最多再過兩年，特斯拉汽車公司就要推出經濟型電動車Model 3，它的客戶早在翹首期盼。但是，盡管這款新車造勢很好，但一位優秀的對沖基金經理去說，Model 3會遭遇慘敗。他甚至認為，Model 3可能讓特斯拉破產。另一句話說，他認為特斯拉的股價將歸零。

對沖基金Stanphyl Capital Partners的創始人馬克?斯皮格爾（Mark Spiegel）說，Model 3可能來不及問世就把特斯拉搞破產。特斯拉的CEO伊隆?馬斯克承諾，這款車的售價將低至3.5萬美元。

在上周的一次投資者會議上，斯皮格爾展示了一份15頁的演示文稿，解釋他為何在看空特斯拉。他還說，如果考慮負債因素，這家公司的價值應該為負。《財富》雜志拿到了他在今年11月給投資者的信。他在信中說：“我一直認為，特斯拉是當前最大的公司股票泡沫。”

在斯皮格爾周二上午做完演講后，這個“泡沫”小了一些，至當天收盤時，特斯拉的股價下跌超過3%，而大盤上漲。這個會議不對媒體開放，他的演講內容直到周四才公開，特斯拉股價當日又跌了4%。

斯皮格爾的Stnaphyl Captial管理著900萬美元，比起大牌對沖基金，這一規模可謂微不足道。不過，該基金自斯皮格爾在5年前創辦以來，資產已經翻番，今年至11月創造的收益接近35%。

近來，已經有不只一位對沖基金經理公開看空特斯拉。Kynikos Associates的投資人吉姆?查諾斯（Jim Chanos）曾因做空安然賺得盆滿缽滿，他在9月透露，正在做空特斯拉，認定這家公司必死無疑，尤其是在完成與SolarCity的爭議并購之后。特斯拉的股價自他講話以來下跌了25%左右。

公司的現金流失過快，車主使用自駕駛功能導致車禍，與SolarCity的合并存在利益沖突（馬斯克是SolarCity董事長，與公司CEO是表兄弟），這些是人們批評特斯拉的主要內容，但斯皮格爾關注的是另一個問題。

他在上周二的會議說，能讓投資者相信特斯拉的估值的“真正原因”，是其售價3.5萬美元“大眾型”汽車Model 3的前景。相比公司的價格至少高出一倍的其他車型，這款車要便宜很多。但斯皮格爾判斷：“這個價格絕不會出現。”因為這個價位將給公司帶來“巨虧”。他估計，虧損幾乎相當于客戶的購買價。

他是這樣算出來的：

? 在最近一個季度，特斯拉意外實現2,200萬美元的利潤，這是多年來頭一次。但盈利情況的大幅好轉主要是因為政府對電動汽車的一次性補貼。沒有政府補貼，特斯拉在三季度實際虧損1.17億美元，相當每臺車虧損4,710美元。

? 斯皮格爾計算，每臺特斯拉汽車的制造成本為81,000美元。銷售這些汽車目前能實現盈利。但它們的平均價格是105,900美元，這位價位只有為數不多的高收入家庭買得起。

? Model 3售價低至3.5萬美元，特斯拉要想實現盈利，必須將生產成本降低一半以上。

? 特斯拉上哪去省這些錢？公司沒有明說，但斯皮格爾估計，公司可以采用它花了50億美元蓋起來的巨型電池工廠生產的新型電池，省下6,000美元；在Model 3上使用較便宜的零部件，比如以鋼件代鋁件，再省下5,000美元；想辦法提高生產效率，比如采用自動化程度更高的生產線，還可以省下5,000美元。當前汽車成本為81,000美元，省下這些費用后，成本仍然高達65,000美元，遠高于特斯拉計劃銷售的價格。斯皮格爾假定，馬斯克還有其他方法可以節省成本，但他認為，最多也只能有1.5萬美元的節省空間，這也只能使Model 3的價格降到5萬以下，最低可以到4.8萬美元。

