Tesla’s 2024 financial results are out—and they’re terrible
Tesla’s 2024 financial results are out—and they’re terrible
40 percent of its profit came from selling regulatory credits.
AI Summary:
Tesla's 2024 financial results were disappointing, with several key points highlighted:
- Automotive Revenues: Fell by 8% in Q4 2024 compared to Q4 2023, totaling $19.8 billion.
- Energy and Storage Revenues: More than doubled, growing by 113% to $3 billion in Q4 2024.
- Services: Grew by 31% in Q4 2024, contributing $2.8 billion.
- Total Revenue: Increased by 2% in Q4 2024, but income fell by 23%, with an operating margin of 6.2%.
- Net Profits: Dropped by 71% to $2.3 billion in Q4 2024.
- Annual Performance: Automotive revenues decreased by 6% to $77 billion in 2024. Energy generation and storage increased by 67% to $10 billion. Services grew by 27%, bringing in $10.5 billion.
- Gross Profits: Fell by 1%, with net profits dropping by 53% to $7.1 billion for the year.
- Free Cash Flow: Decreased by 18% to $3.6 billion.
- Regulatory Credits: $2.8 billion of profit came from selling regulatory credits, not from core business activities.
- Future Predictions: Tesla expects energy storage revenues to grow by at least 50% year-over-year and aims to grow automotive sales by more than 60% in 2025.
Despite the poor financial results, Tesla's share price increased by 103% over the same period.
People don't want Swasticars? Huh.
Credits aside, these dont seem like bad numbers when compared to spend/investment. Tesla management got what they wanted.
Ah, but you've forgotten the real money maker.
- Having full control over the regulatory authority that currently prevents him putting his automated deathtrap taxis on the roads
Turns out it's much cheaper to buy governments than it is to perfect self driving technology.
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.
I doubt latency would be an issue.
More the fact that they'll be juggling too many at once.
Ah so only the unverifiable services that don't require an easily trackable commodity did well.
I wish I could make up income too.
I wouldn't buy a Tesla even if Elon wasn't a Nazi and a Zionist.
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.
i guess time to short it? seems like a bubble
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.
All it needs is a couple of opportunistic fuckers to take advantage of chaos and that shit will plummet like a fucking rock.
Bill Gates is famously shorting TSLA (1)
Net profits $2.3B. "Poor financial results". How does one reconcile these two things?
But yeah, I live in a country that has had about 0% growth since 2008 :-| Perhaps this is bad news for you rich yankees.
Also note that the automotive industry seems to be pretty much flatlining for the last 5 years or so: https://www.vettafi.com/indexing/index/autos -- so Tesla is not doing particurarily badly in the large picture.
Net profits $2.3B. "Poor financial results". How does one reconcile these two things?
That's 2.3B USD on a 1.29T USD valuation, or 0.17%.
Valuations should be reflective of expected future profits. Multiples of ×20 yearly profit are possible for risky (tech or biotech usually) companies, with large potential profit. But the ratio is ridiculously off the charts for tesla. If it does not improve, it will have turned out to have been a very wastefull use of capital.
The issue is the price to earnings ratio of the Tesla stock which is almost 200:1.
The level of profit is not bad for a normally price company but Telsa needs to have profits grow exponentially to justify their stock price.
It used to be double that, so I can see why people see it as a bad thing. But I also don’t think 7.1B profits qualifies as “poor financial results”, even if it used to be higher.
If any other company dropped net profits by 71% they’d be firing their CEOs (well giving them a golden parachute to gtfo) and having some major shake ups.
Good thing musky got that big compensation package shoved through, eh?
The CEO is too busy playing social media edgelord. I guess when you blow up a company to the point where it will pop, you have to go into politics to change the laws to make it more profitable.
https://fortune.com/2025/01/29/tesla-shares-rally-2025-earnings-growth/
Tesla shares rally on pledge to return to growth in 2025
Continuing the bullshit from 2022, where Musk promised a typical year would have growth of 50!!
