Sell Red One to Buy GM shares at 50-Year Low?

[michael zaletel]

Okay, okay. I know. I shouldn't even be thinking about this, let alone posting a thread about it. However, I have to say that although it is not at all tempting to sell my Red setup for a $10,000 profit, it's a lot more difficult not to think about selling my Red and using the proceeds to buy a crapload of GM stock at it's 50-year low of $11 today. GM has a market cap of $6B while Google holds a market cap of nearly 30 times that? Are investors on crack?

I know that keeping my Red will probably mean a 3x ROI but buying GM stock right now could have a 30x ROI over then next 10 years once they play their "electric car IP" card they've been holding for rainy day like this one.

$40,000 buys 3,600 shares of GM at $11 which will probably be worth $1M in 10 years. Only problem is it will probably drop to $8 before it heads north again.

Nah...I"m gonna keep my Red. But it is pretty tempting eh?

-shooter

[Jannard]

Question is how much money can you make and how much fun can you have with your RED ONE in the time it takes GM to recover...

Jim

[Rick Darge]

Checkmate

[donatello b]

"3,600 shares of GM at $11 which will probably be worth $1M in 10 years"

i wonder if those that bought in 1998 at $90 were thinking the same for 10 years later = 2008 ?

GM EPS is -$74.29 ( as in negative) ...

google EPS is + $14.23

[Tail Ends]

Get real. GM's big announcement is that they have a car that averages 23 mph. Big F....g Deal. Toyota is eating their lunch. On another Red thread today, you'll never see GM doing this type of qualilty Alpha Romeo ad shown right here on RedUser. Take a look. It's really quite good.

[Finner]

GM slit their throat when they decided to scrap their electric car and build hummers instead. A terrible move that they may not recover from. Hopefully Tesla can take GM's place one day soon.

[Poi Boy]

GM could go either way right now. If they are able to pull off the Volt concept by 2010 they will be golden and those $11. shares will go through the roof. If they don't they will surely go bankrupt. I give them a 50/50 chance.
Aloha
-A

[Bob Gruen]

The Big Three automakers have generations of UAW influence that will always add a premium to the price of their products. Add to that the total mishandling of oil regulation in this country by our government and I'd conclude that there is a reason that investors have bailed. That's not to say that GM won't recover, just that there is a lot of uncertainty.

[Jeff Coatney]

If GM were managed by a competent leadership that could innovate, see more than 18 months into the future and figure out a way to make a profit on a passenger car or sub-compact, I might agree with you. But trading-in a cutting edge product for a tiny piece of a Rust-Belt Relic? GM would need to make a line of $12,000 to $16,000 plug-in hybrid / electric vehicles that work great and look great to gain back what they've lost by pandering to our Reptilian Brain. Unfortunately, they haven't invested enough in brain power to pull it off, they're too quick to layoff employees at the first sign of trouble. Penny-wise, pound-foolish.

[burnie@roosterteeth.com]

Invest in yourself.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

GM slit their throat when they decided to scrap their electric car and build hummers instead. A terrible move that they may not recover from. Hopefully Tesla can take GM's place one day soon.

Do you have one Finner? I've been interested in one but then there's no service for it over in Europe so I've been holding out. How good is it?

Fredrik

[Michael Stanmore]

I'd rather sell my car to buy a Red camera!!! The Red case has wheels... I'll ride that to work.

[Bob Gruen]

Electric cars are not there yet, even the current crop of hybrids are terrible.

Lexus is the first to use Lithium Polymer batteries which is a step in the right direction. LiPos are chemically dangerous as they can burn if ruptured or otherwise abused. Lithium Ion batteries are probably the solution, but you are going to have one heck of an electric bill if you go with a pure electric car that has any mass to it. look at http://www.a123systems.com/#/home/phev/ for more on this.

Any car with nickel based battery technology should be avoided as the performance to weight ratio is terrible and pure nickel is terrible on the environment. Truth is the Toyota Prius Hybrid is an awful car that is very hard on the environment (both chemically and in a complete life-cycle energy tally). Plus, it doesn't get anywhere near the mileage that Toyota claims. Currently, your average Euro compact car is a much better solution if you want to be green or just save on fuel costs. You'd never catch me in one though, not crash worthy enough for me.

