The company is making more moves to go “balls to the wall for autonomy,” as CEO Elon Musk said last week in a post on X. This comes as Tesla gets ready to report what will likely be lackluster financial results for the first quarter on Tuesday.
Tesla lowered the price of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) advanced driver aid system from $12,000 to $8,000 over the weekend. Also, last week, the monthly FSD subscription price dropped from $199 to $99, so this is another price drop. More FSD could be being put into more cars as a way for Tesla to gather more data while they work to improve the neural networks that will power greater autonomy. FSD can now do many driving jobs in cities and on highways, but a person must still keep their hands on the wheel and be alert in case the system needs to take over.
As Tesla puts a big and expensive bet on self-driving technology, its profits are expected to go down. Electric car company Tesla fired 10% of its workers last week to cut costs and get ready for its “next growth phase,” according to an email that Musk sent to all employees.
Musk suddenly said on X earlier this month that Tesla was putting the $25,000 electric car project on hold in favor of a robotaxi that he said he would show off in August. Sources within Tesla told TechCrunch that they didn’t get any notice from Musk about this quick change, and that the reorganizations are part of a new philosophy that puts roboticaxi development first.
This is all happening while Tesla changes its mind about how to price its electric vehicles.
The last time Tesla discounted the prices of its EV goods was last week. However, over the weekend, the company cut the prices of the Model 3 and Model Y by up to $2,000 in the US, China, and Germany. We saw in the first quarter of 2023 that Tesla’s income and profit margins are going down because of the price cuts.
Tesla is going to report earnings on April 23, after the markets close. Musk has said before that Tesla is “basically worth zero” without autonomous.
Tomorrow, the company will have to show investors that its shift in focus to self-driving cars isn’t just a smoke screen to hide the fact that its profit margins are going down.
The share price of Tesla has dropped almost 10% since Musk fired staff and said that Tesla would be focusing more on automation. Since the beginning of the year, shares have dropped more than 42%.
What To Expect When Tesla Reports Its Earnings For The First Quarter of 2024
Tesla’s lower first-quarter shipping numbers and price cuts mean that the company will make less money. A lot of experts seem to agree.
Yahoo Finance asked analysts and found that they think the company will make $0.48 per share on $20.94 billion in sales. To tell you, Tesla made $25.17 billion in Q4 and $23.3 billion in the first quarter of 2023.
In the first quarter of 2024, Tesla delivered 386,810 cars, which is 20% less than the 484,507 cars it delivered in the last quarter of 2023. It’s important to note that this wasn’t just a one-time thing from one quarter to the next. There were fewer Tesla cars delivered than in the first quarter of 2023. This is the first drop in sales from one year to the next in three years.
Tesla’s Q4 results show that the company is already having trouble with its profit margins getting smaller because it is lowering prices and the costs of making its Cybertruck are going up, along with other R&D costs.
According to GAAP, the automaker’s net income in the fourth quarter was $7.9 billion. This huge number is due to a one-time, non-cash tax gain of $5.9 billion. The company’s running income and earnings after adjustments gave a more accurate picture of its money-making abilities.
In the fourth quarter, Tesla’s total income was $2.06 billion, which is 47% less than the same time last year. The company made $3.9 billion after adjustments, which is 27% less than the same time last year.
So, the question is whether Tesla can keep that profit pie from getting smaller.
Since Tesla released its production and delivery numbers for the first quarter of 2024, the company has continued to use different financial tools to try to get new customers and get current customers to pay for FSD, all while keeping costs low and profit margins high.
Musk’s “wartime CEO mode” and the fact that the company has competing goals will make the Q1 results call interesting. Aside from that possible drama, there are important long-term questions about how well Tesla delivers on autonomy and whether that will be enough to convince investors that the company can still lead and create.
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