The third quarter profit exceeded expectations, and Tesla's stock price surged by over 11% after market hours.
On October 24th, Tesla released its financial report showing that in the third quarter of 2024, Tesla achieved revenue of $25.182 billion, a year-on-year increase of 8%, slightly lower than market expectations; GAAP net profit was $2.167 billion, a year-on-year increase of 17%, far exceeding market expectations; The gross profit margin increased to 19.8%, a year-on-year increase of about 2 percentage points.
The increase in delivery volume has boosted its performance. Tesla's delivery volume in the third quarter was 463000 units, a year-on-year increase of 6.4%, marking a year-on-year growth in sales for the first quarter of this year and setting a record for delivery in the third quarter of previous years.
In response to the increase in net profit, Tesla mentioned that its cost of bike sales (COGS) has dropped to its lowest level ever, at approximately $35100.
In addition, Tesla's carbon credits revenue for this quarter was the second highest in history, at $739 million, which also helped it increase its profit margin. Tesla stated that this is because other manufacturers are still lagging behind in meeting emission requirements. Automakers must earn a certain amount of carbon credits each year, and if they cannot meet the target, they can purchase credits from companies such as Tesla, which has surplus credits because it only produces electric vehicles.
In terms of energy business, Tesla once again achieved strong performance this quarter, achieving revenue of $2.376 billion and a record high gross profit margin of 30.5%. The Shanghai Gigafactory is still scheduled to start delivering Megapacks in the first quarter of 2025.
Launch more affordable car models in the first half of 2025
Tesla has revealed that the company is preparing to launch more competitive models, including more affordable models (known as the low-priced Model 2 by investors) starting in the first half of 2025.
During the earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that Tesla plans to launch more affordable models starting in the first half of 2025. He also added that with incentives, the price of electric vehicles will be "below $30000, which is a key threshold".
He stated that the workload required to manufacture low-cost cars is "extremely high", and extracting a 20% profit from car costs is even more difficult than designing cars and building the entire factory from the beginning.
He predicts that unless there are significant negative events, car sales will increase by 20% to 30% by 2025.
In terms of other vehicle models, although Tesla's pickup truck Cybertruck has been plagued by quality issues, the company still sold over 16000 Cybertrucks in the United States in the third quarter. Tesla mentioned that Cybertruck has achieved positive gross profit margin for the first time.
Regarding Tesla's electric truck Semi, Tesla executives have pointed out that the factory for producing Semi is expected to begin preliminary construction next year and will be fully operational by 2026. Musk said that considering the extremely low cost per mile of the car, the demand for the Semi is very high.
A Tesla executive mentioned that the potential of Semi trucks has been confirmed by customers such as Pepsi. Once Pepsi drivers have tried the Semi truck, they no longer want to drive other trucks.
The launch of Roadster may take a long time. When asked by analysts about this model, Musk admitted that pre order buyers of the Roadster have been struggling for some time, but he stated that the Roadster is a "icing on the cake" and did not provide a more detailed plan.
Tesla's CFO mentioned that Tesla is determined to increase sales while avoiding inventory backlog. To support this strategy, Tesla is launching more attractive financial solutions to make it easier for consumers to purchase its cars.
FSD V13 is about to be launched and will provide shared mobility services to the public in California and Texas next year
Musk also discussed the progress of the fully autonomous driving feature FSD, including the release of V12.5 version and the FSD of Cybertruck. He pointed out that the FSD V13 is expected to be launched soon, and the mileage of each intervention of V13 is expected to increase by 5-6 times.
After the launch of the FSD V12 version, Tesla's FSD usage increased significantly, which also drove its revenue and net profit to climb.
As of the third quarter, the FSD fully autonomous driving capability (Driver Supervision Edition) has accumulated over 2 billion miles of driving, with over 50% of this achieved on the V12 version.
Musk pointed out that Tesla internally estimates that FSD will be safer than human drivers by the second quarter of next year, "without waiting for Robotaxi to achieve fully autonomous driving. We expect to be able to achieve this goal with existing models next year
About two weeks ago, Tesla launched RobotaxiCybercab. Musk stated that he is confident that Cybercab will achieve mass production by 2026. Tesla estimates an annual production of 2 million vehicles.
He also expects that California and Texas will offer shared mobility services to the public next year. He also revealed that Tesla employees in the San Francisco Bay Area now have an autonomous ride hailing service, but this service still uses safety personnel.
Musk also believes that there should be a national approval process for autonomous vehicle in the United States, rather than the current state by state approval process. It is "very painful" to obtain approval from state to state.
Musk emphasized that Cybercab is technically a car worth $25000. As for the non Robotaxi car priced at $25000, executives emphasized that Tesla is fully committed to the field of autonomous driving, so there are currently no plans to produce a non autonomous version of Cybercab.
In addition, Tesla stated that its artificial intelligence training computing power increased by over 75% in the third quarter.
Musk pointed out that the Optimus humanoid robot project is making progress. He mentioned that Optimus' next generation hand has 22 degrees of freedom.
Musk said, "I am confident that we have the most advanced humanoid robots and are far ahead of other similar robots." He also added that competitors' robots lack artificial intelligence capabilities and even do not have the ability to mass produce robots, while Tesla has both capabilities, so the company's leading potential in this field is very significant.
I think Optimus will become the most valuable part of Tesla, "Musk added.
Tesla stated that despite global economic growth being hindered and other companies reducing their investments in the electric vehicle business, we remain focused on expanding our vehicle and energy lines, reducing costs, and investing heavily in artificial intelligence projects and production capacity. We believe that these efforts will enable us to seize the transformation opportunities currently underway in the transportation and energy sectors.
Tesla's stock price fell by 18% in October and has dropped by 14% since the beginning of this year. On October 23, the US stock market closed down 1.98%, but the third quarter performance significantly boosted the stock price in after hours trading. As of press time, Tesla's US stock market rose more than 11.8% in after hours trading.