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Why not buy RED shares?

Looks like a promising company to me... ;)

But it's probably limited.

[I Bloom]

Why not buy RED shares?

Looks like a promising company to me... ;)

But it's probably limited.

Understatement of the year.

[Pawel Achtel]

What makes you think GM stock won't be worth $0? It is cheap for a reason, just as RED demands a premium over its list price. Why would this be?

[Martin Weiss]

If Red had been a public company, certain "other" manufacturers would have probably bought themselves into it already.

Anyway, shouldn<t this thread be in the "off topic"? And why hasn¨t stew mentioned any of the chinese car manufacturers yet?

[Andrew Ravani]

"Question is how much money can you make and how much fun can you have with your RED ONE in the time it takes GM to recover...

Jim"

Hahahahahahaha .... Spoken like a man who knows its not the number of toys you die with that determines the winner, but how much fun you had with them.

You know, I wonder when GM is going to get their act together - its bad when you are worried about a company like Fiat or Peugeot being able to buy you with their pocket lint. Maybe mister Jannard wants to buy GM? I bet they could make some killer dollies.

And I like that idea, Burnie, "Invest in yourself" - well said.

[Stuart English]

Currently, your average Euro compact car is a much better solution if you want to be green or just save on fuel costs.

And manufactured in Europe by GM and Ford already... um, sounds like a possible recovery plan ?

The "compact" doesn't have to be so compact either...

www.gm.com/europe/brands/opel/

http://media.gm.com/intl/opel/en/download/pdf/tdata/td_vectra_en.pdf

Opel Vectra 2.2 Manual Highway fuel consumption 6.0 l/100Km = 42 m.p.g (USG)

Opel 2.8 V6 TURBO Auto Highway fuel consumption 7.4 l/100Km = 34 m.p.g (USG)

[Steve Sanacore]

In my opinion all detroit auto makers are in very dire straights. Their short term thinking, greed and immoral history are catching up with them big time. I think the big three should start moving their factories to Asia as quickly as possible if they hope to survive. There is a reason the stocks are soo low.

I hope I'm wrong...

We need cameras like the RED now more than ever!

[Anthony Gratl]

I think the big three should start moving their factories to Asia as quickly as possible if they hope to survive. There is a reason the stocks are soo low.

I hope I'm wrong...



Wow. Do you think that the average american having less money to spend to keep the economy going has anything at all to do with higher paying manufacturing jobs being outsourced overseas? It's amazing. Noone wants to make the connection between job outsourcing, environmental degradation(see ridiculous sized vehicles and factories making them), endless war(you gotta fight for all that oil), and a weak dollar and struggling economy. There's a reason the stocks are soo low.
Don't worry Steve, you're wrong.


We need cameras like the RED now more than ever!
Yup, cause when the shit really hits the fan, i'm gonna go out and shoot footage instead of looking for food. What are you talking about? What is the connection between the global amortization of labour cost (globalization) and needing Red Cameras more than ever? Isn't that like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic????????? I don't understand your train of thought or logic here...

We need sustainable industry on this continent. GM should make electric cars here, not in Asia. Who do you think pays for the cost of shipping them here? You and the environment. High oil prices are gonna make all this shipping nonsense a ludicrous proposition in ten years. All of this craziness has been based on the notion of cheap energy, oil. And guess what, the party's over. We better invest in sustainable industry with what's left, not outsource even more shit to Asia.
Three connected words: local sustainable economies. And that's where the Red can shine and contribute. Local filmmakers making local films at low cost. It's a redefining of na culture, what little there is.
RedOne is also made offshore.
How to get Red to start making the cameras here with them still making a healthy profit and keeping the price the same......

[Joel Kaye]

We need sustainable industry on this continent. GM should make electric cars here, not in Asia

Yeah. Face it, we spent a trillion dollars on a bad war that we could have spent putting Americans to work on alternative energy technologies including new cars. I think the top 1/2 of a percent of Americans now own 50% of the wealth in America. I know where I'd get the money to get this country back on its feet. Reaganomics and free trade didn't work. Hell, look where your RED was manufactured. It's not a knock on RED. I've outsourced programming to Russia. Our system is set up in such a way that there is no incentive to employ Americans.

