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Tesla Q4 2023 Earnings Report [pdf]
- epolanski 3y agoUnsurprisingly to anyone who understands how tough the auto industry is, Tesla's long term growth expectations were not realistic. On the other hand having the best selling vehicle on the planet is a gargantuan achievement Tesla should be proud of. Curious about its future beyond cars. Musk described Tesla like 15 startups under one company.
- mgiannopoulos 3y agoTesla Energy generated a record $6B in revenue in 2023, up 54% YoY. So, that’s something to look at.
- alphabettsy 3y agoIt might be the strongest growth prospect going forward. Other EVs using their chargers and commercial customers using their power solutions.
- bdcravens 3y agoTesla's end game is infrastructure, not cars.
- mgiannopoulos 3y agoAlso, auto gross margins ex credits, came in at 17%. It marks the end of four consecutive quarters of margin decline, up from 16.3% in the Sep-23.
- 7e 3y agoFrom the statement, "Total GAAP gross margin" is still declining on a quarterly basis, to 17.6%. Your statement is also true because regulatory credit revenue is also down QoQ.
- nine_zeros 3y agoInfinite growth is a fantasy. But Tesla certainly pushed a lethargic market to the future. An epic company at the whims of the quarterly analyst.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoThey sold cars to stoke demand for batteries [1] and prove the world could move to EVs. They used battery manufacturing to scale up to build and sell utility scale storage [2]. Nimble companies should always be prepared to pivot and maximize opportunities based on core competencies if they are to survive (Kodak and Xerox are examples of not doing this). If their EV business becomes second to legacy auto, but the org keeps expanding power controls and storage, is that a loss? They already forced every other automaker to go electric. The global energy market is somewhat larger than the light vehicle market, and batteries will be required to phase out every last fossil generator (not for energy arbitrage primarily, but for grid stability). The product is riding the global energy transition. (early Tesla investor, no current exposure) [1] https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/gigafactory.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g... [2] https://www.tesla.com/megafactory https://www.tesla.com/megafactory
- dragontamer 3y agoExcept Panasonic owns the cell-manufacturing portion of the Nevada Gigafactory. And Panasonic can sell those cells to anyone.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoBut they don’t, because Tesla’s demand is voracious and they are a proven partner. Supply chain relationships matter.
- dragontamer 3y agoBut Tesla has constantly sold these cells as "their cells", constantly misleading (almost lying) to the public like these are a significant moat or technology that's exclusive to Tesla. Panasonic also has very tight relationships with Toyota, for example. There's nothing about the Panasonic/Tesla relationship that's really a "moat". ---------- If all your competitors need is just to establish a relationship with Panasonic to get their technology, that's a very different thing than like holding a patent or other "true moat".
- golemiprague 3y ago[dead]
- jandrese 3y agoYeah, their valuation being based on the assumption of infinite exponential growth was always going to smack into the cold hard reality of the S curve at some point. But Tesla could lose a massive amount of valuation and still be overpriced, especially compared to other large car companies like GM, Ford, Stellantis, BMW, and BYD. The only thing saving Tesla from being absolutely clobbered in the market today, at least in the US, is the competitors doing some baffling and outright dumb things with their own EVs. Like Toyota announcing that they think EVs are a fad and aren't worth pursuing. Or GM ditching its only EV that actually sells for some vague promise of a car that is at least 2 years away. I also think the lower numbers for last year are due to dumping tons of money into a truck platform that seems unlikely to be a good seller. I'm expecting that once you factor in all of the R&D costs the Cybertruck will be a net negative for Tesla with poor sales and low (for Tesla) margins.
- b33j0r 3y agoThey oversold the Cybertruck for how long it took and what it ended up being/costing. The market for it was maybe irrationally exuberant a few years ago, but a lot of that evaporated just from consumer ADHD and years of examples of new tech ideas with more options. (Speaking of the ADHD customers, I guess I can get $100 back?)
