Monthly Archives: March 2023

20 February 2023, North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne: The theme car "- Hereinspaziert, hereinspaziert ... [+] zur grten Show der Welt", the motto of the 1990 session, with a depiction of tech billionaire Elon Musk, rides in the parade. Cologne is hosting its first Rose Monday parade in three years; in 2021 and 2022, the trains were canceled due to Corona. In 2022, there was a demonstration in Cologne against Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine instead. Photo: Oliver Berg/dpa (Photo by Oliver Berg/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Is Elon Musk spending so much time on Twitter that he cant manage Tesla well? Judging by the 6% drop in Tesla stock and an underwhelming Investor Day in Austin, he needs to do a better job.

What does it mean to manage Tesla well? The two keys are the same as managing any business well:

Based on Teslas most recent financial report and Musks mushy Investor Day presentation, I think he could be doing a lot more to manage Tesla. His Investor Day performance was reminiscent of students who do their 5-page paper at the last minute and fill four pages with irrelevant material to meet the length requirement.

To do that, I think investors would be happy for him to cut his losses on Twitter so he can spend more time on Tesla.

Although its growth rate fell short of earlier guidance of 50%, Teslas fourth-quarter revenue and profit exceeded investors lowered expectations. Teslas revenue for the quarter ending in December 2022 totaled $24.32 billion 37% above the year-earlier amount and $60 million more than the estimate from Refinitiv, a financial market data provider.

Gross margins and operating cash flow both disappointed. Automotive gross margins came in at 25.9%, the lowest figure in the last five quarters. Operating cash flow was down 29% from last year, and down 36% from last quarter, coming in at $3.28 billion.

Tesla predicted relatively light production of 1.8 million vehicles in 2023. On Teslas earnings call, an analyst asked why the production guidance was so light given that Tesla has been increasing production in its factories. Musk responded by saying that the forecast assumes some friggin force majeure thing that could interrupt production.

Yet Musk was optimistic about Januarys production. As he told analysts, Thus far in January weve seen the strongest orders year-to-date than ever in our history. Were currently seeing orders of almost twice the rate of production.

Tesla did not issue new guidance. In its earnings release, Tesla wrote, We are planning to grow production as quickly as possible in alignment with the 50% compound annual growth rate target we began guiding to in early 2021.

Meanwhile, Teslas stock had roughly doubled since the beginning of 2023.

That was before March 1 when Musk held Investor Day in Austin, Texas. Since ending February at about $208 a share, Tesla stock has lost 6% of its value. That is likely due to Musks presentation, which mostly lacked serious content.

While Musk did mention plans to open a fifth manufacturing plant in Monterrey, Mexico, there was little else to interest investors. They wanted details about lower-priced Tesla vehicle the $25,000 Model 2 which they believe could spur faster growth.

What they got was hours of discussion about how much the companys new production platform would boost efficiency with no hint of what [Tesla] might actually build: no prototype, illustrative image or timeline, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Analysts see Tesla losing market share to other automakers with models that are less expensive than Teslas current lowest-priced product the $43,000 Model 3. As analysts from Mizuho Securities, a Japanese investment bank, noted: [With seven models from other automakers priced below that,] cheaper competitor Electric Vehicles (EVs) coming to market [are] potentially dilutive to Teslas share of the US EV market.

Musks Investor Day presentation also reminded me of a student who starts their final paper a day before the deadline. With a few hours left before it is due, the student cuts and pastes several pages from somewhere else.

In Musks case that was his Master Plan Part 3 a way to transition the global economy to a 100% clean and renewable sustainable energy economy by 2050. While a worthy goal, this took up time that could have been spent explaining how Tesla can grow faster.

This suggests that Musk is not spending enough time on Tesla. A February 23 lawsuit over his $56 billion Tesla pay package alleges that he is a part-time CEO of Tesla, according to Business Insider.

The lawsuit claims that Musk is too distracted by his work at Twitter and SpaceX to properly manage Tesla. Teslas third-largest individual investor, Leo KoGuan , said, Elon abandoned Tesla and Tesla has no working CEO, notes Business Insider.

Musks Twitter ownership is actively damaging Teslas appeal to customers. Once Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, Tesla customers became embarrassed to be associated with Musk.

A case in point is Tesla owner John Blumenthal who wrote in the Los Angeles Times, Will people see me as a symbol of right-wing environmentalism, a living oxymoron?...Now that Musk has apparently swung to the far right banning journalists from Twitter while reinstating neo-Nazis Im horrified to be associated with his brand whenever I drive anywhere.

To be fair, there does not seem to be much evidence that many EV buyers have turned away from Tesla due to Musks involvement with Twitter. Indeed, leasing firm Octopus EV told the Financial Times that two of its Tesla customers out of more than 1,000 had switched to another make.

