2012 Q4 Earnings Report thread

[Citizen-T]

Personally I was hoping for a better year-end report and a spike up in the stock price. But the report is realistic and a bit sobering. Tesla has got it's work cut out for them. But overall, I think everything points to a good 2013 as long as demand keeps up for the Model S and Model X, which I think it will. I see the stock dipping some and recovering... hopefully.

For sure. It's just a reason to take profits, that's all. We've been flying too high for too long, we'll be back.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

Market Watch is live-blogging Tesla's conference call.

Live blog: Tesla to discuss journey 'to turn profitable' - The Tell - MarketWatch

I'm beginning to believe that this Broder this was definitely net-positive. So much Tesla coverage that we don't usually get.

I feel like it was a huge net positive. It's only sorta true that all publicity is good publicity, but in this case it educated the public and Tesla came off looking good. At a minimum media elites will see it that way, and that will drive future coverage.

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Finished the letter. Deliveries a tad lower than I expected for the quarter (2,400, vs 2,500) and revenue quite a bit higher at $306m. I am guessing that the clean air credits amounted to a ton of revenue. I remember arguing that when some Peterson blog somewhere, but I had totally forgotten.

At one point last year the credits were worth ~$7,500 for the 85kWh battery, which is a lot of juicy, juicy cash ($18m if they got that price for them).

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Hmm.. still bouncing around @$35.50, so the bleeding is stopped. Might as well pick some up since that was my plan in the first place.

 

[sp4rk]

Sorry, what do you mean by clean air credits - for Tesla?

 

[joefee]

k finished going through the report.

Key things I got out of it.

A cancelation rate of about 30% from rolling reservations to nonrefundables
This puts the 6000 reservations/quarter closer to 4200, less then their 20k/year production rate but within reach. Still no demand problem

SG&A is going up alot this year. 29 service centers costing about 700k/quarter each, doubling them to 58 by years end. Will cost about 16M more a year. Unknown cost of the new stores

Can extrapolate CapEX
"In 2013, we plan to spend significantly less on capital expenditures than we did in 2012, as we have concluded the majority of our investment in the Tesla Factory and Model S tooling. This reduction will be partially offset by
expenditures related to expanding our service and store network, investing in new capital equipment and tooling to
reduce variable costs and new product development." (funny they said we're cutting capex and offsetting it with capex).

Cutting capex back to 2011 levels is about a 18Million decrease, similar to the amount SG&A is likely to increase.

Their going to have a hard time hitting net margins of 10% by end of year even with gross margins of 25% with this SG&A, going to need close to 800M in sales. Which is actually less then their annualized revenue rate right now, so its quite possible, just not there yet.

Good points…the main concern is still cash burn! The miss on -.53 is what is killing the stock IMHO.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

Sorry, what do you mean by clean air credits - for Tesla?

California Clean Air Mandate requires manufacturers to produce zero emission vehicles, or else purchase credits from a manufacturer who does. Tesla only produces EV's so they get hella credits, and they are quite valuable.

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Cancellations sound good. Yaaaay!!! Edit: well a bit of dancing now.

 

[Norbert]

Conference call started... "Confident to achieve a demand level in excess of 20,000 per year"

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*Very* high confidence to be profitable/break-even in Q1 "very proud of that" ...even without a lot of time to optimize after reaching target production rate, so far.

 

[joefee]

profitable in Q1, wait time 6wks (P85) to 5 months ….still sold out for 2013.

 

[Norbert]

Demand not in question for 2013, even without stores.

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"If we wanted to" could raise production to 500/week, but want to improve efficiency first.

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400/week in December required a lot of average of 60-70 hour/week work. Not anymore in Jan/Feb (now 50/week), going to mid-40s in March.

 

[inottawa]

stupid czech tires..

 

[joefee]

lot’s of opportunities for gross margin improvement > 25%

 

[K Hall]

Stock moving up now, picked up a few shares in mid 35's $36.22

 

[Norbert]

Costs of battery cells from Panasonic (and parts from other suppliers) goes down as target volume is realized.

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"Ideal density of Superchargers is about every 120 - 150 miles"

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Software planned, in the next few months, to automatically route a trip to some destination along available Superchargers.

 

[K Hall]

New Supercharger Technology announced SOON!

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

New Supercharger Technology announced SOON!

I believe he said 'later this year'.

 

[joefee]

New Supercharger Technology announced SOON!

Full charge in 30min?????

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

Yes. We really did need the number of parts we ordered. Priceless.

 

[Norbert]

Less than 10% 40 kWh, more than 50% are ordering 85 kWh.

 

[Vger]

Supercharger upgrade: He hinted at 120 kW at the introduction. That is still not going to get you full in 30 minutes. But it could get you close to a rate of 400 mph if nearly empty.

 

[kenliles]

having trouble getting my flash to work so you guys that rare on the cal keep posting here- thanks!!

you guys are the best - thanks so much!

 

[K Hall]

Largest reason for order deferal is customers waiting on the new Red color. The next is suspension. Elon says the air suspension is worth it by the way.

Model X interest expected to be 70% of the Model S and will exceed Model S sales in some countries.

North American share is less than 30% of total category sales.