- ethbr1 3y agoCurious how much of the Cybertruck R&D will end up getting repurposed into an F-150 / Silverado competitor. Which is a rather large (and profitable) market. Given that's the exact same playbook the company was founded on. Build and advertise halo project. Use halo margins to build mass-market model at competitive scale. GOTO 10
- coliveira 3y agoTesla is lucky in the US, but in several parts of the world BYD is beating them hard. BYD is selling the most units, and they are not even allowed to compete in the USA.
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- redwall_hp 3y agoThe Corolla easily sold more units worldwide than any Tesla vehicle. https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a44600661/is-tesla-model-y-the-worlds-best-selling-car-nope-not-even-close/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a44600661/is-tes... I don't have numbers handy, but I suspect the bestselling vehicle globally is also probably a moped, potentially the Honda supercub by its prior sales velocity...
- rcMgD2BwE72F 3y agoWhat a bad take. That "Corolla" is not a car/model but a whole category that combines many body types such as a sedan, a wagon, a hatchback and a crossover model (Corolla + Levin + Allion + Lingshang + Fenglanda + etc). Tesla could create two nameplate: "Cyber" for pickups and "Model" for other vehicles (S+X+3+Y) and call it a day too.
- chollida1 3y agoNumbers: - Q4 Gross Margins 17.6%, EST. 18.1%, down 6.12% YoY - Q4 automotive margins 17.2% ahead of 16.3% Q3, bullish - Q4 Adjusted EPS $0.71, EST. $0.73c, down 40% YoY - Q4 FCF $2.06B, EST. $1.45B, up 45% YoY - Q4 Rev. $25.2B, EST. $25.9B, up 3% YoY - Solar deployed 41 Megawatts, not very exciting, really lagging competitors here. - revenue from credits sold to other companies was $433M down from $550 Q3 - this should eventually go to zero over the next 10 years - 1.2M Model Y's sold, Notes: - EV sales in general rose by about 50% last year in the US - TSLA now under 50% of EV market in the US, still absurdly good, but falling - TSLA note growth in 2024 "may be notably lower" than 2023, but refused to offer guidance - energy storage doubled 2022, that's pretty awesome - when will they stop manufacturing the S and X, they are pretty minimal compared to the Y & 3 now Look for: - next gen(cheap cross over) "leaked" this morning, is that due to bad numbers? - expected to deliver 100,000/week of these after ramp up - will this be built outside of hte US to save money? - dojo computer talk ($1B is alot to put into this space) - will they break out cyber truck, or hide those numbers, note, they dodged it and said it would take a long time to ramp up - V12 FSD notes. What data will they release and will the shift to NN to manage handling instead of hard coded rules work out? - what are they making from super charging? Thoughts: - broke down below $200, options call writers win, - Solar disappointing again, when will they spin that out and focus?
- jandrese 3y ago> - will this be built outside of the US to save money? I hope not since that would disqualify it for the tax credit.
- cbeach 3y agoI'm surprised to see 38% YoY increase in Tesla deliveries (page 8) in the last 12 months, despite the high interest rates (thus expensive consumer finance) and the high price point of Tesla's current range. By comparison, Honda sales increased 33%, GM 14.1%, Ford 7.1%, Toyota 6.6%, VW 6.7%, Stellantis down 1% https://www.cbtnews.com/car-manufacturers-report-impressive-sales-gains-for-2023-gm-tops-list/ https://www.cbtnews.com/car-manufacturers-report-impressive-... https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/around-487-million-vehicles-worldwide-volkswagen-brand-increases-deliveries-in-2023-18054 https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/around... When Tesla release its $25K car, and when interest rates drop, I suspect the march of Tesla on its rivals will continue apace.
- jliptzin 3y agoYou’re subject to the same interest rates no matter what vehicle you purchase. Base model 3 is not any more expensive than a typical new ICE vehicle especially with the federal credit, plus you save on gas and maintenance.