Tesla plans to launch its autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin in June
Hows that going Elron?
“This is not some far off mythical situation,” Musk said on the company’s call with analysts. “It’s literally five months away.”
So it's been LITERALLY running for more than a half year now? Or is it still a no show, like the 7 previous years FSD should have been here?
We can do this TODAY.
He has said that so many times, on so many things, and it's always a lie. FSD, Convoys of trucks that are cheaper than trains! Tesla being able to park. which it still can't do reliably. And this is the very beginning of the claim that a Tesla can drive across the country (USA) to pick you up!
Did ANYONE believe his bullshit ever, do people believe he will build a manned base on Mars eventually? A base that should have been up and running I think it was 2022!!!
How is this man not in jail?
Oh right, probably much the same way Trump is not in jail. USA is an oligarchy moving towards a fascist dictatorship!!
tessla plans to launch it's autonomous ride hailing service
Autonomous driving, like he's promised he already had every year for over a decade now.
Who does anyone believe this scammer? He is a con man, always had been, and I'm just amazed at the enormous amount of idiots believing his shit
pop?
Value investing is basically dead, isn't it? Am I crazy? How can you objectively evaluate a company's value, notice it is undervalued, and then trade accordingly when price action does not even slightly track the company's value?
I wondered that a while ago when Tesla was worth more than many other car makers combined while producing far less vehicles than any single one of them. And I remember people telling me about projections and expectations and that it’s only a matter of time until everyone drives a Tesla basically. Sounded like mass hysteria to me back then because the rest of the world won’t just sit there quietly and let Tesla have a monopoly. People bought shares because they rose rapidly in value, causing even more people to buy shares. It’s a pyramid scheme like so many things these days and people have no problem with it apparently. They love gambling and playing lottery. Value investing is too boring for them.
It's gambling
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.
True enough. A bet on any tech stocks right now is probably safe on that basis - but I expect they really do plan to crash the stock market at some point... It would make sense if you wanted to consolidate ownership cheaply.
That’s not new to Tesla. Avoid bubble stocks. Avoid penny stocks. Buy “stodgy”
I'm not into Tesla stock. I'm not just here to whine about a single stock not doing what I want, it's that I think price action in general is too irrational. I've got an axe to grind here and it goes beyond which stocks to pick.
Huge ETFs and algorithmic trading makes too many tickers move all the same way. This harms price discovery. And don't get me started on off-exchange trading; This month, off-exchange volume exceeded that of lit markets.
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.
So when will he have time to play Path of Exile and Polyopia and oligarch?
So more than a third of their net profits come from selling credits they received from the government? Am I understanding that correctly?
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.
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)
Right, we want EVs, Tesla gets a little boost from legacy manufacturers, so now we have a market, EVs are available. GM gets a break do it has time to design EVs, but are really annoyed at funding that bastard Elon, so have incentive to get their shit together. EVs are built a little sooner m, no one goes out of business (yet), we all win
I think it's from Europe. Car manufacturers in Europe must sell at least n ev every year. Stellantis, that was asleep at the wheel and only has undesirable EVs that don't sell, is paying billions to Tesla to make a fictitious alliance, so they will meet the sales target and won't pay the fine
several key points highlighted
Lists nearly a dozen items 🤣
Expensive luxury cars for rich people with over 30 thousand subsidy, and they will still lose money. Credits is the new Bitcoin.
That’s ok, I’m sure a big government bailout is on the horizon for JUST the struggling, American EV auto maker, because their CEO sucked the president’s dick the best.
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.
Also remember that Tesla owns I think just shy of 10K Bitcoins that actually allowed its numbers this quarter by $600 million. And the way Trump has his minions pulling all crypto regulations look for Tesla to exploit it to the max going forward. Maybe they'll even buy some $TRUMP coins and announce $ELON coins for foreign entities looking to launder money destined for the White House.