? 特斯拉只說Model 3最低售價是3.5萬美元，但馬斯克預計，算上客戶可能添加的各種升級和功能，平均售價將為4.3萬美元。按照這個價格和上面估出的4.8億美元最低價計算，特斯拉每賣一掉Model 3，就會虧損5,000美元。

明顯的解決辦法，就是特斯拉必須提高Model 3售價。斯皮格爾認為，每部裸車的價格至少應為5萬美元，這比公司目前承諾的價格高出了43%。他對《財富》說：“如果馬斯克宣稱3.5萬美元的價格是基礎價，而公司交付的每臺車都都比這個價格高得多，我不會奇怪。”

特斯拉不只一次提高它承諾的價格。2012年，特斯拉開始交付Model S高檔電動車的最早訂單，基礎價是5.74萬美元。僅僅過了5個月，特斯拉就將價格提高到5.99萬美元。又過了4個月，特斯拉取消了最低配的Model S，新車售價提高了1萬多美元，達6.9萬美元，比它最初用來吸引客戶的低價高出了20%。

但對于“大眾市場型”的Model，為避免虧損而提價無異于判特斯拉死刑。斯皮格爾預計，如果特斯拉到時候將價格抬到5萬美元，與那時市面上其他很多電動車比，就不再具有競爭優勢了。很多分析師預計，Model 3要到明年底才開始發貨，大部分訂單在2018年底之前都無法完成交付。

如果Model 3售價達到5萬美元，Model 3的價格將比通用汽車公司的Chevy Bolt高出33%。Chevy Bolt已經在一些經銷商那里有售，已經比Model 3早一年甚至兩年上市，價格卻只有37,495美元。

Model 3的價格超高，馬斯克的經濟型電動車之夢就越渺茫。斯皮格爾認為，沒有主流市場的需求，特斯拉的未來不容樂觀。

特斯拉未做出及時回應。 （財富中文網）

譯者：天逸

Tesla Motors customers are lining up to wait as much as two years to own the company’s eagerly anticipated cheaper electric car, the Model 3. But while the new car has created a lot of buzz for Tesla , one high-performing hedge fund manger says the Model 3 will end up being a total wreck for the company. In fact, he says it will likely put Tesla out of business. Put another way: His price target for Tesla’s stock: $0.

Mark Spiegel, founder of hedge fund Stanphyl Capital Partners, says the Model 3—which Tesla CEO Elon Musk has promised to sell for as little as $35,000—may put Tesla on a path to bankruptcy before it even comes out.

Speaking at the Robin Hood Investors Conference this week, Spiegel laid out his case in a 152-slidepresentation on why he is shorting, i.e. betting against, Tesla stock. Factor in the debt, and he thinks the car company is worth less than zero. “I continue to believe that it’s the market’s biggest single-company stock bubble,” Spiegel elaborated in his November letter to investors, obtained byFortune.

That so-called bubble deflated a bit after Spiegel’s presentation Tuesday morning, with Tesla stock falling more than 3% by the end of the day, while the broader market rose. Tesla shares fell another 4% Thursday after Spiegel’s presentation from the conference (which was closed to the media) was shared publicly.

Spiegel’s Stanphyl Capital manages $9 million. While that’s tiny in comparison to other hedge funds whose managers also presented at Robin Hood, from Jeff Smith’s Starboard Value to David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, Stanphyl’s assets have quintupled since Spiegel launched the fund about five years ago. This year, the fund has returned nearly 35% through November.

It isn’t the first time that a hedge fund short-seller has publicly attacked Tesla recently. Jim Chanos, the Kynikos Associates investor who lucratively shorted Enron before its scandalous demise, said in September that he is also shorting Tesla, believing the company is doomed, particularly after its controversial merger with SolarCity ? is completed. Tesla’s stock price is down about 25% in 2016 so far.

