{"id":100698,"date":"2024-07-24T02:50:06","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T02:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/24\/tesla-profit-falls-short-again-as-elon-musk-demands-investor-patience-times-of-india\/"},"modified":"2024-07-24T02:50:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T02:50:06","slug":"tesla-profit-falls-short-again-as-elon-musk-demands-investor-patience-times-of-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/24\/tesla-profit-falls-short-again-as-elon-musk-demands-investor-patience-times-of-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla profit falls short again as Elon Musk demands investor patience – Times of India"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tesla<\/div>\n
Tesla<\/a> Inc reported its fourth straight quarter of disappointing profits on Tuesday, and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk<\/a> made clear that better days are still a ways off.
The electric vehicle giant won\u2019t unveil a highly anticipated robotaxi until October 10 \u2014 and that will only be a prototype. A new, lower-cost car that could juice sales won\u2019t go into production until the first half of next year at the earliest.A planned factory in Mexico is on pause at least through the US presidential election on Nov. 5. And a humanoid robot that Musk claims will send Tesla\u2019s valuation soaring won\u2019t be ready anytime soon, either.
That\u2019s left the company\u2019s investors in a holding pattern. While they wait for Tesla\u2019s long-term plans to come to fruition, they\u2019re stuck enduring weaker vehicle output and sales. The carmaker, the world\u2019s largest seller of battery-powered vehicles, is far off the pace of the 1.8 million cars it sold last year and warned for a second time Tuesday it expects to see a \u201cnotably lower\u201d growth rate in 2024.
\u201cThe whole story here is about what else is to come,\u201d said Gene Munster, a managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management.
At the moment, shareholders seem to be at least somewhat willing to wait out the dark days. Tesla shares fell 8% in extended New York trading at 7:20 p.m., eating into the stock\u2019s recent rally but not fully erasing it.
Things have improved since a tumultuous start to the year, when Tesla reported its biggest-ever sales miss in the first quarter, spurring mass firings across the company and at one point sending the stock down 40% from the end of 2023. Musk responded by talking up the promise of autonomy and AI at the company, and shares began to surge back.
\u201cThe value of Tesla overwhelmingly is autonomy. All these other questions are in the noise relative to autonomy,\u201d Musk said Tuesday, urging anyone who disagrees to sell the company\u2019s stock.
Even amid the lower-than-expected quarterly profits, which reached 52 cents a share on an adjusted basis, sales still surpassed expectations. Revenue hit a record $25.5 billion, partly buoyed by $890 million in regulatory credits. Tesla, which sells the credits to other carmakers seeking to comply with emissions mandates, recorded less than half as many credit sales in the first quarter.
Its automotive gross margin, excluding regulatory credits \u2014 a closely watched metric by investors \u2014 fell to 14.6% in the second quarter, compared with 16.4% in the first quarter. That reflects stepped up operating expenditures on AI and other projects, as well as restructuring charges from sweeping job cuts.
Musk said Tesla will manufacture its newer, lower-cost car at its plant in Austin starting in the first half of next year. It will also make both the robotaxi, which Munster expects to be ready no sooner than 2026 or 2027, and the Optimus robot in Austin.
The carmaker put a Mexico factory on pause earlier this year amid its sales slump, though has now extended that pause as it awaits the outcome of the US presidential race. Republican candidate Donald Trump, who Musk has endorsed, has been talking about imposing tariffs on Mexico-made products.
\u201cTrump has said that he\u2019ll put in heavy tariffs on vehicles produced in Mexico, so it doesn\u2019t make sense to invest a lot in Mexico if that is going to be the case,\u201d Musk said.
Musk formally endorsed Trump after the former president was shot during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month, and is involved with America PAC, a political action committee backing Trump. On Tesla\u2019s earnings call, Musk downplayed the risk to Tesla\u2019s business if Trump wins office, even though the Republican has slammed the rise of electric vehicles.
The CEO said if Trump wins and revokes the Inflation Reduction Act that Democratic President Joe Biden championed, which gives EV makers up to $7,500 in tax credits per vehicle, it wouldn\u2019t especially harm Tesla.
\u201cThere would be some impact but I think it would be devastating for our competitors and would hurt Tesla slightly but long term probably actually helps Tesla,\u201d Musk said.
The company expects to make more cars in the current period than it did in the second quarter. It also said its new Cybertruck is on track to make a profit by the end of the year while plans for a lower-cost vehicle are moving ahead, with production expected to start in the first half of 2025. The cheaper cars should be available for sale around the same time. <\/div>\n