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Tesla Q1 2020 Update

chollida1 6y ago
Since, things are slow, my notes.... Misc: - Fremont plant idle since March 23rd - raised 2.3B in February, which seems really well timed now - Musk venting with "FREE AMERICA NOW" tweet makes him seem almost crazy - can see why Elon is going crazy on twitter, he'd almost turned around Telsa and now they may be in the worst cash crunch of their long life - Shanghai Giga reopened on Feb 10th, showing the importance of multiple factories around the world( around 150,000 in capacity once they get going for Model 3, Model Y not yet and should be incremental on top of Model 3 number) - Berlin Giga scheduled to start producing Model Y's in 2021, so capex drain for rest of year and probably into 2021 - TSLA trying to run an amazon HQ2 like process for Truck and Model Y factories, look for small, southern, and poor cities to bid and probably win Numbers: - 1Q Revenue $5.99B vs Estimate $5.81B - 1Q Free Cash Flow ($895M) vs Estimate ($604.4M) - GAAP net income of $16M for 1Q - sale of ZEV in 1Q $354 million vs $133 million from Q4, not going to have this to bail out their quater in 2Q - 35 Megawatts of solar( down by about a third Q/Q) - sitting on $8.1B of cash, sweet!! but burn rate is approx ($3-4B) a year After: - semi not until 2021 - not reaffirming numbers, will check in again in 2Q, makes sense Want to know: - Solar roof? give up or start committing, hard to sell to consumer during shutdown - battery storage for energy, growth area or sign of lack of focus and minor distraction to core business? inventory growth? Building cars no one is buying or still not able to keep up with growth or finally found balance between the two? - Will Elon stop with tweets that hurt Tesla? Appoint a CEO, or COO to run things to take pressure of Elon?
- applecrazy 6y ago
  Also want to point out that TSLA is up about ~6-7% in after-hours trading Edit: accuracy
  - TravisSc6tt 6y ago
    I've noticed that companies' stock prices don't always correlate to the performance of their past quarter. Wonder why
    - gruglife 6y ago
      Stock price is forward looking, not past.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - formercoder 6y ago
      Some combination of momentum with the market or sector, pricing in future growth, an earnings call that does a good job explaining the bad quarter.
    - asdff 6y ago
      If the news is expected to be bad, but is actually less bad than anticipated, then the stock goes up, even if it's bad. There's been a lot of that lately.
    - vikramkr 6y ago
      In what sense do you mean they don't correlate to performance? Overperforming or underperforming expectations will correlate very highly to the way the stock moves on the news
    - tempestn 6y ago
      Change in stock price on earnings news tends to correlate to the performance relative to expectations. The estimated performance is already priced in, so the movement will be based on how much better or worse the actual results were than the estimated/anticipated ones. In this case, it was obviously a bad quarter for Tesla, but the bump suggests that traders expected it to be even worse.
      - AmericanChopper 6y ago
        To add something to this, traders have their own expectations of how companies will perform relative to their published estimates. I used to work at a unicorn that would consistently exceed its published estimates, and the stock price took a non-trivial hit the first time it ever met them.
  - hcnews 6y ago
    After-hours trading doesn't necessarily mean much due to low liquidity and volume. You can get high swing for reasonably low volume in a single after-market trade.
- robmerki 6y ago
  He's probably tweeting MAGA adjacent memes to market the Cybertruck
  - pa7ch 6y ago
    Honestly think this is an interesting topic. It seems that today there are marketing advantages to being a public figure that comes off as a bit of a buffoon. Of course its impossible to know if this is being intentionally done unless they are caught talking about it or something.
  - fullshark 6y ago
    Or perhaps he’s sincere, not sure why that is so unbelievable and everyone is imagining ulterior motives.
- guardiangod 6y ago
  Someone _please_ hire someone to follow EM with a phone jammer on. I can't take his BS anymore. Why do smart people like to have strong opinions on subjects they are not expert in? (Disclosure: I own TSLA stocks.)
  - madengr 6y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
    - Zenbit_UX 6y ago
      That's the opposite, dumb people believing their smart at everything, OP said smart people.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    That's how democratic societies are typically intended to work; on issues of great social importance, everyone's encouraged to think about them and decide what they'd like to happen.
    - mcv 6y ago
      I think it's also how genius works. When you're really good at one thing, there's the risk of thinking you're good at everything.
      - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
        Is that genius? Because it seems to be common in the unintelligent as well.
        mcv 6y ago
        But without having the one thing they're really good at, then.
      - 6y ago
- the_cat_kittles 6y ago
  this kinda comment makes me lol so hard at HN- passing mention of any tech, but loads of stats on financials and personality of the ceo.
- slg 6y ago
  >- Musk venting with "FREE AMERICA NOW" tweet makes him seem almost crazy Musk is on the verge of a three quarter of billion dollar windfall if Tesla's six month average market cap exceeds $100b. I would guess that motivates his desire to open as soon as possible. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-stocks-musk/teslas-musk-nears-750-million-options-payday-ahead-of-results-idUSKCN22A16B https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-stocks-musk/teslas-...
  - adventured 6y ago
    I doubt it. He's worth $38.5 billion; $26b of that is in Tesla. He can shave off hundreds of millions of dollars from that any day of the week - if he cared to do so. The compensation package is relatively small compared to his existing wealth already contained in Tesla. Wanting the company to succeed is what most likely motivates him, not the compensation package (which is aligned with his existing interests, even if you think he's primarily in it for the $26b (little evidence to support that, he's personally loaded with debt because he refuses to sell, that's called being all in; any good financial advisor would call it dangerous concentration and a poor choice to take on debt instead of selling)).
    - jonny_eh 6y ago
      Then why have a compensation package like that if it's just a rounding error for him? Maybe people like him can't stand to lose out on a dollar, especially when they believe they deserve it.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Going to Mars isn't cheap.
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      Musk is worth $38.5 billion based on his current Tesla stock holdings at their current valuation. If he hits the trigger in his compensation package, he gets even more Tesla stock which will vastly increase his net worth on paper Also, Musk is loaded with debt because he leveraged his stock holdings to live a very lavish lifestyle, including multiple residential properties, vehicles, and very expensive dining choices.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  - Will Elon stop with tweets that hurt Tesla? Appoint a CEO, or COO to run things to take pressure of Elon? I have read this from so many people for the last 5 years all the time. Sure, the tweets show that Elon wants faster growth, and frustrated, and I didn't like that tweet either, but if you want a conservative CEO, buy IBM or Oracle stocks, please leave Tesla alone.
  - xvf22 6y ago
    I think they may have been referring to more of a SpaceX leadership situation.
  - Touche 6y ago
    I just don't want a batshit crazy person running a company I invest in.
    - aantix 6y ago
      The batshit crazy person that managed to turn the company around?
    - kortilla 6y ago
      But he’s the reason it’s a company worth investing in...
    - _eht 6y ago
      Pretty easy to miss investing in TSLA. FYI.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - dnautics 6y ago
      Then don't invest?
    - bigyikes 6y ago
      Seems like that would be a good personal indicator to not invest in Tesla then? A lot of people invest in Tesla in part because it is run by a “batshit crazy” person, though I’m sure those investors might phrase it differently.
- tejohnso 6y ago
  > can see why Elon is going crazy on twitter, he'd almost turned around Telsa and now they may be in the worst cash crunch of their long life With 8 billion in cash, and 3-4 billion per year burn rate, that's a two year buffer assuming no improvement. That doesn't seem like the worst cash crunch of their long life. What am I missing?
  - cloudwalking 6y ago
    Increasing capex for new products.
    - xkjkls 6y ago
      Plus there CapEx hasn't even met depreciation for years, indicating that they have been underinvesting in repairs and retooling.
  - save_ferris 6y ago
    He might be more concerned about the sales prospects instead of operational expenses. Automakers are getting hit really hard by this pandemic, and they need a healthy economy to sell cars. Many economic forecasts are saying that a full recovery is 2-4 years away, although there are many different opinions.
    - xur17 6y ago
      Plus, the price of gas has gone down significantly, hurting one of the benefits of electric cars.
      - blizkreeg 6y ago
        I don't believe the Tesla crowd bought theirs to save on gas anyway, so not sure if this is true.
        grecy 6y ago
        Maybe not, but if gas had continued to go up in 2020 and 2021, you'd have to think that would help convince move people to shift over to electric.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  If only he had time to finish them fully robotic assembly lines ..
- hinkley 6y ago
  It has been said before and should be said again: Elon needs an assistant who shuts his fucking phone off at midnight. It's like the moon comes out and he turns into a werewolf. There was a theory that he's Ambien-tweeting, but I suspect he just never learned in college like many of us that any idea that sounds really good at 1 am is probably really stupid.
  - maxharris 6y ago
    Elon has done well by me. Every company he runs turns to gold. I wouldn't have him change a thing. Seriously, given his performance over the long-term, I hope he tweets even more. It enrages people that can't think past the next quarter, and that's good for long-term shareholders like me!
    - aguyfromnb 6y ago
      You're claiming victory a bit early.
      - maxharris 6y ago
        I have 108 shares. I'm not selling TSLA. In fact, I'm going to pick up more the next time it drops! TSLA is going to make me a millionaire, but it will take a few more years before that happens.
    - dangrossman 6y ago