There's a good movie called "The Corporation" if you haven't seen it. The modern corporation is flawed and GM might be a bad deal at $5 a share. Enron was.

[Anthony Gratl]

There's a good movie called "The Corporation" if you haven't seen it. The modern corporation is flawed and GM might be a bad deal at $5 a share. Enron was.

As an additional thought, be sure to get the 8 hour 2 dvd version. It's very thorough. I hate the corporation graphics package though. Anyhoo, not important.
Joelnet, I agree that reaganomics and free trade haven't worked. It not only made people poorer, but made everyone think that everything should be cheap and was of little worth because it was so cheap. On the other hand, I never thought that free trade was "supposed to work" for us. It was always designed with big business in mind. I always thought it was a big handout to the corporations, and a pox on the minions and the environment.

[Meryem Ersoz]

Do you have one Finner? I've been interested in one but then there's no service for it over in Europe so I've been holding out. How good is it?

Fredrik

har de har, good one -- GM rounded up all these dogies, the EV1, and destroyed them.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/

must see activist film, produced by friend-of-a-friend Chris Paine....

the Japanese manufacturers are not immune, they kiboshed their RAV EV program (light utility electric SUV) -- Toyota indulged the systematic destruction of these vehicles as well, as soon as they came off their leasing programs, until a grass-roots effort stopped them, better late than never...

http://www.pluginamerica.org/dontcrush.shtm

Instead of investing in something real, GM sold us the hydrogen car R & D boondoggle, a smokescreen campaign for sidestepping improved fuel efficiency altogether and continuing selling their condos-on-wheels to soccer moms.

GM is run by idiots, who can't tell their orifices from a hole in the ground. Where they could have led -- and cleaned up! by the way, the conspired to kill off innovation.

I have owned two Prius - es (one I purchased when it was still a test market car, in the year 2000, and one is the current model)

And can I just say that Toyota is run by idiots as well - they improved the fuel efficiency of the technology and built a much larger car to offset the fuel efficiency, yielding a net zero improvement in form and function but keeping the soccer moms fat and contented with a larger car....)

But at least they try, as opposed to GM which let the oil genie out of the bottle...and now we will all pay for it. Thanks, GM.

Why would you want to put your money in this loser? Not just a financial loser, but an ethical and moral loser as well? That sorely lacks vision. If ever there was a bad karma stock, this is it.

I bought Toyota stock in 2000, when I bought the test car, and I took my original investment out long ago, now playing entirely with the house money. (Not that I would recommend its purchase right now, its lead time has shrunk and it is too dependent on a contracting US economy to be a good purchase, while the great unwind continues a-pace).

GMAC Financial has become a large part of GM's core business and you would be wise to kick the tires and look under the hood of their financing arm before making a purchase. In fact, their financing arm eclipsed the earnings of their actual auto sales years ago, but guess what? Along the way, they diversified into the mortgage biz, among other things, and sold 49% of the finance biz to PNC and Citigroup in a partnership, all stocks that are now in the tank as well. They are still holding 49% of a loser that used to be their biggest income generator.

They have a lot of other headwinds to deal with as well, not the least of which is their pension system....I could go on....

Jim, when you're done rocking the camera industry, could you fix the automotive industry as well and build a car worth buying? Thank you.

[Tom Lowe]

Invest in solar energy companies. :)

[Meryem Ersoz]

oh, and one other thing...do you know how badly the US government has worked to keep the European Smart Car off the American market? Until several years ago, you could not obtain licensing -- they wouldn't certify the car to be licensed in the US, so people were licensing them in Mexico and driving them across the border. Now you can buy them locally, but the tariffs are so high that the pricing is prohibitive, costs $30,000 for a tiny two-seater made of tinfoil that's about the size of a La-Z-Boy.

But I'm sure this is all just coincidence and not a conspiracy at all, and if there is a conspiracy, I'm sure that GM's nose is squeaky clean...

I better go shoot something....

[michael zaletel]

Question is how much money can you make and how much fun can you have with your RED ONE in the time it takes GM to recover...

Jim

Crap. I wasn't thinking about the fun...

Definitely keeping my Red!

