Tesla Sets Nov. 30 for Cybertruck Delivery
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Tesla Inc. is sticking with its full-year production forecast and promising its new Cybertruck by Nov. 30, even as it reported worse-than-expected earnings last quarter.
The Elon Musk-led company said profit, excluding some items, fell to 66 cents a share, less than the 74 cents Wall Street estimated. Revenue reached $23.4 billion, Tesla said in a shareholder letter Oct. 18. Analysts had expected the company to generate $24.06 billion in revenue.
Still, the EV maker rose in extended trading on news Tesla’s long-awaited Cybertruck will finally hit the market next month. The vehicle is about two years behind schedule. The company also assured investors it’s on track to make and ship about 1.8 million vehicles this year, a record.
Musk warned it may be another 18 months until the company reaches volume production on the Cybertruck and is generating significant cash flow from the pickup.
“We dug our own grave with Cybertruck,” Musk told analysts, referring to the level of complexity of the vehicle. “Special products that come along only once in a long while are just incredibly difficult to bring to market, to reach volume, to be prosperous.”
Tesla is even willing to to ditch stickers and QR codes on its car parts if it means saving a few pennies of cost, Musk said.
Shares shook off an initial dip in after hours trading, having at one point fallen as much as 2.8%.
The news overshadowed Tesla’s declining profit margins. Its adjusted profit margin fell to 16.1%. Its automotive gross margin ex-regulatory credits for the quarter was 16.3%. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting it to be 17.7%.
Q3 Shareholder Update → https://t.co/sXBSeLibSL
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Highlights
Cybertruck production remains on track for later this year, with first deliveries scheduled for November 30th at Giga Texas.
Production of our higher density 4680 cell is progressing as planned & we continue building… pic.twitter.com/FqpseLujaA — Tesla (@Tesla) October 18, 2023
The company has repeatedly slashed prices of its cars this year, and Musk has said he’s willing to sacrifice Tesla’s industry-leading profit margins to protect sales volumes. Markdowns for its most expensive vehicle, the Model X, have exceeded 30%, making the cars more affordable for customers struggling with high inflation and interest rates.
The Austin, Texas-based company already said it delivered 435,059 vehicles globally in the period, its first quarterly decline in a year, after planned factory downtime slowed production. Tesla recently launched a refreshed Model 3 sedan in China and Europe and is preparing the Cybertruck.
“While production cost at our new factories remained higher than our established factories, we have implemented necessary upgrades in Q3 to enable further unit cost reductions,” the company said in its letter to shareholders.
This will be the company’s first full quarter with new chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja. Previously Tesla’s chief accounting officer, Taneja was appointed to the role in August, when then-CFO Zach Kirkhorn abruptly stepped down after 13 years at the carmaker.
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