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Tesla (TSLA) Q1 2024 earnings results miss Wall Street's EPS & revenue expectations

Tesla's earnings didn't meet analyst expectations for the first quarter of its fiscal year.

Ozzie Mejia

April 23, 2024 1:48 PM

Tesla

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Tesla (TSLA) has released its Q1 2024 earnings report, offering the latest picture of the electric vehicle manufacturer. Tesla reported in with an adjusted earnings-per-share (EPS) of $0.45 per share and revenue of $21.3 billion USD. These are numbers that fall below Wall Stret expectations, which had estimated a $0.51 per share EPS and $22.2 billion revenue total.

The following was posted to the Tesla Investor Relations website:

We experienced numerous challenges in Q1, from the Red Sea conflict and the arson attack at Gigafactory Berlin, to the gradual ramp of the updated Model 3 in Fremont. Excluding Cybertruck and unscheduled downtime, our COGS4 per unit declined sequentially, driven primarily by lower raw material costs.

Global EV sales continue to be under pressure as many carmakers prioritize hybrids over EVs. While positive for our regulatory credits business, we prefer the industry to continue pushing EV adoption, which is in-line with our mission. To support our growth, we have been increasing awareness and expanding vehicle financing programs, including attractive leasing terms for our customers.

While many are pulling back on their investments, we are investing in future growth – including our AI infrastructure, production capacity, our Supercharger and service networks and new products infrastructure – with $2.8B of capital expenditures in Q1.

We recently undertook a cost-cutting exercise to increase operational efficiency. We also remain committed to company-wide cost reduction, including reducing COGS per vehicle. Ultimately, we are focused on profitable growth, including by leveraging existing factories and production lines to introduce new and more affordable products.

The future is not only electric, but also autonomous. We believe scaled autonomy is only possible with data from millions of vehicles and an immense AI training cluster. We have, and continue to expand, both. To make FSD (Supervised) 5 more accessible, we reduced the price of subscription to $99/month and the purchase price to $8,000 in the US.

According to CNBC, these Q1 2024 earnings represent the biggest revenue slide for Tesla since 2012. The latest quarter's $21.3 billion revenue number is down year-over-year from the $25.17 billion reported in Q1 2023. Revenue from Tesla's electric vehicles came in at $17.378 billion, which is the lowest number recorded in over a year. The decrease in cash and investments, as well as the negative free cash flow number is a sharp contrast to what was reported in Tesla's Q4 2023 earnings report.

Tesla (TSLA) shares have been impacted by the electric vehicle maker's drop in sales numbers. The company did finish the trading day at $144.68 per share, which is an increase of $2.63, and is continuing to fluctuate in after-hours trading.

Tesla will hold its Q1 2024 earnings call today at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET. We'll be streaming it live on the Shacknews Twitch channel.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?