Tesla (TSLA) was a mild underperformer on Monday as the company’s earnings date approaches.
Consensus estimates are for Tesla (TSLA) to report revenue of $24.8B for its fourth quarter, EPS of $0.45, and an automotive gross margin rate of 14.8%.
In terms of deliveries, Tesla (TSLA) has already disclosed that it delivered 418,227 vehicles in Q4 to fall short of the consensus estimate for a tally of 423K vehicles. The electric vehicle maker said it produced 434,358 vehicles during the quarter. Model 3/Y deliveries for the quarter were 406,585, while other models accounted for 11,642 deliveries. 3% of vehicles were subject to operating lease accounting during the quarter. For the year, Tesla (TSLA) delivered 1,636,129 vehicles. The Q4 deliveries tally was down 16% from a year ago when Tesla (TSLA) delivered 495,570 vehicles in Q4. The electric vehicle maker saw deliveries ramp up this year ahead of the expiration of the electric vehicle tax credit, with Q1 deliveries of 336,681 vehicles, Q2 deliveries of 384,122 vehicles, and Q3 deliveries of 497,099 vehicles.
Wall Street analysts believe the earnings reaction for Tesla (TSLA) shares will depend on fresh updates around scaling robotaxi/Cybercab, launching unsupervised FSD, the production timeline of the next-gen Optimus humanoid robot, and the AI5 inference chip. In particular, the timing of a full public launch with no safety monitor in Texas is seen by Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco and his team as a critical near-term catalyst in proving out the technology and safety of the robotaxi platform. There has been some confusion on that front after Electrek reported humanless Tesla (TSLA) robotaxis in Austin were being trailed by vehicles with safety monitors.
Just ahead of the Tesla (TSLA) earnings report, Goldman Sachs warned about competition in the self-driving vehicle industry. “While we continue to believe that Tesla will grow its [full self-driving] and robotaxi operations and business over time, we also expect competition to gate the degree of profit growth,” updated analyst Mark Delaney.
The recent scoreboard on Tesla (TSLA) from Seeking Alpha analysts shows 1 Strong Buy rating, 3 Hold ratings, and 2 Strong Sell ratings.
Options trading on Tesla (TSLA) implies a post-earnings swing of 6%. Rivian Automotive (RIVN) and Lucid Group (LCID) are the two stocks that correlate the tightest to Tesla (TSLA) in the week after earnings.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA) were down 2.4% during Monday afternoon action and are close to 10% lower over the last six weeks. The market cap on Tesla (TSLA) is $1.49T, which makes it more than three times as valuable as the market caps of Toyota (TM), General Motors (GM), and Ford Motor (F) combined.