Tesla released a bitter earnings report: financial data fell short of expectations across the board, and the company withdrew its full-year growth outlook.

After the market closed on Tuesday, Tesla, mired in political turmoil, released a Q1 earnings report that fell short of expectations across key metrics. Due to a sharp decline in vehicle deliveries, the company's core financial indicators, including revenue and profit, were significantly below expectations. The publicly listed firm also repeatedly mentioned the impact of tariff policies in its earnings report, seemingly indirectly criticizing Trump's trade policies. However, after nearly halving in the previous four months, Tesla's investors appeared resilient to the earnings setback. In the first hour after the earnings release, Tesla's stock price showed little fluctuation in after-hours trading. Update: Following US President Trump's remarks after the market close, which eased market sentiment by stating he had "no intention to fire Powell," and Musk's announcement during the earnings call that his time spent on the "Government Efficiency Department" would significantly decrease in May, Tesla's stock price surged, briefly rising over 5%. The earnings data was poor. The report showed that Tesla's Q1 revenue was only $19.335 billion, compared to market expectations of $21.348 billion. Compared to past performance, the company's revenue in Q1 last year was $21.3 billion, and in Q4 last year, it was $25.7 billion. The core reason for the performance drag was a sharp decline in vehicle sales. Previous delivery data showed that Tesla's total Q1 deliveries were 336,681 units, down 13% YoY, marking the worst quarterly performance since 2022. As a result, automotive revenue was only $13.967 billion, down 20% YoY. Even though the energy and ESS businesses achieved a 67% revenue growth ($2.73 billion), it could not alter the overall direction of the earnings report. Meanwhile, due to increased investment in R&D projects such as AI, the company's operating expenses rose instead of falling, leading to a 66% YoY drop in operating profit to $399 million. The operating margin was only 2.1%, down 343 basis points YoY. The final adjusted earnings per share were only $0.27, down 40% YoY, compared to market expectations of $0.43. In other words, without the $595 million from the sale of regulatory credits (carbon emission credits) in Q1, Tesla would have reported a loss. There was almost no outlook. As a highlight of this US earnings season, the market was highly focused on how Tesla would assess the impact of "Trump tariffs." The company stated in its earnings report that rapidly changing trade policies have adversely affected the global supply chain and Tesla's cost structure, with increasing uncertainty in the automotive and energy markets. This dynamic, coupled with changing political sentiment, could significantly impact the demand for Tesla's products, especially in the short term. Tesla also disclosed that the current tariff situation has a greater impact on the energy business compared to the automotive business. Analysis pointed out that this statement refers to Tesla's large ESS battery, Megapack, which uses LFP batteries imported from China. In contrast, all cars sold by Tesla in the US are assembled locally, though they are also affected by import tariffs on parts. As expected, Tesla's latest earnings report did not mention expectations for a recovery in automotive business growth. In the previous quarter's earnings call, the company had expected the automotive business to recover in 2025. Tesla stated that it is currently difficult to measure the impact of global trade policy changes on the supply chain, cost structure, and demand, and the company will revisit its 2025 guidance in the Q2 earnings report. The time for promises. In the earnings report, Tesla also disclosed that the new affordable car model is still on track to begin production in H1 2025. The new model will integrate technologies from the next-generation platform and the current platform, sharing existing production lines. This approach allows for cautious capacity expansion during uncertain times and fully utilizes the expected maximum capacity of nearly 3 million units. Before investing in new production lines, production is expected to increase by over 60% compared to 2024. The company also expects the autonomous taxi, Cybercab, to enter mass production in 2026. The earnings report also disclosed that Robotaxi will begin pilot testing in Austin, US, in June this year, and the Fremont factory will also pilot the production of the Optimus robot this year, with more robots performing actual tasks being deployed in the factory. The earnings report also included photos of the Optimus pilot production line. Tesla also disclosed that its lithium refinery and cathode material production plant in Texas are expected to commence operations this year.

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Tesla released a bitter earnings report: financial data fell short of expectations across the board, and the company withdrew its full-year growth outlook.

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