:)

-shooter

[Joel Kaye]

As an additional thought, be sure to get the 8 hour 2 dvd version. It's very thorough. I

Kewl. I didn't know about that. I saw "Who Killed the Electric Car" too. Good movie. Amazing that they got the GM guy on camera saying we won't destroy these cars and then got aerial footage over the proving grounds in Mesa, AZ showing the cars being destroyed. You can't write that and have it be believable.

I wonder if we're just being shocked right now:
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0676978002?ie=UTF8&tag=hell0b-20&linkCode=as2&camp=15121&creative=330641&creativeASIN=0676978002

Check the video on that page.

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Understatement of the year.


I was joking, mate. :nerd:

[Steve Sanacore]

Wow. Do you think that the average american having less money to spend to keep the economy going has anything at all to do with higher paying manufacturing jobs being outsourced overseas? It's amazing. Noone wants to make the connection between job outsourcing, environmental degradation(see ridiculous sized vehicles and factories making them), endless war(you gotta fight for all that oil), and a weak dollar and struggling economy. There's a reason the stocks are soo low.
Don't worry Steve, you're wrong.


Yup, cause when the shit really hits the fan, i'm gonna go out and shoot footage instead of looking for food. What are you talking about? What is the connection between the global amortization of labour cost (globalization) and needing Red Cameras more than ever? Isn't that like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic????????? I don't understand your train of thought or logic here...

We need sustainable industry on this continent. GM should make electric cars here, not in Asia. Who do you think pays for the cost of shipping them here? You and the environment. High oil prices are gonna make all this shipping nonsense a ludicrous proposition in ten years. All of this craziness has been based on the notion of cheap energy, oil. And guess what, the party's over. We better invest in sustainable industry with what's left, not outsource even more shit to Asia.
Three connected words: local sustainable economies. And that's where the Red can shine and contribute. Local filmmakers making local films at low cost. It's a redefining of na culture, what little there is.
RedOne is also made offshore.
How to get Red to start making the cameras here with them still making a healthy profit and keeping the price the same......

1. I think it's a global economy and there is no going back- like it or not.

2. Yes, local filmmakers making local films at low cost. That is what I was praising and supporting RED for.

"The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman is a great read if anyone is interested in learning more about the economics of the new world we live in.

Personally the subject makes me ill. We are lucky we work in an industry that allows us the freedom of objectivity (most of the time)

[Peter Majtan]

The future is electric - but solar/wind/water generated kind. Just like this:

http://www.venturi.fr/-Vehicules-.html

http://www.venturi.fr/IMG/diapo/eclectic/diapo_image2_dl.jpg (http://www.venturi.fr/IMG/diapo/eclectic/)

[Hrvoje Simic]

Opel Vectra 2.2 Manual Highway fuel consumption 6.0 l/100Km = 42 m.p.g (USG)

Opel 2.8 V6 TURBO Auto Highway fuel consumption 7.4 l/100Km = 34 m.p.g (USG)

That's just marketing b-s.

In real life add ~3-4 liters to the first and 5-6 liters to the second figure. You can get 6 l/100 with 1.2's, not 2.2's or any V6's...unless they are mostly going downhill in neutral.



Hopefully Tesla can take GM's place one day soon.

My hopes also...

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Gas is Dead! :)

[Ed Blythe]

Invest in yourself.

That would be retarded. My stocks are at an all time low.

[Meryem Ersoz]

[QUOTE=omen;243111
My hopes also...[/QUOTE]

I doubt that will happen with a $100K car...

I think it is going to take actual government intervention to make these car companies do anything...not something that I typically advocate, but it is hard to see much recourse, given the auto manufacturers' track record....

Of course, this is the same government that capped LEV and ULEV standards at 35 mph, effectively crippling electric car development. Doesn't really inspire a lot of hope for innovation in the field...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Low_Emission_Vehicle

...Ford "invested" in a Norwegian car called the Think, the first electric car to meet US crash test standards. It looked road-ready and they were gearing up to start shipping to the US, and then, without warning, they killed the project in 2002. Shut the whole thing down and pulled their funding.

...Chrysler was working with a Brazilian company on a similar project called the Obvio scheduled for release in 2008 when shocker! Chrysler took over and project and shut it down.

Raise your hand if you see a pattern emerging.