      X.com was a bust that pivoted into a PayPal clone and merged with them when both companies were nearly out of runway from buying each other's users. He was CEO of PayPal for just months before a mass revolt of the engineering team over his incompetence lead the board of directors to fire him. Tesla has been structurally bankrupt for most of its existence, burning billions of investors' cash and still making no profit selling cars after 12 years [1]. SolarCity was on the verge of bankruptcy so he bailed it out with his other company and is still being sued for that. He's been having Tesla sell car parts to SpaceX (a private company so you can't look at its financials), more shuffling of money around from one company to another to paper over losses. His side gigs -- The Boring Company to build unusable tunnels, Neuralink, etc -- have accomplished nothing. What exactly has he "turned to gold"? 1: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-burns-cash/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-burns-cash/
- artursapek 6y ago
  > - can see why Elon is going crazy on twitter, he'd almost turned around Telsa and now they may be in the worst cash crunch of their long life That's probably why he's going crazy. I bet the guy is stressed out. His baby is slowly bleeding after he has worked so hard to build it up and crush it in Q4.
- axguscbklp 6y ago
  Musk might just be venting on Twitter, as another commenter has suggested, but one way or another these tweets might turn out to benefit him. From what I can tell based on both personal and online interactions, it seems to me that U.S. public sentiment has been shifting against the lockdowns recently - and not just among some fringe protester groups, but among all kinds of demographically and ideologically different groups. Musk's tweets might appeal to those people and make him more popular. I'm no fan of, for example, Musk's lies about self-driving technology being just around the corner. But say what you will about Musk, he has a powerful talent when it comes to publicity.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - marvin 6y ago
    Also, if there should be any trouble at all getting a dirt cheap bailout loan from the government, a solid history of holding the party line will be a guarantee for success. I don't know if Musk deliberately plays this strategy, but it would certainly be on my mind if I were in his shoes. I'm not at all shameless enough to do that kind of thing, thankfully. If Tesla's able to survive through the current macroeconomic slowdown, this situation plays strongly to their advantage. They'll keep being capital constrained for another decade or so. Their ambition is to build 20 million cars per year. Need ten more factories to do that. Zero interest bailout loans would be a godsend, as long as they can stay profitable and still have a healthy customer base. They're a growth company still. Nowhere near the ceiling of their potential market. Although it's still a super uncertain and scary situation, it's much better place to be than being an established, no-growth automaker with thin margins falling to zero on a 10% sales decline.
  - chrisjc 6y ago
    > it seems to me that U.S. public sentiment has been shifting against the lockdowns recently - and not just among some fringe protester groups, but among all kinds of demographically and ideologically different groups Unfortunately, I've noticed the same thing.
  - mullingitover 6y ago
- aguyfromnb 6y ago
  Solar City installed 10x the megawatt capacity in 2016 as they did in 2019, with this quarter installed capacity down again. The business is non-existent.
- Reedx 6y ago
  > Will Elon stop with tweets that hurt Tesla? Appoint a CEO, or COO to run things People have been saying that for years and years. It's beyond stale. Meanwhile Tesla and SpaceX have continued to succeed beyond expectations for over a decade now. If there's occasional twitter volatility in-between simultaneously landing two rockets returning from space... so be it. Besides, if it bothers you that much, you don't have to buy their cars or invest or even pay attention to it. The constant handwringing, mind reading and speech policing is ridiculous. That's how we end up with nothing but layers upon layers of focus tested marketing speak and people afraid to challenge orthodoxy.
  - threeseed 6y ago
    Of course what Musk does matters. He's the CEO. And his erratic and reprehensible behaviour is degrading the Tesla brand as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company.
    - llsf 6y ago
      Nobody is perfect. Mr. Musk shown that he could build from the ground up and manage several large companies. Could he be even better ? Maybe. But until Tesla and SpaceX can find someone unequivocally better than Mr. Musk, those companies will have to do (and maybe fail) with him.
    - woodandsteel 6y ago
      I can think of no important way in which Tesla or SpaceX would be significantly more successful today if Musk had publicly communicated more like a standard CEO.
    - forgotmylogin2 6y ago
      It's not degrading the Tesla brand though. Tesla is the second largest automaker in the world by market cap. Toyota, the only company larger than Tesla, was founded 65 years before Tesla. What Musk (and all Tesla employees) have built so far is nothing short of astounding. To imply he's leading them to ruin with his unfiltered twitter account could not be farther from the truth.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  So they have 2 years of cash reserves, which will take them over to the Cybertruck release and the Berlin Gigafactory being complete? Was the "cash crunch" statement already including this?
- ramblerman 6y ago
  > Musk venting with "FREE AMERICA NOW" tweet makes him seem almost crazy Why. Personally I do think we should stay inside, but it's not an invalid argument to say that locking people in their homes on penalty of fine is a weird thing. Too much economic damage could cause deaths well beyond COVID-19 so there is a balance to be found. But to go a step further and invalidate any criticism of locking people up inside their homes as 'crazy' is out of the playbook of 1984
  - anoncareer0212 6y ago
    No, what's 'crazy' is having to read a mind-numbing comment claiming anyone is 'locking up people in their homes', in service of defending an out-of-touch billionaire who flies twice a day on his private jet, 200,000 miles in just the last 3 months. https://twitter.com/evdefender/status/1252352769605791744?s=20 https://twitter.com/evdefender/status/1252352769605791744?s=... Why out of touch? Because 74% of Americans support the quarantine https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/489535-poll-majority-of-voters-support-national https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c... Why is this all particularly insane? Musk went on to praise China's reaction, which _actually locked people into their homes_ and their "opening" is our "locking up people in their homes". https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/asia/wuhan-coronavirus-lockdown-analysis-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/asia/wuhan-coronavirus-lockdo...
    - ramblerman 6y ago
      This isn't your typicial political argument where you pick a side and dig in your heels. It's more like a goldilocks situation where we need "just enough" measures. In that vein I don't think we should just silence the opposite side and dismiss people wanting to open up as "crazy".
      - anoncareer0212 6y ago
        Okay, but that conflicts directly with the idea we need to avoid labelling someone ranting about facism, locking people in their homes, and The Meaning Of America.
- paganel 6y ago
  > multiple factories around the world They'll also need not economically stressed out customers around the world, which right now isn't really happening. If the low oil-prices won't halt the electric cars industry then the fact that they still have comparatively high prices will most certainly will. A few months ago I was saying that the industry needs cars worth 25,000-30,000 euros/dollars in order to really take off, i.e. that it needs its mass-produced electric Honda Civcs and VW Golfs, with this depression-like crisis that is about to commence I'd say that it needs its Mitsubishi Colts/Mirages, Dacia Sanderos or Nissan Versas, i.e. electric cars that will cost at most 10,000-12,000 euros/dollars.
  - marvin 6y ago
    Their potential market will certainly be _lower_ while the pandemic is ongoing, but there's plenty of high-income folks who haven't been materially effected by the epidemic and might still want a luxury car. Most people I know are in the work-from-home crowd. There is the possibility that this might not be that big of a deal, given that they're a growth company. Depends how production-constrained they really are without trying to induce additional demand through advertising and so on.
    - xkjkls 6y ago
      Economic uncertainty, even with financial security, is almost certainly going to delay many car purchases. If you don't know whether we're going into 2021 with 20% unemployment, its pretty easy to decide to hold off a year. Also cars are being used close to 70% less during the lockdown.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    I seriously hope nobody gets fooled into believing that those oil prices will last more than two years and consequently buy a gas guzzler.
11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
Curious to know how Tesla will (if it will) repatriate China profits. Perhaps they don't, but just ship China-sourced parts to Fremont and Berlin paid for with China profits? The political climate could take a very ugly turn, China will want to keep cash within its borders.
- jacobkranz 6y ago
  According to their loan agreement w/ China, they must pay off their loans until they can repatriate anything.
- maxdo 6y ago
  by the agreement, they can't. Their financing conditions prevent them from doing so for a few years unless they pay their loans there.
93po 6y ago
Let the anti-Musk astroturfing begin
angel_j 6y ago
I dig Tesla, but I wonder if Elon's own goals would be better served if they only produced motors and batteries and novel tech for the other car makers.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  The only reason anyone would buy them is because tesla forced them to take electric seriously. And now that's why they can't, they need in-house tech or they're just Teslas with different chassis shapes. Its a sad paradox.
- speedgoose 6y ago
  I am not sure. Most car makers are releasing shitty hybrids to pass the emissions tests, but not really invested in electric vehicles for now.
- pmorici 6y ago
  That is the route Rivian is taking and Ford just announced the cancellation of their first planned model. Tesla’s draw isn’t the electric it’s the excellent performance, and incredible technology and user experience. The electric underlies those things but it isn’t the reason it’s a top selling car.
deleted 6y ago
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ch1rh0 6y ago
Not a big deal but FYI Tesla IT people the page title is "Q3 2019 Updated". Edit: fixed.
deleted 6y ago
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milansuk 6y ago
Page 16 blew my mind. From 70 pieces of metal => 2 pieces of metal. Does anyone know how they do that?
- CarVac 6y ago
  They went from individual stampings welded together to very large die-cast parts.
- pmorici 6y ago
  Large casting machine. See Sandy Munro’s model Y tear down videos for a look at the casting
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 6y ago
  Tesla is going ham with thixotropic aluminum casting. Big-ass machines, big-ass castings, no heat-treat. The goal is to get that down to a single casting. Not only does this simplify production further, but you can do it with no machining afterwards, no datums, nothing. You just tap the holes and put it together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pih4kU6yvz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pih4kU6yvz8 The Y is realizing a lot of things they were promising with the 3. It's a much more exciting vehicle from a production standpoint.
