Things are undoubtedly bad at Tesla. Its sales are dwindling. Its profits are plunging, as is its share price. There are regular protests outside its showrooms. The Cybertruck is a flop. And somehow, it’s actually a lot worse than that.
The 71% drop in net income it just reported may have been overshadowed by CEO Elon Musk’s announcement that he would be stepping back from his controversial duties at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But that drop is just one indication of serious financial sickness at the EV maker, problems brought on by falling sales for the first time in its history and falling prices for electric vehicles.
The bottom line problem at Tesla is its vanishing bottom line. A deeper look at its first quarter report shows it’s now losing money on what should be its ostensible reason for existence – selling cars.
It was only able to post a $409 million profit in the quarter thanks to the sale of $595 million worth of regulatory credits to other automakers.
But if the Trump administration gets its way, the company can kiss those regulatory credits keeping it in the black goodbye, too.
This is a big fact almost no one speaks of. Tesla has only ever been profitable by manipulating the carbon footprint regulations and selling Ford and GMC carbon credits. Not a single tesla vehicle has ever been profitable as an actual vehicle. You know, the product they claim to be selling. The real product is pollution hiding. N ot correcting, not fixing, not even slowing pollution. No, its a shell game. Tesla is making money by shifting the blame of pollution for profit. Oh, they build vehicles also.
Where can I learn more about this stuff?
Funniest thing about Tesla was the idea they’d make evs more economical and realible after starting in the luxury space. They did exactly the opposite and now shareholders are paying dearly.
Things at tesla are not as bad as they should be.
The only thing in this world trending in the right direction is their stock price
Unfortunately Tesla is up 34% from its low in March (I know because I shorted them before their earnings)
Of course, since this is the darkest timeline
Give it some time. I’m sure they could be a whole lot worse still.
I’m always happy to see bad news for Tesla (and by extension, Elon), but they’ve survived so much despite their mismanagement it feels like we’ll never be rid of them.
I’d like to see their charging network survive in some way, maybe under someone else’s control. From what I’ve heard from EV owners the Tesla charging stations are the only ones that are readily available especially outside of cities (at least here in Australia).
Be of good cheer! That kinda market valuation doesn’t disappear overnight, just too much money to piss away quickly. But our man Musk is on the case!
And you’ll love this, Musk is committing the ultimate capitalist sin: Losing money. No problem going in the red, if your business plans aren’t made of half-ply toilet paper and ghosts. LOL, even Trump will shit on him as soon as it’s clear that Elon is a “loser”.
OhNoAnyway.jpg.
It was only able to post a $409 million profit in the quarter thanks to the sale of $595 million worth of regulatory credits to other automakers.
Without the regulatory credits, and capital gains Tesla would be $500 million in the red.
And sales continue to drop in all markets. Tesla is no longer competitive in China and EU, only in USA due to tariffs on cars.
A couple of years ago Tesla boasted the highest margins in the industry on their cars, now they are so low, that if prices continue to drop, Tesla will soon be at s deficit on every car sold if they try to follow, or if they don’t reduce prices, their cars will simply be too expensive. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.Maybe they will get bailed out like the airlines did though. I want to see them burn, but nothing seems to work the way it’s supposed to anymore.
Airlines run on paper-thin margins and are critical to the economy and country as a whole. Yeah, we kinda have to keep them afloat. Tesla does not enjoy that sort of role.
Its profits are plunging, as is its share price.
Looks at share price: Up 10% in the last month…
The market can remain irrational longer that you can remain solvent.
The problem isn’t that you can’t predict when a stock is mispriced, that’s sometimes very easy, it’s predicting when all the other dipshits will come to the same conclusion because ultimately that’s all that matters.
Right now musk still has a personality cult and there are a lot of morons buying the stock like their worldview depends on it. They don’t read the earnings reports, they don’t read unbiased news, they mostly don’t even own the cars, they just think it’s going to the moon because…for lack of a better word, propaganda.
Nailed it. I’d add that investors are treating it as a meme stock, and as you said, it’s unrealistic. Fuck me, talk about a house of cards.
But still down 20% from the start of the year, when Trump was supposed to make it soar.
It’s not going to survive this high for long with the abysmal sales figures coming from the rest of the world, even if the Musk cult currently still keeps pretending everything is going great.Wait, you mean The Commercial on the White House lawn back in March didn’t move more units?! surprisedpikachuface.jpg
How is it possible that tesla is losing sales in markets where EVs are growing? Not a good sign
It also wants to end the right of California and eight other states to demand tougher emissions regulations than the federal standards that would ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. Without tough emissions rules at the federal and state level, there would be no regulatory credit sales.
The sale of those federal and state credits has been quite lucrative for Tesla, bringing in $8.4 billion in revenue since the start of 2021 alone, money that basically went straight to its bottom line.
Is this the greenwashing scam companies use to pretend that they are working toward a carbon-neutral production line? They’re just speculating on future production and selling today’s emissions to today’s buyers on tomorrow’s promise?
How fucked.
What happened to moving the choice to the states?
An Enron-like Tesla documentary is coming.
I think it’ll be more of an Enron slash Theranos docudrama… questionable accounting and overvaluation mixed with a superstar CEO stuck in a faking-it-till-you-make-it corporate death loop with investors drunk on hype.
Weren’t they selling like 3000 cars a day at every single dealership in Canada? Seems like sales should be fine.
Funny how now they are making money selling regulatory credits. Lol
I think your comment is misunderstood.
The 3000 cars a day were just for a few days before the government credits were set to expire.
Yeah some people don’t get sarcasm.
Anyway I think musk took the Canadian credits and smuggled them across the border without paying tariffs so he could then sell them as US regulatory credits. It all makes sense now.
Without the /s, it could have been a standard Muskie comment. Hard to tell online.
I’m often stunned that internet people take everything a face value, even an obvious post like yours. OTOH, Americans’ read at an average of 7th-8th grade levels. Go figure.
Because they weren’t selling 3000 a day. They were selling a huge number a minute, one day (maybe a couple).
