Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

zeupater

Hi

Groundhog day seems to happen every year, just as the "doom & gloom"ster's  commentary on Tesla Q1 reporting as each year passes .... a cursory delve into recent results find that most auto-makers are reporting as bad, if not worse, annual/quarterly results ... (eg - https://www.volkswagen-group.com/en/ad-hoc/volkswagen-ag-publishes-preliminary-key-figures-for-the-financial-statements-as-of-march-31-2025-19187 ) ... surprisingly even without having interrupted global production of almost 100% of their volume market offerings within the 2024/25 financial year (Model3 in 2024 & ModelY Q12025) ... so what's the reason behind the continuing obsession over Tesla? ... 

Looking at the results it seems that a ~4 week disruption in production for a new model resulted in <10% reduction in production, which is pretty much in line with 4 weeks being <10% of available production weeks in a year ... don't forget, when you're not producing product the fixed overheads are still accruing, which explains in pretty simple terms the higher impact of reduced production/sales on the percentage profit-to-sales, so no surprises at all ..... 

boo-hoo, yet again it  looks like the approved centralised narrative doesn't seem to stack-up to a little applied logic, whatever the source ....  ... well, isn't that odd! ....

HTH - Z

 

orrery

1961Nick said:

It'll be interesting to see how much is due to the pause in Model Y sales caused by the launch of Juniper & how much is down to his love affair with Trump & MAGA?

Indeed, but don't forget that all these other manufacturers have been tardy getting electric models out, but they are filling up their model ranges now. VW group have VW, Audi, Skoda and Cupra all now filling out their ranges with credible electric cars. US cars haven't enjoyed a great reputation over the years, with poor reliability and quality and car buyers are now faced with a decision: do I buy a Tesla (with all the real and perceived issues) or buy a Volvo, BMW, Merc, Audi ... etc. Certainly, my own family have looked at the market and bought Skoda, BMW and Volvo electrics.

silverwhistle

zeupater said:

boo-hoo, yet again it  looks like the approved centralised narrative doesn't seem to stack-up to a little applied logic, whatever the source ....  ... well, isn't that odd! ....

HTH - Z

 

"Approved centralised narrative"?! In our rather RW dominated media? That's a very dismissive and patronising reading of a narrative you possibly don't agree with. Tesla's sales do vary based on delivery cycles but sales figures and anecdotal evidence is not encouraging, and a review in a year's time might be more telling.

Ten years of Musk saying  'FSD next year' doesn't engender confidence..

michaels

zeupater said:

Hi

Groundhog day seems to happen every year, just as the "doom & gloom"ster's  commentary on Tesla Q1 reporting as each year passes .... a cursory delve into recent results find that most auto-makers are reporting as bad, if not worse, annual/quarterly results ... (eg - https://www.volkswagen-group.com/en/ad-hoc/volkswagen-ag-publishes-preliminary-key-figures-for-the-financial-statements-as-of-march-31-2025-19187 ) ... surprisingly even without having interrupted global production of almost 100% of their volume market offerings within the 2024/25 financial year (Model3 in 2024 & ModelY Q12025) ... so what's the reason behind the continuing obsession over Tesla? ... 

Looking at the results it seems that a ~4 week disruption in production for a new model resulted in <10% reduction in production, which is pretty much in line with 4 weeks being <10% of available production weeks in a year ... don't forget, when you're not producing product the fixed overheads are still accruing, which explains in pretty simple terms the higher impact of reduced production/sales on the percentage profit-to-sales, so no surprises at all ..... 

boo-hoo, yet again it  looks like the approved centralised narrative doesn't seem to stack-up to a little applied logic, whatever the source ....  ... well, isn't that odd! ....

HTH - Z

 

S, X and Cybertruck sales way down.  3 and Y sales 30k below production.

And why do the 3 and Y in China cost 50% more than their competitors - surely they don't cost any more to produce in which case why are margins on car production negative for Tesla (all profit came from the sale of regulatory credits)

zeupater

michaels said:

.....

And why do the 3 and Y in China cost 50% more than their competitors - surely they don't cost any more to produce in which case why are margins on car production negative for Tesla (all profit came from the sale of regulatory credits)

Hi

(i) - And why do the 3 and Y in China cost 50% more than their competitors  .... because they can & the market supports the price ....

(ii) - surely they don't cost any more to produce ... maybe Tesla look to be a profitable company whilst the competition look towards buying market share and future economies of scale ...

(iii) - in which case why are margins on car production negative for Tesla ... the reduction in margin possibly/probably connected to model change adding to cost and fixed overheads accruing without normal sales revenues, probably also some reflection of customer demand in a period running up to modelyear changes .... 

(iv) -  all profit came from the sale of regulatory credits .... odd, the financial statement shows Q1 regulatory credits as $595million against ~$14Billion of automotive revenues ($19.3Billion total) with a 2.6Billion (14.6%) EBITDA ..... so where did the additional ~$2Billion of profitability come from when automotive accounts for ~3/4 of total revenue ??

