Tesla's market value evaporated by 574.3 billion yuan overnight

"Currently, Tesla is in the middle of two major 'growth waves'. Musk said frankly.

At the close of trading on January 25, local time, Tesla's stock price was at $182.63, down 12.13%, the largest one-day decline in a year. The market value was 580.57 billion US dollars, and 80.1 billion US dollars (about 574.3 billion yuan) evaporated overnight. ）

On the news side, on January 25, Tesla released a financial report showing that last year's revenue increased by 19% year-on-year, and net profit increased by 19% year-on-year. However, compared with 2022, its revenue and profit growth has slowed down significantly, and its gross profit margin has not returned to 20%. Tesla, for its part, blamed the "discoloration" in its earnings report on the lower average selling price of vehicles and "an increase in operating expenses driven in part by artificial intelligence and other R&D projects." In the eyes of the outside world, problems such as the slowdown in demand for Tesla's models still exist.

The growth rate of performance has slowed down

According to the financial report, Tesla's revenue last year was 96.773 billion US dollars (about 692.2 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 18.79%, the operating profit margin was 9.2%, a year-on-year decrease of 7.6 percentage points, the net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders was 15 billion US dollars (about 107.5 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 19%, and the net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders under non-US generally accepted accounting principles was 10.9 billion US dollars (about 78.1 billion yuan), a year-on-year decrease of 23%.

Among them, Tesla's revenue increased by 19% year-on-year last year, but compared with the high growth rate of more than 50% in the previous two years, the revenue growth rate has slowed down significantly. In the eyes of the outside world, the slowdown in Tesla's revenue growth is not unrelated to the frequent price adjustment of its models. Through official reductions and other means, Tesla's sales reached 1.81 million units last year, a year-on-year increase of 38%, which is worthy of reaching the expected target of 1.8 million units. However, according to statistics, the year-on-year growth rate of Tesla's global sales from 2021 to 2023 will be 87%, 40% and 38% respectively, and the annual sales growth rate will continue to slow down.

In addition, in last year's financial report, Tesla's gross profit margin was 18.2%, a decrease of 7.35 percentage points from 2022. In fact, since the beginning of last year, Tesla's gross profit margin has lit up a "red light", with 19.3%, 18.2%, 17.9%, and 17.6% in the first to fourth quarters respectively, and has never returned to more than 20%.

Although the automotive business segment is not satisfactory, the performance of Tesla's energy storage segment has been steadily rising. According to the financial report, Tesla's total installed energy storage capacity last year was 14.7 GWh, a year-on-year increase of 125%, and its revenue was US$6.04 billion (about 43 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 54%. For the energy storage business, Tesla expects "continued growth in the next year". In addition, a Tesla official said: "The gross profit of services and other businesses increased from -500 million US dollars in 2019 to 500 million US dollars last year. At the same time, Tesla's cost per vehicle also continued to decline in the fourth quarter. ”

Urgently need the next generation of new cars to "help"

In the context of slowing growth, Tesla's sales expectations also tend to be conservative.

After the release of the financial report, Tesla uncharacteristically did not give a sales target for this year. Faced with the question of "whether Tesla expects to achieve a 50% sales compound annual growth rate in 2024 or 2025", Tesla's CFO Vaibav Tanya admitted: "Tesla will not grow at the same rate as before in some periods. Some analysts expect Tesla to sell about 2.2 million vehicles this year, a year-on-year increase of about 20%.

In the financial report, Tesla also mentioned: "This year's sales growth rate may be significantly lower than last year's growth rate, because the Tesla team is working on launching the next generation of cars at the Texas Gigafactory." In this regard, Musk revealed: "The next generation of vehicles is expected to be put into production in the second half of 2025." As soon as the news came out, it immediately attracted attention.

In fact, as the competition in the new energy vehicle market heats up, Chinese car companies are achieving "corner overtaking" with new energy vehicles. "If there were no trade barriers, Chinese car companies would be able to kill most of the rest of the world's car companies. Musk bluntly said that Chinese car companies are the most competitive in the world and will also achieve extraordinary achievements outside of China. Industry insiders believe that the rapid rise of Chinese car companies in the new energy vehicle market has also put pressure on Tesla. At this time, Tesla urgently needed to launch a model with more cost and price advantages than the Model "3Y" to stimulate sales.

Image source: Screenshot of Tesla's official website

Musk has revealed that the next-generation model will be smaller than the Model 3 and Model Y currently on sale, and the cost will be half of the existing platform. Yan Jinghui, a member of the expert committee of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said that Tesla's four models on sale have been launched for many years, and it needs to further expand the capacity of the model. At the same time, lower-cost models can also attract more customers through more affordable prices, which can help Tesla seize more market share.

"Currently, Tesla is in the middle of two major 'growth waves'. Musk admitted that the first wave began with the global expansion of the Model 3/Y platform, and the next wave of growth will be initiated by the global expansion of the next-generation automotive platform. In his opinion, the production of a new model will be a difficult project, but when optimized, the model could be a game-changer for mass production of cars. For the arrival of the new car, Musk even said that he would also "sleep on the production line".

While accelerating the mass production of next-generation models, Tesla's R&D investment has also been increasing. According to the financial report, Tesla's R&D expenses last year were 3.969 billion US dollars (about 28.3 billion yuan). Tesla officials said that Tesla is continuing to invest its main energy and resources in technology research and development.

Editor丨Wang Naixin Comprehensive Beijing Business Daily (reporter Liu Yang Liu Xiaomeng), Daily Economic News, Interface News

Picture丨Beijing Business Daily, screenshot of Tesla's official website, screenshot of Oriental Fortune, Yitu.com