliers are, Enphase Energy (ENPH), Sprint (S) and PG&E (PCG). Health-care stock Moderna (MRNA) just missed the cut. That stock is up a lot, but not quite 50%, because it has a potential vaccine for the coronavirus.

It isnt capitulation at the other end of market. Beaten up shares are getting sold just as hard. Stocks that have fallen more than 30% year to date, are down 19% on average, worse than the performance of the highfliers.

There are a lot of oil and travel stocks, however, populating the bottom of the year-to-date return lists. Those sectors have been harder hit by virus fears. Excluding the oil and travel sectors, stocks suffering big 2020 losses are down about 12% over the past week. That is still worse than the overall market and only a little better than the highfliers.

This means, in part, the recent selloff appears based in fear. Investors are taking a sell first, ask questions later approach. It is painful, but it bodes well for stocks when coronavirus fears fade.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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Tesla Stock Is Getting Hammered on Coronavirus Fears, but It Isnt Capitulation - Barron's

Canaccord Genuity Managing Director Jed Dorshetmer and Miller Tabak Chief Market Strategist Matt Maley discuss their outlook for Tesla.

Tesla, billionaire Elon Musk'spurveyor ofelectric cars, is urging Model Y buyers to change their order preferences if they want to jump behind the wheel of the all-electric SUV more quickly.

Drivers who ordered the Model Y Performance or the Model Y Long Range AWD with a seven-seat interior can get the vehicle by March if they downsize to a standard five-seat interior, the digital outlet Electrek reported.

The change will also remove the $3,000 interior upgrade charge from their bills, the automaker wrote in an e-mail to buyers obtained by Electrek. Tesla has also confirmed March delivery for customers who chose the standard interior.

TESLA CYBERTRUCK PRE-ORDERS TOP 535K, UNOFFICIAL TALLY SAYS

The notificationssuggest current output of the five-seatconfiguration is outpacing demand, since the seven-seater isn't scheduled for production until next year, the outlet reported. Palo Alto, California-based Tesla has struggled with production issues in the past, though Musk says enhanced techniques now help it to deliver cars more efficiently.

TESLA'S CYBERTRUCK MADE INTO HOT WHEELS RC CARS

The carmaker unveiled the all-electric Model Y in March 2019, hoping to tap the most popular segment of the auto market.Before its debut, Musk compared the model's specifications to the company's lower-cost sedan, the Model 3.

The Model Y Performance starts at $55,000 while the long-range model starts at $47,000. Its competitors include the all-new EQC from Mercedes-Benz and theI-Pace from Jaguar, according to the research firm LMC Automotive.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Tesla offers Model Y customers a cheat code to get delivery quicker - Fox Business

(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc. has been a trailblazer for direct-to-consumer sales, but the path for other electric-vehicle startups is still pretty thorny.

Plug-in truck maker Rivian Automotive Inc., which aims to begin selling its R1T pickup and R1S SUV late this year without a franchised dealer network, had hoped to build its first store in Colorado, where Tesla has three. But almost a year after raising the idea with state legislators, its still lobbying them -- with EV enthusiasts and car dealers lining up to testify for and against.

Rivian will instead open its first showrooms in California, which makes it easier for newcomers than most other states that have tough, decades-old franchise laws designed to protect car dealers.

Tesla has spent years lobbying states to loosen these laws, which ban car manufacturers from owning or operating their own stores. Tesla, which sells cars at fixed prices online, now has showrooms or galleries - spaces to display vehicles without technically selling them -- in 28 states. It did that largely by finding loopholes and negotiating deals limited to its own business.

The Model 3 maker reached a settlement last month in the home state of General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. when a Michigan court effectively allowed Tesla to bypass laws preventing most auto manufacturers from selling directly to consumers.

To pry open the door further, Rivian is waging a state-by-state campaign on behalf of its operations and those of others to come. The effort is led by Jim Chen, a former Tesla lobbyist whos now vice president of public policy at the Michigan-based startup.

These laws were never intended to shut out competition between different brands, Chen said by phone last month. A manufacturer should freely be able to choose whether it wants to enter the franchise system or sell directly.

Dealers, of course, feel differently. They say cars arent suited for online-only sales and that franchise laws protect consumers. Tim Jackson, president of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association and a vocal Tesla critic, helped kill Rivians proposal last year, which would have allowed any company solely making EVs to sell them in Colorado without dealers.

We dont want to further broaden, or further make accessible the factory-to-consumer direct sales model, Jackson said in an interview last month. We prefer, of course, the franchise model.

Jackson was back at the legislature in Denver on Feb. 18 with a posse of dealers to thwart Rivians latest proposal, which would expand the carve-out to any car manufacturer with EVs to sell. The bill has survived in the state senate so far, in part with new language that addresses dealers fears by reiterating their exclusive rights to sell existing brands in specific geographic areas.

One might think Colorado, which became the 10th state to adopt Californias electric-vehicle mandate last September, would be relatively friendly territory for Rivian. But even with bipartisan sponsorship and the backing of newly elected Democratic Governor Jared Polis, passage seems far from assured.

With an onslaught of new electric models coming from automakers like Ford and Volkswagen AG, dealers worry that such exceptions could give all manufacturers free rein to compete directly against them.

Traditional carmakers are already beginning to shake up their retail models to sell EVs. Volkswagen announced Feb. 19 its using a new approach in Germany for its ID family of electric cars. Dealers will receive a commission and bonus but will no longer negotiate price or arrange financing or insurance -- an important profit source.

Other startups intend to follow Teslas lead. California-based Lucid Motors Inc. wants to sell its luxury electric sedan, the Air, through its own network of stores.

Rivian, which raised nearly $3 billion last year from investors including Amazon.com Inc. and Ford, has also introduced bills in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania. At the same time, it plans to open stores in friendlier states including California, Florida, Massachusetts and Utah, Chen said. The first ones will open around Los Angeles and San Francisco in the next year.

Like Tesla, Rivian will allow people to set up a test drive, configure, order online and take home delivery.

Story continues

Its also planning a subscription service that will include finance and insurance, following the lead of Porsche and Volvo Cars, Chief Executive Officer R.J. Scaringe said in an interview last month. Volvo dealers in California last year petitioned state regulators to investigate the companys Care by Volvo program, arguing it violates franchise laws.

The plan to service cars is still a bit opaque, leaving Rivian open to criticism that it cant provide adequate maintenance for its vehicles. But Chen told legislators at the hearing in Denver this month that Rivian plans to establish service centers and mobile service teams -- like Tesla does -- and that it may rely on its strategic investors for help with infrastructure to distribute auto parts.

