2015 Q1 Discussion thread for Delivery numbers, Earnings Report and Conference Call

[chateauoaks]

The actual number of cars made in Q1 will most likely be lower that subsequent quarters due to Elon giving workers several days off at the beginning of January 2015. This was because of asking Tesla employees to work long hours and 6/7day weeks in December 2014 to meet 2014 production predictions. Each day off equals about 100+ cars.

 

[MilosK]

You are making the standard mistake of assuming Tesla only produced 10,030 cars or less due to the 1,400 carry over from last Q. Tesla could easily be at 12,000 production for 11 weeks in Q1, making the weekly run rate of 1090-1,100. The undelivered vehicles are in the pipeline. Not to mention Q1 was used for retooling.

This is either a newbie or bear manipulation type mistake.

Well, hardly a newbie (read my sig), and definitely not a bear (was telling people to buy TSLA shares 2 years before there were any!). Only trying to make sense of the numbers.

You're confusing 10.030 produced v delivered. Tesla is talking about 10,030 delivered. There are already cars in the pipeline from previous quarters, and that pipeline was supposedly temporarily expanded by 1,400 ONLY due to weather and vacation issues. So I would have thought those would have been delivered by now.

 

[mrdoubleb]

that pipeline was supposedly temporarily expanded by 1,400 ONLY due to weather and vacation issues. So I would have thought those would have been delivered by now.

Again, you are mixing things up. Where did you read that?
1, 1400 cars slipped to q1 because of weather, vacation and shipping problems (port strike)
2, we will produce 10k cars but deliver 9500 as the number of cars in transit to Asia nad Europe must grow to support those markets

These are 2 separate statements from the very begenning and end of the report. Growing the pipeline to overseas had nothing to do with weather.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Tesla has pipelines that need filling: overseas transport ships and loaners. My working assumption is that Tesla knew its backlog on 31-Dec and had a target backlog for 31-Mar, from which it calculated 9,500 deliveries. The fact that Tesla beat 9,500 is what's important, as it shows it is ahead of plan.

 

[uselesslogin]

OK, what am I missing? Neither delivery nor rough production numbers look good to me.

Weren't there about 1,400 cars last quarter that couldn't be delivered only because of inclement weather and vacation issues? Doesn't that mean that only 8,600 OTHER cars got delivered this quarter?

Also, last year's yearly production/delivery total was reduced by 2,000 to account for the changeover taking 2 weeks longer than expected, and originally 2014 Q4 production was expected to be around 12-13,000, ie about 1,000 cars a week. Now IF they delivered all they made Q1, current production would be around either 780/wk or 672/wk depending on whether you take into account that stranded 1400. (I think it was a full 13 week production quarter, with the vacation week last year.)

Are you missing the Q4 conference call?

So yes, in terms of the production from Q4 to Q1 being relatively flat, there is a couple of reasons that, they’re actually two fewer weeks of production in Q1 versus Q4. One is because we had to give – we wanted [indiscernible] and certainly so gave people the first week of January off, because they have been working for Christmas and New Year’s and Thanksgiving in a lot of cases. So they just, just to give people a break we didn’t operate the factory in first week of January. And also [indiscernible] and then there is also one fewer production week in Q1. So that’s basically minus two weeks.

And then, in Q1 we’re focused on productivity improvement and making a groundwork for higher volume in the remainder of the year. But obviously if you do the math, it does mean there is going to be a very big scale up as you get towards the end of the year.

 

[MilosK]

Are you missing the Q4 conference call?

Thanks uselesslogin. Yes I am. I did listen to it but I forgot the details and thought the holiday was last year. That 2 weeks or 2,000 cars makes all the difference, because I couldn't imagine the pipeline needing to expand by 3400 (2000 + 1,400) cars.

 

[jhm]

In another thread CS is estimating 3,500 Europe, 1,500 ROW, and guessing that 4,500 US is a walk in the park without making any actual estimate as to the real number. I'm calling 10,001 at this point.

Nice call! Only 0.29% error!

 

[maoing]

We already know there is delivery beat. Here I want to remind a very possible financial beat is brewing. Why? The ridiculously low EPS estimate currently stands on -0.49/share per http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ae?s=TSLA+Analyst+Estimates

In Q1, I think TM is cautious about the spending. Slow down the SC building significantly compared to Q4, slow down the GF construction to save capital. I believe those all pointed to a setup of EPS beat easily with big margin.

 

[hobbes]

In Q1, I think TM is cautious about the spending. Slow down the SC building significantly compared to Q4, slow down the GF construction to save capital. I believe those all pointed to a setup of EPS beat easily with big margin.

I recently looked at the charts at supercharge.info and what I saw supports your thesis of a supercharger slowdown, especially in Europe (black line). Red is worldwide, green Asia/Pacific and blue US. From just looking at the plot, I estimate 130 new SuCs in Q4 vs 85 in Q1. Maybe someone could change that difference into money units?

Have you seen any actual indications of GF construction slowing down, too?

 

[mrdoubleb]

Maybe someone could change that difference into money units?

