Did Tesla Lower Guidance To Impress Wall Street?

Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) is up more than 2 percent today after the company announced that its Model S deliveries were higher than expected.

Analysts were thrilled by the news, but Citron Research got some attention after tweeting a contrarian view:

"time to re-enter $TSLA short after being patient- deleiveries were underwhleming to a watchful eye" Good car- stupid stock

— Citron Research (@CitronResearch) July 2, 2015

Investors were quick to respond:

@CitronResearch Didn't you lose bigtime with this play last time? Betting against Musk seems super risky.

— RisklessSarah (@tinkertankist) July 2, 2015

@CitronResearch $TSLA stupid #stock can now buy me a great car #tesla . Carful not to get your faced ripped off with that #short

— STOCKER (@THESTOCKER) July 2, 2015

@CitronResearch Just wait until the smartest investor @Carl_C_Icahn takes a stake. He is too smart to sit this one out.

— teslafan (@diggydoy) July 2, 2015

@LouisBedigian @CitronResearch They got lucky with Ambarella. They underestimate Tesla holders conviction. @elonmusk

— teslafan (@diggydoy) July 2, 2015

In an email to Benzinga, Citron Executive Editor Andrew Left said that Tesla "lowered deliveries early part of the year and now they just met the original delivery schedule." "The ultimate wall st trick of lowering a bar to just jump over it," he wrote.

Related Link: How Apple Could Help Tesla By Building A Car

Is Tesla A Car Company?

"I think we have to know what industry Tesla is about," Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry told Benzinga. "I think most analysts think it's an automotive company to start and end with. That's the reason they have gotten everything wrong."

Chowdhry defines a car company as a traditional enterprise that simply builds automobiles.

"Would a car company create their own stores across the whole world? The answer is 'no,'" Chowdhry explained. "Would a car company go and create their own gas stations? The answer is 'no.' Would a car company go and build their own oil refineries? The answer is 'no.'"

Tesla has built its own stores, its own Supercharger network (in place of gas stations) and its own Gigafactory to build new batteries (in place of an oil refinery). That's why Chowdhry believes Tesla is so much more than an automaker.

"Whatever you're reading from such a stupid report is because the person is living in a 100-year-old mindset," Chowdhry added. "That's a fundamental weakness."

'Hard To Believe'

Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group, told Benzinga that it is "hard to believe that any firm is going to lower deliveries" just so it can beat guidance and raise the stock later in the year.

"That's something a hired gun CEO would do, not a founder," said Enderle. "Founders tend to focus on making sure the company is strong, getting products out the door."

Enderle noted that Tesla had some manufacturing issues but he believes they have been "largely corrected."

"I think it's a mistake to read some type of stock manipulation into this," he added. "But you do realize we're dealing with a very unique vehicle. They're limited by the battery capacity."

Tesla hopes to solve that problem with its Gigafactory.

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.