The automotive arm of privately held Cox Enterprises Inc., which owns a stable of auto businesses including Kelley Blue Book and Manheim auction services, put $350 million into Rivian in September. Thats raised the hackles of some dealers, who share data and buy ads and used cars from Cox.

We do business with Cox Automotive, said Thom Buckley, a Colorado dealer who testified at the hearing. Im very concerned about doing business with a vendor who will compete with us.

--With assistance from Ed Ludlow.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gabrielle Coppola in New York at gcoppola@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Trudell at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net, Chester Dawson

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Teslas Followers Are Trying to Piggyback Off Elon Musks Sales Wins - Yahoo Finance

One of the advantages of being a new, disruptive company is that you can change the business model that legacy companies are stuck in. Marketing, distribution, and even production can be rethought in a way that makes sense in 2020, instead of being built for 1950.

Tesla's (NASDAQ:TSLA) biggest advantage over competing automakers today is how it has updated the auto business model. Bloated dealerships are out of the picture, marketing budgets can be slashed, and Tesla can now generate more money on each sale than competitors can. And the new model might give Tesla a financial advantage for a while.

A Tesla Model Y. Image source: Tesla.

When it came to rethinking the auto business model, Tesla started with where we buy vehicles. In the case of the auto industry, dealers have always played an outsized role in the sales process, but for relatively antiquated reasons by 2020 standards.

Dealers at one time gave scale to manufacturers and allowed for local service and sales that theoretically gave local communities better choice and service, rather than being controlled by a global behemoth. But with information so readily available in 2020, the dealer model is looking very out of date.

Manufacturers like Ford (NYSE:F) and General Motors (NYSE:GM) are stuck with the existing dealer model, and that can actually hurt their margins. Dealers take part of the profit of each sale, so you can see that margins are lower than at Tesla.

TSLA Gross Profit Margin (Annual) data by YCharts.

Even if legacy manufacturers wanted to get out of the dealer business, it would be very difficult. Franchises have contracts that are nearly impossible to get out of, and there are hundreds of dealers to negotiate with if they wanted to move in that direction.

To make matters worse, dealers can be the reason that companies don't make big product and culture shifts quickly. Look at the Chevy Bolt, which was a focus of GM corporate but was drowned out by dealers who are more interested in selling SUVs and trucks. Tesla can change on a dime if it wants to, while companies like Ford and GM are forced to handle dealerships all over the country if they want to change strategies. That's a big advantage to Tesla as the auto industry changes.

One of the big advantages Tesla has is that it doesn't have to spend on marketing the way other manufacturers do. Automakers spend billions on TV, radio, print, and search ads just to tell customers about their products. When Tesla launches a new product, it has a direct line to customers and gets lots of free media attention.

Elon Musk is arguably the most valuable CEO in the industry today, and his ability to market Tesla's products without spending any money is a big reason why.

The argument for Tesla disrupting the auto business is that it's simply too hard to turn a giant automaker like Ford, GM, or Toyota, which have spent decades perfecting their existing business model. Changing to electric vehicles involves everything from design to manufacturing to building a charging network -- and that's before we make it to the dealer network.

Tesla has been able to rethink enough of the auto business that it could grow faster and have higher margins than competitors. That's the bullish case for the stock and why investors keep pushing it higher right now.

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Tesla's Biggest Advantage in the Auto Industry - Motley Fool

New Jersey Turnpike Authority commissioners approved an agreement Tuesday that will bring new electric vehicle charging stations to eight Turnpike service areas, increasing the total of EV chargers on the Turnpike from 20 to 76.

The authority says the licensing agreement allows Tesla to install eight V3 Superchargers, the newest version of the companys proprietary charging technology, at each of six service areas and to double the number of Superchargers already in place at two other service areas. Tesla also will build the utility infrastructure necessary for third-party providers to install at least two dozen additional non-Tesla charging stations on the Turnpike.

Tesla has 223 Superchargers in New Jersey.

Gov. Phil Murphy unveils New Jerseys Energy Master Plan and signs an executive order directing a new suite of climate regulations at Stockton University on Jan. 27, 2020. EDWIN J. TORRES/GOVERNORS OFFICE

Our ambitious goal to register 330,000 zero emission vehicles by 2025 is only possible with a collaborative effort across state agencies and our private sector partners to further develop New Jerseys electric vehicle ecosystem, Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. Todays announcement builds on the momentum of legislation I signed into law last month establishing a 10-year, $300 million rebate program to incentivize electric vehicle ownership throughout the Garden State. With this important addition to New Jerseys renewable energy infrastructure, we are one step closer to achieving 100 percent clean energy by 2050.

In January, Murphy signed the most aggressive EV law in the nation, making available $300 million in zero-emission vehicle rebate funding over the next 10 years. Tuesdaysannouncement builds off these actions and investments across the state.

This is an agreement with Tesla, but Tesla owners are not the only drivers who will enjoy greater access to charging facilities on the Turnpike as a result of it, New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, who serves as chair of the Turnpike board, said in a statement.

Gutierrez-Scaccetti

Tesla will install infrastructure that will offer opportunities for other providers to install non-Tesla chargers, so all electric vehicle owners who use the Turnpike will benefit, she added.

Under the amended licensing agreement, Tesla will double the number of charging stalls at Molly Pitcher and Joyce Kilmer, bringing the total at those service areas to eight apiece.The company will also install eight charging stalls each at the Clara Barton (southbound between interchanges 2 and 1), John Fenwick (northbound between interchanges 1 and 2), Walt Whitman (southbound between interchanges 4 and 3), James Fenimore Cooper (northbound between interchanges 4 and 5), Richard Stockton (southbound between interchanges 7A and 7), and Woodrow Wilson (northbound between interchanges 7 and 7A) service areas.

Tesla plans to begin installation of the new Superchargers as soon as it has the necessary permits and approvals. Once all the Tesla charging stations called for in the licensing agreement have been installed, there will be electric vehicle charging facilities at nine of the 12 New Jersey Turnpike service areas.

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Turnpike Authority teams with Tesla to more than triple EV chargers - NJBIZ

Teslas(TSLA) - Get Reportrun over the past few weeks has analysts at Jefferies concerned about theelectric-vehicle producer'svaluation, leading the firm to downgrade the stock to hold from buy.

Jefferies raised its price target on Tesla to $800 a share from $600. But that new target still represents 4.1% potential downside from the stocks Monday closing price of $833.79.

At last check Tesla shares were down 2.9% at $810. The stock had dropped more than 9% in the three trading days through Monday.