- Tuna-Fish 6y ago
  Casting. Note that the Model 3 rear is a bit of a pathological case. In his teardown, Sandy Munro had a lot of good things to say about other parts of the car, but considered the tail end to be a horribly engineered overly expensive mess. So it looks so good because they started with the unambiguously worst piece in the car, and made it really good.
filleokus 6y ago
What's included in the list of things Musk promised for this year? I only remember 1 million self driving Teslas as taxis [0]. Would surprise me greatly if anything close to that happens. [0]: https://www.engadget.com/2019-04-22-tesla-elon-musk-self-driving-robo-taxi.html https://www.engadget.com/2019-04-22-tesla-elon-musk-self-dri...
zaroth 6y ago
As an investor, I like the format these results are presented in. The slide deck approach is a lot more approachable than the typical text-only SEC filing. An average investor is much more likely to open this and read it than the typical financial statement. It's not over-the-top marketing agency gloss, but it has some nice touches. Of course, you also get the text-only filing to follow. As far as the key numbers, Tesla continues to push profitability and I think beat estimates by pulling off a profitable quarter in Q1. I can't imagine they will do it again in Q2, and they've suspended their guidance, but compare and contrast to, e.g. Ford, which is currently drawing all their credit lines to the max to stay afloat (to the tune of $15 billion). They've never had spare inventory before, it will be interesting to see how fast they can clear it when things pick up. In a very long shutdown scenario, Tesla will come out way ahead of standard auto makers because their cars somewhat forego the "New Model Year" craze, and they can software update all their inventory. So while most carmakers will be looking at bursting full lots of "late model year" new cars, Tesla will be selling "Model 3" and "Model Y" through their configurator same as usual. It's been fun watching the Munro tear-downs of the Model Y. I'm curious when and how quickly those improvements will make it back into a redesigned Model 3. They have definitely improved and simplified the design in important ways. They highlighted this in their slides at the end showing underbody components of Model 3 (70 pieces) vs Model Y (2 pieces, eventually 1). Solar is unfortunately MIA in this report. Buffalo managed to get Solar Roof ramped up to 4MW per week (1,000 homes per week) just as the shutdown hit. I would imagine a lot of momentum has been lost in their installer recruitment and training efforts. I would have been very nice to see some ROI in 2020 from Solar Roof, but I'm not sure we'll get it this year. Looking forward to getting to see a Model Y in person and feel how much more space it has. It seems like they've left a good deal of acceleration "in the tank" to unlock in future software updates, that will also be fun to see.
- zoroaster 6y ago
  As an investor, these financials are so sexy. Historical quarterly data presented, cash flow statement presented quarterly, so many small examples of excellence and thoughtfulness in how the figures are presented.
- jillesvangurp 6y ago
yalogin 6y ago
Am I reading this right? They have 25% profit margin on each automotive? Feels like a tech company's margins. Does anyone know how it compares to traditional automakers?
- coherentpony 6y ago
  Is 25% high? I have no clue.
  - artursapek 6y ago
    For cars, yeah
    - coherentpony 6y ago
      And for tech?
      - alteria 6y ago
        SaaS has really high gross margins (>65%?), but I'm not sure that gross margin number is comparable with the 25% that Tesla reported.
        llsf 6y ago
        Does anybody know why Saas on average have such high gross margin ?
        jlbnjmn 6y ago
        It doesn't cost much to add a user to SaaS, but it costs a lot to write the software and convince people to pay for it. Gross margins are calculated from per unit costs, so advertising expenses, servers, supporting SaaS, and the salaries of programmers and sales people are not included. Also, physical products are made from relatively scarce resources. Software is typed, and words are not scarce. SaaS companies have benefited from demand outstripping supply. SaaS replaces human labor, so it takes a SaaS competitor to drive down prices.
treebornfrog 6y ago
This is the craziest rollercoaster of a stock I've seen. Props to Elon for everything he does. He gets a lot of flak about his tweets, I for one, couldn't care less. Big picture, he's the Henry Ford of this generation.
neilalexander 6y ago
Numbers and all aside, the Solar Roof photo is very satisfying. Very clean and elegant for a solar installation.
tempsy 6y ago
I’m watching in disbelief at the stock market making a V shaped recovery. Nasdaq is only a few percentage points off it’s all time high. I guess don’t underestimate the American consumer even at a time of economic uncertainty? I don’t know how else to explain record sales from Tesla, Facebook, and Microsoft today.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Massive infusions of cash from Congress & the fed will do that for you. It’s far, far, far too early to draw conclusions about long term recovery.
  - Twixes 6y ago
    As always, the capital owners just have their significant net worths temporarily reduced by 10-18% (looking at NYSE/NASDAQ/LSE) while millions lose 100% of their paychecks.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 6y ago
  Don't lose sight of reality; business closings left and right, layoffs, pay cuts, etc. Don't let the zero-hedge crowd turn you off to arguments about funny-money from the fed. This is a fairly predictable result. Fed supplies money. Money has to be put to use. Where is productive capital? Interest rates are itty bitty. Stocks look high but .. what else to do? Risk buying high now or inflation later. But this can only remain decoupled from the economic reality for so long.
  - tempsy 6y ago
    Outside the stock price movement the earnings today were all good though. Advertisers still seem to be spending money on ads, even into April.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    When do your shorts expire?
mysterEFrank 6y ago
It's nice when the good guys win.
- Traster 6y ago
  Yeah, let me know when it happens.
Steve886 6y ago
Infographic: Highlights of Tesla Q1 2020 earnings report https://news.alphastreet.com/tesla-inc-nasdaq-tsla-q1-2020-earnings-results/ https://news.alphastreet.com/tesla-inc-nasdaq-tsla-q1-2020-e... Tesla Inc. turned to profit in the first quarter of 2020 aided by strong revenue growth, continuing the positive trend seen in the trailing two quarters.
dmode 6y ago
Hmmm, I have been a ardent Tesla supporter for many years and actually own 2 teslas (my post history would confirm that), but alas starting today I am done with Tesla and Elon. I have given him a pass for - Promising autopilot in 15 days (after they abruptly terminated their contract with mobile eye) when I bought my model S in 2016 - saying FSD features are 3-6 months away in 2016 (some of these features launched this month in 2020) - pedo guy tweet - 420 tweet - other absurd hyperbolic claims like battery swap, coast to coast driving in 2018, top line Model S loaner cars for everyone, blah blah blah - a neural net driven rain sensor that barely works I still believe that Model 3 and S are the two best cars I have ever driven. But I can't support Tesla anymore, which is not build for a mission, but seems to be build to squeeze workers and lie to customers.
- ianai 6y ago
  I wonder if it’d be better with him more removed from the CEO role. I really like how innovative their designs are. But being abusive is a damnation.
vgchh 6y ago
Serious question: I am confused as to why do we see so many comments lamenting, what is essentially freedom of speech of EM? I mean, it's not like he is conclusively wrong about "Free America Now" comment. He may be proven wrong over time or even right.
- grecy 6y ago
  People don't like to allow discussions about things they disagree with anymore. Everything has become so polarized, it's as if simply allowing the conversation to happen risks bringing in new evidence that might prove a person wrong. I'm not saying I personally think everyone should head back out on the streets, but I think it's important we a least begin to discuss the pros and cons of doing so. In all of this, I've still never heard a single logical or rational discussion about what the hell are we going to do in the medium-long term. Even if we "flatten the curve" now and go back to "normal" in 3 months, what will happen when cases skyrocket again? same thing all over again?
  - tiles 6y ago
    Once we reopen, we aren't going to regain capacity in hospital beds overnight. How are parts of the US going to avoid being to be on lockdown every two to eight weeks for the remainder of the summer? I feel if everyone understood that this cycle is inevitable, we could constructively benefit from people arguing the threat of reopening vs the threat of continued exposure. Instead, it's a game of chicken who wants to open up the economy later than June—just in time for cases to spike in July.
- paulcole 6y ago
  In my opinion if you have a big platform and are an influential person, you owe it to the people who follow you to not tweet out stupid shit you don’t know anything about. Elon should honestly delete his twitter but it’s clear he loves the attention of being a celebrity who can make headlines.
- GhostVII 6y ago
  I think that it is a valid opinion to think that we should lift the lockdown - there is a huge cost to the shutdown, and flattening the curve was originally just to keep the hospitals below capacity, which they seem to be. However in the context of his other tweets, it seems irresponsible. He is retweeting conspiracy theories that hospitals are reporting cases of COVID for profit, and even made predictions they by the end of April we would have 0 cases (which has obviously not happened). He retweeted a YouTube video that was later removed for violating TOS, presumably because it was spreading false info about COVID (I disagree with that particular policy but it still indicates the video isn't something he should be retweeting). He is not conclusively wrong to say that we should lift the lockdown. However the other things he is saying show that he is conclusively wrong about other aspects of the virus, and is spreading misinformation about it. Given how poor his predictions about it have been, his opinion is useless and dangerous given how many people listen and believe what he says.
petilon 6y ago
Excerpt: "We enabled stop sign and traffic light recognition and braking for our Early Access Program users at the end of Q1 and to the wider public in April 2020". That's awesome! They may very well release FSD in a year or two!
jzer0cool 6y ago
TSLA to the moon! Or to Mars ..., Where art thou has our little Starman gone, so afar. Prices up / Prices Down. Let it fly high to where you are. As far to Deep Space like no man (or women) has gone before. Chasing you all the way to the light core. TSLA will lead the way. To new advances to tech, explorations, energy arrays, and more ... > cq cq cq cq jp-7ffecb3b54ada1e35e69814b3eaa7fd4 Open the door and light the way.

