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Seasonal 4th to 1st quarter may have been a loss but these numbers stand out to me as being a bit more important. Cars sold: Q1 2019: 63,000 Q1 2018: 29,980

Seasonal 4th to 1st quarter may have been a loss but these numbers stand out to me as being a bit more important. Cars sold: Q1 2019: 63,000 Q1 2018: 29,980 Q1 2017: 25,000 Q1 2016: 14,820 Q1 2015: 10,045 Q1 2014: 6,457 Q1 2013: 4,900 Q1 2012: 0 Revenue Q1 2019: $4.5 billion Q1 2018: $3.4 billion Q1 2017: $2.7 billion Q1 2016: $1.6 billion Q1 2015: $1.1 billion Q1 2014: $713 million Q1 2013: $562 million Q1 2012: $30 million Q1 2011: $49 million Q1 2010: $21 million

taneq 7y ago
Maybe the "Q1 was a huge loss" thing is more that, for the first time, they're not having to game the quarterly results in order to make it look good? At which point they've just focused on continuing to scale the company, attracting investors be damned?
- camjohnson26 7y ago
  They massively cut cap ex spending to the point that net of depreciation it’s basically zero. This means that without a capital raise they don’t have the money to launch model Y, roadster, semi, pickup, or any other product they’ve announced. Elon Musk on the conference call sounded open to raising money for the first time in years, and for good reason. Their cash balance is beyond alarming and their growth has painfully and obviously stalled. Demand for model s and x was way down in Q1, as anyone who was paying attention could have told you, and contrary to what Tesla says Q2 so far looks like more of the same. Don’t forget that just 2 months ago Musk was guiding for a small loss or possibly, with luck, a tiny profit. Instead they had a loss 4 times worse than analysts estimates, which were already cut massively. A loss so big it basically wiped out the last 2 profitable quarters. In Q4 last year Musk said he thought they could be profitable in all quarters going forward, obviously Tesla isn’t there yet.
goshx 7y ago
Also: "Operating cash flow less capex should be positive in every quarter including Q2. As the impact of higher deliveries and cost reduction take full effect, we expect to return to profitability in Q3 and significantly reduce our loss in Q2."
- cjhopman 7y ago
  Also: "Not by a lot, but I am optimistic about being profitable in Q1 and all quarters going forward."
  - cjhopman 7y ago
    Note that that quote was already almost 1 month into the Q1 where they lost nearly $1 billion.
    - 6d6b73 7y ago
      Paying debt is not loss. They never had that money they just borrowed it
      - stetrain 7y ago
        Yeah, but the 700m net loss does not include the 920m debt payment.
    - jsight 7y ago
      Yeah, they also affirmed guidance of similar S and X sales to Q4 at the same time. By that point, they should have had a pretty good idea that those would drop. There is a real credibility problem here.
madaxe_again 7y ago
Indeed - >100% growth in YOY Q1 deliveries is actually rather impressive, however you skin it - biggest leap they’ve seen ever. I find quarterly reporting and the credence it’s given absolutely absurd - particularly when dealing with businesses that are scaling rapidly and treading novel territory. What happened to the decade+ holds of traditional retail investors? Why are we so obsessed with turning investments around in X months? You hear all of these “if I’d bought IBM stock in 1956” stories - so why does the short term take such precedence?
jillesvangurp 7y ago
Yep, the numbers that matter continue to trend up. More importantly, at this point those numbers are becoming a huge problem for essentially all their competitors. Most of these are at this point bleeding market share to Tesla that they are trying to recover from by launching products that clearly are a lot less competitive and are probably being sold at a loss right now. They are going to be bleeding cash while they sell prematurely launched EVs at a loss and struggle to ramp up production for those for the next decade. Shut down production capacity for ICE vehicles that they can no longer sell because people buy Teslas instead. Write off hybrid product development for which demand seems more limited than they hoped. Write off hydrogen product development that has not been happening either. Etc. Tesla is of course only part of their problem. There is a lot of stuff coming out of Asia right now that is low cost and full EV. Buses, trucks, small cars, etc. Their next decade is about surviving multiple rounds of downsizing, consolidation, demand drops for essentially all their existing products, huge capital investments to catch up with Tesla and other new players in the market. Meanwhile, Tesla has several Gigafactories coming online over the next few years that will improve their production capacity; several new products in the pipeline that will challenge their competitors even more, and business models that extend beyond just consumer EVs including solar panels, batteries to support grid operations, batteries to complement domestic solar installations, etc. In all of these markets their biggest problem seems to be getting enough capital to build the production capacity to serve the demand. The big picture here is rapid growth and dropping cost for the foreseeable future limited only by the amount of available capital.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  >More importantly, at this point those numbers are becoming a huge problem for essentially all their competitors. BMW sold 2.5 million cars in 2018, the eighth year of increased sales.
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
    How many EVs did they sell?
- aedron 7y ago
tokyodude 7y ago
Sounds like what you're doing is proving the NYTimes is part of the fake news problem. I wonder given your data above if the NYTimes could be sued for liable for reporting something easily provably false.
- danso 7y ago
  The quarterly loss comes directly from Tesla’s own reporting. You don’t think loss is derived only from revenue, do you?
  - tokyodude 7y ago
    The title of the article is that sales are lagging but sales are provably not lagging
    - danso 7y ago
      The headline is that Tesla posts "big quarterly loss" and the cause of this is "sales lag". And the article provides information to substantiate that, including a link to Tesla's report: https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/b2218d34-fbee-4f1f-ac95-050eb29dd42f https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/b2218d34-fbee-4f1f-ac95-05... > Deliveries of Model S and Model X declined to 12,100 vehicles in Q1 compared to our two-year run rate of roughly 25,000 units per quarter. This decline was mainly caused by weaker Q1 demand due to seasonality, pull-forward of sales into Q4 2018 in the U.S. due to the first scheduled reduction of the federal EV tax credit in Q1 and discontinuation of our 75 kWh battery pack. We also had a mismatch between orders and deliverable cars. For example, due to adjustments in pricing mid-quarter, the take rate for the performance versions of Model S and Model X increased faster than we were able to supply
navigatesol 7y ago
How do you explain a 30% quarter-over-quarter drop in a company that is rapidly growing? Pointing at year-over-year for a company like this is deceiving. They just introduced their "mass produced" car with 2 years worth of demand. But, I guess you have until next year to keep telling this particular story.
_Codemonkeyism 7y ago
"Q1 2019: 63,000" I'm curious, sold or Model3 from the waiting list delivered?
- radium3d 7y ago
  Delivered. Sorry. Deliveries were approximately 63,000 vehicles, which was 110% more than the same quarter last year, but 31% less than last quarter. This included approximately 50,900 Model 3 and 12,100 Model S and X. https://ir.teslamotors.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q1-2019-vehicle-production-deliveries https://ir.teslamotors.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...