The Palo Alto, Calif., companys shares havejumped 60%since Jan. 14, and Jefferies says that at least some of this increase is well-deserved.

Faster debt reduction, above-consensus growth guidance in cars and energy, and battery-industry news flow over the past six weeks are all reasons for the stocks increase.

Jefferies is bullish on the auto segment, raising its price-target valuation for the division to $600 from $500 thanks to increased growth/profitability expectations.

The Jefferies note is mostly bullish. The firm calls Tesla one of the few EV manufacturers likely to grow earnings and return on capital investment over the next two years.

The firm also expects five-year compound annual revenue growth to exceed 20% as Tesla ramps up Model 3 sedan and Model Y compact crossover production.

The $800 price target factors in Tesla pursuing additional growth in storage/generation and selling batteries to third party manufacturers.

Jefferies has a market estimate for stationary storage cells between $90 billion and $235 billion by 2025 through 2030.

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Tesla Voltage Reduced at Jefferies on Valuation Concern - TheStreet

Bombs, bats, ants and now trees.

Elon Musks dream of opening his first Tesla TSLA, -12.81% gigafactory in Europe has been plagued by a series of obstacles involving all of the above.

Production at the site in Grnheide in the eastern state of Brandenburg near Berlin, was scheduled to start in July 2021, with plans to build 500,000 units of the Y SUV and the Model 3 sedan per year.

But this weekend, a German court ordered Tesla to stop cutting down trees on the site until it considers an appeal by environmental group Green League Brandenburg, which argues that the factory could pollute the areas drinking water and other issues.

Responding in emailed comments, a Tesla spokesperson in Switzerland said there was no official statement on the matter. Facts are the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) Berlin-Brandenburg has asked the Brandenburg Government to initiate a preliminary halt to the deforestation so it has enough time to review the filed case papers. A statement from OVG is expected for tomorrow the earliest, the spokesperson said.

Teslas plan involves cutting down 70 hectares, which is expected to be increased to 300 hectares later on. The latest holdup comes after seven U.S. World War II bombs found on the factorys site had to be defused last month.

Tesla paid 40.91 million ($44.33 million) for the factory plot, which apparently came with lots of critters. German media reported last week that the U.S. electric car manufacturer had to promise to not only plant three times the number of trees it chops down, but relocate ants, lizards and hang 400 nesting boxes for birds.

The company has just a few weeks left to complete the task ahead of the start of the breeding season for birds in March. Last month, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that Giga Berlin / GF4 will absolutely be designed with sustainability and the environment in mind.

Tesla has two other vehicle factories in the U.S. and then in China, where a Shanghai factory was up and running in under a year and a half once it got the needed permissions.

But should analysts worry about a potential thorn in the side of Tesla, whose shares have gained a whopping 91% so far this year, driven in part by analyst upgrades? David Whiston, an analyst for Morningstar Research Services, told MarketWatch via email that its too early to say whether investors should be worried.

Worst-case scenario is Tesla wastes time and some money and eventually pulls out and finds another site in Europe, but its way too early to think about that yet. Tesla needs to negotiate and work something out, said Whiston.

There is precedent in the auto industry for government making it too difficult to build a plant. Tata withdrew from West Bengal in India in 2008 for a Nano factory and built the plant in another part of the country, he added.

Politicians from Germanys Christian Democrat and Free Democrat parties have warned that the legal battle waged against the Gigafactory would inflict serious and long-lasting damage on Germanys image as a place to do business. Some were quick to suggest over Twitter on Monday, that Tesla would be welcome elsewhere if the Grnheide site doesnt work out:

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Bombs, bats, ants and now trees Teslas big green hurdle in Germany - MarketWatch

Virgin Galactic Chairman Chamath Palihapitiya is upset that analysts are calling SPCE stock a bubble. He claims the space tourism company offers investors a unique Tesla-style narrative, along with $2.4 billion in potential revenue.

Credit where credit is due: Palihapitiyas argument is out of this world. But not in a good way.

Space tourism sounds very intriguing. Hop in a rocket and go on an awe-inspiring voyage around the Earth. The Instagram opportunities alone are unfathomably attractive.

Thats why its not entirely surprising that Virgin Galactic stock has been on an incredible run in 2020, with SPCE shares up more than 180% even after the recent stock market sell-off.

Palihapitiya, clearly fed up with all the accusations that SPCE stock is a bubble, went on cable television to make his case. Unfortunately, everything he said confirmed that Virgin Galactics rally is exactly that.

He began with this gem:

Theres a setup [in the market] where theres no real growth, theres no unique stories and theres nothing that can give you long-term outlook

Essentially what this means is that frustrated investors with capital to burn are desperately seeking to get their money out of low-yielding cash. Theyll throw it at practically anything in the hope it blasts off.

Over the last few years, this has meant the growth story is often more significant than the economic fundamentals of a business.

Beyond Meat and Tesla are examples of companies like this. (Well get to why it isnt fair to compare them to Virgin Galactic stock later.)

SPCE is the product of excessive speculation, which in many ways is the purest definition of a bubble.

Next, Palihapitiya suggested that his space tourism business has a sizeable amount of demand, some $2.4 billion. This is based on the statistic that roughly 8,000 people have expressed interest in taking a flight.

Unfortunately, this pent-up demand is rather, well, pent-up.

Currently, just one spaceship is nearing operation, with two more on the way, leaving an important question unanswered. How many passengers can even fly on a ship?

Per Virgin Galactic, just six passengers at a time.

Not sixty.

Not sixteen.

Six.

You dont have to be a market wizard to figure out that 8,000-divided-by-6 isnt exactly cash waiting to be delivered.

We wont go into how many of the 8,000 who signed up are just dreamers, or how realistic $300,000 is as a price-tag.

And according to their CEO, ticket costs could actually be as high as $1 million.

Ignoring the dreamers, how many genuine prospective passengers would casually stomach that $700,000 price hike?

Its not like there isnt plenty of well-funded competition out there.

Finally, the Virgin Galactic chairman made a questionable comparison between SPCE and Tesla.

Tesla may be controversial, but its a company that actually has a product, sells a lot of them, and is a class-leader in terms of innovation.

Sky-high cash burn links SPCE and TSLA, but thats where the fundamental similarities end.

Tesla stock has been accused of being a bubble, and thats an absolutely valid thesis at least if you prioritize conventional accounting and valuation metrics.

But Virgin Galactic is up more than double TSLA this year:

If you think Tesla is a bubble, then that makes Virgin Galactic a balloon.

Sir Richard Bransons venture into the billionaire playground of space travel looks more like Beyond Meat (NASDAQ: BYND) than Tesla.

