*By Conor White*
The positive [news](https://cheddar.com/videos/tesla-stock-surges-after-q2-earnings-report) in Tesla's second quarter earnings report outweighed the negatives for most investors, sending shares up more than 12 percent to their highest level in a month.
The electric carmaker announced that Model 3 production is up, but it posted losses of more than $700 million.
Some analysts have fundamental doubts about Tesla's future.
"It's a story stock," said Mark Spiegel, managing member at Stanphyl Capital. "What you have here are: bulls who couldn't care less about balance sheets or profit and loss statements; and you've got bears, or as I would call them, realists, who care a lot about that kind of stuff."
Spiegel counts himself in the latter group. He said in an interview Thursday on Cheddar that Tesla didn't do nearly enough to assuage fears about its future ー and that doesn't even account for all the other car companies eager for a bigger slice of the electric vehicle industry.
"There's a massive amount of competition coming for this company," Speigel said. "Between the Jaguar that's out now and the Audi, Mercedes, and Porsche coming out next year, it's going to destroy Model S and X sales, and that's where \[Tesla's\] margin isーwhatever margin they have."
And even though [outspoken](https://cheddar.com/videos/will-elon-musk-behave-on-this-weeks-earnings-call) CEO Elon Musk behaved on this conference call, there's no telling what he will do next.
After reaching its production goal of 5,000 Model 3 cars per week, Tesla reports it now wants to churn out 10,000 per week, "as fast as we can."
Spiegel dismissed those numbers ー and Tesla more generally.
"They're a perennial over-promiser and under-deliverer," he said.
"The reason they keep putting out these aggressive numbers is it supports the stock, which is an absurd valuation. If Tesla were a normal car company losing this much money, the stock would be in the low single digits."
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/tesla-announces-biggest-loss-ever-but-shares-rally).
Reports indicate that widespread 5G may arrive in 2019, and providers are scurrying to meet that unofficial deadline in the wake of Verizon's recent announcement that it will partner with Samsung to release a 5G phone by June.
Instagram and WhatsApp are reasons to believe in the future of Facebook as social media trends toward community-based social platforms that reflect users' specific interests, Reddit co-founder, investor, and 21st century renaissance man Alexis Ohanian told Cheddar on Tuesday.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018.
SpaceX plans to launch an unmanned cargo spacecraft bound for the International Space Station on Tuesday. But the scientific equipment and experiments aboard the ship are actually meant to improve life on Earth, Ken Shields, chief operating officer for the ISS National Laboratory, told Cheddar. With increasing privatization of the aerospace industry, Shields said space on shuttles to ISS is increasingly in-demand, even if the experiments aboard aren't exactly out-of-this-world.
Uber is sniffing around a possible acquisition of either Lime or Bird, the leaders in the growing e-scooter rental market, according to a report in The Information. One of the reporters who broke that story told Cheddar on Monday that there is a "growing realization" among ride-hailing companies that bike and scooters will continue to be a significant part of the urban mobility landscape.
Some of the top cars and tech were on display at the
Los Angeles Auto Show. Cheddar's Tamara Warren caught up with Bob Wheeler, president & CEO of Airstream, and discussed updates in their iconic travel trailers.
John Paul DeJoria may be a billionaire now, but the self-made founder of John Paul Mitchell Systems and Patron Spirits will never forget the periods of homelessness from his past. Even after he's built an empire, DeJoria said he gives first and generates profit second ー a philosophy that is now influencing the launch of his new smartphone, ROKiT.
Volvo's headlights are fixed firmly on the future ー so firmly that it decided to bring a concept, not a car to the 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show. Volvo's Chief Digital Officer Atif Rafiq told Cheddar's Tamara Warren that it took the "extreme step of not having a car at a car show" to make a statement about Volvo's future in mobility ー even as the automaker regains its balance after abruptly canceling its public debut.
Crypto exchanges have improved their anti-money laundering compliance (AML), but the the Treasury Department's next priority is to remind them about the looming threat of terrorist financing.
At this year's Los Angeles Auto Show, I came face to face with a future promised by sci-fi novels and films. The BMW Vision iNEXT concept car drew me in and refused to let me go. The electric SUV, which promises to have level 3 autonomy when production begins in 2021, looks like nothing else on the road ー yet somehow seems familiar.
