Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) to hold Q1 2019 financial results and earnings call on April 24
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has announced that it would be posting its financial results for Q1 2019 after the market closes on Wednesday, April 24, 2019. The company would be issuing a brief advisory with a link to its Q1 2019 Update Letter, which will be accessible from Tesla’s Investor Relations website. A live Q&A session is set for 2:30 p.m. Pacific Time (5:30 p.m. Eastern Time) to discuss the electric car and energy company’s financial results and outlook.
Tesla’s Q1 2019 earnings call comes after a challenging quarter that saw electric car deliveries fall by around 30% compared to Q4 2018. In Q1 2019, Tesla produced a total of 77,100 vehicles, comprised of 62,950 Model 3 and 14,150 Model S and X. Deliveries reached a total of 63,000 vehicles, comprised of approximately 50,900 Model 3 and 12,100 Model S and X. At the end of the first quarter, Tesla had approximately 10,600 vehicles in transit to customers.
The drop in Tesla’s production and deliveries in the first quarter was met with notably bearish sentiments from Wall Street. RBC analysts called the results “very disappointing.” Cowen and Co analysts suggested that Tesla’s “cash was likely dangerously low” following the company’s payment of a $920 million convertible bond obligation in cash at the beginning of March. Analysts from JP Morgan noted that “Tesla’s 1Q19 vehicle production & deliveries report was substantially worse than expected.”
Despite its lower-than-expected delivery and production numbers, Tesla was still met with some optimism from its supporters. Canaccord Genuity analysts noted that while they were disappointed in the shortfall of deliveries in Q1, they “continue to believe that the new lower-priced Model 3 variant will spur additional demand.” Loup Ventures highlighted that it remained “focused on underlying demand” for the company’s vehicles like the Model 3. More recently, Nomura noted that while Tesla will likely have a challenging 2019, the electric car maker is nonetheless a “true disruptor” of the auto industry.
What is rather interesting is that Tesla is conducting its Q1 earnings call earlier than expected. Tesla usually releases its first-quarter earnings call in early May, as could be seen in the date of Q1 2018’s Q&A session. The company previously held earlier-than-expected earnings calls in October 2016, October 2018, and January 2019, and those quarters all proved to be profitable.
It should be noted that while the early date of Q1’s earnings call is a rather bullish sign, Elon Musk himself has been very conservative about the first quarter. When Tesla launched the $35,000 Standard Model 3 in March, Elon Musk noted that he does not expect the company to be profitable in the first quarter. “Given that there is a lot happening in Q1, and we are taking a lot of one time charges, there are a lot of challenges getting cars to China and Europe, we do not expect to be profitable. We do think that profitability in Q2 is likely,” the Tesla CEO said.
While it remains to be seen if Tesla is conducting its early first-quarter earnings call due to positive news on profitability, all eyes will be on the company as it is expected to release some updates on a number of its ongoing and upcoming projects, including Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, the $35,000 Standard Model 3, the Full Self-Driving suite, the Solar Roof, and updates on future products like the Tesla Pickup Truck and the Tesla Semi.
Tesla’s announcement for its Q1 2019 earnings call can be accessed here.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
Tesla dispels reports of ‘sales suspension’ in California
New EV tax credit rule could impact many EV buyers