Since, things are slow, my notes.... Misc: - Fremont plant idle since March 23rd - raised 2.3B in February, which seems really well timed now - Musk venting with "FREE AMERICA NOW" tweet makes him seem almost crazy - can see why Elon is going crazy on twitter, he'd almost turned around Telsa and now they may be in the worst cash crunch of their long life - Shanghai Giga reopened on Feb 10th, showing the importance of multiple factories around the world( around 150,000 in capacity once they get going for Model 3, Model Y not yet and should be incremental on top of Model 3 number) - Berlin Giga scheduled to start producing Model Y's in 2021, so capex drain for rest of year and probably into 2021 - TSLA trying to run an amazon HQ2 like process for Truck and Model Y factories, look for small, southern, and poor cities to bid and probably win Numbers: - 1Q Revenue $5.99B vs Estimate $5.81B - 1Q Free Cash Flow ($895M) vs Estimate ($604.4M) - GAAP net income of $16M for 1Q - sale of ZEV in 1Q $354 million vs $133 million from Q4, not going to have this to bail out their quater in 2Q - 35 Megawatts of solar( down by about a third Q/Q) - sitting on $8.1B of cash, sweet!! but burn rate is approx ($3-4B) a year After: - semi not until 2021 - not reaffirming numbers, will check in again in 2Q, makes sense Want to know: - Solar roof? give up or start committing, hard to sell to consumer during shutdown - battery storage for energy, growth area or sign of lack of focus and minor distraction to core business? inventory growth? Building cars no one is buying or still not able to keep up with growth or finally found balance between the two? - Will Elon stop with tweets that hurt Tesla? Appoint a CEO, or COO to run things to take pressure of Elon?

