INDUSTRIES | ELECTRIC VEHICLES Tesla Hits a First Quarter Roadblock Like No Other Elon Musk’s Tesla wrangled the crown of the world’s top EV seller away from China’s BYD this quarter, but it’s not taking any victory laps. APRIL 2, 2024 UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO Photo by David von Diemarvia Unsplash Sign up for smart news, insights, and analysis on the biggest financial stories of the day. Griffin Kelly griffin@thedailyupside.com Being No. 1 isn’t all it’s cracked out to be. Elon Musk’s Tesla wrangled the crown of the world’s top EV seller away from China’s BYD this quarter, but it’s not taking any victory laps. Its 2024 has been battered by slumping sales, a falling share price, and even acts of sabotage, with one team of analysts describing the quarter as a “train wreck into a brick wall quarter for Musk & Co.” Coming Up Short In the last quarter of 2023, Tesla sold about 485,000 vehicles, a record for the Austin, Texas-based company. But on Tuesday, Tesla reported that it sold just 387,000 cars in the first quarter, about 15% below expectations and an 8.5% drop year-over-year. The drop raised immediate red flags. “While we were anticipating a bad 1Q, this was an unmitigated disaster 1Q that is hard to explain away,” Wedbush Securities analysts wrote in a note. “We view this as a seminal moment in the Tesla story for Musk to either turn this around and reverse the black eye 1Q performance. Otherwise, some darker days could clearly be ahead that could disrupt the long-term Tesla narrative.” Much of Tesla’s pain is a result of its production misses — manufacturing roughly 433,000 cars, below Wall Street’s estimate of 453,000: Delays due to fighting on the Red Sea led Tesla to shut down production at its German factory, which can produce about 1,000 cars a day, for two weeks. Planned downtime last year at factories in China and Texas for equipment upgrades have also eaten into production totals. And the German factory hits kept coming. In early March, far-left arsonists calling themselves “Volcano Group” took responsibility for setting fire to an electrical tower outside Berlin. It shut down the nearby factory for a week, and the plant’s director said at the time it could result in losses in the “high hundreds of millions” of euros. Tesla’s share price has plunged roughly 33% year-to-date, and is down more than 50% from two years ago. Face That Runs the Place: Musk’s polarizing persona might also be scaring off would-be buyers. A recent survey conducted by market research firm Caliber and provided to Reuters found that consumers’ “consideration score” for Tesla fell to 31% in February, compared to a high of 70% in November 2021. Experts told the outlet part of that is due to customers’ iffy feelings toward the outspoken Musk. If Musk wants to win back the people, we recommend never hosting “Saturday Night Live” again. https://www.thedailyupside.com/indu...hits-a-first-quarter-roadblock-like-no-other/ + + + Although on a bit of "good" news pre-market trading show it is only down a little over -1% so far.
I'm not concerned with quarterly numbers, they're for analysts to justify their jobs. But I'm far more vocal about Elon Musk who I believe should resign as Tesla CEO. He has private companies to run that aren't nearly as impacted by his personal opinions as Tesla is. I suspect that if he was to announce his resignation the stock would see a bump from an approving market. Elon Musk is a visionary who likes to innovate. He puts all his energy into such ventures and is proving to be highly successful. However, he is not a sophisticated business manager familiar with the intricacies of global development, which is what Tesla needs today.
Agree Musk resigning would be seen as a positive. He did "his job" getting TSLA this far, he should pass the baton. As for quarterly numbers, like it or not, that is how the markets work in modern times. Its why I focus on how things are, not how I wish they could be.
The avg Joe would watch the planet burn if it didn't impact them. Thankfully there are forward looking people in the world whose expertise is heard by smart governments who legislate for the sake of all. That's why 2035. While powerful interests will continue to fight the transition until the end and may be able to slide that date back a few years, it remains that the world outside some states in the US aren't going to wait for the average Joe to get onboard.
Which will matters only if they also compel utilities that produce the supplied electricity from non-carbon fuels, of course meaning renewables. Otherwise it is just, like currently much of the time in many places, a bait-and-switch game. As well as of course solve the infrastructure/range/charging time dilemmas, cart before the horse.
Yes and no. The switch from ICE to EV is about gasoline (oil) and exhaust fumes (air pollution). It's a much slower process to switch from dirty energy to 100% clean energy. It will get there, but it will probably take 20 years for some countries to wean themselves of dirty energies. In the meantime, the switch from ICE to EV would be swift if not for the pushback from the ICE industry. America pretends it operates on organic development, where better solutions invariably reach the top and the worst fail. Of course this doesn't take into account the various powerful entrenched interests that have managed to hold onto their often inefficient and antiquated solutions. Also, unique to America's foundation is its distrust of governments which either impeded ruthless business interests or threatened non conformist populations. Consequently, the US government is weak by design, its decisions subject to legal challenges from any and everyone and ultimately by a non elected supreme court. The point I'm making is that some states will make it a cross and flag issue, a foundational obligation to support dirty industries because... They're just contrarian, either by interest or lack of basic education. Other states will follow European directives that are a direct result of the Paris Accords and 2035 target to transition from ICE to EV. As for the supply chain, ensuring enough charging stations, repair shops, tech evolution, etc. you again have to look at Europe, as they are at the forefront of the transition. There are lots of top down directives about distances from charging station to the next, urban charging, size of cables... Trust the Europeans for thinking through and creating zillions of rules while we, in America, debate shutting down green energy projects and preventing charging stations in red counties.
https://www.investors.com/news/tesla-stock-is-plunging-not-cheaper-by-earnings-metric/ (TESLA Agnostic here btw, spare me the love/hatred)