Near-future quarterly financial projections

[heltok]

You aren't being true to your nom de plume. Do the math. 24 GWh/year is 6 GWh/quarter. A 60/30/10 mix of LR/MR/SR+ is ~72 kWh on average. 63k cars * 72 kWh = 4.5 GWh. Add 0.5 GWh for TE and it's clear cell supply isn't the issue.

Also compare this tweet to prior statements in the Q3 call last October:

JB Straubel
Sure. I can speak to that. This is JB. We have had a period, where the supply was fairly tight for Model 3, but it did not really constrain the Model 3 production in any significant way.
Elon Musk
Less than a week.​

They made 53.3k LRs in Q3, or 4.2 GWh. Since then Panasonic added three lines:

JB Straubel
And we continue to bring online new production lines. So even just in the last several weeks, we've started up yet another cell production line with Panasonic and through the end of the year, there's another line coming on, and then one shortly after that. So there is a steady increase in the total supply.​

They modified these new lines for higher output, 3 lines increased capacity 40%. This lines up with Musk's 24 GWh (vs. ~17 GWh sustained in Q3 from the 19-20 theoretical capacity Deepak quoted).

Managements spin numbers. Tesla is certainly no exception. The investor's job is to dig deeper.

You put too much faith into your model. We don’t know what happened. Could be that 24GWh/year was the rate at the end of Q1, not the start of Q1. As for rates for Q3 and Q4 we don’t know either, could be some leftover batteries from Q1Q2 and 2017Q3Q4 due to other bottle necks in production. Or something else. Or maybe you are correct. We don’t know...

 

[Boomer19]

bloomberg estimates 3/31/19

eps adj: -.998
eps gaap: -2.048
rev: 5.143b
gr mg: 18.27
op profit: 12.845m
ebit: -133.024m
ebitda: 415.417m
pre tax prof: -223.76m
net inc adj: -143.059m
net inc gaap: -348.089m
net debt: 8.996b
depre: 490.869m
fcf: -587.78m
capex: -487.375m
nav: 5.538b


beat 4 of last 8 eps adj
missed 6 of last 8 eps gaap
beat 8 of 8 rev
missed 5 of 8 net inc adj
beat 3 of 6 ebitda

 

[tmoz]

Q1 will not be pretty, but hopefully the stock will react more to what the expected Q2 numbers are going to look like.
i.e., are the wheels falling off the bus, or are the train wheels still on the track and moving forward. Hopefully the latter, and hopefully clear and non-nuanced.

 

[AlexS]

Q1 will not be pretty, but hopefully the stock will react more to what the expected Q2 numbers are going to look like.
i.e., are the wheels falling off the bus, or are the train wheels still on the track and moving forward. Hopefully the latter, and hopefully clear and non-nuanced.

Yeah and they need to give clear guidance for q2 and not talk just about the fy2019 guidance.

 

[idontknow1]

Q1 will be rough but I think some of Tesla's drop off can be explained with the slowdown of the auto industry in general. I know Tesla is small but they can be impacted by the overall slowdown as well. Auto loan debt I believe is the highest it has ever been and auto loan defaults I believe have been on the rise as well. I just hope Tesla is prepared to weather the storm if things don't continue to grow as fast as they have planned.

 

[tmoz]

Q1 will be rough but I think some of Tesla's drop off can be explained with the slowdown of the auto industry in general. I know Tesla is small but they can be impacted by the overall slowdown as well. Auto loan debt I believe is the highest it has ever been and auto loan defaults I believe have been on the rise as well. I just hope Tesla is prepared to weather the storm if things don't continue to grow as fast as they have planned.

But they sold (or shipped overseas) everything they made. So I would say no impact from any general auto slowdown. An auto slowdown may affect Q2, but the volume is so relatively low that I think there are enough people eying a Tesla car, with great desire in their hearts, such that they will be consumed (the cars that is).