applecrazy 6y ago
Also want to point out that TSLA is up about ~6-7% in after-hours trading Edit: accuracy
- TravisSc6tt 6y ago
  I've noticed that companies' stock prices don't always correlate to the performance of their past quarter. Wonder why
  - gruglife 6y ago
    Stock price is forward looking, not past.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - formercoder 6y ago
    Some combination of momentum with the market or sector, pricing in future growth, an earnings call that does a good job explaining the bad quarter.
  - asdff 6y ago
    If the news is expected to be bad, but is actually less bad than anticipated, then the stock goes up, even if it's bad. There's been a lot of that lately.
  - vikramkr 6y ago
    In what sense do you mean they don't correlate to performance? Overperforming or underperforming expectations will correlate very highly to the way the stock moves on the news
  - tempestn 6y ago
    Change in stock price on earnings news tends to correlate to the performance relative to expectations. The estimated performance is already priced in, so the movement will be based on how much better or worse the actual results were than the estimated/anticipated ones. In this case, it was obviously a bad quarter for Tesla, but the bump suggests that traders expected it to be even worse.
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      To add something to this, traders have their own expectations of how companies will perform relative to their published estimates. I used to work at a unicorn that would consistently exceed its published estimates, and the stock price took a non-trivial hit the first time it ever met them.
- hcnews 6y ago
  After-hours trading doesn't necessarily mean much due to low liquidity and volume. You can get high swing for reasonably low volume in a single after-market trade.
robmerki 6y ago
He's probably tweeting MAGA adjacent memes to market the Cybertruck
- pa7ch 6y ago
  Honestly think this is an interesting topic. It seems that today there are marketing advantages to being a public figure that comes off as a bit of a buffoon. Of course its impossible to know if this is being intentionally done unless they are caught talking about it or something.
- fullshark 6y ago
  Or perhaps he’s sincere, not sure why that is so unbelievable and everyone is imagining ulterior motives.
guardiangod 6y ago
Someone _please_ hire someone to follow EM with a phone jammer on. I can't take his BS anymore. Why do smart people like to have strong opinions on subjects they are not expert in? (Disclosure: I own TSLA stocks.)
- madengr 6y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
  - Zenbit_UX 6y ago
    That's the opposite, dumb people believing their smart at everything, OP said smart people.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  That's how democratic societies are typically intended to work; on issues of great social importance, everyone's encouraged to think about them and decide what they'd like to happen.
  - mcv 6y ago
    I think it's also how genius works. When you're really good at one thing, there's the risk of thinking you're good at everything.
    - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
      Is that genius? Because it seems to be common in the unintelligent as well.
      - mcv 6y ago
        But without having the one thing they're really good at, then.
    - 6y ago
the_cat_kittles 6y ago
this kinda comment makes me lol so hard at HN- passing mention of any tech, but loads of stats on financials and personality of the ceo.
slg 6y ago
>- Musk venting with "FREE AMERICA NOW" tweet makes him seem almost crazy Musk is on the verge of a three quarter of billion dollar windfall if Tesla's six month average market cap exceeds $100b. I would guess that motivates his desire to open as soon as possible. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-stocks-musk/teslas-musk-nears-750-million-options-payday-ahead-of-results-idUSKCN22A16B https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-stocks-musk/teslas-...
- adventured 6y ago
  I doubt it. He's worth $38.5 billion; $26b of that is in Tesla. He can shave off hundreds of millions of dollars from that any day of the week - if he cared to do so. The compensation package is relatively small compared to his existing wealth already contained in Tesla. Wanting the company to succeed is what most likely motivates him, not the compensation package (which is aligned with his existing interests, even if you think he's primarily in it for the $26b (little evidence to support that, he's personally loaded with debt because he refuses to sell, that's called being all in; any good financial advisor would call it dangerous concentration and a poor choice to take on debt instead of selling)).
  - jonny_eh 6y ago
    Then why have a compensation package like that if it's just a rounding error for him? Maybe people like him can't stand to lose out on a dollar, especially when they believe they deserve it.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Going to Mars isn't cheap.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    Musk is worth $38.5 billion based on his current Tesla stock holdings at their current valuation. If he hits the trigger in his compensation package, he gets even more Tesla stock which will vastly increase his net worth on paper Also, Musk is loaded with debt because he leveraged his stock holdings to live a very lavish lifestyle, including multiple residential properties, vehicles, and very expensive dining choices.
xiphias2 6y ago
- Will Elon stop with tweets that hurt Tesla? Appoint a CEO, or COO to run things to take pressure of Elon? I have read this from so many people for the last 5 years all the time. Sure, the tweets show that Elon wants faster growth, and frustrated, and I didn't like that tweet either, but if you want a conservative CEO, buy IBM or Oracle stocks, please leave Tesla alone.
- xvf22 6y ago
  I think they may have been referring to more of a SpaceX leadership situation.
- Touche 6y ago
  I just don't want a batshit crazy person running a company I invest in.
  - aantix 6y ago
    The batshit crazy person that managed to turn the company around?
  - kortilla 6y ago
    But he’s the reason it’s a company worth investing in...
  - _eht 6y ago
    Pretty easy to miss investing in TSLA. FYI.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - dnautics 6y ago
    Then don't invest?
  - bigyikes 6y ago
    Seems like that would be a good personal indicator to not invest in Tesla then? A lot of people invest in Tesla in part because it is run by a “batshit crazy” person, though I’m sure those investors might phrase it differently.
tejohnso 6y ago
> can see why Elon is going crazy on twitter, he'd almost turned around Telsa and now they may be in the worst cash crunch of their long life With 8 billion in cash, and 3-4 billion per year burn rate, that's a two year buffer assuming no improvement. That doesn't seem like the worst cash crunch of their long life. What am I missing?
- cloudwalking 6y ago
  Increasing capex for new products.
  - xkjkls 6y ago
    Plus there CapEx hasn't even met depreciation for years, indicating that they have been underinvesting in repairs and retooling.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  He might be more concerned about the sales prospects instead of operational expenses. Automakers are getting hit really hard by this pandemic, and they need a healthy economy to sell cars. Many economic forecasts are saying that a full recovery is 2-4 years away, although there are many different opinions.
  - xur17 6y ago
    Plus, the price of gas has gone down significantly, hurting one of the benefits of electric cars.
    - blizkreeg 6y ago
      I don't believe the Tesla crowd bought theirs to save on gas anyway, so not sure if this is true.
      - grecy 6y ago
        Maybe not, but if gas had continued to go up in 2020 and 2021, you'd have to think that would help convince move people to shift over to electric.
agumonkey 6y ago
If only he had time to finish them fully robotic assembly lines ..
hinkley 6y ago
It has been said before and should be said again: Elon needs an assistant who shuts his fucking phone off at midnight. It's like the moon comes out and he turns into a werewolf. There was a theory that he's Ambien-tweeting, but I suspect he just never learned in college like many of us that any idea that sounds really good at 1 am is probably really stupid.
- maxharris 6y ago
  Elon has done well by me. Every company he runs turns to gold. I wouldn't have him change a thing. Seriously, given his performance over the long-term, I hope he tweets even more. It enrages people that can't think past the next quarter, and that's good for long-term shareholders like me!
  - aguyfromnb 6y ago
    You're claiming victory a bit early.
    - maxharris 6y ago
      I have 108 shares. I'm not selling TSLA. In fact, I'm going to pick up more the next time it drops! TSLA is going to make me a millionaire, but it will take a few more years before that happens.
  - dangrossman 6y ago
