Tesla’s 2024 financial results are out—and they’re terrible

The investors are banking on Elon looting the Govt coffers into Tesla. I can’t deny the chances based on the other crap we are seeing.

Value investing isn't dead. There are tons of value investors, and they aren't the ones buying Tesla.

That’s not new to Tesla. Avoid bubble stocks. Avoid penny stocks. Buy “stodgy”

There's value investing and there's speculation. If Tesla can make a robot that can mop the floor, even this seemingly ridiculous valuation will look like a bargain. Have to remember, Tesla is not a car company. They are an AI and green tech company. Cars are just their largest activity to date.

I am concerned about Elon though. I think he's a visionary, I think he's valuable, but I also think he's spread far too thin and he's losing it as a result. Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, xAI, Neuralink, and his political efficiency project. All of these are full-time 100hr/week jobs. Even if you assume he literally never sees his gaggle of children, hell even if you assume he never sleeps, there's literally not enough hours in the day. And I think he is thus blind to the fact that his antics are costing him support for the bigger mission.

Yes you are understanding that correctly. For producing EVs, they get credits from the federal government. I don't know the exchange rate -- e.g., how many EVs per credit.

Then, Tesla turns around and sells these credits to buyers, usually other companies. Companies buy these credits from Tesla to comply with regulations requiring certain environmental outcomes, and credits count towards these outcomes.

In theory this type of program incentivizes and rewards companies who invest in the technology(is) tied to these credits, in this case EVs. In practice it's a way for other companies to comply with renewables regulations without actually doing anything to meaningfully reduce their impact and footprint (other than buying credits)

They are emissions credits. Every company receives some amount of "CO2 emission credits" from the government. These allow you to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide. If you don't emit all the CO2 that your credits allow, you can sell those credits to other companies that need more than the government gives them.

The idea is to put a total limit on the amount of emissions in the country, while letting the market figure out where it makes most sense economically to invest in emission reduction.

Tesla makes only EV cars and so it doesn't need all the credits a typical gasoline car company would receive. So they sell them.

You are. Without the EV credits, Tesla would have folded years ago.

I believed him at first, why wouldn't I? Self driving was starting to take shape, the demos looked good, I assumed what he was saying was legitimate.

I remember starting to question things around the time of the Tesla Semi reveal. It didn't make sense to me that you'd use heavy, short range batteries in an industry that runs by driving as far as possible, for as cheap as possible, hauling as much as possible. There were just too many compromises and he didn't give any details other than acceleration (who cares in trucking).

After that I started looking into him more and realized his bullshit spread through everything he touched. I honestly think most people are simply not paying attention to him, they just read headlines and since headlines never call him out and only amp up the crazy ambitious things he says, people believe he's a genius.

That seems to be slowly changing as he opens his stupid mouth about politics, but he's pivoting to a new audience now.

He probably needs all the H1B visas for his remote taxi drivers. I doubt the latency would be good enough otherwise. And it was clear in the 'demo' the pilot was just standing right there controlling it.

They have $3.6B in free cash flow. This is just a decrease from last year, which was a record, to this year, a year in which new car sales outside of China are massively down everywhere.

"Terrible" is just for attention, but the bit of news that would have cratered any other company's stock it that it's down 71% YOY. Plus:

Regulatory Credits: $2.8 billion of profit came from selling regulatory credits, not from core business activities.

People in the current administration have said they plan to end these credits in the coming months. Without them in 2024 Tesla would have reported a $500million loss for the year.

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.

It's bad because downward trends are bad, especially when the economy is growing.

Look at it this way: suppose you have a job with a decent salary. Your supervisor calls you in and says, "Well, looks like we're going to cut your pay next year". You ask, "Is the company in trouble? Is everyone getting a pay cut?" And they answer, "No, the company is growing. Most people are getting raises. Not you, though."

That's a bad sign.

I can barely see how they were so popular up to now anyway. I, too, thought they were cool like 10 years ago, when they were the only real electric car (Leaf and I-Miev don't count and we didn't get the Bolt or Volt here, only Opel Ampera and Ampera-E, which are ultra rare). Then a couple of years later, I realized some things, in this order: 1) Tesla interiors are THE BLANDEST THING EVER, 2) Elon Musk's been seeming increasingly weird starting with the cave diving incident, 3) Tesla quality control is absolute shite

Tesla changed the world by proving you CAN have good range and performance in an EV, but now they're way past their prime. The Germans, Swedes, Koreans and now I believe EVEN THE CHINESE make better EVs. I have no experience with non-Tesla American EVs to comment on those, but I wouldn't be surprised if they surpass Tesla in overall quality of vehicle in a few years too.

No, you base company value on its current and future earnings.

All that government influence is useless if people stop buying your products. And it turns out lots of people don't want to buy products associated with Musk.

I think this is being reported incorrectly in a lot of places.

https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/companies-executives/article/21253076/tesla-q3-profits-double-musk-sticks-to-50-growth-target

Elon Musk said his team expects “an epic end of year” for the company as it aims to maintain its 50% annualized growth rate.

I don't think you are aware how crazy Musk's promises are.

The problem is that it has been a bubble for most of its public trading existence. It was highly overvalued 10 years ago, the stock price has never made sense, so who knows when it will finally correct.