Teslas are objectively trash. 1 out of 3 model 3s didn't pass the mandatory inspection in Denmark 4y after purchase which results in tje cars becoming very expensive paper weights given how expensive it is to repair the modal issues. I'm amazed these data weren't more divulged by media since they come from the Danish state.
Again, more reason for baby musk to cry at baby trump about how it isn’t fair and he NEEEDS American tax dollars to fight the China EV invasion.
Good.
Net Profits: Dropped by 71% to $2.3 billion in Q4 2024.
Since when 2.4 billion net profit is terrible?
"Yes, we earned billions but it's actually less than the year before!" Dude, go out and touch some grass...
It's terrible for the stock price which has a price to earnings ratio of almost 200.
If this were a normal company with a profit margin of ~6% and a normal stock price (in line with the market average), it would be fine.
"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.
You misread the sheet slightly. The total profit for the year was $7.1 billion, of which $2.8 billion was renewable energy credits. I.e. their profit would have only been $4.3 billion.
Since when 2.4 billion net profit is terrible?
Since Musk claimed in 2022 that a 50% growth per year would be normal for Tesla. And people are stupid enough to partially believe him. In January 2024 Musk promised 2024 would be a HUGE growth year, with autonomous RoboTaxi being launched in June. He claimed it’s LITERALLY only 5 months away!!!
https://fortune.com/2025/01/29/tesla-shares-rally-2025-earnings-growth/
Tesla Inc. revealed plans to begin robotaxi operations and forecast a sales recovery this year, fueling what Elon Musk predicted would be an “epic” period of growth for the electric vehicle maker.
Nothing he claimed or promised has come true. Quite the opposite.
You just glossed right over the "dropped by 71%" bit...since when is that not terrible? That's an incredible decrease in profits over the course of just 12 months.
71% drop in a single quarter is time for workers to start looking for other jobs bad. This was way before Elon's Nazi salute so expect things to get way worse. I'd be so embarrassed if I drove a Tesla.
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.
When you know you're going to get a billion dollars in credits for something, you plan your business around having those billion credits.
You sell cars cheaper, you expand faster, you try new ideas you might not have tried etc.
Tesla hasn't needed those credits for a very long time now, but if they are there, of course they're going to take as full advantage of the situation as they can.
If the credits had stopped around when Tesla didn't need them anymore, I'm sure they would look very different than today, but they'd still be around and profitable.
which means your main activity is still wildly unsustainable over a decade after the company being founded.
Oh so it is an AI company then.
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.
It's bad because the company is bad and they should collapse, not continue on.
Receiving $2.4 billion is nice. But not if you had to pay $1265 billion (market cap) for the privilege.
Neat.
aims to grow automotive sales by more than 60% in 2025.
I think this is being reported incorrectly in a lot of places.
They said the new vehicles they're launching in H1 2025 will allow them to grow 60% to the 3 million capacity they have.
They did not say in 2025, but it looked like it could be interpreted as 2025 without saying it.
I think this is being reported incorrectly in a lot of places.
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.
That's from 2022. They made no such guidance for 2025 as I stated. I stand by statement that I believe people are misinterpreting what was written and it was not about 2025, simply where the new vehicles will get them at some undefined point in the future.
You can't base their company value on the stock market ... you base it on how much power and influence they have over government.
And judging by the amount of stupidly arranged love affair they are having with the government .... they should be very highly valued.
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.
Tesla’s share price increased by 103% over the same period.
It's funny when people cry about crypto being a scam when the entire "economy" is a casino based on genocide tokens.
They're both scams, but at least companies make things.
So they are making bank on storage and energy, but they are allowing Trump and the EPA to ruin it? Also he makes electric vehicles and Trump and Co are trying to bring back gas guzzlers and straight pipes. Hmmm. I think Elons mouth wasn't sufficiently moist enough for trump.
I'm glad for them.
they don't make electric vehicles. they make human sized battery powered over engineered poorly designed toys that were somehow street legal.