Consider the bottom row. How do you understand this as going down? Both QoQ and YoY.
It would have been down, were it for the increase in sale of regulatory credits.
Straight from the horse’s mouth:
“Gross margin for total automotive remained relatively consistent at 26% in the three months ended March 31, 2021 as compared to the three months ended March 31, 2020. There were increases from improvements of Model Y and Model 3 gross margins primarily from lower material, manufacturing, freight and duty costs from localized procurement and manufacturing in China and reductions in Model Y average costs per unit as compared to the prior period due to temporary under-utilization of manufacturing capacity at lower production volumes during our production ramp in the first half of 2020. Additionally, there was a positive impact from an increase of $164 million in sales of regulatory credits. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in the combined average selling price of Model 3 and Model Y due to a higher proportion of Standard Range variants in our sales mix compared to the prior period.”
Summing up: Gross margin remained largely flat
- despite move to China
- despite a temporary effect from underutilisation of capacity in 2020
- because of lower selling prices of their newer models due to sales mix
- because of higher regulatory credits
Admittedly, it may continue to play out this way for a while, a few quarters. And yes, regulatory credit may increase for a while, while and as they’re increasing sales figures in the US. But I have doubts whether the “China effect” is sustainable, since the market has quite a few local competitors on the lower end of the market - and may see the entry of foreign luxury car makers on the upper end of the market. Higher market penetration is also going to drive prices down. And there’s always the possible geopolitical risks (US-China relations) that Europe or other Japan don’t exhibit.
The bottom line is: Gross margins may have benefited from locale-specific factors (regulatory credits, local duties, lower labour costs costs) for the time being. But I (well, not only me, but apparently TSLA themselves) fail to see margin premiums increase from the cars or their manufacturing process themselves.
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Coming back to the thread’s original title, here’s my investment advice in the briefest form (with which I may retire from this thread):
There’s two points you should know:
- Despite their growth, neither their sales, profitability or (historically) the industry they’re operating in support their stock price valuation at this point!
- Forget all the blathering about how they’re supposedly “so much more than just a car company” - it’s basically all hype, make-believe and smoke & mirrors at this point!
…and two questions that you should ask yourself:
- Do you believe that they will have a (near) monopoly or huge competitive advantage on full self-driving cars and software that no other manufacturer will be able to replicate or rival?
- Do you believe that their visionary, zealous leader can make them the world’s preeminent and trusted consumer car brand - the Apple of Automotive, so to speak?
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Autopilot could not have been functioning in Tesla Texas crash, NTSB says
Yes buy Tesla !
Cremation is “free” included with any Tesla crash. That’s really cheaper when you calculate the cost of death. If you are still alive after a crash you have 2/3 minutes to leave else free cremation included that’s really nice free option should promote that. Elon should integrated too a filtered roof to emit 0 particles when tesla burn for keep a green label anywhere a tesla burn.
This again? This is pure FUD. One terrible accident is being regurgitated over and over again. In the end it doesn’t matter how bad they were burnt, how bad the car was damaged, or what the neighbour said. The fact is they died and that’s how it’s counted in the statistics. You want to evaluate the overall safety of a vehicle, look at total fatal accidents for all cars. Otherwise you’re just scaring people that Tesla will burn them alive. This is is very similar to the vaccine stories, where somewhere one person had a bad reaction and died.
Fun Fact
You have the lowest ratio of likes per post of the whole forum, I wonder why…
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Again ? it’s not so old without error 
Not need a lot of damage look what is the result of a drilled battery. Perfectly safe/stable battery exist who even not take fire when drilled (A123) but less Wh/kg than li-ion.
I not scare people it’s pretty cool when you die due to a huge crash you not pay any cremation fee it’s good for whole remaining family. Cost are reduced and insurance reimburse a part of the car so family can even win some money on your death. Everyone die one day but cost always a lot it’s the most frugal way to leave
Yes if you can found number by model/manufacturer like this website can be really cool : https://www.tesladeaths.com/
Yes but not a fun fact probably more a real fact because people not like when you not write what they want to read.
Like write than Tesla or EV are the worst ideas ever add ~500kg battery weight when you need to reduce global power consumption. A car should have a weight of 40kg for transport 80kg like an e-bike is perfect 25kg for 80kg or a car 160kg for 320kg (4 people). We follow the wrong way but one day people while learn and understand how to reduce consumption because we haven’t the choice to do that in a near future.
I agree! Now show me a car with 160 kg weight. I’m sure it will be a very safe car too! Otherwise, just show me a car with a better energy efficiency than Tesla. Any ICE car perhaps? Please.