Its the only publicly traded game in town for space travel, so it gets a larger slice of the speculative interest in that concept. BYND enjoys the same status as a company solely devoted to alternative-meat products.

Yet its probably unfair to compare Beyond Meat to Virgin as well, because BYND has shown glimmers of profitability lately.

Virgin Galactic is the very definition of a bubble, and its backers should embrace that fact not dispute it with questionable forecasts. Such optimistic guidance can often be precisely why gullible investors get hurt.

Disclaimer: This article represents the authors opinion and should not be considered investment or trading advice from CCN.com.

This article was edited by Josiah Wilmoth.

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Virgin Galactic Stock Is Nothing Like Tesla Its Light-Years Worse - CCN.com

LITTLETON, Colo. (CBS4) A woman in Littleton says video captured by a Tesla helped to solve a hit-and-run accident that caused more than $2,000 worth of damage to her car.

Its a been a bad situation that turned into a good situation, Rose Johnson told CBS4.

A few weeks ago, Johnson and her family were having dinner at an Olive Garden near Wadsworth Boulevard and Crestline Avenue. When they went to leave, they found their car had been hit in the parking lot. The driver of the other vehicle had left the scene.

I looked at my car, it looked pretty bad and I was like I cant believe this is happening,' she said.

Luckily, Johnson said two men saw the accident happen and were waiting in the parking lot. They told Johnson they were able to get the license plate on the vehicle that hit her car.

They were like Hey, well show up in court, well do whatever, she explained. But, by the way we actually have a Tesla and it has four security cameras. Im going to download the footage and send it to you.

Johnson showed CBS4s Makenzie OKeefe, that in the first video you can see the truck parked next to her car. In another video, you see the truck pulling out of the parking lot.

There they go, she said. They just drive away and theyre gone.

One angle of the Tesla security camera, however, actually captured the collision. The Tesla was parked next to Johnsons car and the video that was captured shows the impact of the truck hitting Johnsons car.

She hit the car so much that it rocks and the tires moved, Johnson said. So to me, you cant hit a car that hard and not know you hit it.

Paired with the license plate information, the Tesla video helped Lakewood police track down the hit-and-run driver. Officers say the driver was charged with careless driving and leaving the scene of an accident.

For Johnson, shes just thankful her family is safe and that the Good Samaritans were able to use their car to help crack the case.

It just makes me really thankful that there are cars out there, that can prove what happened so justice can happen, she said.

In September, CBS4 was the first to report on a vandalism incident in Broomfield where woman was caught on camera keying a mans Tesla. That woman later turned herself into police. Last month, a man was accused of knifing a Tesla in Conifer and that situation was also captured on the vehicles built-in camera.

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Tesla Helps Solve Hit-And-Run Mystery In Olive Garden Parking Lot - CBS Denver

This week was filled with wide-scale calamity. Hundreds of millions of PCs have components whose firmware is vulnerable to hackingwhich is to say, pretty much all of them. It's a problem that's been known about for years, but doesn't seem to get any better.

Likewise, Bluetooth implementation mistakes in seven SoCsystem on chipshave exposed at least 480 internet-of-things devices to a range of attacks. IoT manufacturers will often outsource components, so a mistake in one SoC can impact a wide range of connected doodads. The most troubling part, though, is that medical devices like pacemakers and blood glucose monitors are among the affected tech.

YouTube Gaming, meanwhile, wants to take Twitch's crown as the king of videogame streaming. But its most-viewed channels are almost all scams and cheats, a moderation challenge that it'll have to take more seriously if it wants the legitimacy it's spending big money to attain. In another corner of Alphabet's world, hundreds of Chrome extensions were caught siphoning data from people who installed them, part of a sprawling adware scheme.

WIRED reported exclusively this week that US officials have pinned a wave of cyberattacks against the country of Georgia on Russia's notorious Sandworm hackers. The hack itself was brazendefacing 15,000 websites and disrupting two TV networksbut the attribution serves mostly as a warning to Russia that it shouldn't attempt the same sort of malarky stateside.

With the firing of US director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire this week, President Trump has continued his gutting of senior national intelligence positions. Probably not a great strategy in the long run, especially since Russia is actively supporting both Trump and Bernie Sanders this year, just like it did in 2016. (In fairness, Russia only wants Trump to actually win.)

And that's not all! Every Saturday we round up the security and privacy stories that we didnt break or report on in depth but think you should know about nonetheless. Click on the headlines to read them, and stay safe out there.

Researchers at McAfee have demonstrated a new spin on an old trick. By subtly tampering with a speed limit signin this case, literally adding a two-inch strip of black tapethey were able to trick the Mobileye EyeQ3 camera on a 2016 Tesla Model X and Model S into feeding bad information to the vehicles' autonomous driving features, sending both cars into a rapid acceleration. It's a low-tech version of the well-known problem of adversarial examples, image alterations that cause machine learning systems to misinterpret data. (Intel, which owns Mobileye, disputes that it's an adversarial attack, since the tape could have fooled a human eye as well.) The good news is that the problem doesn't affect 2020 Teslas, which no longer use Mobileye technology, and newer versions of the Mobileye camera seem impervious as well. That doesn't help older models, though, which remain susceptible to the shenanigans below:

Ransomware has long targeted victims that have the most to lose. That's typically meant hospitals and governments. But lately hackers have targeted another sensitive field: critical infrastructure. The latest example comes from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which reported this week that a natural gas compression facility went down for two days as they grappled with a ransomware infection. There's not really any good news here, but it certainly could have been worse; the hackers appear not to have targeted industrial control system components specifically. They got lucky with a phishing email, and were only able to impact the Windows-based portions of the victim's network.

If you stayed at an MGM Resorts hotel sometime before 2017, the bad news is that someone hacked one of their servers and stole data relating to over 10 million guests. The worse news is that said data has since been discovered in an online hacking forum, as first reported by ZDNet. The haul includes names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, and dates of birth, and celebrities, politicians, and journalists are among those affected. (Sorry, Jack Dorsey!) It could have been worseno financial information appears to be involvedbut as with any breach, look out for phishing attempts or identity theft.

Adware is like gnats: everywhere, annoying, impossible to get rid of but relatively harmless. But you still have to try, which Google did this week by expelling nearly 600 apps both from the Play Store and its ad networks. That includes 45 apps from a single developer, China-based Cheetah Mobile. Google cited "disruptive ads" as the reason for the removal, framing it as part of a broader crackdown on fraudulent behavior.