- lvl102 3y agoThat gross margin is coming down as competition ramps up. They have two more years before Toyota rolls out new batteries. That doesn’t even include Rivian’s cheaper competition model which they will reveal in March. They have no FSD. They have no AI. They have no “robots”. All vaporwares. Doesn’t help public opinion of Elon Musk and Tesla changed dramatically in the past 24 months. Progressives rather drive ICE than a Tesla.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago> two more years before Toyota rolls out new batteries. "Or the horse may learn to sing."
- mixmastamyk 3y agoThat is, of course, unless the horse, is the famous Mr. Ed.
- jackmott 3y ago[dead]
- jdminhbg 3y ago> Rivian’s cheaper competition model which they will reveal in March You'd be lucky to get a currently-available Rivian in 2025 if you ordered now, how many years until you realistically could take delivery of this new Rivian model? Edit: I stand corrected on current availability, see below. Still think it will be years until you will get a new, cheaper model that hasn't been announced yet.
- songeater 3y agothat's not true. R1S available in 1-2 weeks at the shop: https://rivian.com/configurations/list?MODEL=R1T https://rivian.com/configurations/list?MODEL=R1T
- mrcwinn 3y agoThat simply isn't true. It's quick to get an R1S or R1T. My delivery advisor said a custom configuration in the Boise area could pop up in as little as a couple weeks.
- TheAlchemist 3y agoFun fact - there is 0 mention of DOJO in this document ! Surprising, given the fact that they supposedly started the production ~6 months ago, and it was supposed to be 'top 5 in the world' by compute power, today. Another fun fact, is that an MS stock analyst is attaching a 500bn $ valuation to this project and increased his price target from 250 to 400. Elon just half stated, it's not really working yet (it's a high risk, high reward project). We can move on to Optimus now, shall we ?
- sidibe 3y agoYeah didn't sound like Dojo is really on the radar anymore. Adam Jonas is out of his mind his thesis was something about some SaaS product based on Dojo being as big a product as GCP or AWS
- _ea1k 3y agoYeah, and semi was only mentioned once. Tesla is a weird company. They have a lot of little side projects that seem to have potential, but only a few projects that get enough focus to really make it to market. They've been able to get by with that so far, as the focus was in the right place (3/Y for example). But their lack of focus on new vehicle models for the past couple of years seems to be really coming back to bite them now. Their plan looks like muddled nonsense, tbh.
- morepork 3y agoYeah I don't understand this, they're a massive company now with over 100k employees. Surely they can focus on more than 2-3 projects at a time.
- resolutebat 3y agoThe services revenue graph on page 11 is impressive: from $-500M in 2019 and $200M in 2022 to almost $500M in 2023. The increasing base of existing Teslas means that revenue from parts is going to keep going up, and with superchargers opening up to non-Teslas, supercharging is going to be a license to print money for quite a few years.
- 7e 3y agoSuperchargers aren't profitable. That's why they were opened up. So it's basically gauging insurers on parts, making Teslas more expensive to insure.
- resolutebat 3y agoThe capital costs of setting up the infra are huge, but once they're in place they're reselling electricity at a 200%+ margin with virtually zero manpower required.
- TheAlchemist 3y agoCan you please provide some links on that ? The most optimistic forecast I've seen were at about 10B$ of revenue, not profit - which is peanuts.
- cozzyd 3y agoIt depends on how much maintenance is required, probably.
- blackoil 3y agoElectricity is commodity, no way you can sustain high ROI on it.
- worker_thread 3y agoI was dissappointed to learn tesla becoming bricks in colder weathers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YafUALsJvfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YafUALsJvfU
- _ea1k 3y agoThey don't become bricks in cold weather. The reports were true, there were broken chargers, lots of stuck uber drivers, and lots of people stuck behind them too. What it left out were the majority of drivers who started their day with fully charged cars that automatically defrosted, went about their business normally, and had zero issues. The reports were true! But they were also not a representative sample of overall EV usage in the cold.
- worker_thread 3y agoFair argument but teslas breaking down in extreme weather was not in my bing card this year.