taneq 7y ago

Maybe the "Q1 was a huge loss" thing is more that, for the first time, they're not having to game the quarterly results in order to make it look good? At which point they've just focused on continuing to scale the company, attracting investors be damned?

camjohnson26 7y ago
They massively cut cap ex spending to the point that net of depreciation it’s basically zero. This means that without a capital raise they don’t have the money to launch model Y, roadster, semi, pickup, or any other product they’ve announced. Elon Musk on the conference call sounded open to raising money for the first time in years, and for good reason. Their cash balance is beyond alarming and their growth has painfully and obviously stalled. Demand for model s and x was way down in Q1, as anyone who was paying attention could have told you, and contrary to what Tesla says Q2 so far looks like more of the same. Don’t forget that just 2 months ago Musk was guiding for a small loss or possibly, with luck, a tiny profit. Instead they had a loss 4 times worse than analysts estimates, which were already cut massively. A loss so big it basically wiped out the last 2 profitable quarters. In Q4 last year Musk said he thought they could be profitable in all quarters going forward, obviously Tesla isn’t there yet.

goshx 7y ago

Also: "Operating cash flow less capex should be positive in every quarter including Q2. As the impact of higher deliveries and cost reduction take full effect, we expect to return to profitability in Q3 and significantly reduce our loss in Q2."

cjhopman 7y ago
Also: "Not by a lot, but I am optimistic about being profitable in Q1 and all quarters going forward."
- cjhopman 7y ago
  Note that that quote was already almost 1 month into the Q1 where they lost nearly $1 billion.
  - 6d6b73 7y ago
    Paying debt is not loss. They never had that money they just borrowed it
    - stetrain 7y ago
      Yeah, but the 700m net loss does not include the 920m debt payment.
  - jsight 7y ago
    Yeah, they also affirmed guidance of similar S and X sales to Q4 at the same time. By that point, they should have had a pretty good idea that those would drop. There is a real credibility problem here.

