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Tencent News "First Line"

Author: Ji Zhenyu Editor: Liu Peng

July 23,TeslaThe second quarter financial report for 2024 released showed that electric vehicle sales revenue fell 7% year-on-year to $19.9 billion, which was the second consecutive quarter that the company's electric vehicle sales revenue fell. In addition, Tesla's earnings per share for the quarter were 52 cents, lower than the market's previous expectation of 62 cents.

On the same day, Tesla CEO Musk officially announced in a conference call after the release of the financial report that the Tesla Robotaxi-related press conference will be held on October 10, which is two months later than the previously planned date of August 8.

For Tesla, its current performance is still in a period of "gap". On the one hand, the electric vehicle sales business continues to be weak. On the other hand, the Robotaxi, which was highly anticipated by the outside world, has been delayed again.

Affected by unfavorable performance and the postponement of the Robotaxi launch conference, Tesla's stock price fell sharply by more than 7% after the market closed that day.

Electric vehicle sales continue to be weak

In the second quarter, Tesla's electric vehicle sales business continued to be weak. Compared with the electric vehicle sales revenue of $21.27 billion in the second quarter of last year, the electric vehicle sales revenue in the second quarter of this year was $19.88 billion, a year-on-year decline of 7%. Tesla's net profit in the quarter fell 45% year-on-year to $1.48 billion.

In terms of energy storage business, Tesla achieved revenue of US$3.014 billion in the quarter, a year-on-year increase of 100%, and service and other business revenue of US$2.608 billion, a year-on-year increase of 21%.

Tesla continued to increase its promotional efforts in the U.S. and Chinese markets in the second quarter through discounts and lease subsidies, but the delivery situation is still not optimistic. In the second quarter, 443,900 units were delivered. Although it exceeded previous expectations, it was a year-on-year decrease of 5%. The decline in sales prices also further eroded revenue and profit margins. In the second quarter, Tesla's adjusted operating profit margin further declined to 14.4%, while the profit margin in the same period last year was as high as 18.7%.

Tesla said that the main negative factors affecting its operating profit margin in the second quarter were the decline in the average selling price of its electric vehicle models, personnel restructuring costs, reduced electric vehicle product deliveries, and increased spending on AI-related projects.

However, the amount of cash and cash equivalents held by Tesla at the end of the second quarter hit a one-year high of US$30.72 billion, an increase of 33% year-on-year. Tesla explained that this was mainly due to inventory reduction. Ample cash reserves also strengthened investors' confidence in Tesla's further investment in future AI-related businesses.

Robotaxi business delayed, still faces practical obstacles on the road

The weak performance of Tesla's electric vehicles has become a consensus generally accepted by investors. The market's imagination of Tesla's future performance currently relies largely on expectations for its artificial intelligence-based autonomous driving and driverless taxi business.

In a conference call after the earnings conference that day, Tesla CEO Musk officially announced that the Tesla Robotaxi launch will be held on October 10, which is two months later than the original date of early August.

Musk explained the reason for the postponement of the Robotaxi conference on his personal X account a few weeks ago, saying that some changes to the front design of the car were needed, as well as more time to show more functions to the outside world.

In response to questions from analysts, Musk said he would be shocked if people didn't experience Tesla's Robotaxi by next year.

Musk also compared Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, which is already operating a driverless taxi business, calling Waymo's business "very limited" and "fragile." He said that Tesla's future driverless taxi business will be able to operate anywhere in the world, unlike Waymo, which can only operate in limited areas. Currently, Waymo's business can only operate within the city of San Francisco.

Although Musk claims that Tesla Robotaxi can theoretically operate anywhere, it will face many obstacles in actual implementation, including local policy and regulatory restrictions. In April this year, media reported that Tesla had not yet contacted relevant policymakers in Arizona, California and Nevada, nor applied for relevant qualifications and permits that would allow driverless taxis without drivers to go on the road.

Currently, the outside world has limited knowledge of the technical details of Tesla Robotaxi. In addition to the design of the body itself being different from Tesla's current electric vehicle models, Robotaxi's autonomous driving technology may directly use Tesla's autonomous driving FSD. In terms of specific business model, Musk said it is similar to the model of Airbnb and Uber, that is, allowing future Tesla owners to use their Tesla cars with fully autonomous driving functions as taxis when idle.

In the second quarter, Tesla's total FSD autonomous driving mileage has exceeded 1.6 billion miles. Since the launch of FSD V12 at the beginning of this year, the rate of increase in FSD's cumulative mileage has further increased, showing that the market's acceptance of the latest version of FSD is extremely high.

The large amount of data collected by Tesla electric vehicles while running on the road without a driver is undoubtedly the most valuable and unique asset of Tesla's driverless technology. This is also the biggest confidence that Musk claims that Robotaxi will be able to operate anywhere in the world in the future.

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