On April 24th, Tesla released its Q1 2024 financial report. Data shows that the company's revenue in the first quarter reached $21.3 billion (approximately RMB 154.3 billion), and its non GAAP net profit for the quarter was $1.5 billion (approximately RMB 10.9 billion). Due to lower than expected delivery in the first quarter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed during a earnings conference call that he will accelerate the launch of new models, which will be available as early as the end of 2024.
In fact, with the increasingly fierce competition in the new energy market, new car models emerge one after another, and price competition is fierce. Currently, Tesla's two flagship models, Model 3 and Model Y, have significantly declined in competitiveness. In the first quarter of this year, Tesla delivered 386800 cars, a decrease of 8.5% compared to the same period last year. For this reason, Tesla has recently lowered the prices of the Model 3 and Model Y models in China in order to stimulate sales.
Q1 revenue of $21.3 billion
9% year-on-year decrease
Specifically, Tesla's total revenue in the first quarter was $21.301 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 9%. Among them, the revenue of its automotive business was $17.378 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 13%; The gross profit was 3.696 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 18%; The gross profit margin is 17.4%, both lower than 17.6% in the fourth quarter of last year and 19.3% in the same period last year.
In terms of operating profit, the first quarter saw a year-on-year decline of 56% to $1.171 billion; The operating profit margin was 5.5%, lower than 8.2% in the fourth quarter of last year and 11.4% in the same period last year; Adjusted EBITDA decreased by 21% year-on-year to $3.384 billion, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.9%, compared to 18.3% in the same period last year.
According to US GAAP, Tesla's net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders in the first quarter of this year was $1.129 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 55%; Affected by inventory backlog and capital expenditures on artificial intelligence infrastructure, the company's free cash flow was negative $2.531 billion, a significant decrease of 674% year-on-year.
In terms of vehicle production and sales, Tesla's global production in the first quarter of this year was 433400 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of about 2%. 386800 vehicles were delivered, a year-on-year decrease of 8.5%. According to the financial report, due to seasonal factors and planned shutdowns around the Chinese New Year, the production of Shanghai's super factories has decreased. But demand usually improves throughout the year, and when Tesla enters a new market, many products will be supplied by the Shanghai super factory.
Tesla stated that the company experienced many challenges in the first quarter, from the Red Sea conflict and the arson case at the Berlin super factory, to the gradual increase in production capacity of the new Model 3 at the Fremont factory. Despite a decline in deliveries in the first quarter, Musk still has confidence in this year's deliveries, believing that electric vehicle deliveries in 2024 will be higher than last year.
Release of autonomous taxi business in August
According to observations by reporters, Tesla is fully betting on the development and investment opportunities of electric vehicles and autonomous driving. In its financial report, Tesla emphasized that there are currently two major growth waves. The first wave begins with the global expansion of the Model 3 and Model Y platforms, while the next wave will be triggered by advances in autonomous driving technology and the launch of new products, including those based on its next-generation vehicle platform.
For electric vehicles, Musk has released positive news that the company will continue to update its vehicle lineup and accelerate the launch of new models. Some production plans originally scheduled for the second half of 2025 may be advanced to early 2025 or even the end of 2024. Including cheaper models, it will form a strong combination with existing models. The new model will also utilize next-generation platforms and current platform technologies to adapt to the production lines of current models. Meanwhile, the Shanghai super factory will also provide some production capacity for new markets such as Chile.
For autonomous driving, Tesla's artificial intelligence training computing improved by more than 130% in the first quarter. "Only by utilizing data from millions of vehicles and massive AI training clusters can large-scale autonomous driving be achieved." Tesla stated that the company will continue to invest in future growth points, including artificial intelligence infrastructure, production capacity, super charging stations, service networks, and new product infrastructure. Capital expenditures in this area in the first quarter have reached $2.8 billion.
In addition, during the financial report conference call, Musk confirmed that Tesla will release its Robotaxi (autonomous taxi) business on August 8, 2024. According to Tesla, Robotaxi will adopt an unboxed manufacturing method. At the beginning of this month, Musk announced his plan to release autonomous taxis on social media, which was seen by the industry as a strategic move by the company to bet on autonomous driving and Robotaxi.
In fact, the launch of Robotaxi is inseparable from the core competitiveness and moat built by Tesla's FSD fully autonomous driving technology. Based on a deep layout of large-scale driving mileage, self-developed computing platform, and huge computing power, Tesla FSD has continuously upgraded and iterated fully autonomous driving, entering the V12.3 stage, and is able to respond flexibly and accurately to quite complex road conditions.
Musk once said that the mileage of 6 billion miles (about 9.7 billion kilometers) is an important node for the complete auto drive system to achieve qualitative change. The Securities Daily reporter learned from the company that in the first quarter of 2024, Tesla FSD fully autonomous driving had a total actual road mileage of 1.25 billion miles (about 2 billion kilometers). Based on the current cumulative mileage speed, it is expected to reach a total of 6 billion miles within a year.