madaxe_again 7y ago

Indeed - >100% growth in YOY Q1 deliveries is actually rather impressive, however you skin it - biggest leap they’ve seen ever. I find quarterly reporting and the credence it’s given absolutely absurd - particularly when dealing with businesses that are scaling rapidly and treading novel territory. What happened to the decade+ holds of traditional retail investors? Why are we so obsessed with turning investments around in X months? You hear all of these “if I’d bought IBM stock in 1956” stories - so why does the short term take such precedence?

jillesvangurp 7y ago

Yep, the numbers that matter continue to trend up. More importantly, at this point those numbers are becoming a huge problem for essentially all their competitors. Most of these are at this point bleeding market share to Tesla that they are trying to recover from by launching products that clearly are a lot less competitive and are probably being sold at a loss right now. They are going to be bleeding cash while they sell prematurely launched EVs at a loss and struggle to ramp up production for those for the next decade. Shut down production capacity for ICE vehicles that they can no longer sell because people buy Teslas instead. Write off hybrid product development for which demand seems more limited than they hoped. Write off hydrogen product development that has not been happening either. Etc. Tesla is of course only part of their problem. There is a lot of stuff coming out of Asia right now that is low cost and full EV. Buses, trucks, small cars, etc. Their next decade is about surviving multiple rounds of downsizing, consolidation, demand drops for essentially all their existing products, huge capital investments to catch up with Tesla and other new players in the market. Meanwhile, Tesla has several Gigafactories coming online over the next few years that will improve their production capacity; several new products in the pipeline that will challenge their competitors even more, and business models that extend beyond just consumer EVs including solar panels, batteries to support grid operations, batteries to complement domestic solar installations, etc. In all of these markets their biggest problem seems to be getting enough capital to build the production capacity to serve the demand. The big picture here is rapid growth and dropping cost for the foreseeable future limited only by the amount of available capital.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
>More importantly, at this point those numbers are becoming a huge problem for essentially all their competitors. BMW sold 2.5 million cars in 2018, the eighth year of increased sales.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
  How many EVs did they sell?
aedron 7y ago

tokyodude 7y ago

Sounds like what you're doing is proving the NYTimes is part of the fake news problem. I wonder given your data above if the NYTimes could be sued for liable for reporting something easily provably false.

danso 7y ago
The quarterly loss comes directly from Tesla’s own reporting. You don’t think loss is derived only from revenue, do you?
- tokyodude 7y ago
  The title of the article is that sales are lagging but sales are provably not lagging
  - danso 7y ago
    The headline is that Tesla posts "big quarterly loss" and the cause of this is "sales lag". And the article provides information to substantiate that, including a link to Tesla's report: https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/b2218d34-fbee-4f1f-ac95-050eb29dd42f https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/b2218d34-fbee-4f1f-ac95-05... > Deliveries of Model S and Model X declined to 12,100 vehicles in Q1 compared to our two-year run rate of roughly 25,000 units per quarter. This decline was mainly caused by weaker Q1 demand due to seasonality, pull-forward of sales into Q4 2018 in the U.S. due to the first scheduled reduction of the federal EV tax credit in Q1 and discontinuation of our 75 kWh battery pack. We also had a mismatch between orders and deliverable cars. For example, due to adjustments in pricing mid-quarter, the take rate for the performance versions of Model S and Model X increased faster than we were able to supply

navigatesol 7y ago

How do you explain a 30% quarter-over-quarter drop in a company that is rapidly growing? Pointing at year-over-year for a company like this is deceiving. They just introduced their "mass produced" car with 2 years worth of demand. But, I guess you have until next year to keep telling this particular story.

_Codemonkeyism 7y ago

"Q1 2019: 63,000" I'm curious, sold or Model3 from the waiting list delivered?

radium3d 7y ago
Delivered. Sorry. Deliveries were approximately 63,000 vehicles, which was 110% more than the same quarter last year, but 31% less than last quarter. This included approximately 50,900 Model 3 and 12,100 Model S and X. https://ir.teslamotors.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q1-2019-vehicle-production-deliveries https://ir.teslamotors.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...