Bob Perkowitz, a onetime Tesla owner who also described himself as a former fanboy, said he hasn't bought a new one because of Elon Musk's apparent right-wing views, his tumultuous Twitter acquisition, and his radical emphasis on free speech which he fears will allow misinformation to spread more widely online, according to Insider.

One analyst thinks Musks views are bad for Teslas brand. As Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times, Tesla is a brand whose customer base largely consists of wealthy cultural liberals who were attracted in part by Elon Musks perceived with-it persona. Musks public embrace of MAGA conspiracy theories is an almost inconceivably bad marketing move, practically designed to alienate his main buyers.

Teslas growth has been impressive; however, its 37% result in the most recent quarter fell short of its 50% growth target.

To its credit, Tesla does intend to make considerable investments in its future growth. Teslas total price tag for its growth ambitions could reach $175 billion.

While Tesla has spent $28 billion to cement itself as the worlds most valuable car company, CFO Zach Kirkhorn said March 1 that Tesla could spend $150 billion more the achieve long-term goals such as making 20 million vehicles a year over 15 times more than the 1.3 million it delivered in 2022.

While capital is certainly an important requirement for boosting a companys growth, the most significant question that was not answered during Investor Day is: What is Teslas strategy for sustaining 50% annual growth?

While the analyst community expects a lower-priced vehicle to enable Tesla to grow faster, that assumption strikes me as ignoring the consumer appeal of competing EVs.

After all, Teslas U.S. EV market share is slipping down from 70.5% in 2021 to 63.5% in 2022. Teslas position is changing as new, more affordable options arrive, offering equal or better technology and production build, according to S&P Global Mobility.

One such beneficiary is Ford. When Chris Romanowski, an Atlanta-area musician decided to buy an EV this year, he opted against buying a Tesla finding the vehicles look ugly, and its ride bumpy and noisy. Instead, he bought a $70,000 Mustang Mach-E.

According to the Washington Post, Romanowski found it more attractive and comfortable. He thought the Mustang handed better and his father had owned a candy-apple-red 1966 Mustang.

Many rivals are piling in to the market. Ford with about 7% share is in second place; Kia is third with 5%; and Chevrolet and Hyundai control about 4% each. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz and others are rolling out EV models that are challenging Tesla in the luxury market, reported the Post.

Tesla investors need answers to key questions: What are the fastest growing EV market segments? What products does Tesla have in the works that target these markets? Are those products a better value in terms of quality, performance, and price than competing products? How will these new products boost Teslas growth rate to 50%?

If Musk were to step away from his Twitter bauble, perhaps he would have enough time to come up with compelling answers to these questions.

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Tesla Investors Arent Impressed With Elon Musk. Twitter Is One Reason Why

Electric vehicle maker Tesla hosted a 2023 investor day presentation in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. CEO Elon Musk took the stage to share his "Master Plan 3," and to discuss how Tesla plans to scale up in the face of increasing competition.

The presentation was long on vision, and included a review of prior achievements, but short on specifics about any new Tesla products or services.

Near the beginning of the presentation, Musk said: "There is a clear path to a sustainable-energy Earth. It doesn't require destroying natural habitats. It doesn't require us to be austere and stop using electricity and be in the cold or anything." He added, "In fact, you could support a civilization much bigger than Earth, much more than the 8 billion humans could actually be supported sustainably on Earth."

Elon Musk speaks at Tesla's 2023 investor day on March 1.

Screenshot

Musk was initially joined on stage by Drew Baglino, senior vice president of powertrain and energy engineering at Tesla. They discussed a future in which the company would play a role in "re-powering the grid with renewable fuels" as they ramp up battery production, both for Tesla's electric vehicles and for the company's utility-scale energy storage systems.

Tesla's goal is to produce 20 million electric vehicles per year by 2030, executives reiterated. The company reported full-year deliveries of around 1.31 million vehicles in 2022.

During a question-and-answer session following the three-hour presentation, executives fielded a question about how Tesla could grow its market share in China.

Elon Musk passed the question to Tom Zhu, who is heading up global production and has run the China and APAC businesses for Tesla for years. "As long as you offer a product with value at affordable price you don't have to worry about demand," Zhu said. "We try everything to cut costs," he added, "and pass down that value to our customers."

Musk then added,"Demand is a function of affordability not desire." He said, "Even small changes in the price have a big effect on demand."

Zhu also announced that as of Wednesday,Teslahad produced 4 million cars in total.

Tom Zhu speaking at Tesla Investor Day.

