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Tesla (TSLA) Q3 2021 earnings results: EPS beat and monster automotive margins

Credit: Tesla

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Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) third-quarter for 2021 saw the electric car maker post $13.757 billion in revenue. The results, which were discussed in the Q3 2021 Update Letter, were released after the closing bell on Wednesday, October 20.

Tesla was impressive in the third quarter, with the company producing a total of 237,823 vehicles. This was quite a feat considering the ongoing supply chain challenges that have so far adversely affected numerous carmakers today. The company also delivered a record 241,300 vehicles, comprised of 232,025 Model 3 and Model Y, as well as 9,275 Model S and Model X.

The company’s Q3 2021 results were bolstered in part by Tesla’s growing influence in China. Gigafactory Shanghai has so far become Tesla’s primary vehicle export hub, and it stayed true to this task by exporting both the Model 3 and the Model Y to foreign territories such as Europe and Asia. Deliveries of the high-margin Model S Plaid and Long Range also continued in the third quarter. 

The following are the key points in Tesla’s Q3 2021 Update Letter. In its letter, Tesla noted that Q3 2021 marked a time when the company achieved its best-ever net income, operating profit, and gross profit.

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Revenue

Tesla posted $13.757 billion in revenue for Q3 2021. In comparison, FactSet analyst consensus estimated that Tesla would be posting revenue of $13.7 billion for the third quarter. Estimize, on the other hand, forecasted $13.9 billion in revenue for the EV maker. 

Earnings

Tesla posted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.86 in the third quarter. In comparison, analysts polled by FactSet expected the company to report adjusted earnings of $1.58 per share. Estimize forecasted an EPS of $1.79 per share for Tesla in Q3 2021. 

Cash

Tesla’s operating cash flow less CAPEX stood at $1.3 billion in Q3 2021, while net debt and finance lease repayments reached $1.5 billion. Overall, Tesla saw a $164 million decrease in its cash and cash equivalents in the third quarter to $16.1 billion.

Profitability

Tesla posted $2 billion GAAP operating income and 14.6% operating margin in Q3 2021. The company also posted $1.6 billion of GAAP net income and $2.1 billion non-GAAP net income in the third quarter. Automotive gross margin stood at 30.5% GAAP (28.8% ex-credits) in Q3 2021.

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Notable Updates

  • Tesla’s Fremont factory has produced over 430,000 in the last four quarters, and there’s still room for improvement. 
  • Giga Texas is moving as planned. First pre-production Model Y are now being built. 
  • Giga Shanghai is settling in nicely on its role as Tesla’s primary vehicle export hub. 
  • Giga Berlin is expected to receive its final permit by the end of the year. The facility is ready to start operations.
  • AI Day was an overwhelming success. Tesla received tons of employee applications for its AI team. 
  • 4680 battery cell production continues to make progress

Tesla’s Q3 2021 Update Letter could be accessed below.

TSLA Q3 2021 Quarterly Update by Simon Alvarez on Scribd

Disclaimer: I am long TSLA

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to tips@teslarati.com to give us a heads up. 

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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla crushes Wall Street expectations, beats delivery estimates by over 15 percent

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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) beat Wall Street expectations of 406,000 vehicles delivered in Q2 by reporting 480,126 deliveries for the three months ending in June.

Tesla reported it delivered 467,762  Model 3 and Model Y units, while 12,364 Model S, Model X, and Cybertrucks switched hands during the quarter. The Model S and Model X were officially sunset this past quarter and will no longer be part of the company’s Production & Delivery reports moving forward.

The quarter is a pleasant surprise and a good rebound from Q1, when Tesla slightly missed the Wall Street consensus of 365,645 cars by reporting 358,023 deliveries for the first three motnhs of the year.

Energy storage deployments also provided some strength in Tesla’s delivery report, hitting 13.5 GWh for Q2. This is a particular division of Tesla’s business that has been overwhelmingly robust over the past few years, truly being a strong point of the company’s overall model.

For the year, Tesla analysts still predict deliveries to trend in the 1.69 million unit region, a modest 3 to 5 percent increase from the 1.64 million cars the company delivered last year. Tesla will likely return to more sequential and noticeable year-over-year growth as the Cybercab project starts to ramp up considerably in the next few years.

Tesla has some other potential catalysts to spur vehicle deliveries, too. Not only is it expecting Cybercab to truly start making a change in the next few years, but other vehicles could be entering the company’s lineup.

Tesla sends production Cybercab with no steering wheel, pedals to on-road testing

The slightly longer Model Y L has been a highly speculated release candidate in the U.S. It has already done incredibly well in China, and U.S. buyers have been wanting slightly more interior space than the Model Y. Now that the Model X is gone, it is more needed than ever.

Q2 highlights a pretty stable automotive division within Tesla, and no true concerns arise from these figures, especially considering it managed to beat expectations convincingly.

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Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’

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Credit: MarcoRP | X

Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.

In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.

In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:

“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”

This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.

The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.

The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building

Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.

The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.

This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.

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SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull

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SpaceX Starship V3 flight 12
SpaceX Starship V3 flight 12 (Credit: SpaceX)

Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).

Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.

“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”

Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12

Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.

It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”

Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.

There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:

“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”

SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.

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