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> Automotive revenue is basically flat year-over-year. Total revenue is up only 2%. So, Tesla isn't really growing.... On the plus side, Model 3 production and
by zaroth 7y ago
> Automotive revenue is basically flat year-over-year. Total revenue is up only 2%. So, Tesla isn't really growing.... On the plus side, Model 3 production and sales are up over 40% YoY which is excellent, but it's clear why revenue is flat: Model S/X sales are down significantly and they carry a high price tag. For every three Model 3 sales, they lost a Model S/X sale. That's certainly to be expected. The Model 3 is really nice. However, it does mean that revenue is flat.
In Q4 2018 they sold 27,607 S/X, and in Q4 2019 they sold 19,475 (-8132, 29%). In Q4 2018 they sold 63,359 M3, and in Q4 2019 they sold 92,620 (+29,261, 46%). Vehicle production over the trailing 12 months increased from ~245k to 365k (~50%).
Why didn't revenue grow? It's not just the 8,000 fewer Model S/X, because S/X doesn't cost 3.6x a Model 3. Just as important was the ASP of the Model 3 fell... about $7,500 to be precise.
> If they're pushing out around 600k cars this year, becoming 10x the size would put them in the same place as Ford and GM. A 17x increase would make them larger than Toyota. But that's going to take time. It looks like Tesla is looking to increase production capacity by 15.6% in 2020 (from their slides).
Tesla says their current production capacity is 640k vehicles (I was surprised by this - it's well beyond the promised "500k run rate by the end of 2019", so I think we're seeing the full effect of Giga Shanghai turning on here).
By mid-2020 Tesla has said they will be running at a 740k annualized production rate based on added Fremont capacity for Model Y. They have said they intend to increase Model 3 capacity in Shanghai and have at least equivalent capacity for Model Y starting in 2021. That means Shanghai + Fremont will be producing nearly 1m annually in 2021. Now, at that point Berlin will be coming online, which is planned to produce 500k units/year. The upshot I think is that production capacity is increasing at a rate of 40-50% year-over-year -- I'm not sure where you got 15.6% from.
> Even if they're the next VW (the second largest auto maker sitting just behind Toyota), VW is only a $95B company - and there's a lot of risk between now and Tesla selling 10M cars per year.
Many people confuse market cap with enterprise value. VW enterprise value is $255B vs $110B for Tesla. You have to subtract the outstanding debt, of which Tesla has very little compared to most automakers, before you get down to Market Cap, which is the value remaining for the shareholders.
All that said, it is clear that the current valuation of Tesla has ceased to be based purely on fundamentals.