Appears the CFO of Tesla is departing. Yesterdays investor's conference call could explain why. Tesla disappoints again, hints of more shortfalls, Musk acts evasive and may have had a planted question, stock drops. Oh, the humanity!
Remember last year? At the 3Q conference call in early November, Tesla reduced guidance from 35,000 to 33,000. It ended up with 31,677. Guide down, then miss the new guide. Drip, drip, drip…
What about the Model X, the crossover-minivan-SUV that will see its first deliveries next month? Seeing as it's only a month away, Tesla should know precisely how many cars it will produce in the next few weeks, and assuming delivery takes place at the factory to extreme-enthusiast local "friends of the firm", also how many it will deliver next month. But it could not provide a number.
It is probably because the number of Model X cars delivered in September will round to a very small number, perhaps 100 cars. Which would have sounded very bad. Which is because it is.
In any case, a 2,000 reduction in guidance versus consensus, for 3Q, is approximately 15% off the 13,500 the street had in mind. Tesla effectively guided down 3Q revenue by 15%. How would Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) have traded if it had guided down the September quarter revenue by 15%?
But it gets worse. Back a year ago, on the 2Q 2014 conference call, the company talked about a 100,000 car production rate before 2015 was over. Leaving aside that Tesla won't even be able to deliver more than approximately 50,000 cars at best in 2015, it is now guiding for 1,600 to 1,800 cars per week in 2016. That means the revenue ramp has been pushed out by one year, using the most generous interpretation.
Then we have just the basic financials. What really matters here is the loss per car sold. It's amazing how few people seem to do this basic calculation and plot its progression from quarter to quarter. Just look at the income statement and divide the loss by the number of cars delivered that quarter.
This quarter, the loss was $184 million. Divide by 11,532 and you get $16K per car. Do the same calculation for the last quarter (March 2015) and you get $15K. December 2014? $11K.
Remember last year? At the 3Q conference call in early November, Tesla reduced guidance from 35,000 to 33,000. It ended up with 31,677. Guide down, then miss the new guide. Drip, drip, drip…
What about the Model X, the crossover-minivan-SUV that will see its first deliveries next month? Seeing as it's only a month away, Tesla should know precisely how many cars it will produce in the next few weeks, and assuming delivery takes place at the factory to extreme-enthusiast local "friends of the firm", also how many it will deliver next month. But it could not provide a number.
It is probably because the number of Model X cars delivered in September will round to a very small number, perhaps 100 cars. Which would have sounded very bad. Which is because it is.
In any case, a 2,000 reduction in guidance versus consensus, for 3Q, is approximately 15% off the 13,500 the street had in mind. Tesla effectively guided down 3Q revenue by 15%. How would Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) have traded if it had guided down the September quarter revenue by 15%?
But it gets worse. Back a year ago, on the 2Q 2014 conference call, the company talked about a 100,000 car production rate before 2015 was over. Leaving aside that Tesla won't even be able to deliver more than approximately 50,000 cars at best in 2015, it is now guiding for 1,600 to 1,800 cars per week in 2016. That means the revenue ramp has been pushed out by one year, using the most generous interpretation.
Then we have just the basic financials. What really matters here is the loss per car sold. It's amazing how few people seem to do this basic calculation and plot its progression from quarter to quarter. Just look at the income statement and divide the loss by the number of cars delivered that quarter.
This quarter, the loss was $184 million. Divide by 11,532 and you get $16K per car. Do the same calculation for the last quarter (March 2015) and you get $15K. December 2014? $11K.