Let's see Ford, Chrysler, GM, and Toyota all killed the electric car. What hope do we have? The auto industry needs a Jannard to rescue it from itself.

[Peter Majtan]

I would not include Toyota in that list... Anyway - the real problem here is how You generate the electricity? Sun, wind and water (to some extend) is fine. Fossil fuel is not...

[Meryem Ersoz]

I would not include Toyota in that list...

They're best of breed, no doubt, and I am a happy shareholder. But putting RAV EVs in the crusher and bowing to whatever pressure was applied to keep these vehicles out of consumers' hands, has earned them a spot.

Actually, the clean nose among the major manufacturers, if you're looking for one, is Honda (which I also own, as a stock) which has put a prototype hydrogen fuel cell vehicle on the road, the Honda Stack (redesigned and renamed the Clarity). I won't be surprised if they are the first to market with this technology, assuming it arrives at all. They also have 2 hydrogen cell scooter models under development, so they seem to be the most serious about exploring this option -- of course, unlike electric, it would require re-tooling the nation's fuel service centers, a mammoth undertaking. If Honda can build a home fueling system, which they have under development, this would rock....

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/drive-fcx-clarity.aspx
http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/home-energy-station.aspx

A bunch of these on the road should nicely offset all the massively polluting 2-stroke engines which Honda supplies to the world.

[Anthony Gratl]

A bunch of these on the road should nicely offset all the massively polluting 2-stroke engines which Honda supplies to the world.

I disagree. There's no such thing as an "offset". Just ban the damn things already.

[chuck colburn]

Hitachi is making a little (relative) atomic power plant that is just right for a business or large home. LOL I WANT ONE!

[cinemano]

Would make sense for RED to make electric cars.. since they bring shockingly advanced technologies ahead of time.. Why not? they used to make sunglasses and made the RED one!! Then again id bet on Air Powered cars- (charge time is 3 minutes) and they're just as fast and as far..

[Finner]

I doubt that will happen with a $100K car...


I guess you have not heard Tesla's bussiness plan. Of all the current electric car companies Tesla's is by far the smartest.

Tesla's Plan

1. Build one of the best sports cars in the world that is still a fully useable car (roof, doors, AC...). The Tesla Roadster kicks ass 0-60 on even million dollar exotic cars. Then sell the Roadster to the rich environmental friendly stars and other high profile people at 100K (100K is cheap compared to many of the sports cars the Tesla can do circles around) and make a decent enough profit to go to step 2.

2. Take the R&D and profit from the Roadster and build a 60K luxury sedan.

3. Take the R&D and profits from the roadster and luxury sedan and build a good 20K average joe electric car.


This is so much better of a plan then to build a 16K golf cart car like other electric car companies are doing.

[Peter Majtan]

Sounds like a plan...

4. Take only the profits from the "roadster", "luxury sedan" and "average joe car" and buy yourself a Hummer with a life-time supply of gas...

:tongue:

Just kidding. I like what they are doing. But the question remains - how do You generate electricity in a manner that would not affect the environment? And then - how do You make it accessible?

[Meryem Ersoz]

I guess you have not heard Tesla's bussiness plan. Of all the current electric car companies Tesla's is by far the smartest.



Actually, the really smart part of their plan is how well capitalized they are.

But their ultimate success will be measured by their ability to bring the mass-market car to fruition, not a specialty vehicle with a niche price tag. That's pretty far off in a highly uncertain future.

And their lead time will have to outpace the rate at which competing venture capital now flows towards this problem, since the incentives seem to expand daily, as well as outpacing the few majors who have already embarked on greener mass-market vehicles, such as Honda. Time will tell.

[Anthony Gratl]

Actually, the really smart part of their plan is how well capitalized they are.

But their ultimate success will be measured by their ability to bring the mass-market car to fruition, not a specialty vehicle with a niche price tag. That's pretty far off in a highly uncertain future.

And their lead time will have to outpace the rate at which competing venture capital now flows towards this problem, since the incentives seem to expand daily, as well as outpacing the few majors who have already embarked on greener mass-market vehicles, such as Honda. Time will tell.

The problem is, all of these cars and solutions are an attempt to keep the status quo the same in terms of convenience, and I think that's the real question......is this really sustainable, this level of production output and industrial resource extraction?