 

[Boomer19]

updated

bloomberg estimates 3/31/19

eps adj: -1.303
eps gaap: -2.319
rev: 4.839
gr mg: 17.832%
op profit: -161.838m
ebit: -133.024m
ebitda: 445.818
pre tax prof: -352.333
net inc adj: -222.143
net inc gaap: -368m
net debt: 9.302b
depre: 490.869m
fcf: -887.733
capex: -508.167
nav: 5.538b


beat 4 of last 8 eps adj
missed 6 of last 8 eps gaap
beat 8 of 8 rev
missed 5 of 8 net inc adj
beat 3 of 6 ebitda

 

[ggr]

So their estimates have gone significantly down in the last couple of days. I'll bet that if reality falls between the two estimates, they will call it a miss.

 

[Boomer19]

So their estimates have gone significantly down in the last couple of days. I'll bet that if reality falls between the two estimates, they will call it a miss.

yes there were many updates reflected in the terminal by analysts on 4/23 as expected. some are locked. but a pretty decent decrease over the course of 1 day. we’ll see. on the one hand, i guess it’s nice to have some lower expectations. but that’s why i added the recent trends (beats/misses) per stat.

 

[tmoz]

I wonder if tinkering with the Model S and X refresh caused some of the production stagnation in Q1?

 

[generalenthu]

@luvb2b, you got really close with your numbers. Of course there were some one offs like rvg reassessment, but hard to put a $ figure on them. Thanks for continuing to share your view.

 

[oneday]

Agreed. Thank you @luvb2b

 

[tmoz]

I wonder if tinkering with the Model S and X refresh caused some of the production stagnation in Q1?

Seems like that was a yes.

 

[SBenson]

@luvb2b, you got really close with your numbers. Of course there were some one offs like rvg reassessment, but hard to put a $ figure on them. Thanks for continuing to share your view.

YES! I will also add, @luvb2b delivery estimates prior to the delivery report was also very close.

 

[gluu]

What I don't quite understand about Q1 is why did Tesla stop selling the Model S/X 75 in 1/9/19 only to reintroduce it this quarter? This seems like one of the major causes of reduced volumes and I'm still quite puzzled by it.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

What I don't quite understand about Q1 is why did Tesla stop selling the Model S/X 75 in 1/9/19 only to reintroduce it this quarter? This seems like one of the major causes of reduced volumes and I'm still quite puzzled by it.

One theory is they were seeing issues with getting the Raven update started so they purposely removed the 75 versions because they knew they would be very limited in production and wanted to maximize revenue and margin for each S/X sold during Q1.

Though the fact that they said a week or two later than they expected 20k prod/deliveries for Q1 somewhat negates that theory. Something went wrong with production and the likely cause was Raven....maybe it was supposed to be announced and production started much earlier in Q1, who knows.

 

[neroden]

I think Raven didn't get done on time. It was supposed to come online earlier.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

I think Raven didn't get done on time. It was supposed to come online earlier.

Actually if you apply the logic that they wanted Raven to start production AND deliveries in Q1 but that it didn't get done on time, their guidance for 20k in mid Jan makes sense. At the time that they made that guidance, Tesla thought that they would have the Raven update in production during Q1, and that they be able to do make up a lot of the production in March using only the LR versions to keep revenue and margins high, because the demand would be strong for the update. Prob in Feb they realize they're not going to get Rave in production in Q1, hence they miss greatly on their S/X production numbers.

 

[dqd88]

Definitely, but it sets Tesla up once again for a win not feeling like a win.

Elon sets high goals because it drives the employees; yet it sets them up to miss wall st projections. Catch 22 sorta

 

[SBenson]

End of quarter cash was $2.2B, but Tesla delivered nearly half of the cars this quarter in the last 10 days, representing over $2B revenue only coming in quite late in the quarter. It might have been that the inter-quarter cash as I calculated it halfway through here was even an overestimation...
<snip>

In my opinion Tesla is effectively bankrupt. The only reason it hasn't declared one is that the suppliers are holding it up.

As many have pointed out elsewhere, the Accounts Payable is usually delayed by a quarter. The sequential revenue drop is quite steep. If AP scaled normally, Cash would be lower by another 1Bil+.

So intra-quarter cash would most likely have turned negative. If Tesla paid suppliers on usual timelines that is.

Tesla needs to raise a few billion within a span of low single digit weeks. Or else this is game over already.