AI Summary:
Tesla’s 2024 financial results were disappointing, with several key points highlighted:
- Automotive Revenues: Fell by 8% in Q4 2024 compared to Q4 2023, totaling $19.8 billion.
- Energy and Storage Revenues: More than doubled, growing by 113% to $3 billion in Q4 2024.
- Services: Grew by 31% in Q4 2024, contributing $2.8 billion.
- Total Revenue: Increased by 2% in Q4 2024, but income fell by 23%, with an operating margin of 6.2%.
- Net Profits: Dropped by 71% to $2.3 billion in Q4 2024.
- Annual Performance: Automotive revenues decreased by 6% to $77 billion in 2024. Energy generation and storage increased by 67% to $10 billion. Services grew by 27%, bringing in $10.5 billion.
- Gross Profits: Fell by 1%, with net profits dropping by 53% to $7.1 billion for the year.
- Free Cash Flow: Decreased by 18% to $3.6 billion.
- Regulatory Credits: $2.8 billion of profit came from selling regulatory credits, not from core business activities.
- Future Predictions: Tesla expects energy storage revenues to grow by at least 50% year-over-year and aims to grow automotive sales by more than 60% in 2025.
Despite the poor financial results, Tesla’s share price increased by 103% over the same period.
When those profits come from carbon credits which means your main activity is still wildly unsustainable over a decade after the company being founded. Tesla is a massive investor bubble and their cars are objectively trash with failure rates 3x higher than the industry’s worse. Tesla is garbage sustained by a massive collective illusion of US exceptionalism.
When you know you’re going to get a billion dollars in credits for something, you plan your business around having those billion credits.
You sell cars cheaper, you expand faster, you try new ideas you might not have tried etc.
Tesla hasn’t needed those credits for a very long time now, but if they are there, of course they’re going to take as full advantage of the situation as they can.
If the credits had stopped around when Tesla didn’t need them anymore, I’m sure they would look very different than today, but they’d still be around and profitable.
Tesla would never exist in a capitalist system. Their business model is wholly predicated on government subsidies and carbon credits. Furthermore, the hen has come home to roost and their cars, like I linked above, are just bougie expensive paper weights sold by the biggest con man in history. If I was buying electric tomorrow, I’d even look at Volkswagen before considering a Tesla. I want my cars to last more than 4y, not try to kill me, and, I don’t like to pay extra for vapoware. If anything, the fact Tesla still exists, is testament we no longer live in a capitalist system but in an oligarchy where companies selling snake oil can still have high valuation because they are close to the
N*%i Partyparty in power. Looking at Teslas’s results and seeing the carbon credit weight on their fundamentals and looking at the speed BYD is expanding, only Authoritarianism can save them from bankruptcy already in 2025. Luckily, their CEO just helped bring about the 4th reich, so they are fine, just don’t pretend it’s because it’s a solid enterprise, it’s anything but.Oh so it is an AI company then.