SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk attends a town hall-style meeting to promote early and absentee voting at Ridley High School on October 17, 2024 in Folsom, Pennsylvania.
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Tesla is set to report third-quarter earnings on Wednesday after the close of regular trading.
Here’s what analysts expect:
- Earnings per share: 58 cents, according to LSEG consensus estimates.
- Income: $25.37 billion, according to LSEG
Earlier this month, Tesla reported third-quarter vehicle deliveries of 462,890. Deliveries are the closest approximation to Tesla’s reported sales. The company also said it produced 469,796 electric vehicles in the period ending Sept. 30.
While shipments rose 6% from a year ago, they missed analysts’ expectations and followed two straight quarters of year-over-year declines. Tesla has also offered a number of discounts and incentives to boost electric vehicle sales, which could continue to stress margins.
The earnings report comes less than two weeks after a much-anticipated robotax event that left shareholders clamoring for more details, and it lands about two weeks before the presidential election, which has taken up a large chunk of CEO Elon’s schedule. Musk recently. Musk has campaigned loudly for Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump.
According to questions submitted by investors through online platform Say Technologies, a significant number of shareholders want to know how Musk’s pro-Trump activism could affect Tesla and its share price.
Musk has spent tens of millions of dollars to get Trump back in the White House, even though the former president does not support the kinds of federal spending on EVs, infrastructure charging and environmental regulations that have benefited Tesla for years.
Musk also said at a recent event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that he sees many government agencies and regulations in the US as ineffective and unnecessary.
“We shouldn’t trust the government, really. We just shouldn’t,” he said. “Even if I’m in the government, don’t trust the government.”
Meanwhile, Tesla is facing increased competitive pressure, especially in China, from the likes of BYD and Geely, along with a new generation of automakers including Li Auto and Nio. In the US, legacy automakers Ford and General Motors have begun selling more electric vehicles, despite earlier commitments to electrification.
“Tesla’s operating performance shows that the EV gap with legacy OEMs is stagnating and closing against Chinese competitors,” analysts at Jefferies wrote in a note on Tuesday. “Tesla is no longer capacity-constrained and is facing 2 years of low growth as core models age and scaling variable and fixed costs is challenging.” Analysts recommend holding the stock.
Other investor questions filed before Wednesday’s call focused on the company’s progress in developing its dedicated robotics, self-driving software and humanoid robots. Shareholders also want details about Cybertruck’s profitability and popularity.
The angular steel car has been plagued by quality issues, but Tesla still sold more than 16,000 Cybertrucks in the U.S. in the third quarter, according to estimates from Kelley Blue Book.
Tesla has not released specific guidance for 2024, but executives have said they expect a lower rate of supply growth this year than last year.
Tesla shares are down 13% so far this year, while the Nasdaq has gained 23%.
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