Yes, automotive revenues were down from ~16.5Billion in Q1/24 to ~12.9Billion in Q125 (~22%), but that's against a global changeover disruption for Q1 of ~4/13 weeks (~31%) ..... allocate the difference to selling from pre-allocated stock build forward and you pretty much have the entire issue wrapped up without reliance on narrative from whatever viewpoint ... it's really that simple ....

HTH - Z 

michaels

Q1 earnings $400m

zeupater

silverwhistle said:

"Approved centralised narrative"?! In our rather RW dominated media? That's a very dismissive and patronising reading of a narrative you possibly don't agree with. Tesla's sales do vary based on delivery cycles but sales figures and anecdotal evidence is not encouraging, and a review in a year's time might be more telling.

Ten years of Musk saying  'FSD next year' doesn't engender confidence..

Hi

Sales figures not encouraging ?? .... with Tesla production & sales rates running at around a solid ~2 million vehicles/year when external events & model change mitigation is reasonably applied, I can't really see where an anecdotal approach is necessary at all ..... add to this the cybercab / smaller model offering seems to be close to pre-production build in Texas, as evidenced by recent pictures of floor-pan castings (ie casting tooling developed, existing and producing!), there's probably more evidence supporting a positive position regarding build volumes than many actually realise.

Now regarding FSD ... I agree that the roll-out has been seen as more than a little optimistic, but is it really fair to place the blame at Musk/Tesla's door when the other partner in the equation is departmental regulation, the level of red-tape and the snail-pace speed at which change happens when governments get involved ..... to me it's been totally obvious that there's been US (and other!) government reluctance to allocate the necessary resource & effort to FSD, possibly something to do with most politicians (whichever leaning) having both a fear (/misunderstanding) of technology & an obvious general bias more towards job creation/protection than efficiency & cost (eg - think about the number of taxi & delivery drivers this will affect!) ...

Now to nail the lid with some 'hot off the press' red-tape info which may just have an influence and engender a little more confidence .... Looks like the US government are looking to take a federal approach on the matter which may make a real difference on FSD, particularly for US based manufacturers .... ( https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-agency-ease-self-driving-vehicle-deployment-hurdles-retain-reporting-rules-2025-04-24/ ) .... logically, a singe source of red-tape which is willing to support change should effect that change more effectively than having both Federal & likely 50 individual state agencies with their own particular viewpoints involved, and all without compromising safety ... doesn't that look like an efficient approach that hasn't been in evidence before ??? ....

HTH - Z         

zeupater

michaels said:

Q1 earnings $400m

Hi

Page 29 of the Q1 update document ... https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/IR/TSLA-Q1-2025-Update.pdf ... if I've read it right mentions ...

In millions of USD or shares as applicable, except per share data Q1-2024 Q2-2024 Q3-2024 Q4-2024 Q1-2025
.....
Adjusted EBITDA (non-GAAP) (1) (3)                                                 3,384    3,674      4,665      4,333      2,814
Total revenues                                                                                   21,301  25,500    25,182    25,707    19,335
Adjusted EBITDA margin (non-GAAP) (1) (3)                                    15.9%   14.4%     18.5%     16.9%     14.6%

... however, it doesn't really matter because it's pretty much fully explainable in that they've managed the global change of models at least as well as other OEMs would/could, produced & sold roughly (even exceeded!?) the number of units that someone familiar with the automotive industry would expect under such conditions ... and ... having now recently refreshed the entire current high volume product range, have little need for major change for a number of years & that's why this particular year/quarter should be considered as a necessary anomaly  as opposed to any form of analysable trend (after-all, hasn't there been plenty of 'experts' calling for Tesla product-line refresh on an ageing range?) .... it's probably a little like performing straight line trend analysis to forecast exponential growth  - totally meaningless! ...

What needs to be recognised is that the Model Y was the best selling car globally in 2024 and represents somewhere around 50% of Tesla's production/sales, which is a huge proportion for such a relatively small manufacturer due to the low number of models offered .... for example, the second highest volume 2024 vehicle (Toyota Corolla) represented only ~10% of Toyota's ~10million build and therefore would have a relatively lower impact on their overall financials when replaced/face-lifted, whether measured annual or quarterly ...  

HTH - Z  

silverwhistle

zeupater said:

... doesn't that look like an efficient approach that hasn't been in evidence before ??? ....

HTH - Z         

It looks more like regulatory capture to me, or perhaps in view of other news 'regulatory unscheduled dismantlement'..

zeupater

silverwhistle said:

zeupater said:

... doesn't that look like an efficient approach that hasn't been in evidence before ??? ....

HTH - Z         

It looks more like regulatory capture to me, or perhaps in view of other news 'regulatory unscheduled dismantlement'..

Hi

Yet, with a singular regulatory focus, it's far more likely to deliver the long awaited 'FSD next year' than just applying a sit back and wait for things to eventually happen approach ....  

Just think of the possible outcome if the states were to make their own decisions on self driving regulations - it only takes a few centres of mischief to totally wreck concepts like automated freight deliveries, cross state-border automated taxi services etc, so knowing that pork barrel politics is a huge political decision-making problem within the US it's pretty obvious that a Federal regulatory approach was always going to be the eventual solution .... 

HTH - Z