Tesla Sets Record for EV Deliveries, but Losses and Solar Shrinkage Endure

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Tesla presented mixed results in the second quarter of 2019, including a delivery list of 95,356 electric vehicles and document deployments of its energy storage products. 

However, Tesla's solar company has turned into a shadow of its former self, and the firm 's worse-than-expected loss spooked investors Thursday.

The company ended the quarter with $5 billion in cash and cash equivalents, putting it in a”comfortable” position to launch Model 3 production in China and Model Y production in the U.S., according to the company's investor letter. 

Automobile gross margin was down slightly, but that has been”in spite of reductions in vehicle [average selling price] and lower regulatory credit revenue.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk noted that Motor Trend just celebrated the Model S because of its”cultural and vehicular impact,” whereas the Model 3 has been once again the best-selling premium automobile in the U.S.    

The business generated $614 million of free cash flow in Q2. Musk said the EV pioneer is”close” to self-funding, including it hopes to break even in Q3 and make a profit in Q4. 

But on the darker side of this ledger, Tesla posted a net loss of about $408 million in Q2to go along with a slightly-below-consensus revenue of about $ 6.35 billion.

Analysts expected a loss of 40 cents per share, however, Tesla disappointed having an adjusted loss of $1.12 a share in Q2.  Last year, Tesla also missed revenue estimates in its way to dropping $702 million.

And those results are based on the heels of some variety of automobile price cuts that might have invigorated sales at the cost of gains. 

Tesla stocks dropped more than 12 percent in early trading Thursday, to around $230.

Shanghai factory, Europe factory, Model Y

Tesla hopes to start production of a simplified, yet more cost-effective version of its Model 3 in Shanghai, China”by the end of the year,” while starting Model Y production”by fall of 2020″ in Fremont, California.

The CEO claimed the”significant overlap of components between Model 3 and Model Y” will ease production and keep costs down. He also 's optimistic about this particular model, stating,”Due to the large market size for SUVs, as well as higher ASPs, we believe Model Y will be a more profitable product than the Model 3.”

Tesla can be accelerating its European Gigafactory attempts and is”hoping to finalize a location choice in the coming quarters.”  

Tesla additional 101 vehicles on its cellular service fleet and opened 25 new shop and support places.

The persistent decrease of Tesla solar

Tesla's solar company plummeted to some startlingly small 29 megawatts in Q2, down from 47 megawatts last quarter and a far cry in the 253 megawatts installed by SolarCity from the boom periods of Q4 2015.

Tesla stated,”We are in the process of improving many aspects of this business to increase deployments,” however that solar free fall in a modest growth market appears like a willful curtailment of its small enterprise. 

Since GTM reported, Tesla was once the unquestioned leader in the residential rooftop marketplace with a market share of approximately 33 per cent, but today, the provider is No. 3, and its market share during the first quarter was a little more than 6 per cent, according to analysts at Wood Mackenzie Power and Renewables.

WoodMac forecasts nearly flat 3 percent increase for the residential solar marketplace in 2019.

However, since Austin Perea, a senior solar analyst at WoodMac, noted in a previous interview,”At the same time Tesla’s market share has faltered, its customer-acquisition costs have dropped.”

In the second half of 2018, the business was spending $0.40 per watt to obtain customers. By the end of 2019, WoodMac analysts stated Tesla might be spending ldquo;near a quarter” per watt. That compares well with Vivint's and Sunrun's customer-acquisition prices at $0.94 a watt and $0.90 a litres, respectively.

There was no word from Tesla on its solar roof, even despite this being”the year of the solar roof.” Musk has stated that the solar roofing product is already on”version 3,” although one would be hard-pressed to find a roof with variant 1 or 2.

Three decades after its introduction, and after having obtained deposits from curious homeowners, Tesla has connected only a dozen or so solar-integrated roofs into the grid. Tesla intends to ramp up the creation of this solar roof using”significantly improved manufacturing capabilities during 2019.”

Electrek acquired a cost quote a month, along with diagrams of their expensive and lovely solar roofing tiles. The product lineup includes custom fittings, flashings, gutters and vents caps to better match the roofing. Tesla did not supply an update on the creation of this solar roof in the Buffalo, New York factory and the 1,460 jobs the firm has pledged to make there by next year. 

The writer of the post received a call from a”Janis” at Tesla a month past, I want to know that I could purchase and place a $1,000 deposit to solar roof tiles straight from the business site. Janis stated that, after supplying some simple home info, the website would bring in a cost quote to the roof tiles. She noted that only the textured tile alternative was available right now.

She also said that the cost quoted was likely to be 40 percent to 50 percent lower than the true cost. 

There has been some positive information about Tesla's storage company: Powerwall and Powerpack deployment grew by 81% in the second quarter into a list 415 megawatt-hours. Powerwalls are installed at more than 50,000 locations.

The investor letter says,”Additional cell supply combined with our new module line designed by Tesla Grohmann enabled a step change in energy storage production.” Tesla's letter from last year asserts”a better supply of cells and new manufacturing equipment” will develop storage deployments into”over 2 gigawatt-hours in 2019″ with growing profitability.

Guidance and other Tesla nuggets

A few other takeaways in the telephone:

Tesla co-founder and CTO JB Straubel is committing into an aide, nonoperational role following about 16 years at the automaker.

Model 3 average selling price is steady at approximately $50,000.

CFO Zach Kirkhorn (in April) pledged a return to profitability by the third quarter.

Throughout Wednesday's call, Musk said:”I think it's difficult for people to really feel an exponential. We didn’t evolve to feel exponential, we can feel linear, but we could only understand an exponential at a cognitive level. But Tesla is expanding at an exponential rate.”

Musk is standing behind his contentious guidance of 360,000 into 400,000 automobile deliveries for this season — it's going to be a challenge. It's a jump of 45% to 65 percent in comparison to last year.

The company has delivered just 158,000 units in the first half of this year. That means that the Fremont factory is going to have to deliver about 100,000 vehicles per quarter in Q3 and Q4 — and much more records might have to be broken.

Tesla expects its 2019 capex to earn about $1.5 billion to $2 billion, a decrease from previous guidance. 

Tesla inventory is down 23 percent in 2019, despite strong gains in June and July. The S&P 500 index is up 19 per cent for the year.

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