In other data-compromise news, the Defense Information Systems Agencywhich provides secure communications support to the US president and militaryinformed potential victims this week that their Social Security numbers may have been part of a breach that occurred between May and July 2019. They'll spring for free credit monitoring if you were affected, but honestly you've already got that through Marriott or Equifax or take your pick, right?

More Great WIRED Stories

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A Tiny Piece of Tape Tricked Teslas Into Speeding Up 50 MPH - WIRED

The future of electric vehicles around the world depends on China. While Europe has long been at the forefront of the electric car industry, with Tesla leading the charge, almost all of those European EV companies have to go through China at some point in the production process, as Chinese industry has a veritable chokehold on one of the essential components of the standard electric car.

As Oilprice reported back in 2018, China Indirectly Controls EV Markets through the nearly monopolized production of electric car batteries. The European market should start contending with the likely outcome that European car production will soon be making a mass move to China, Oilprice wrote two years ago. This will have a major impact on the region that has long counted companies like Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Renault among its economic strongholds.

At the time, China produced a whopping two thirds of the global supply of lithium ion batteries, which are the most common kind of batteries used in a standard electric vehicle. Furthermore, these highly valuable batteries make up a staggering 40 percent of the cars value. As it stands, Europe is far from being able to compete with China when it comes to the production of lithium ion batteries. In fact, currently the entire continent is estimated to hold just 1 percent of the market, Oilprice went on to say. Moving the production of electric cars to China is a no-brainer for European car companies.

All this is to say that it should come as no surprise when reports this week said that in order for Elon Musk to make good on his promises to make electric vehicles more affordable and accessible to the mass market and the average consumer, China will have to be involved. Once again, the problem comes down to batteries. This time, however, the issue is not lithium, but cobalt.

Related: The Solar Sector Is Suffering From Coronavirus Contagion

According to Reuters, EV manufacturers usually use nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NCA) or nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries on passenger vehicles because of their higher energy density, which is critical in determining how far an EV can drive on single charge. Cobalt, however, is one of the primary reasons that electric car batteries are so expensive, at 40 percent of the cars value.

Tesla already has moved much of their production to China, and it is at one of the companys Chinese plants that their transition away from Cobalt is taking place. This week Reuters reported that Tesla is in advanced stages of talks to use batteries from CATL that contain no cobalt - one of the most expensive metals in electric vehicle batteries - in cars made at its China plant. Instead, the plant would adopt lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries which will be cheaper than its existing batteries by a double-digit percent.

Tesla hopes that doing so will help reverse the trend of slumping EV sales in China and abroad. As Norwegian news site CCN reports, Elon Musk envisioned the Model 3 as a mass market car but it currently competes with luxury vehicles. The article continues: Even at the luxury car price, the Model 3 now outsells the more expensive Model S and the Model X by a wide margin, demonstrating the markets hunger for more affordable EVs. Last year the Model 3 accounted for slightly over 80% of Teslas sales.

The elimination of cobalt, however, is only one part of an industry-wide problem concerning rare earth minerals. Lithium could also be a problem for the EV sector going forward. The Renewable Revolution Has A Lithium Problem, Oilprice proclaimed a year ago. First of all, this is just another opportunity for China to dominate the market, as their incredibly resource-rich environment puts them in control of many rare earth minerals markets. If all the conventionally-fueled cars in the world were replaced with electric cars overnight, the global supply of lithium would be completely depleted in just approximately fifty years, Oilprice reported. Yes, this is purely hypothetical; about three million electric cars are currently in use globally--just a drop in the automotive ocean. That being said, that number is projected to skyrocket over the next decade, reaching a global fleet of approximately 125 million by 2030.

While this increasing transition to electric vehicles could spell trouble for lithium reserves in the future, its overall a promising development towards decarbonization on the eve of potentially catastrophic climate change. And its not bad news for Tesla either.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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Teslas Secret Weapon In The EV Revolution - Yahoo Finance

'Starman' heads towards Mars in a Tesla roadster (Photo by SpaceX via Getty Images)

Tesla's runup is one for the record books, but its inability to reach $1000 reveals multiple signs that the party is over. Now comes the scary period for shareholders because there are only weak downside support levels. Without them, potential buyers will not have the confidence to act, setting up a runaway train scenario as current shareholders run for the exit to protect their gains (if they bought early) or limit their losses.

Disclosure: Author does not hold Tesla stock

Tesla is top dog in this stock market

No other stock in the top-performing Nasdaq 100 Index comes close to Tesla's performance. Plotting its path upwards flatlines the trillion-dollar Nasdaq leaders' price moves.

Tesla's performance compared to the four $trillion leading companies

Ranking Tesla's performance makes all other top-performing Nasdaq 100 stocks pale.

Tesla performance comparison table

So, why should it reverse now?

For the same reason it ran up so far and so fast: Over-optimism. A stock run based on excitement always runs out of fuel when the "last" person buys. Then the hopeful air that lies below the current price becomes evident. Those gap-ups in the rise that produced confidence? Now, they look like air pockets through which the stock can dive.

Tesla intraday graph (30-minute intervals)

So, as investors shift their upward gaze at Tesla's $1000 objective to the empty air below, they will suffer from bubble vertigo. Like a mountain climber that turns to admire the view, there is a stomach-wrenching reaction at the thought of falling from such a height.

Tesla's rise out-distances the moving averages

Tesla has only weak and much lower support levels

What about those fantastic developments coming?

The reality is that, in the stock market, all bubbles have fantastic developments ahead. Unfortunately, all such exciting scenarios take longer, hit road bumps and gain competitors. Foretelling the results of technological developments, product creation, consumer acceptance along with basic price vs. cost results requires wide latitude.

In other words, fantastic visions are accompanied by high uncertainties and high risks.

The bottom line

Tesla is an exciting company with ambitious plans. And all that excitement has driven Tesla's stock faster and higher than most stocks ever experience.

That rare stock performance is aided and abetted by investors attracted to fast rising stocks, which, in turn, ignites interest in others. Unfortunately, that is how stock bubbles come about, and it looks like Tesla is the latest version of that excess.

A curious situation occurs with a stock that seemingly offers easy and quick profits: High prices increase confidence in further returns instead of properly heightening concern about the true accompaniment: Rising risk.

The only "cure" is a reversal that goes "too far" to be viewed as an opportunity to buy more. Tesla stock's stupendous price rise should be seen as a corresponding rise in risk, putting it in a fragile position. Furthermore, the $1000 magic level, whether the stock touches it or not, is meaningless except to those excited about the added profits it represents.

