Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) Q1 2023 earnings call preview: What Wall Street expects
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is expected to release its first-quarter earnings results this evening after markets close. Tesla’s Q1 2023 earnings report is among the most anticipated from a financial standpoint, as the automaker dropped prices on six separate occasions through the first three months of the year, leaving analysts and investors pondering the effect on automotive margins.
Tesla performed extremely well in terms of vehicle production and delivery figures for Q1, setting records in both categories as it continues to ramp production in Germany and Texas at its two newest Gigafactories.
Tesla Earnings has analysts setting their sights on one thing
Tesla delivered 422,875 vehicles in Q1, beating estimates from Wall Street that put projections at 420,000.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors earlier this week that the main focus of this earnings call will be margins. “That said, price cuts come at a price and this tug of war between volumes and margins is now the big debate on the Street heading into earnings and the rest of FY23,” Ives writes. “The bull/bear debate at the core is: When do the price cuts end for Tesla and what will margins look like on the other side of this cycle as we progress through 2023 in a choppy macro?”
Earnings
A survey of 26 analysts puts Tesla’s projected earnings per share at $0.85, Yahoo Finance says, ranging from $0.69 and $1.06. Tesla posted non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.19 in Q4 and $2.27 for Q1 2022.
The series of price cuts have affected Tesla’s numbers in this metric, and with so many drops being used to push prices lower, analysts and investors alike will be looking to see how the strategy will affect the company’s financials.
Revenue
22 analysts expect Tesla to report revenues of $23.21 billion, which would be a slight decrease from the $24.318 billion that the company reported in Q4 2022. Tesla posted total revenues of $18.756 billion during the same quarter last year, with a gross profit of just under $5.5 billion.
Other Points to Expect
The big thing to listen for is margins and whether Tesla’s automotive gross margin can remain above 20 percent. Ives wrote in his note to investors on Monday that cutting prices can lead to margin deterioration. Still, Wedbush believes Tesla’s automotive gross margins will remain above 20 percent, as it “remains the key threshold over the coming quarters.”
We can also expect some updates to Tesla’s product line, as questions submitted by investors on Say showed that many hope for new details on the Cybertruck.
Tesla still, as of now, plans to start production of the Cybertruck this Summer, with volume production beginning next year. However, there has been no update on pricing or available configurations as of yet, although some details about the vehicle were leaked at the company’s recent Investor Day.
Tesla will report earnings at 5:30 ET/4:30 CT this evening. For the first time, the company will stream its call on Twitter.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is a TSLA Shareholder.
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Elon Musk
Tesla locks in Elon Musk’s top problem solver as it enters its most ambitious era
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla has granted Senior Vice President of Automotive Tom Zhu more than 520,000 stock options, tying a significant portion of his compensation to the company’s long-term performance.
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla secures top talent
According to a Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Tom Zhu received 520,021 stock options with an exercise price of $435.80 per share. Since the award will not fully vest until March 5, 2031, Zhu must remain at Tesla for more than five years to realize the award’s full benefit.
Considering that Tesla shares are currently trading at around the $445 to $450 per share level, Zhu will really only see gains in his equity award if Tesla’s stock price sees a notable rise over the years, as noted in a Sina Finance report.
Still, even at today’s prices, Zhu’s stock award is already worth over $230 million. If Tesla reaches the market cap targets set forth in Elon Musk’s 2025 CEO Performance Award, Zhu would become a billionaire from this equity award alone.
Tesla’s problem solver
Zhu joined Tesla in April 2014 and initially led the company’s Supercharger rollout in China. Later that year, he assumed the leadership of Tesla’s China business, where he played a central role in Tesla’s localization efforts, including expanding retail and service networks, and later, overseeing the development of Gigafactory Shanghai.
Zhu’s efforts helped transform China into one of Tesla’s most important markets and production hubs. In 2023, Tesla promoted Zhu to Senior Vice President of Automotive, placing him among the company’s core global executives and expanding his influence beyond China. He has since garnered a reputation as the company’s problem solver, being tapped by Elon Musk to help ramp Giga Texas’s vehicle production.
With this in mind, Tesla’s recent filing seems to suggest that the company is locking in its top talent as it enters its newest, most ambitious era to date. As could be seen in the targets of Elon Musk’s 2025 pay package, Tesla is now aiming to be the world’s largest company by market cap, and it is aiming to achieve production levels that are unheard of. Zhu’s talents would definitely be of use in this stage of the company’s growth.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) just got a price target boost from its biggest bear, Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research, who raised his expected trading level to one that is 95 percent lower than its current trading level.
Johnson pushed his Tesla price target from $19.05 to $25.28 on Wednesday, while maintaining the ‘Sell’ rating that has been present on the stock for a long time. GLJ has largely been recognized as the biggest skeptic of Elon Musk’s company, being particularly critical of the automotive side of things.
Tesla has routinely been called out by Johnson for negative delivery growth, what he calls “weakening demand,” and price cuts that have occurred in past years, all pointing to them as desperate measures to sell its cars.
Johnson has also said that Tesla is extremely overvalued and is too reliant on regulatory credits for profitability. Other analysts on the bullish side recognize Tesla as a company that is bigger than just its automotive side.
Many believe it is a leader in autonomous driving, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, who believes Tesla will have a widely successful 2026, especially if it can come through on its targets and schedules for Robotaxi and Cybercab.
Justifying the price target this week, Johnson said that the revised valuation is based on “reality rather than narrative.” Tesla has been noted by other analysts and financial experts as a stock that trades on narrative, something Johnson obviously disagrees with.
Dan Nathan, a notorious skeptic of the stock, turned bullish late last year, recognizing the company’s shares trade on “technicals and sentiment.” He said, “From a trading perspective, it looks very interesting.”
Tesla bear turns bullish for two reasons as stock continues boost
Johnson has remained very consistent with this sentiment regarding Tesla and his beliefs regarding its true valuation, and has never shied away from putting his true thoughts out there.
Tesla shares closed at $431.40 today, about 95 percent above where Johnson’s new price target lies.
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