But while other Tesla critics have emphasized the company’s rapid cash bleed; recent controversy over crashes seemingly related to drivers’ use of its autopilot feature; and conflicts of interest with SolarCity, of which Musk is chairman and his cousin is CEO, Spiegel focused on a different problem for Tesla.

The prospect of a $35,000 “mass-market” Tesla Model 3—much more affordable compared to Tesla’s other vehicles, which cost at least twice as much—is the “real reason” investors have bought into Tesla’s stock, Spiegel said at the conference Tuesday. But “that will never happen,” asserts Spiegel. That’s because at that price Tesla would be selling the Model 3 at “a gigantic loss”—indeed, it could lose nearly as much on each car as the price customers are paying for it, Spiegel estimates.

Here’s how he got there, by the numbers:

? In Tesla’s latest quarter, it reported a $22 million surprise profit, its first in years. But much of the boost came from a one-off sale of government subsidy credits for electric vehicles that Tesla had been collecting. Without that, the company actually lost $117 million in the third quarter—ora loss of $4,710 per car.

? Each car Tesla currently sells costs $81,000 to build, Spiegel estimates. Those cars are currently profitable on their own (excluding leased cars and other unrelated company expenses)—but they sell at an average of $105,900, a price point that’s only affordable for a higher-income segment of consumers.

? In order to sell the Model 3 at as low a price as $35,000 and still make a profit, Tesla would have to cut its production costs by more than half.

? Where will Tesla find all those savings? The company hasn’t said specifically, but Spiegelestimates that it can cut about $6,000 off the $81,000-per-car cost by using its new batteries produced at its so-called gigafactory (which also cost $5 billion to build), another $5,000 by using cheaper parts for the Model 3—substituting steel for aluminum, for example—and $5,000 on top of that by finding ways to make its manufacturing more efficient (perhaps with greater automation). Still, that only brings the cost to build each Model 3 down to $65,000, much more than Tesla plans to sell it for. But Spiegel gives Musk some benefit of the doubt, and allows for what the investor calls a “cost savings fudge factor” that’s “extremely generous” and “probably undeserved” but which could knock off as much as $15,000 or so off the cost—bringing the cost per Model 3 down to just under $50,000, say $48,000 at the lowest.

? While Tesla has said the Model 3 will be available for as little as $35,000, Musk has predicted that the average sales price of the car will be $43,000, once customers add various upgrades and features. At that price and a minimum of $48,000 in costs per car, Tesla would lose at least $5,000 for every Model 3 it sells.

The obvious solution? Tesla needs to raise the price of the Model 3—to at least $50,000 for a bare-bones model, or 43% higher than the price currently promised, Spiegel predicts. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Musk claims a $35,000 base price but then never delivers any even CLOSE to that number,” Spiegel tells Fortune in an email.

It wouldn’t be the first time Tesla hiked the base price of one of its cars after promising it would be lower. When Tesla began delivering initial ordersof its Model S electric sedan in June 2012, it sold them at a base price of $57,400. Just five months later, however, Tesla raised the car’s starting price to $59,900. About four months after that, though, Tesla cancelled the lowest-end Model S version, making the car’s new starting price $10,000 higher, at $69,000—20% higher than the low price it initially teased.

Yet with the “mass-market” Model 3, selling the car for more could be just as fatal a sentence for Tesla as selling it at a loss. If Tesla raised the base price of the car to $50,000 or more, as Spiegel expects, the Model 3 would no longer be competitive with the many other electric cars that will be on the market by then—as the Model 3 won’t start shipping to customers until the end of next year, and likely not before the end of 2018 for most orders, analysts predict.

For example, at a price of $50,000, the Model 3 would be about 33% more expensive than the cheapest Chevy Bolt, an electric car from GM ? that’s already on the market starting at $37,495 at select dealerships—more than a year (or two) earlier than the Model 3.

And the higher the price of the Model 3 goes, the more Musk’s dream of a cheap and affordable Tesla disappears. And without that mainstream demand, Spiegel thinks Tesla’s future doesn’t look so bright at all.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.