For all these reasons, Tesla certainly looks like a sale. Love Tesla, the company? That's fine, but don't ignore what history teaches: Exciting company stocks can get ahead of reality, setting up a dramatic drop to bring them back to earth (and produce an opportunity to buy at a reasonable price, thereby creating a foundation for a non-bubble rise).

Apple experienced a bubble runup and collapse in 2012, and so can Tesla in 2020.

Apple's 2011-2013 bubble and collapse

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Tesla's Failure To Reach $1000 Will Give Investors Bubble Vertigo - Time To Sell - Forbes

GLJ Researchs Gordon Johnson argues Tesla is a bubble and its stock price will fall despite topping $600 per share.

Tesla zoomed higher after the electric-vehicle maker reported its second straight quarterly profit and said it expects to be profitable going forward.

Thursdays gain of more than 10 percent extended the stocks 2020 rally to nearly 40 percent. Shares have soared by more than 150 percent since Tesla reported a surprise third-quarter profit on Oct. 23.

This is a bubble, Gordon Johnson, CEO and founder of GLJ Research, told FOX Business Stuart Varney on Thursday. We think its effectively bitcoin on wheels. We think a lot of people are scared to miss the upside.

Bitcoin gained as much as 2,100 percent in 2017 before losing more than 80 percent of its value over the course of the next year. It has since gained nearly 200 percent from its lows, but remains more than 50 percent below its peak.

Teslas meteoric rally had inflicted short-sellers with $3.94 billion in mark-to-market losses this year after they lost $2.89 billion in 2019, according to financial analytics firm S3 Partners. The stock was the most-heavily bet against in the U.S. market with a short interest of $14.2 billion, or 18.7 percent of shares available to be traded, S3 said.

While some on Wall Street, like Johnson, think Tesla isa bubble, others say the electric-vehicle maker is built to last. Earlier this year Tesla's market capitalization, which is now more than $116 billion, topped that of Ford and General Motors combined.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk pauses while speaking before unveiling the Model Y at the company's design studio in Hawthorne, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Tesla reported a fourth-quarter profit of $105 million, or $2.14 a share, as revenue rose 2 percent year-over-year to $7.38 billion. The company lost $862 million over the course of 2019, but expects to turn a profit going forwardwith some temporary exceptions due to the launch and ramp of new products.

Wedbush Securities Managing Director Dan Ives called Teslas fourth quarter game changing and said the strong profitability and healthy cash flow suggest what could be the beginning of a new era for the company. He maintained his neutral rating, but raised his price target to $710 from $550. His new long-term bull-case scenario is $1,000 a share.

TESLA IS NOT THE FUTURE, ITS THE PRESENT: ANDREW LEFT

Ives believes Teslas 500,000 delivery target for 2020 is well within reach and that the automakers ability to ramp production and demand in China is critical over the next few years. The first Model 3 sedans made at Teslas Shanghai Gigafactory rolled off the assembly line earlier this year.

While Johnson also thinks China is a key market, he says 2020 is going to be a disaster as the coronavirus will significantly dent car demand in the country, which saw sales of new electric vehicles plunge 27.4 percent in December after a subsidy was cut. Overall, vehicle sales slumped 8.2 percent last year and electric-vehicle sales were down 4 percent, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

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Ahead of Wednesdays results, which caused a number of upgrades on Wall Street, analysts were skeptical of Tesla, with 25 recommending hold or sell, compared to just 10 who said, buy.

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Tesla is 'bitcoin on wheels' - Fox Business

Never a dull moment that's been Tesla's story pretty much since the beginning. My first conversation with anyone at the company, back in 2008 before it went public, was about how Tesla could avoid going out of business.

Tesla is 16 years old, and for much of that period the electric-car maker's live-on-the-edge ethos has made it widely admired while also routinely inviting naysayers to predict its imminent demise. On one hand, Tesla is changing the world. On the other hand, Tesla is going bankrupt.

To be honest, the dynamic is exhausting. Especially in the context of the auto industry, where uneventful execution is everything. While Tesla has been taking us on a roller-coaster ride, Toyota has been cranking out millions of cars every year, selling them to satisfied customers, and making predictable bank.

True, Chrysler and General Motors did enter Chapter 11 during the financial crisis. But both companies had stayed alive for a century, more or less, before numerous legacy problems caught up with them. They'd successfully weathered many downturns before the US economy basically collapsed around them.

The Tesla Model 3. Matthew DeBord/BI

Back to Tesla and its ongoing fortunes. On Wednesday, the company clobbered expectations for fourth-quarter 2019 earnings, and its stock price, already on a tear since last year, blasted higher in after-hours trading. Remarkably, an automaker that had rarely posted a quarter in the black since its 2010 initial public offering was worth more on paper at over $100 billion in market capitalization than Volkswagen.

The financial valuation is kind of screwy, of course. VW's enterprise value remains vastly higher than Tesla's, and Tesla would have to more than double its already ludicrous market cap to surpass Toyota, the world's most valuable carmaker. It bears repeating that Tesla sold fewer than 400,000 vehicles last year, while GM and Ford Tesla is valued more highly than the two combined sold nearly 6 million.

But let's not get hung up on the little numbers versus the big. The salient point here is that in 2020, Tesla is really going to shock everybody. And not for the usual reasons.

The year is likely to be boooor-ing. Not boring in that CEO Elon Musk won't do or say some wild things, or that Tesla won't showcase some zany product, as it did late last year with its sci-fi-grade Cybertruck.

No, boring in the sense that Tesla has finally developed the self-sustaining business that has long evaded it. By my reckoning, we could look forward to four quarters of about $7 billion in revenue, with something like $1 a share in GAAP profit. Presto: $28 billion for the year (and probably more), with $4 a share in profit (back of the envelope, by the way, so please correct me if I'm off).

That looks more like a single quarter for a traditional carmaker, so clearly Tesla's share price is silly time and should retreat if for no other reason than longtime investors would be crazy not to rake in some winnings at this point and hedge against a pullback, which could be substantial.

But what we have here, ladies and gents, is a business that is finally working the way it's supposed to.

Tesla's factory in California. Tesla

Two big issues remain. Global demand for electric vehicles is, to be blunt, terrible. Tesla dominates a tiny market that isn't growing very rapidly. Tesla also hasn't established what its net margin per vehicle is. The investment idea is that it could be 20% an Apple-like figure in an industry where anything close to 10% is considered outstanding. The bottom line, quite literally, is a question of whether Tesla can build cars for a lot less than it costs to sell them.

Tesla also has one unconfronted challenge in 2020 that isn't much discussed: With its fleet expanding, can it service all the cars it has sold? Tesla's weakness has always been its production capabilities, which curiously lag the rest of the industry's (Tesla's entire 2019 output is a few months of work for a legacy player).

