In the early hours of this morning, ahead of Tesla's 2024 Q1 earnings report, it was the new Model 3 Performance.
- Acceleration to 100 km/h in 2.9s
- 510 马力 / 741 N·m
- Top speed 262 km/h
- EPA 续航 476 km
The price on the official website of the United States is 52,990 US dollars (about 383,900 yuan), compared with 22 models, this just-released Model 3 performance version has been upgraded in all dimensions.
Model 3 Performance features improved track modes, a new adaptive damping system, a more aerodynamic exterior design, and new sports seats.
It's a pity that this performance beast can't save the current Tesla.
Judging from Tesla's 2024 Q1 financial report, gross profit continued to decline, recording the worst revenue decline in 12 years.
Total revenue for the first quarter was $21,301 million, down 9% year-over-year, gross profit was $3,696 million, down 18% year-over-year, and gross margin was 17.4%.
The automotive segment, the largest revenue, was hit hard, with total revenue of $17.378 billion, down 13% year-on-year, and net profit down 55% year-on-year.
Although energy production and energy storage revenue, services and other revenues have improved, increasing by 7% and 25% year-on-year, respectively, for a company mainly engaged in new energy electric vehicles, these "lace incomes" can only be regarded as a drop in the bucket and cannot turn the tide of the bleak situation.
The bleak present, the promising future
In 2024, known as the "tram reshuffle", the giants in the field of new energy vehicles ushered in the first quarter.
Q1's financial report shows that the poor revenue and gross profit are not only caused by fierce market competition, but can create the "worst performance in 12 years", in fact, there is another hidden reason.
First of all, Tesla has suffered relatively large production disruptions and delayed deliveries.
Due to the transportation diversion affected by the Red Sea conflict and the arson attack at the factory, Tesla said that the production of the Berlin Gigafactory was severely disrupted, which directly led to a decline in the production of the Model Y, which in turn affected the overall delivery volume and revenue.
In addition, it happened to coincide with the iteration period of the Model 3, which is a problem that most car companies cannot avoid before and after product iteration and upgrade, and Tesla is no exception.
The temporary decline in production caused by the product line upgrade at the Fremont plant had an impact on production and delivery in the short term.
Secondly, Tesla has experienced financial pressure in Q1 this year.
According to the financial report, Tesla's free cash flow in the first quarter was "-$2.5 billion", which was due to high capital expenditures, especially in AI infrastructure, which consumed a lot of cash.
As a result, at the end of the first quarter, Tesla's cash and investment balances decreased by $2.2 billion compared to the previous quarter.
In addition, fierce market competition is still the main part of Tesla's revenue hindering, especially in the domestic market.
Musk said in a subsequent conference call:
In fact, their sales have also dropped, but we are still doing better in comparison.
Although the words are a little relaxed, I have to admit that Tesla is in full swing in the domestic new energy market, and it can no longer be as expensive as in the past.
For example, 3 days ago, Tesla's models on sale in China collectively reduced their prices, and the price of the new Model 3 version dropped to 231,900 yuan, a decrease of 5.7%; The price of the new Model 3 Long Range has dropped to 271,900 yuan, a decrease of 4.9%.
According to the financial report, another big blow to Tesla in the domestic market is the popularity of hybrid models.
Although Musk said in the conference call that he "does not think it is wise to take the hybrid route", this is still a status quo that has to be faced.
Before the subversive breakthrough in battery technology and the conditional large-scale rollout of home charging piles, hybrid power such as plug-in and extended range is still the first choice for users with long battery life needs.
Pressured by cash flow, Tesla cut 10% of its global workforce in the middle of this month, as part of its cost-cutting efforts amid the pressure of its high capital expenditures.
In addition, the advancement of autonomous driving software has also indirectly had an impact on Q1's financial figures, and despite the reduced price of FSD subscriptions, there are still technical and regulatory challenges to be faced with the widespread adoption of fully autonomous driving.
However, in the face of the company's low point, Musk remained very optimistic in the conference call and announced that he would update the vehicle lineup in the coming weeks.
Among them, Tesla will still maintain its commitment to start production of "new models" in the second half of 2025, and the ultimate production target is to reach a maximum annual production capacity of 3 million units.
First, it will accelerate the launch of more affordable models, which directly overturns the news that "Tesla has abandoned the development of the Model 2 with a starting price of less than $30,000" that was previously revealed by some media.
The second is the upcoming launch of the dedicated robotaxi Robotaxi product, which is expected to be displayed in August during the conference call, in which Musk called Robotaxi "Cyber Cab", which is likely to be the official name of Tesla's taxi project.
