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Cost of Cybertruck production ramp negatively impacted Tesla (TSLA) Q4 2023 profitability

The Cybertruck's rollout has been a continuous source of unexpected and noteworthy costs for Tesla over the course of its development.

TJ Denzer

January 24, 2024 2:50 PM

Image via Tesla

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Amid Tesla’s Q4 2023 earnings results, the company’s adjusted gross margin was shown to be the lowest it has been in a year of quarterly reports. It turns out that one of the major contributing factors to that was the Cybertruck. As Tesla has ramped up production and upgraded its facilities, part of which has been to launch the Cybertruck, the company has directly cited the vehicle as a notable contributing factor to its lowered profitability in Q4.

Tesla shared its Q4 2023 earnings results on its investor relations website this week. In said results, Tesla revealed that its adjusted gross margin was 15.7 percent. It was the lowest number that the company has posted in a year of quarterly earnings reports. Further down the report, Tesla goes into details about what factors contributed to its lowered profitability. The “cost of Cybertruck production ramp” was listed prominently under that topic as a negative.

Getting the Cybertruck ready for public sales and delivery has proven to be an incredibly difficult task for Tesla. Back in Q3 2023, Elon Musk warned that production would see a decrease due to the fact that Tesla was retooling its factories for new production ramping, which included the Cybertruck. The effect of the Cybertruck on Tesla production also included a price change on the base model of the vehicle, increasing from $39,900 USD when it was first revealed up to $60,990 USD.

Simply put, the Cybertruck has been a highly costly endeavor for the company that has affected its bottom lines in a variety of ways. It will remain to be seen if Tesla can find solutions to the problems caused by Cybertruck and other factors in its path back to profitability. Stay tuned as we continue to report on Tesla and other companies as they release their latest quarterly earnings results.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.