But while its vehicles have made owners deliriously happy, cars do break, and Tesla's service infrastructure is at best gestational right now. The smartest move it could make would be to abandon its preoccupation with direct sales and avoiding the US franchise dealer systems and adopt a hybrid model, partnering with a major dealer chain for service in the same way it has allied with big banks for financing.

In the grand scheme of things, however, that won't slow Tesla down too much. So sit back, relax, and enjoy 2020, the most boring year in Tesla's history.

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2020 will be the most shocking year in Tesla's history but not for any of the usual reasons - Business Insider Nordic

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Three months ago, Tesla Inc. notched up a $9 billion gain in market capitalization in the immediateaftermath of reporting a $143 million quarterly profit. On Wednesday, it reaped $12 billion on $105 million. Dont forget the $50 billion it racked up in between those dates, of course.

Teslas market cap has more than doubled to more than$100 billion since reporting that surprise profit for the third quarter. Besides that boost to confidence, the company also managed to meet the low end of delivery guidance for the fourth quarter, started producing vehicles at its new plant in China, unveiled the Cybertruck and began teasing out details of a planned factory in Germany. The latest quarterly profit and $1 billion of free cash flow for the fourth quarter have evidently kept the momentum going.

As with the previous quarter, the dissonance between the mouse-sized number at the bottom line and the elephantinemarket reaction is deafening, especially given the stock-price surge during the intervening period. Consider, for example, that since Tesla reported full-year results for 2018 a year ago, its market cap has increased by $51 billion ($63 billion if you count Wednesdays immediate after-market action). In the meantime, Teslas annual vehicle salesincreased by 50%, revenue increased by 14% and GAAP net losses shrank only a little, from $976 million to $862 million.

Indeed, just looking at the fourth quarter, vehicle deliveries and energy storage deployments hit records. Yet revenue growth was just 2.2%, year over year, and net income fell 25%. Its worth noting that the $105 million of earnings was more than accounted for by the $133 million of regulatory credits sold in the quarter. As for the $1 billion of free cash flow Tesla reported, more than half is accounted for by those credits, a big working capital swing and$204million of other cash from operations that await some 10K-filing details.

As ever, Tesla bulls are less focused on small earnings and the sharp slowdown in growth, andmore on the promise of what comes next. From that perspective, tiny net profits on record deliveries represent progress rather than dissonance.

Tesla said it would exceed 500,000 vehicle deliveries this year, including the new Model Y, and boost energy-product deployments by at least 50%. Limited volumes of the elusive Tesla Semi truck are also planned. Yet Tesla continues to caveat its expectations of positive free cash flow and GAAP net incomes with the temporary exceptions caused by the launch and ramp-up of new products. The current quarter got additional caveats on the earnings call, centered on seasonal effects and, of course, coronavirus-related impacts.

It has been interesting to watch in recent months as some analysts have raced to catch up with the stock price by tweaking their targets with this or that justification; a big future earnings uplift here, a bump to the multiple there (not the first time weve seen this happen).

At $650, the after-market price is pretty much divorced from any reasonable underlying math. A multiple of forecast GAAP earnings for the year of 275 times is all but meaningless. Tesla has been a terminal value stock for so long, in the sense that its price rests implicitly on long-term profit expectations. But its worth thinking about the numbers for a second.

As of Wednesday evening, the consensus forecasthasTesla flipping from a net loss of almost $5 a share last year to a profit of almost $2.40 in 2020 and then growing at more than 100%, compounded, through 2023. Looking out 10 years, I wondered what sort of earnings Tesla would need in 2029 to justify its stock price, assuming its terminal value in that year accounted forhalf the current market cap. At a 10% cost of capital, it works out to just over $200 per share or an 86-fold increase versus 2020s (forecast) earnings.(1)

CEO Elon Musk summed this all up near the start of Wednesday evenings call with the question, Where will we be in 10 years? Its rhetorical power can be seen in the way investors reset the clock as each set of full-year results passes by.

(1) This exercise assumes earnings as a proxy for free cash flow. I took the current consensus forecast for 2023, $21.61 per share, and then calculated the growth rate through 2029 such that those "cash flows", discounted at 10%, added up to half the share price of $650 (which is where it reached in after-market trading on Wednesday). There is no real rule of thumb on what proportion of the company's value should be accounted for by the terminal value. So 50% is just my assumption, though it would seem reasonable for a company that will have been listed for 20 years at that point.

Story continues

To contact the author of this story: Liam Denning at ldenning1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy, mining and commodities. He previously was editor of the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street column and wrote for the Financial Times' Lex column. He was also an investment banker.

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Tesla Racks Up Another Record Year (and Another Loss) - Yahoo Finance

If you can't wait to get your hands on Tesla's new Cybertruck, this modified iPhone may be the next best thing. And like the Cybertruck itself, you'll probably either love it or hate it.

Russian luxury tech company Caviar recently announced the Cyberphone, an iPhone 11 Pro that's been modified to look like Tesla's recently announced electric truck. The company says the phone's aesthetic was inspired by the geometry of Tesla's angular Cybertruck, which the company announced in November.

The Cybertruck quickly gained attention for several reasons, from its polarizing and unconventional design to the truck's theatrical unveil, which involved a "cybergirl" hologram believed to be Grimes and an unexpected demo gone awry in which the vehicle's armored glass windows were shattered on stage.

The Cyberphone may be tens of thousands of dollars cheaper than the Cybertruck it's based on, but it's still significantly more expensive than the average smartphone. The Cyberphone starts at $5,256, according to Mashable, and only 99 of them will be made.

Here's a closer look at the Cyberphone.

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Cyberphone is an iPhone 11 Pro designed to look like Tesla Cybertruck - Business Insider - Business Insider

Tesla has updated all the wheels options for the Model Y, unveiling two more wheel designs in the process: berturbine and Induction wheels.

Over the last few months, we have seen many new Model Y prototypes with unreleased wheels, including wheels that Tesla first unveiled on the Model 3 prototypes back in 2016 but never released.

After the original unveiling in 2016, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that they spent a lot of time on those wheels, and that they plan on bringing them to production.

They never did for the Model 3, but one of them has been spotted on a couple of Model Y prototypes, and we speculated that Tesla might finally bring them to production as exclusive wheels for the electric SUV.

With the start of production and the announcement of the first deliveries in March, Tesla has updated its Model Y online configurator to include two new wheel options:

Here are the new Tesla Model Y wheels:

Tesla also made the 19-inch Gemini wheels standard on all versions of the Model Y.