    X.com was a bust that pivoted into a PayPal clone and merged with them when both companies were nearly out of runway from buying each other's users. He was CEO of PayPal for just months before a mass revolt of the engineering team over his incompetence lead the board of directors to fire him. Tesla has been structurally bankrupt for most of its existence, burning billions of investors' cash and still making no profit selling cars after 12 years [1]. SolarCity was on the verge of bankruptcy so he bailed it out with his other company and is still being sued for that. He's been having Tesla sell car parts to SpaceX (a private company so you can't look at its financials), more shuffling of money around from one company to another to paper over losses. His side gigs -- The Boring Company to build unusable tunnels, Neuralink, etc -- have accomplished nothing. What exactly has he "turned to gold"? 1: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-burns-cash/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-burns-cash/
artursapek 6y ago
> - can see why Elon is going crazy on twitter, he'd almost turned around Telsa and now they may be in the worst cash crunch of their long life That's probably why he's going crazy. I bet the guy is stressed out. His baby is slowly bleeding after he has worked so hard to build it up and crush it in Q4.
axguscbklp 6y ago
Musk might just be venting on Twitter, as another commenter has suggested, but one way or another these tweets might turn out to benefit him. From what I can tell based on both personal and online interactions, it seems to me that U.S. public sentiment has been shifting against the lockdowns recently - and not just among some fringe protester groups, but among all kinds of demographically and ideologically different groups. Musk's tweets might appeal to those people and make him more popular. I'm no fan of, for example, Musk's lies about self-driving technology being just around the corner. But say what you will about Musk, he has a powerful talent when it comes to publicity.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- marvin 6y ago
  Also, if there should be any trouble at all getting a dirt cheap bailout loan from the government, a solid history of holding the party line will be a guarantee for success. I don't know if Musk deliberately plays this strategy, but it would certainly be on my mind if I were in his shoes. I'm not at all shameless enough to do that kind of thing, thankfully. If Tesla's able to survive through the current macroeconomic slowdown, this situation plays strongly to their advantage. They'll keep being capital constrained for another decade or so. Their ambition is to build 20 million cars per year. Need ten more factories to do that. Zero interest bailout loans would be a godsend, as long as they can stay profitable and still have a healthy customer base. They're a growth company still. Nowhere near the ceiling of their potential market. Although it's still a super uncertain and scary situation, it's much better place to be than being an established, no-growth automaker with thin margins falling to zero on a 10% sales decline.
- chrisjc 6y ago
  > it seems to me that U.S. public sentiment has been shifting against the lockdowns recently - and not just among some fringe protester groups, but among all kinds of demographically and ideologically different groups Unfortunately, I've noticed the same thing.
- mullingitover 6y ago
aguyfromnb 6y ago
Solar City installed 10x the megawatt capacity in 2016 as they did in 2019, with this quarter installed capacity down again. The business is non-existent.
Reedx 6y ago
> Will Elon stop with tweets that hurt Tesla? Appoint a CEO, or COO to run things People have been saying that for years and years. It's beyond stale. Meanwhile Tesla and SpaceX have continued to succeed beyond expectations for over a decade now. If there's occasional twitter volatility in-between simultaneously landing two rockets returning from space... so be it. Besides, if it bothers you that much, you don't have to buy their cars or invest or even pay attention to it. The constant handwringing, mind reading and speech policing is ridiculous. That's how we end up with nothing but layers upon layers of focus tested marketing speak and people afraid to challenge orthodoxy.
- threeseed 6y ago
  Of course what Musk does matters. He's the CEO. And his erratic and reprehensible behaviour is degrading the Tesla brand as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company.
  - llsf 6y ago
    Nobody is perfect. Mr. Musk shown that he could build from the ground up and manage several large companies. Could he be even better ? Maybe. But until Tesla and SpaceX can find someone unequivocally better than Mr. Musk, those companies will have to do (and maybe fail) with him.
  - woodandsteel 6y ago
    I can think of no important way in which Tesla or SpaceX would be significantly more successful today if Musk had publicly communicated more like a standard CEO.
  - forgotmylogin2 6y ago
    It's not degrading the Tesla brand though. Tesla is the second largest automaker in the world by market cap. Toyota, the only company larger than Tesla, was founded 65 years before Tesla. What Musk (and all Tesla employees) have built so far is nothing short of astounding. To imply he's leading them to ruin with his unfiltered twitter account could not be farther from the truth.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
So they have 2 years of cash reserves, which will take them over to the Cybertruck release and the Berlin Gigafactory being complete? Was the "cash crunch" statement already including this?
ramblerman 6y ago
> Musk venting with "FREE AMERICA NOW" tweet makes him seem almost crazy Why. Personally I do think we should stay inside, but it's not an invalid argument to say that locking people in their homes on penalty of fine is a weird thing. Too much economic damage could cause deaths well beyond COVID-19 so there is a balance to be found. But to go a step further and invalidate any criticism of locking people up inside their homes as 'crazy' is out of the playbook of 1984
- anoncareer0212 6y ago
  No, what's 'crazy' is having to read a mind-numbing comment claiming anyone is 'locking up people in their homes', in service of defending an out-of-touch billionaire who flies twice a day on his private jet, 200,000 miles in just the last 3 months. https://twitter.com/evdefender/status/1252352769605791744?s=20 https://twitter.com/evdefender/status/1252352769605791744?s=... Why out of touch? Because 74% of Americans support the quarantine https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/489535-poll-majority-of-voters-support-national https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c... Why is this all particularly insane? Musk went on to praise China's reaction, which _actually locked people into their homes_ and their "opening" is our "locking up people in their homes". https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/asia/wuhan-coronavirus-lockdown-analysis-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/asia/wuhan-coronavirus-lockdo...
  - ramblerman 6y ago
    This isn't your typicial political argument where you pick a side and dig in your heels. It's more like a goldilocks situation where we need "just enough" measures. In that vein I don't think we should just silence the opposite side and dismiss people wanting to open up as "crazy".
    - anoncareer0212 6y ago
      Okay, but that conflicts directly with the idea we need to avoid labelling someone ranting about facism, locking people in their homes, and The Meaning Of America.
paganel 6y ago
> multiple factories around the world They'll also need not economically stressed out customers around the world, which right now isn't really happening. If the low oil-prices won't halt the electric cars industry then the fact that they still have comparatively high prices will most certainly will. A few months ago I was saying that the industry needs cars worth 25,000-30,000 euros/dollars in order to really take off, i.e. that it needs its mass-produced electric Honda Civcs and VW Golfs, with this depression-like crisis that is about to commence I'd say that it needs its Mitsubishi Colts/Mirages, Dacia Sanderos or Nissan Versas, i.e. electric cars that will cost at most 10,000-12,000 euros/dollars.
- marvin 6y ago
  Their potential market will certainly be _lower_ while the pandemic is ongoing, but there's plenty of high-income folks who haven't been materially effected by the epidemic and might still want a luxury car. Most people I know are in the work-from-home crowd. There is the possibility that this might not be that big of a deal, given that they're a growth company. Depends how production-constrained they really are without trying to induce additional demand through advertising and so on.
  - xkjkls 6y ago
    Economic uncertainty, even with financial security, is almost certainly going to delay many car purchases. If you don't know whether we're going into 2021 with 20% unemployment, its pretty easy to decide to hold off a year. Also cars are being used close to 70% less during the lockdown.
- imtringued 6y ago
  I seriously hope nobody gets fooled into believing that those oil prices will last more than two years and consequently buy a gas guzzler.