Courtesy: Tesla

"It took us 12 years to build the first million, and about 18 months to the second million. The third million, 11 months. Then less than seven months to build the 4 millionth," Zhu said, touting the company's improving operational efficiency.

He said Tesla plans to construct new car and battery cell factories, and also to produce more cars per year at its existing factories.

Tesla charging leader Rebecca Tinucci said that in 2022 the company provided 9 terawatt hours across charging methods, including home charging including 40,000 Superchargers. (By way of comparison, the entire U.S. consumes about 4,000 terawatt hours of electricity per year.) Tinucci also noted that about half of the company's Superchargers in the EU are open to other vehicles, and that the company just opened 10 Superchargers in the U.S. to non-Teslas.

Tesladesign leader Franz von Holzhausen and the company's vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy, took the stage to show off a number of planned manufacturing changes meant to improve the efficiency ofTeslavehicle production. But von Holzhausen said thatTeslawould not yet reveal its "next gen" vehicle.

The company's powertrain vice president, Colin Campbell, said that Tesla's next powertrain factory will be 50% smaller than the one in Austin but will have the same capacity. He also said the company is working on a new kind of drive unit that is compatible with any battery cell type, and a motor that will be built without any rare earth metals.

Ahead of the 2023 investor day, at a news conference on Tuesday, Mexico's president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said Tesla had agreed to build a large factory in Monterrey, Mexico. He said the company agreed to use recycled water and take other initiatives to cope with water scarcity in the region.

Musk confirmed the factory plans on Wednesday, and said production there would supplement, rather than replace, any manufacturing at other Tesla facilities.

Tesla shares have rebounded from declines during 2022, and are up more than 60% for the year so far. However, the stock dropped 1.43% on Wednesday before the event, and 5% after-hours.

Mizuho Securities analysts maintained a buy rating on shares of Tesla ahead of investor day, seeing the company in a leadership position in a growing market for fully electric vehicles. They wrote in a note earlier this week, "Near-term, we see continued strength in TSLA's market share, but see cheaper competitor EVs coming to market as potentially dilutive to TSLA's share of the US EV market."

Currently, the lowest-priced Tesla available is the Model 3 sedan, which starts at a price point of around $43,000, they wrote. Seven models from other automakers are currently priced below that, Mizhuo noted.

Musk's ambitious "Master Plan, Part Deux" was published in 2016, and has not been completely fulfilled. It included four main objectives:

CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.

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Tesla 2023 Investor Day: 'Master Plan Part 3' focus on sustainability

Elon Musk has tweeted for the first time since more than 10 million people voted in favour of him stepping down as Twitters chief executive, saying that only paid Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to vote in future policy-related polls.

On Sunday, Musk asked Twitter users whether he should step down as the head of the company, promising to abide by the results of his poll. When the poll closed on Monday, 57.5% said he should step down.

Normally a prolific user of the platform, Musk did not tweet in the immediate hours after the poll. His silence was finally broken when he responded with Interesting to multiple suggestions that the results of the poll were skewed by fake accounts.

Replying to another users suggestion that Blue subscribers should be the only ones that can vote in policy related polls, Musk said: Good point. Twitter will make that change.

Twitter Blue is a paid-for subscription that allows anyone to buy a blue tick verified badge for their account.

As the majority owner of the privately held company, no one can force Musk out, but a series of baffling decisions over the past few days has caused even some of his closest backers to break ties with him.

A decision to ban an account that tracked the location of his private jet last week was followed by a mass suspension of critical journalists who reported on the ban. That led in turn to an exodus of some engaged users to other social networks, chiefly its decentralised competitor Mastodon, whose own account was banned for posting a link to the jet trackers account on the rival platform.

On Sunday, Musk reacted by banning all links to other social networks, including Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook, and even minor platforms such as Nostr, used by the Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, and Linktree, a homepage creation tool favoured by influencers.

That ban was rescinded by the end of the day, after a Twitter poll from the Twitter Safety account, with Musk saying: Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Wont happen again.

Musk has a history of using Twitter polls to rubber-stamp major decisions, selling a tenth of his Tesla holdings after one poll in 2021, restoring Donald Trumps account after a second last month and reinstating a number of suspended accounts after a third. Vox Populi, Vox Dei, Musk tweeted after the Trump poll.

However, in many cases, he has given the impression of already having decided on the outcome before posting: he had already announced a sale of his Tesla holdings, for instance, long before he put it to a vote, and his plan to reinstate Trump had been discussed since before he even bought Twitter.

The idea of stepping down as chief executive had also been hinted at long before the Twitter poll was published. On 16 November, he told a Delaware judge that he planned to reduce his time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time.

PA contributed to this report

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Elon Musk breaks silence after 10 million Twitter users vote for him to ...