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Things at Tesla are worse than they appear (edition.cnn.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

92 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Things are undoubtedly bad at Tesla. Its sales are dwindling. Its profits are plunging, as is its share price. There are regular protests outside its showrooms. The Cybertruck is a flop. And somehow, it’s actually a lot worse than that.

The 71% drop in net income it just reported may have been overshadowed by CEO Elon Musk’s announcement that he would be stepping back from his controversial duties at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But that drop is just one indication of serious financial sickness at the EV maker, problems brought on by falling sales for the first time in its history and falling prices for electric vehicles.

The bottom line problem at Tesla is its vanishing bottom line. A deeper look at its first quarter report shows it’s now losing money on what should be its ostensible reason for existence – selling cars.

It was only able to post a $409 million profit in the quarter thanks to the sale of $595 million worth of regulatory credits to other automakers.

But if the Trump administration gets its way, the company can kiss those regulatory credits keeping it in the black goodbye, too.

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

This is a big fact almost no one speaks of. Tesla has only ever been profitable by manipulating the carbon footprint regulations and selling Ford and GMC carbon credits. Not a single tesla vehicle has ever been profitable as an actual vehicle. You know, the product they claim to be selling. The real product is pollution hiding. N ot correcting, not fixing, not even slowing pollution. No, its a shell game. Tesla is making money by shifting the blame of pollution for profit. Oh, they build vehicles also.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Where can I learn more about this stuff?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Not from a Jedi

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

What is carbon offsetting and how does it work? (theguardian, May 2021)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Not a single tesla vehicle has ever been profitable as an actual vehicle.

This honestly couldn't be further from the truth.

Tesla's vehicles once ramped have always been extremely profitable (except probably the CyberTruck as it hasn't properly ramped due to low demand)

Any losses you see are due to their aggressive growth involving capital expenditures and research and development. It's not that the vehicle isn't profitable.

The ZEV credits are just bonus money that they can then leverage to expand faster.

Edit: If you want to try and see this another way that might make sense... The Model S and X were very profitable, but they didn't make enough money to fund the expansion for the Model 3 and Y. Ditch the Model 3 and Y, and remain a boutique luxury car company, and they would posted profits instead of losses. It wasn't the cars losing money, it was the growth. The ZEV credits accelerated that growth immensely by giving them more breathing room.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ah, so the actual reason for the loss is that they can't expand capacity without squandering vast amounts of money. That's much better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

A thing would need to officially be a flop to be considered squandered like the Cybertruck is looking like.

They might have a few failures ahead of them yet though, but you can't call a mid flight project squandered.

Edit: e.g part of that loss could be attributed to them finalizing and now starting production at the megapack factory at Shanghai. Short of Elon backlash stopping sales of their commercial batteries, that won't be squandered and will make a billion or two or three in profits this year.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You have just argued against the article itself. Should we believe you?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The article doesn't say they've never made a profit on any of their cars. If that's what you got from that, you should try reading it again.

Also, if you make 1 billion in profit on something, and then spend 2 billion researching and developing and setting up a factory to build a new product, you end up with a loss of 1 billion. That does not mean your first thing is unprofitable. This is pretty basic stuff.

The vehicles are profitable, they just didn't provide enough profit this quarter to cover their R&D and capital expenditures for growth.

Edit: Sorry, and in case it wasn't clear, their R&D and capital expenditures dwarf the ZEV credits every quarter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

the only reason anyone has bought a cybertruck for a business is because incentives for heavy vehicles make it possible to almost entirely write them off on taxes