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

Curious to know how Tesla will (if it will) repatriate China profits. Perhaps they don't, but just ship China-sourced parts to Fremont and Berlin paid for with China profits? The political climate could take a very ugly turn, China will want to keep cash within its borders.

jacobkranz 6y ago
According to their loan agreement w/ China, they must pay off their loans until they can repatriate anything.
maxdo 6y ago
by the agreement, they can't. Their financing conditions prevent them from doing so for a few years unless they pay their loans there.

93po 6y ago

Let the anti-Musk astroturfing begin

angel_j 6y ago

I dig Tesla, but I wonder if Elon's own goals would be better served if they only produced motors and batteries and novel tech for the other car makers.

LatteLazy 6y ago
The only reason anyone would buy them is because tesla forced them to take electric seriously. And now that's why they can't, they need in-house tech or they're just Teslas with different chassis shapes. Its a sad paradox.
speedgoose 6y ago
I am not sure. Most car makers are releasing shitty hybrids to pass the emissions tests, but not really invested in electric vehicles for now.
pmorici 6y ago
That is the route Rivian is taking and Ford just announced the cancellation of their first planned model. Tesla’s draw isn’t the electric it’s the excellent performance, and incredible technology and user experience. The electric underlies those things but it isn’t the reason it’s a top selling car.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ch1rh0 6y ago

Not a big deal but FYI Tesla IT people the page title is "Q3 2019 Updated". Edit: fixed.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

milansuk 6y ago

Page 16 blew my mind. From 70 pieces of metal => 2 pieces of metal. Does anyone know how they do that?

CarVac 6y ago
They went from individual stampings welded together to very large die-cast parts.
pmorici 6y ago
Large casting machine. See Sandy Munro’s model Y tear down videos for a look at the casting
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 6y ago
Tesla is going ham with thixotropic aluminum casting. Big-ass machines, big-ass castings, no heat-treat. The goal is to get that down to a single casting. Not only does this simplify production further, but you can do it with no machining afterwards, no datums, nothing. You just tap the holes and put it together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pih4kU6yvz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pih4kU6yvz8 The Y is realizing a lot of things they were promising with the 3. It's a much more exciting vehicle from a production standpoint.
Tuna-Fish 6y ago
Casting. Note that the Model 3 rear is a bit of a pathological case. In his teardown, Sandy Munro had a lot of good things to say about other parts of the car, but considered the tail end to be a horribly engineered overly expensive mess. So it looks so good because they started with the unambiguously worst piece in the car, and made it really good.

filleokus 6y ago

What's included in the list of things Musk promised for this year? I only remember 1 million self driving Teslas as taxis [0]. Would surprise me greatly if anything close to that happens. [0]: https://www.engadget.com/2019-04-22-tesla-elon-musk-self-driving-robo-taxi.html https://www.engadget.com/2019-04-22-tesla-elon-musk-self-dri...

zaroth 6y ago

As an investor, I like the format these results are presented in. The slide deck approach is a lot more approachable than the typical text-only SEC filing. An average investor is much more likely to open this and read it than the typical financial statement. It's not over-the-top marketing agency gloss, but it has some nice touches. Of course, you also get the text-only filing to follow. As far as the key numbers, Tesla continues to push profitability and I think beat estimates by pulling off a profitable quarter in Q1. I can't imagine they will do it again in Q2, and they've suspended their guidance, but compare and contrast to, e.g. Ford, which is currently drawing all their credit lines to the max to stay afloat (to the tune of $15 billion). They've never had spare inventory before, it will be interesting to see how fast they can clear it when things pick up. In a very long shutdown scenario, Tesla will come out way ahead of standard auto makers because their cars somewhat forego the "New Model Year" craze, and they can software update all their inventory. So while most carmakers will be looking at bursting full lots of "late model year" new cars, Tesla will be selling "Model 3" and "Model Y" through their configurator same as usual. It's been fun watching the Munro tear-downs of the Model Y. I'm curious when and how quickly those improvements will make it back into a redesigned Model 3. They have definitely improved and simplified the design in important ways. They highlighted this in their slides at the end showing underbody components of Model 3 (70 pieces) vs Model Y (2 pieces, eventually 1). Solar is unfortunately MIA in this report. Buffalo managed to get Solar Roof ramped up to 4MW per week (1,000 homes per week) just as the shutdown hit. I would imagine a lot of momentum has been lost in their installer recruitment and training efforts. I would have been very nice to see some ROI in 2020 from Solar Roof, but I'm not sure we'll get it this year. Looking forward to getting to see a Model Y in person and feel how much more space it has. It seems like they've left a good deal of acceleration "in the tank" to unlock in future software updates, that will also be fun to see.

