These production and delivery updates flow through to new fully diluted EPS estimates of
$1.17 GAAP and
$1.29 non-GAAP, which is 11% lower than my original estimates of $1.32 GAAP and $1.44 non. This would still be a 22% beat of Wall Street's original average GAAP forecast of $0.96/share, which was based on delivery estimates in the upper 350s to lower 360s depending on who you ask.
In my forecasts I have not bothered to try estimating differences between production and deliveries because it seems very difficult to estimate accurately with only public information and I don't want to spend time and energy counting trucks and ships. As such, my production forecast and delivery forecast are identical. Maybe I'll add this layer of sophistication in the future but it's not a priority because I'm focused more on predictions of long-term growth rate rather than a few percentage points of difference in the short term.
I had underestimated SX production but overestimated 3Y production, as shown below. Overall the estimates were very close and I'm especially glad that the 3Y forecast was so close, because that increases my confidence in this method for predicting future 3Y production and over time SX production will become a diminishing proportion of the whole. Still, it's nice to see an unexpected 19,935/16,411 = 21% QoQ jump for S&X, and so I've increased my ramp expectations accordingly. The S&X ramp is still mostly a guess because I have no good info other than the historical trajectory of the ramp and the fact that SX sales formerly peaked in 2017 at 25k per quarter, but the refreshed versions are much better than the S&X of 2017 and clearly have a lot more demand than in that era, even though many other viable EV options exist now.
Table 1: Gigapress's Q3 Production Forecasts vs. Actuals
| Forecast | Actual | Diff | % Error |
| 3Y | 354 | 346 | -8 | -2.2% |
| SX | 18.1 | 19.9 | 1.9 | 10% |
| Total | 372 | 366 | -6 | -1.6% |
(All numbers in thousands)
Table 2: Gigapress's Adjusted S&X Ramp Forecast
| Q4 2022 | 22.0 |
| Q1 2023 | 24.2 |
| Q2 2023 | 26.6 |
| Q3 2023 | 29.3 |
| Q4 2023 | 32.2 |
(All numbers in thousands)
I am glad to see real evidence Tesla is finally unwinding The Wave after more than a year of talking about doing it. Although that will hurt certain metrics for this quarter including earnings, inventory, and cash balance, with this move the business will be more efficient and stress the team less in the last weeks of each quarter so overall I think it's a better strategy.
The increase in inventory was ~6% of production for both 3Y and SX, so this has negligible impact on mix and consequently on the auto unit economics (average per-car revenue, cost, gross profit, gross margin %, etc.).
This is not investment advice.
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