Tesla, the greatest fanboy stock of the past half decade, is well on its way to becoming nothing more than a memory. The news of a recent fatal crash of a Ohio man and the pending SolarCity buyout could two of many insurmountable difficulties that cause this company to fail.

Even with a perfect storm of negativity, and gross uncertainty, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) shares still trade above $200.

Why is that? How can so many shareholders simply overlook the fact that Tesla is still a long way from making money? Not to mention the recent move to buy SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY), which is a deal filled with corporate governance red flags.

To start, Tesla founder and CEO – Elon Musk – has created a cult-like following among investors, especially within the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Now, shares did go from $280 to $150 a share after we called Tesla the market’s biggest mistake of 2015. However, the hype of Tesla becoming the next Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has overshadowed any reality as shares are trading back over the $200 mark.

The Tesla story includes a grand plan, and Musk has certainly been praised for his grandiose visions in the past. Musk, who also founded SpaceX, has laid out an aggressive plan to colonize Mars within the next decade. But is he stretching himself just a little too thin these days?

More Dire Than Ever

The key for Tesla shareholders, and potential big dilemma is that things look worse than ever. There’s a perfect storm brewing against Tesla, which is being further fueled by the death of an Ohio man driving a Tesla, whose death marks the first time someone has died in any car using an autopilot feature. This raises questions about the future of driverless cars, and Tesla’s role in it, as it’s been hit with several car fires in the past year.

What’s more is that in the second quarter we saw another round of missed expectations, but what could ultimately send Tesla into its death spiral is its purchase of SolarCity Corp. for roughly $2.8 billion in an all-stock deal.

Tesla City?

Tesla’s buyout of SolarCity was immediately hit with skepticism but then everyone remembered who was orchestrating the deal – Elon Musk – and he alone makes the deal a net positive.

Musk rallies his investors with bold and brazen comments. Last year, he threw out ridiculous growth numbers on how Tesla could be as big as Apple by 2020. Then, after the SolarCity acquisition announcement, he said that with SolarCity, Tesla could be a trillion dollar company.

But the buyout is a web of interconnectivity that raises various corporate governance questions. To start, the SolarCity CEO is Lyndon Rive – Musk’s cousin. Then there’s the fact that Musk is the Chairman of SolarCity and largest shareholder of both companies.

Musk has a history of moving assets between his three companies Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX. Back in 2014, SpaceX was the largest buyer of a bond offering by SolarCity.

The list goes on and on, with nearly half of Tesla shareholders also owning shares in SolarCity.

SolarCity continues to lose money as competition in the solar industry heats up. It doesn’t help that we saw one of the leaders in the residential solar market, SunEdison, go bankrupt just this year.

So the real way to view this is a bailout of SolarCity which loses about $6 for every $1 it makes in revenues. Shares have lost some 60% of their market value since 2014.

Tesla raised $1.4 billion in a share offering last month, money that investors had hoped would fuel a ramp up in production, but it looks like it’ll now be used to rescue a potentially failing solar company. Just before the deal was announced, Musk was personally selling Tesla shares. Does Musk sense the end is near?

The End Game

Tesla continues to lose money but trades at an impressive $32 billion market cap. Tesla needs to hit some lofty growth targets to justify its valuation. Growing production isn’t easy, as it took Ford (NYSE: F) over 100 years to grow to $140 billion in revenues. Today, Tesla only generates $3 billion. The more astounding stat is that Ford trades at 1.6 times the market cap at Tesla, but it does 35 times the revenues.

I can’t recall seeing this much uncertainty in a stock in a long time. There are bulls and bears on both sides, with the bulls caught in the illusion of Tesla being a renewable energy powerhouse one day. However, as the number of fires and crashes have been on the rise, plus the fact that Tesla’s business model needs constant reinvestment and capital raising, which could become rather difficult as the economy enters a more uncertain time, the negatives seem to be adding up.

Competition has already started to flood the electric vehicle market. Musk warned us in 2014 that Tesla hitting large enough scale to compete with other carmakers is next to impossible. It would seem as if this doesn’t end well for anyone involved. The market has already baked in a slew of high expectations, and the bailout of SolarCity will ultimately only be a distraction for management.

Circling back around to how to actually play the auto market these days, Ford has been one of the best performers of late – outperforming all the big automakers like General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Toyota (NYSE: TM).

It has a hefty 4.6% dividend yield and is hitting on all cylinders, capturing lots of untapped market potential in the still growing Chinese market. Notably, it’s having a lot of success with the Lincoln brand in Asian markets. These high-margin luxury sales will be a big boost to Ford’s bottom line.

While the U.S. auto market might be frothy as sales sit at all-time highs, Ford still holds a stranglehold on the pickup truck market – which should continue to see increased demand thanks to lower gas prices. It managed to rebound from a weak May month, where vehicle sales were down 5.9%. In June, sales jumped 6.4%, putting 2016 sales up 5% so far. Ford’s F-series truck sales were up 29% in June, which was the best month in more than ten years.

You can either buy a company like Tesla that has a slew of corporate governance problems and loses money hand over fist or Ford which made close to $9 billion last year and will send you a dividend check each quarter. Let’s not forget that Ford has teamed up with the pioneer in driverless cars, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), to build driverless cars for the masses. Investing in Ford right now still gives you exposure to the potential driverless car market but without as much risk as Tesla.