Tesla Inc. (TSLA)


April 22, 2024

When Adding up Tesla’s “Nightmare Before Christmas” Weekend Price Cuts in the USA + China + Germany + France + Norway + Netherlands + Middle East + Africa = What Does it Mean for the Share Price (i.e., what’s the math say)?

By Gordon L. Johnson II

Tesla Took a Slashing to the Price of its New Cars All Through this Past Weekend. In the analysis that follows, using estimates for the number of cars TSLA is expected to sell in each…

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April 16, 2024

Just How Bad Will Tesla’s 1Q24E Numbers Be, and with this Week’s 15-20% Global Staff Cuts… are Tesla’s Q2 Fundamentals Setting up for Yet Another “Disaster”?

By Gordon L. Johnson II

Tesla’s 1Q24E Revs/non-GAAP EPS Appear Set to Miss Wall Street’s Estimate… by a “Nautical Mile”; But What About 2Q24E? After spending the better part of this past weekend updating our bottom-up TSLA revenue driver model…

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January 25, 2024

Tesla’s Q4 Results/2024E Guidance Show it’s Nothing More than a Struggling Car Company (not a high-growth tech co.) & Elon Musk is the World’s (most successful) “Sleazy” Used-Car Salesman

By Gordon L. Johnson II

So What Happened, and Why are we Calling the World’s Richest Man a “Sleazy” Used Car Salesman? In this note, we provide what we see as the eight key takeaways from TSLA’s just-reported 4Q23 results,…

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January 23, 2024

Tesla Q4 Earnings Preview: In the Words of B.B. King… “The Thrill is Gone”… for EV Cars That Is; PT to $23.53

By Gordon L. Johnson II

So, What’s Up Next for Tesla and Electric Vehicle “Jesus” Elon Musk? With a cult-like following among retail investors (see here), exacerbated by the fact that the arguably most-followed sell-side analyst on TSLA came out…

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January 17, 2024

What do Last Night’s Tesla European Price Cuts Mean to the “Bottom Line”?

By Gordon L. Johnson II

So… are Last Night’s Tesla Car Price Cuts a Big Deal? In this note, ahead of a full update to our bottom-up TSLA earnings driver model due out later this week, we use a back-of-the-envelope…

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January 12, 2024

Midnight Valantine’s Day “China-Price-Cut” Massacre Spells Trouble for Tesla’s (Already) Sputtering Margins

By Gordon L. Johnson II

Did Tesla, with its Recent Model 3 “Highland” Refresh, which Pundits Predicted Would Reinvigorate Demand in China (link), Just Slash its China Car Prices Just 12 Days into 1Q24? In short, the answer, resoundingly, is…

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January 3, 2024

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly on Tesla’s Record 4Q23 Deliveries (GLJ’s Quick Take)

By Gordon L. Johnson II

So… Tesla’s Q4 Delivery Number Came in a Bit Ahead of our Est. (and mostly in line with Consensus); what’s our Quick Take? Yesterday, ahead of the market open, TSLA reported 4Q23 deliveries of 484.507K…

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October 19, 2023

Our Key Takeaways from Tesla’s 3Q23 Results Where Auto Gross Margins (ex. Credits) Came in at 16.3%, or -172bps Below Consensus, & E. Musk Said his Cars are Still “Too Expensive”

By Gordon L. Johnson II

So How Did Tesla’s 3Q23 Results Come in vs. the Street’s Drastically Reduced Estimates? Last night, TSLA reported auto revs/auto-gross-margins (excl. credits) of $19.6bn/16.3%, missing Cons.’ $20.9bn/18.02% ests. by -6.44% and -172bps, respectively (we focus…

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October 17, 2023

Q3 Earnings Preview: Our Updated Tesla “Bottoms-Up” Earnings Driver Model Points to Misses Across the Board Tomorrow (i.e., Revs/Margins/Non-GAAP EPS Likely Set to Disappoint)

By Gordon L. Johnson II

What’s Up? In this note, we provide updates on: (a) our bottoms-up earnings driver model for TSLA, to include our updated 3Q23E, 2023E, 2024E, and 2025E earnings estimates, (b) wait times for new TSLA orders…

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October 2, 2023

Tesla and the “Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” Q3 Delivery Result – and No, The Miss is Not the Result of Line “Upgrades”

By Gordon L. Johnson II

Tesla Reports Q3 Production/Deliveries of 430.488K/435.059K, Missing the Cons’ est. of 461.992K/456.722K by a Mile. In this note, we discuss our views on TSLA’s just-reported 3Q23 production/delivery ests., which we previewed 9/18/23 when we said…

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September 18, 2023

Tesla Can No Longer Grow at its 50%/yr “Mirage” Without a Much Cheaper Car it Won’t Have for Yrs in a Best-Case Scenario & Q3 Results Shaping up to be Big Disappointment

By Gordon L. Johnson II

Tesla Has a Q3 Demand and Earnings Problem that Many Seem to Want to Ignore (for now). In this note, in addition to updating our bottom-up earnings driver model for TSLA’s 2023E and 2024E-25E earnings…

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August 8, 2023

Our Take on Tesla Announcing its 4th CFO in 6 Years (or 3rd in 4 Years), its New CFO (who was the Top Accountant at SolarCity when the Company was Credibly Alleged to have Engaged in Tax Fraud), & This Week’s China Sales

By Gordon L. Johnson II

Zach Kirkhorn, Tesla’s CFO of Four Years, Announces his Immediate/Unexpected Departure Effective 8/4/23. Yesterday we learned that TSLA’s “young” 39yr old CFO decided to leave the company, unexpectedly (given, as recently as May, according to…

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July 20, 2023

Q2 Results Show Tesla is Simply a “Car Company” Trading at 70x Earnings when Other “Car Companies” Trade at 6x-8x Earnings

By Gordon L. Johnson II

Were Tesla’s “Other Income” Line Flat QoQ, EPS Would have Missed by “a Mile” (i.e., the beat came, entirely, from a one-time item). In 2021-22, TSLA benefitted from both an automotive parts shortage and automobile…

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July 17, 2023

2Q23 Earnings Preview – We Expect Largely Inline Q2 Results, But Does the Auto Supply Chain “Freeing Up” Mean Tesla’s Margins Are Structurally (a lot) Lower Than Consensus is Currently Modeling?

By Gordon L. Johnson II

The Extent of the Q2 Price Cut will Determine Tesla’s Fate Regarding a 2Q23 “Modest” Miss and/or “Huge” Miss. In this note we detail while we expect TSLA’s 2Q23E revs/EPS to come in at $24.4bn/$0.80…

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May 23, 2023

Tesla’s Week 7 China Sales Disappoint, Forcing the Company to Export Made-in-China (“MIC”) Cars from Shanghai to Canada for the First Time Ever (this is not what growth companies do)

By Gordon L. Johnson II

Tesla Reports Week Seven Domestic China Sales. Just now, we got updated insurance data from China regarding TSLA’s week seven domestic China sales. And, the numbers were lackluster at best. That is, with 10.2K cars…

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