I seem to remember EM quoting 200-300k per SC without solar, 500k for ones with solar panels. Now it seems that most of the SCs don't hae panels (i understand, it doubles the cost, but really, was such a futuristic idea, wish they could fix hat) so let's say 250 per SC. I f we have 45 less new stations than in Q4, that's a bit over 11 Million USD.

While this should keep the bean counters happy, I wish they just kept on pushing hard

 

[hobbes]

While this should keep the bean counters happy, I wish they just kept on pushing hard

My guess is that Tesla wants to demonstrate they are in control: They have enough demand and production capacity to make money, if they post a profit depends on how much money they invest into GF, SCs etc.

Though this might seem obvious (at least to us at TMC), I think psychologically it could be good for sentiment and share price. So have above expectations earnings report this quarter and go back to cash burning next.

 

[AlMc]

Another data point (also posted in short term thread): JB at a recent conference on the future of transportation indicated they are producing OVER 1,000 cars/week. It is at the 1 minute 10 second mark of the video.
https://youtu.be/HnQs1k_0Yys

 

[Lessmog]

I recently looked at the charts at supercharge.info and what I saw supports your thesis of a supercharger slowdown, especially in Europe (black line). Red is worldwide, green Asia/Pacific and blue US. From just looking at the plot, I estimate 130 new SuCs in Q4 vs 85 in Q1. Maybe someone could change that difference into money units?

Have you seen any actual indications of GF construction slowing down, too?


View attachment 77005

Notice the recurring lull during winter. Frozen ground makes hard work. :wink:
Even so, the ww total passed 400 this winter. I expect the build-out rate to pick up again, soon.

 

[Drax7]

Notice the recurring lull during winter. Frozen ground makes hard work. :wink:
Even so, the ww total passed 400 this winter. I expect the build-out rate to pick up again, soon.

79 superchargers in 3 months is pretty fantastic ( 412-333) . A run rate of 320 per year, and now that weather allows it should accelerate.

But what if demand collapses, because the trend in three wheel cars accelerates?

 

[Lessmog]

79 superchargers in 3 months is pretty fantastic ( 412-333) . A run rate of 320 per year, and now that weather allows it should accelerate.

But what if demand collapses, because the trend in three wheel cars accelerates?

On no.

 

[Robert.Boston]

My guess is that Tesla wants to demonstrate they are in control: They have enough demand and production capacity to make money, if they post a profit depends on how much money they invest into GF, SCs etc.

While I agree that it's good for Tesla to demonstrate that it has control of its spend, I disagree that "posting a profit" is a goal that Tesla has, or should have. I do care that Tesla is profitable on a "continuing operations" basis, but they've hit that standard for many quarters. I expect Tesla to have negative net margins and negative cash accruals for another five years, at a minimum. Why? Because Tesla has lots of useful ways of deploying capital that will build up Tesla's capacity to earn profits in the future. Tesla is the opposite of where ExxonMobil is (or should be): ExxonMobil should be raking in profits and handing it all back as dividends, investing as little as possible, while Tesla should be investing as much as possible and deferring retained profits and/or dividends.

 

[anticitizen13.7]

2015 Q1 Discussion thread for Delivery numbers, Earnings Report and Conferenc...

I hope that someone on the conference call asks about the new facility in Lathrop. There appears to be a lot of activity/construction going on at that location.

 

[ev-enthusiast]

Currently I see the following points that could influence financial results of next ER Q1 2015:
Positive:
- Beating guidance by 530 vehicles translates to an additional ~53 million dollars in revenues.
- Factory in Freemont running at higher rate than expected (guidance was 9500 vehicles) may result in a higher gross margin.
- High percentage of P85D vehicles that have high gross margin.
- CPO sales of used car vehicles add to the revenue stream of new car sales.
- Stationary storage program for SolarCity customers / utilities.
- Less costs for logistics as port strike resolved.
- FX issues not worse than in Q4 2014
Negative:
- Higher rate of leasing vehicles could provide some downside.

What other positive/negative factors could affect the upcoming ER?

 

[mrdoubleb]

Currently I see the following points that could influence financial results of next ER Q1 2015:
Positive:
- Beating guidance by 530 vehicles translates to an additional ~53 million dollars in revenues.
- Factory in Freemont running at higher rate than expected (guidance was 9500 vehicles) may result in a higher gross margin.
- High percentage of P85D vehicles that have high gross margin.
- CPO sales of used car vehicles add to the revenue stream of new car sales.
- Stationary storage program for SolarCity customers / utilities.
- Less costs for logistics as port strike resolved.
- FX issues not worse than in Q4 2014
Negative:
- Higher rate of leasing vehicles could provide some downside.

What other positive/negative factors could affect the upcoming ER?

I have a feeling that if they don`t announce some more specific dates/plans/updates on X that may be a negative. Assuming the do the call in early May and the plan is to start production of X in August... Signature reservation holders should start configuring cars in July the latest. So some announcement on that ("design studio will be open from early July") could really boost confidence.

 

[Robert.Boston]

I agree, Model X and Model 3 milestones are essential, also a Gigafactory update. I want to understand how the stationary storage business gets its batteries prior to the GF opening and when that unit will be accretive to earnings (presumably it's a big chunk of R&D currently).