There seem to be plenty of cars with a better efficiency than the cars from Tesla if you look at real world tests:
You don’t seem to understand what efficiency is. It’s not who can drive the furthest, but who gets the highest number of miles per kWh. Anyway, in your link are two Teslas in top 5, missing out 5% to the top car. Here’s a better ranking for you:
Funny, spot 1 & 3 is Tesla…
Yes, the ranking is based on the total range, but Miles per kWH is also included.
Their methodology seems really good at measuring the real world performance.
| Model | Miles per kWh |
|---|---|
| Hyundai Kona Electric 64kWh | 3.6 |
| Kia e-Niro 64kWh | 3.5 |
| Tesla Model 3 Performance | 2.8 |
M3 performance (113 MPGe) is not the most efficient M3, it’s the standard range (142 MPGe). Since 1 gallon is 33.7 kWh, this works out to be 3.3 miles/kWh and 4.2 m/kWh respectively.
By the way, either I don’t understand something, or their numbers are screwed up. Model 3 Performance has a 75 kWh battery and in their test it did 239 miles. According to my complex calculation, that’s 3.2 miles per kWh. They state 2.8. Explain please.
They measure the kwh from the wall, not from the battery. Charging a battery seems to be around ~90% effective.
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Tesla driving - especially on long trips - is a combination of efficiency and supercharger network. For this use case you don’t have alternatives, at the moment.
On the other hand, if you just drive 50-60 km / day and can charge at home, basically any EV might fit your needs
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Compared to the first 2CV models, the weight of the smallest Citroën today has almost doubled, while the top speed more than doubled and the maximum power output rose by a factor of eight.
Surprisingly, the fuel consumption remained more or less the same. The C1 consumes 4.6 litres per 100 kilometres (61 miles per gallon), the 2CV consumed on average 4.4 litres (64 miles per gallon).
Since 1940, no consumption reduction due to increase weight but now we have carbon fiber and a car can be lighter than a 1940 car today so less than 500kg !
I wait the first manufacturer who try to follow this way whatever if car are electrical, air, fuel, nuclear or whatever.
Weight reduction has been a focus for a really long time and it is mostly about replacing metal parts with plastic compounds, especially in and around the engine bay. You would be suprised how much engineering is going into this area.
Pedro, you keep quoting relevant facts, yet it’s hard to grasp what your point is. I don’t even know what we’re arguing about anymore. EVs are too heavy, you’ve said that before. Now you say ICE cars are also too heavy. Well no shit, they have air conditioning, airbags, sound system, noise reduction, turbo charger etc etc, all this is an extra. I don’t think we want cars without it. Otherwise, please, drive a Caterham.
As proven time and time again, EVs are not much heavier than similar ICE cars. Tesla is investing heavily into the structural battery pack, which will make the battery part of the vehicle’s frame. Then you have the front and the back as two single piece castings, which will also reduce complexity and mass. This might allow to put an even smaller battery to achieve same range. Just wait until we see first vehicles with these 3 improvements.
EV are too heavy due to batteries and it’s risky due to fire. Look UPS flight 6 when batteries burn at 20’000 feet and even without enough oxygen they continue to burn until the pilot can’t view anymore his own instruments for continue to fly. Yes it’s due to that and some other issues with planes than we need to declare all batteries before take a plane or send a parcel.
Oil isn’t UNLIMITED and we can’t continue to drive 5t vehicle with an integrated pool inside even if it’s possible.
After 70 years we have almost depleted all resources of this planet. Humans are on this planet since thousands of years. Look this youtube movie may be you can understand : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE (everyone with so many people can’t have a 5t pool car and a new phone each 2 months without recycle most parts because cost too much to recycle at 100%)
If you not trust me look how many copper or even gold has been extracted during thousand of year Maya/Egyptian until 1950 and how many we extract each year right now. The amount of raw stone is just INSANE and earth can’t give us unlimited resources to a constant increasing number of people.
So yes we should be enough smart for understand we can’t continue to live with so many resources and move every day with a car of more than ~200kg. It’s too late and too hard when we haven’t any more oil for think and change our future. It’s should be done now and EV (battery) isn’t the way. Like cut nuclear power plant isn’t the way.
One day people will understand that that’s not too late when understand this fact.
Pedro, you are right in the account of weight. Cars are getting heavier but what you don’t seem to catch is that weight is not proportional to planet consumption.
Carbon fiber uses 14x the energy to be produced than steel and one fifth (!) is lost in the river as microplastic during the manufacturing process. Recycling it is only possible with pyrolysis and requires again huge amount of energy.
So even having a 400 kg carbon fiber car it doesn’t meant is better than 2 ton steel car.
I agree on using E-Bikes. I do most of my km with E-Bikes and trains.
But thinking than a 400 kg car of carbon fiber is better for the environment …well is not true. Particularly since the 2 ton electric ev can recuperate energy during braking, so weight is basically meaningless for drive consumption.
The real innovation needs to be tyres. Less friction, less microplastic etc.
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