zoroaster 6y ago
As an investor, these financials are so sexy. Historical quarterly data presented, cash flow statement presented quarterly, so many small examples of excellence and thoughtfulness in how the figures are presented.
jillesvangurp 6y ago

yalogin 6y ago

Am I reading this right? They have 25% profit margin on each automotive? Feels like a tech company's margins. Does anyone know how it compares to traditional automakers?

coherentpony 6y ago
Is 25% high? I have no clue.
- artursapek 6y ago
  For cars, yeah
  - coherentpony 6y ago
    And for tech?
    - alteria 6y ago
      SaaS has really high gross margins (>65%?), but I'm not sure that gross margin number is comparable with the 25% that Tesla reported.
      - llsf 6y ago
        Does anybody know why Saas on average have such high gross margin ?
        jlbnjmn 6y ago
        It doesn't cost much to add a user to SaaS, but it costs a lot to write the software and convince people to pay for it. Gross margins are calculated from per unit costs, so advertising expenses, servers, supporting SaaS, and the salaries of programmers and sales people are not included. Also, physical products are made from relatively scarce resources. Software is typed, and words are not scarce. SaaS companies have benefited from demand outstripping supply. SaaS replaces human labor, so it takes a SaaS competitor to drive down prices.

treebornfrog 6y ago

This is the craziest rollercoaster of a stock I've seen. Props to Elon for everything he does. He gets a lot of flak about his tweets, I for one, couldn't care less. Big picture, he's the Henry Ford of this generation.

neilalexander 6y ago

Numbers and all aside, the Solar Roof photo is very satisfying. Very clean and elegant for a solar installation.

tempsy 6y ago

I’m watching in disbelief at the stock market making a V shaped recovery. Nasdaq is only a few percentage points off it’s all time high. I guess don’t underestimate the American consumer even at a time of economic uncertainty? I don’t know how else to explain record sales from Tesla, Facebook, and Microsoft today.

ashtonkem 6y ago
Massive infusions of cash from Congress & the fed will do that for you. It’s far, far, far too early to draw conclusions about long term recovery.
- Twixes 6y ago
  As always, the capital owners just have their significant net worths temporarily reduced by 10-18% (looking at NYSE/NASDAQ/LSE) while millions lose 100% of their paychecks.
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 6y ago
Don't lose sight of reality; business closings left and right, layoffs, pay cuts, etc. Don't let the zero-hedge crowd turn you off to arguments about funny-money from the fed. This is a fairly predictable result. Fed supplies money. Money has to be put to use. Where is productive capital? Interest rates are itty bitty. Stocks look high but .. what else to do? Risk buying high now or inflation later. But this can only remain decoupled from the economic reality for so long.
- tempsy 6y ago
  Outside the stock price movement the earnings today were all good though. Advertisers still seem to be spending money on ads, even into April.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  When do your shorts expire?

mysterEFrank 6y ago

It's nice when the good guys win.

Traster 6y ago
Yeah, let me know when it happens.

Steve886 6y ago

Infographic: Highlights of Tesla Q1 2020 earnings report https://news.alphastreet.com/tesla-inc-nasdaq-tsla-q1-2020-earnings-results/ https://news.alphastreet.com/tesla-inc-nasdaq-tsla-q1-2020-e... Tesla Inc. turned to profit in the first quarter of 2020 aided by strong revenue growth, continuing the positive trend seen in the trailing two quarters.

dmode 6y ago

Hmmm, I have been a ardent Tesla supporter for many years and actually own 2 teslas (my post history would confirm that), but alas starting today I am done with Tesla and Elon. I have given him a pass for - Promising autopilot in 15 days (after they abruptly terminated their contract with mobile eye) when I bought my model S in 2016 - saying FSD features are 3-6 months away in 2016 (some of these features launched this month in 2020) - pedo guy tweet - 420 tweet - other absurd hyperbolic claims like battery swap, coast to coast driving in 2018, top line Model S loaner cars for everyone, blah blah blah - a neural net driven rain sensor that barely works I still believe that Model 3 and S are the two best cars I have ever driven. But I can't support Tesla anymore, which is not build for a mission, but seems to be build to squeeze workers and lie to customers.

ianai 6y ago
I wonder if it’d be better with him more removed from the CEO role. I really like how innovative their designs are. But being abusive is a damnation.

vgchh 6y ago

Serious question: I am confused as to why do we see so many comments lamenting, what is essentially freedom of speech of EM? I mean, it's not like he is conclusively wrong about "Free America Now" comment. He may be proven wrong over time or even right.

grecy 6y ago
People don't like to allow discussions about things they disagree with anymore. Everything has become so polarized, it's as if simply allowing the conversation to happen risks bringing in new evidence that might prove a person wrong. I'm not saying I personally think everyone should head back out on the streets, but I think it's important we a least begin to discuss the pros and cons of doing so. In all of this, I've still never heard a single logical or rational discussion about what the hell are we going to do in the medium-long term. Even if we "flatten the curve" now and go back to "normal" in 3 months, what will happen when cases skyrocket again? same thing all over again?
- tiles 6y ago
  Once we reopen, we aren't going to regain capacity in hospital beds overnight. How are parts of the US going to avoid being to be on lockdown every two to eight weeks for the remainder of the summer? I feel if everyone understood that this cycle is inevitable, we could constructively benefit from people arguing the threat of reopening vs the threat of continued exposure. Instead, it's a game of chicken who wants to open up the economy later than June—just in time for cases to spike in July.
paulcole 6y ago
In my opinion if you have a big platform and are an influential person, you owe it to the people who follow you to not tweet out stupid shit you don’t know anything about. Elon should honestly delete his twitter but it’s clear he loves the attention of being a celebrity who can make headlines.
GhostVII 6y ago
I think that it is a valid opinion to think that we should lift the lockdown - there is a huge cost to the shutdown, and flattening the curve was originally just to keep the hospitals below capacity, which they seem to be. However in the context of his other tweets, it seems irresponsible. He is retweeting conspiracy theories that hospitals are reporting cases of COVID for profit, and even made predictions they by the end of April we would have 0 cases (which has obviously not happened). He retweeted a YouTube video that was later removed for violating TOS, presumably because it was spreading false info about COVID (I disagree with that particular policy but it still indicates the video isn't something he should be retweeting). He is not conclusively wrong to say that we should lift the lockdown. However the other things he is saying show that he is conclusively wrong about other aspects of the virus, and is spreading misinformation about it. Given how poor his predictions about it have been, his opinion is useless and dangerous given how many people listen and believe what he says.

petilon 6y ago

Excerpt: "We enabled stop sign and traffic light recognition and braking for our Early Access Program users at the end of Q1 and to the wider public in April 2020". That's awesome! They may very well release FSD in a year or two!

jzer0cool 6y ago

TSLA to the moon! Or to Mars ..., Where art thou has our little Starman gone, so afar. Prices up / Prices Down. Let it fly high to where you are. As far to Deep Space like no man (or women) has gone before. Chasing you all the way to the light core. TSLA will lead the way. To new advances to tech, explorations, energy arrays, and more ... > cq cq cq cq jp-7ffecb3b54ada1e35e69814b3eaa7fd4 Open the door and light the way.