However, the Gemini wheels were already made available on the Model 3 in China, as well as an aftermarket winter wheel and tire package for the Model 3 in North America.

As for the two new wheel designs, they are only available on the Model Y.

The 20-inch Induction wheels are now only offered as a $2,000 option on the Model Y Long Range Dual Motor and Performance versions.

They have been spotted on a Model Y prototype for the first time earlier this month.

The new 21-inch berturbine Wheels are only available on the Model Y Performance version. They were also previously spotted on a Model Y prototype, but they were first unveiled on the Model 3 prototype in 2016.

The wheels design was credited to Joonas Vartola, a car designer who left Tesla in 2016 to become an independent designer in Finland.

Back in 2018, Musk said that Tesla would make that specific design available as an aftermarket upgrade for the Model 3 later in the year,but it never happened.

Now its officially going to production in the Model Y.

Along with the announcement yesterday that Tesla is starting Model Y production and the first deliveries are going to take place in March, Tesla confirmed that the range of the Model Y can now reach 315 miles on a single charge up from the previously announced 280-mile.

However, the range can only be achieved with the standard 19-inch wheels.

The bigger 20- and 21-inch wheel options are going to affect efficiency and reduce the EPA-rated range of the electric SUV to around 280 miles, according to Teslas own estimate.

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Tesla unveils new Model Y wheels: berturbine and Induction wheels - Electrek

Sorry, Volkswagen.

Tesla last week unseated the German carmaker as the world's second-largest automaker by market capitalization. Its ever-soaring stock is sealing its place in the top three in the wake of an earnings beat at least for now.

Tesla's market capitalization as of Wednesday was $104.7 billion. Volkswagen, which was No. 2 until Tesla began its stock tear, has a market cap of $84.9 billion. The No. 1 automaker by market cap is Toyota, which has a market cap of $202.3 billion.

It's an unprecedented high for Tesla, which in the past year faced an investigation by US regulators, the departure of key board members, and investor uncertainty that led one Wall Street veteran to call Tesla's 2019 second quarter "one of top debacles we have ever seen."

But now Tesla's stock price has doubled since October. It posted surprise profits in the third quarter and stayed profitable in the fourth quarter. To go with record 2019 sales, it also completed an unexpectedly speedy construction of its first international factory, which is now churning out Model 3s in Shanghai.

Production of its crossover, the Model Y, is also unexpectedly ahead of schedule, with deliveries scheduled to kick off by the end of March.

Tesla's market cap is now higher than those of its fellow American carmakers GM and Ford combined.

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Tesla is on a tear and is now the world's No. 2 automaker by market capitalization - Business Insider - Business Insider

Tesla beat expectations with its earnings yesterday, and while its record car sales were definitely the driver, Tesla Energy returning to growth didnt hurt, either.

The companys solar division is growing again, thanks to cheap solar subscriptions and its new Solarglass roof, and its energy storage business is doing better than ever.

Since the acquisition of SolarCity in 2016, Tesla has cut down on its solar business in a massive way, resulting in a significant slowdown of installations over the years.

But over the last year, Tesla has been trying to revamp its solar business and go back to growth.

Recently, Tesla launched a new solar rental service in which homeowners can get a solar panel system for just $50 per month.

They have alsolaunched a new commercial solar online ordering platform.

The company has been making its pricing simpler and more transparent, and they have been more actively pushing their energy products.

On top of its solar panel retrofit, Tesla has been working on accelerating installations of its Solarglass roof with the third generation.

Tesla is still not back to the level of solar deployment that its solar division was achieving under SolarCity, but at least its back to growth for two quarters in a row.

Yesterday, the company announced that it deployed 54MW of solar power during the fourth quarter of 2019:

It represents the second quarter of growth and a 26% quarter-to-quarter growth since relaunching the Tesla Energy solar business in 2019.

Tesla wrote about its solar business in its shareholders letter:

In Q4, we deployed 54MW of solar, 26% more than in the prior quarter. Where offered, subscription solar has grown significantly in Q4. With a monthly subscription that can generate income from the first month of usage, there is no reason not to have solar panels installed.

As for the energy storage business, Tesla achieved a new all-time record quarter with 530MWh of capacity deployed, including the first Megapacks, Teslas new utility-size energy storage product.

Tesla also wrote about its energy storage business:

Energy storage deployment reached an all-time high of 530MWh in Q4, which included the first deployments of Megapack, our new commercial scale 3MWh integrated storage system that is preassembled at Gigafactory Nevada as a single unit. Since the introduction of this product, the level of interest and orders from various global project developers and utilities has surpassed our expectations.

Thats 136% year-over-year growth, with Tesla installing more energy storage in 2019 than it did in all previous years combined.

CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla Energy is becoming a distributed global utility, and it could even outgrow Teslas automotive sector.

For now, it still represents only a small portion of Teslas business. In Q4 2019, Tesla generated $7.384 billion in revenue. $6.4 billion came from automotive, and $436 million came from energy.

I am growing more and more optimistic about Tesla Energy.

Tesla is now in a strong financial position to support paying upfront for solar subscription deployment, and it should be able to get the revenue from those installations for more than 20 years.

I could see Tesla having 1 million solar subscription customers by the end of the decade.

I still dont think it would be the biggest part of Teslas business by then, but it would be a significant part of its operations.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.

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Tesla Energy is back to growth, thanks to cheap solar subscriptions and Solarglass - Electrek

The new Tesla Model Y is introduced. Tesla has expanded its model range to include an SUV based on the current Model 3.

Hannes Breustedt | picture alliance | Getty Images

(This story is for CNBC PRO subscribers only.)

Tesla beat Wall Street's quarterly earnings expectations and the stock is surging but many major analysts were unmoved by the report and are sticking by their bearish position.

While analysts all noted Tesla's strong performance, as well as its recent blistering stock rally, only a handful adjusted their investment recommendation of the stock.

"The bull narrative has shifted from Tesla disrupting multiple industries to Tesla being a profitable and growing next-generation automaker. Even if one were to stipulate that as true, we believe the shares are sharply overvalued as an automotive [manufacturer]," Barclays analyst Brian Johnson wrote.

Likewise, Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi said that the risk for investors, both to the upside and the downside, makes Tesla untenable.

"On net, we believe Tesla is simultaneously too hard to short without a discernible catalyst ... but also too expensive and risky to initiate a significant overweight," Sacconaghi said.

Tesla share rose 10.3% in trading to close at $640.81.

Here's what every major analyst said about Tesla's earnings.

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Here's what every major analyst had to say about Tesla's big earnings beat - CNBC