And Tesla also gave a preview of the ride-hailing app in the financial report.
The call also mentioned Optimus, a humanoid robot that has been in the spotlight. Musk said that he would have Optimus in Tesla factories for limited production activities by the end of the year, and that he could start selling Optimus before the end of next year, arguing that Optimus has "greater value" than other existing businesses.
Interestingly, before this earnings conference, Tesla's stock price had experienced "seven consecutive declines", and after the release of the "worst financial report", Tesla (TSLA. O) U.S. stocks rose more than 10% after hours.
All in AI，算特斯拉一个
The Reuters lies are putting them in decline.
Reuters is lying again, and dying.
Earlier this month, Musk used the most vehemently rhetorical rhetoric to refute an exclusive report by Reuters.
As we all know, Musk has always been a "thorn" in the field of public opinion, not only has he publicly humiliated Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and others, but his relationship with Reuters, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg and other mainstream media in the United States has become worse and worse. Musk even set up an auto-reply in his mailbox, and every time a media outlet emailed for comment, he only got a poop emoji.
Musk's "crusade" against Reuters this time was only because the news exposed by the latter deeply hit the confidence of all Tesla shareholders and fans:
According to three people familiar with the matter, Tesla has canceled the development of the entry-level model and is fully committed to the driverless taxi business.
In addition, inside information presented to the media by a Tesla executive showed that a project manager advised them not to inform suppliers about the cessation of R&D for the time being during a discussion with engineering employees on March 1.
In the public mind, Musk's project is not firm enough. Writer Walter · Walter Issacson wrote in his biography of Musk, which came out last year, that Musk paused development of the entry-level model in 2022 on the grounds that Tesla's driverless taxis would make cars irrelevant.
▲ Tesla's driverless taxi depicted in Elon Musk's biography
This makes the news exposed by Reuters seem extremely real.
Don't underestimate this entry-level car, the $25,000 car is Tesla's most promising growth point at the moment against the backdrop of a sharp decline in sales of existing models.
In the first quarter of this year, Tesla delivered a total of 386,800 new cars worldwide, far lower than the previous forecast of 430,000 vehicles, a year-on-year decline of 8.3%, and a month-on-month decline of 20.1%. This is the first time since 2020 that Tesla's deliveries have declined year-over-year.
Specific to Tesla's former sales pillar Model 3, although the benchmark product in this pure electric sedan still achieved as many as 14,481 sales in March this year, it fell by as much as 44.4% compared to March 2022.
Focusing on the Chinese market, the new Model 3 was surrounded by independent brands not long after its launch, and its competitiveness in the face of a large number of new cars in 2024 is clearly insufficient. On the other hand, the Model Y, which has been on the market for 4 years, has been slow to change its generation, and the launch of the annual facelift has been hastily completed. The Model 3 Performance, which was launched early this morning, is also not a volume model.
At present, it seems that if Tesla really stops the development of entry-level models, its sales may be difficult to recover. But on the other hand, even if Tesla successfully launches an entry-level model in 2025 as originally planned, it will not be able to withstand the onslaught of Chinese brands one round after another. After all, when it comes to price wars, who can beat Chinese car companies?
No matter how you look at it, it's a dead game.
Hypothetical image of Tesla's entry-level model, nicknamed Model 2 or Model Q by netizens
Musk may have sensed this. In 2023, Musk founded xAI, an artificial intelligence startup, to increase AI. In March of this year, xAI announced that its large language model, Grok-1, was open-sourced and available for download to the public.
On the other hand, Musk said that Tesla's driverless taxi will be launched on August 8 this year.
Driverless driving has always been Tesla's main means of building its brand and attracting investors, and "Tesla, the world's most valuable automaker, will become 'worthless' if it can't achieve full self-driving," Musk said.
In March of this year, as Tesla began to push FSD to 1.7 million car owners, the search frequency of "Tesla FSD" on Google increased significantly, and car owners who knew that they were about to wait for this configuration began to take the initiative to understand the capabilities of FSD.
Subsequently, a simple change successfully detonated Tesla's fans - with the 2024.3.10 update (12.3.3), FSD finally took off the "Beta" hat.
Tesla says that the latest v12 version of FSD is the world's first end-to-end self-driving system based entirely on neural networks, in other words, it is truly "driven by AI".
Tesla, which has struggled to find a way out in the automotive industry, seems to have only one way left: AI.
*Li Hua also contributed to this article.