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Tesla Q3 2024 Financial Results [pdf] (tesla.com)
20 points by mfiguiere 3 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 22 comments



Looking forward to:

- cheaper car announcement

- something concrete on robotaxi, not likely

- current model refresh, they are getting old

Numbers:

- Q3 EPS $0.72, Est $0.60

- Q3 Rev $25.18B, Est $35.43B

- so slight top line miss but nice bottom line beat

- Automotive gross margis of 17.1%, Est 14.9%

- I think higher gross margins are becaus peopel are buying their software( FSD and smart summon)

- Second highest quarter for regulatory credit revenue, neat way for the government to subsidize a car manufacturer without subsidizing them

- still behind last years sales numbers

- Cybertruck has reached profitablility

- more than 100,000 powerwalls enrolled as virutal power plants currently

Interesting Notes:

- next gen platform should get about 5.5 miles/kWh, for context Lucid currently has the most efficient drive train around 5 miles/kWh( by lucid's claim)

- supposedly next gen cheaper car in late 2025

- nothing other than lip service to robo taxi

- “We deployed and are training ahead of schedule on a 29k H100 cluster at Gigafactory Texas – where we expect to have 50k H100 capacity by the end of October.”

- note: check which company owns that server farm

- after laying off the supercharger team, that network somehow grew 22% YoY

Two other notes that people might find interesting....

> "According to Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, Tesla’s core electric-vehicle business is likely worth less than $200 billion, suggesting its market capitalization reflects a value of about $600 billion for other endeavors, such as the robotaxi and the Optimus humanoid robot. "

The DOJ has just informed Elon that paying voters to register may be illegal.


How much of the supercharger growth was stuff that was already in progress or done prior to the layoffs? How big would the growth have been without the layoffs? They did hire some amount of the team back.

Also Tesla is way behind on V4 (high voltage) superchargers. There are only dispensers installed. Zero actual V4 charging cabinets. Which means Cybertruck owners still can't get full speed at Tesla superchargers. If things continue as they are Tesla will let their monopoly on reliable high speed charging slip through their fingers.

Lastly, Musk was very clear there is no next gen affordable car coming other than robotaxi.


This gets very awkward, considering that the robotaxi apparently will not be compatible with any existing chargers.


> - cheaper car announcement

A cheaper car announcement would have a strong Osbourne effect on the 3. I doubt they're going to announce much until it's close to shipping.


Musk did announce there's no such thing coming. Only robotaxi.


He said it's coming first half 2025, for what that's worth.


I think you're confused. Model Y refresh is coming. He said $25k car other than robotaxi makes no sense and is antithetical to their vision of autonomous future.


He said cheaper cars are coming in the first half of 2025. He also confirmed cheaper isn't $25k.


> - something concrete on robotaxi, not likely

Nor will you see one for another couple years, minimum.

> - current model refresh, they are getting old

Model 3 just got a refresh a few months ago. Agreed that Model S/X are due, though.

> - supposedly next gen cheaper car in late 2025

Which likely actually means mid 2027.


Model Y refresh “Juniper” is imminent, a few have already rolled off the factory line.


The Model Y needs the same refresh the Model 3 got. Strange they haven't announced it yet. I suppose it just takes a while to change over a production line?

As an Australian I'm really looking forward to getting automation features like Actually Smart Summon outside the US. And hopefully a subscription for it, instead of a one time 5000$ fee that then can't ever be transferred to a future car. You'd have to be dumb to buy it in its current form. Making that more reasonable will be a way they can immediately extract more money out of me. As long as the price is reasonable, and not bonkers which it sadly probably will be.


Apparently they are in test production already [1], but don't want to announce and damage current sales of Y.

The other rumour is that they are running test production in Shanghai with the plan to roll-out full production consecutively across Shanghai, Texas, and Berlin. This is unlike the Model 3, which saw a delayed roll-out in the US.

1 - https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/updated-2025-tesla-mod...


I believe the refresh is called "Juniper" for the Model Y. And yes, it takes a lot to move it between lines.


> - Q3 Rev $25.18B, Est $35.43B

> - so slight top line miss but nice bottom line beat

How is this a "slight" revenue miss? I guess one of the figures is wrong?


Is RoboTaxi not Next Gen Platform?


It almost certainly is. Making RoboTaxi into the "Model 2" (sic) is only a matter of bolting on drive-by-wire controls. Tesla is already ramping up this technology via Cybertruck, since it can absorb the initially high cost.

However the moment Tesla officially announces it, they Osborne themselves in the foot. Hence they're playing it close to the chest until the product is almost ready for sale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect


>In Q3, we released the 12.5 series of FSD (Supervised) 1 with improved safety and comfort thanks to increased data and training compute, [...] We deployed and are training ahead of schedule on a 29k H100 cluster at Gigafactory Texas – where we expect to have 50k H100 capacity by the end of October.

Literally laughed out loud seeing the phrase "ahead of schedule" in a section about FSD


> We have sufficient liquidity to fund our product roadmap, long-term capacity expansion plans and other expenses. Furthermore, we will manage the business such that we maintain a strong balance sheet during this uncertain period.

What's about to happen?


The exact same sentences appear in the previous (Q2) report.


Probably not the appropriate thread for this, but as a former Audi owner who went to a 2022 Toyota Corolla with openpilot, any personal recommendations here from Hacker News reader Tesla owners?


I have a HW3 2019 Tesla Model 3 with FSD it's amazing.

I think you can pick one up used for 25k or so. If you buy used from Tesla it sometimes comes with FSD for a super reduced rate (at least they used to). Check it out.

The worry is that HW3 (only 144 TOPS) will not be enough for true self driving. Today they committed to upgrading HW3 cars with FSD for free if they solve self driving with more powerful HW4. Take one for a test drive they're dope.


Thanks for the heads up!




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