Near-future quarterly financial projections

[petit_bateau]

Wouldn't that be strangely low? The current run rate is ~250k with the goal of ramping to 10k/week or ~500k/year. So I'm guessing 300k-350k is more likely the internal target for Berlin.

Tesla produced 1.369m in 2022, which I allocate as follows:
- Fremont/Sparks =548k
- Shanghai = 724k
- (subtotal = 1,272k)
- Berlin = 59k
- Austin = 38k

So if one gets approx 300k each from both Berlin and Austin, plus some more efficiency growth from Fremont and Shanghai, then that would blow right through Musk's blurt target of 2m in 2023, let alone the official target of 1.8m.

Therefore I sense there must be supply-side constraints given that 2m target. Whether that is cell supply or power electronics or something else I do not know. My hunch is cell supply and that suggests more like 250k each for Berlin and Austin is the official target. That plus no efficiency growth out of the other facilities would be the 1.8m.

I think it is still all about the cells, and will be for the next 5-years, though 2023 and 2024 are the crunch years. After that the annual cell capacity growth is past the worst of the acceleration.

 

[jeewee3000]

Tesla produced 1.369m in 2022, which I allocate as follows:
- Fremont/Sparks =548k
- Shanghai = 724k
- (subtotal = 1,272k)
- Berlin = 59k
- Austin = 38k

So if one gets approx 300k each from both Berlin and Austin, plus some more efficiency growth from Fremont and Shanghai, then that would blow right through Musk's blurt target of 2m in 2023, let alone the official target of 1.8m.

Therefore I sense there must be supply-side constraints given that 2m target. Whether that is cell supply or ower electronics or something else I do not know. My hunch is cell supply and that suggests more like 250k each for Berlin and Austin is the official target. That plus no efficiency growth out of the other facilities would be the 1.8m.

I think it is still all about the cells, and will be for the next 5-years, though 2023 and 2024 are the crunch years. After that the annual cell capacity growth is past the worst of the acceleration.

That's a plausible explanation.

OTOH, if all goes smoothly we can crush the 2M expectation and have another bull rally.

 

[generalenthu]

Where's the consensus eps for Jan. Waiting for @The Accountant and the other other usual suspects to do their magic.

Looks like we will end up in the vicinity of 420-430k deliveries. I think it will about match q4 eps numbers with the volume, margin and efficiency offsetting the lowered ASP.

Thoughts?

 

[UltradoomY]

Where's the consensus eps for Jan. Waiting for @The Accountant and the other other usual suspects to do their magic.

Looks like we will end up in the vicinity of 420-430k deliveries. I think it will about match q4 eps numbers with the volume, margin and efficiency offsetting the lowered ASP.

Thoughts?

Just a heads up - @The Accountant said that last quarter would be his last going through the estimating process (at least publicly)

So we have to put in our own work now....

 

[petit_bateau]

My model is fairly easy for me to maintain so I'm happy to put mine up. And I'm not an accountant with a professional credibility at stake or a utuber with a patreon account on the side to nurture, so I've nothing much to lose by sharing my ignorance.

But I'd rather someone else took on the task of collating them. Volunteers ?

 

[EVNow]

So we have to put in our own work now....

I stopped doing forecasts a while back when I figured out Tesla has a lot of leeway in recognizing credits. They have been able to recognize enough credits to put out ERs with a beat in the last few quarters. This quarter will be interesting… to say the least.

We could see a big beat / miss …

 

[petit_bateau]

But I'd rather someone else took on the task of collating them. Volunteers ?

 

[JohnnyEnglish]

Where's the consensus eps for Jan. Waiting for @The Accountant and the other other usual suspects to do their magic.

Looks like we will end up in the vicinity of 420-430k deliveries. I think it will about match q4 eps numbers with the volume, margin and efficiency offsetting the lowered ASP.

Thoughts?

Gary Black tweeted the info distributed by Tesla on consolidated analyst estimates. Delivery consensus is just over 420k with a standard deviation of 16k. Rob Maurer also quoted Piper Sandler as stating their view of 440k deliveries.

It seems that China deliveries passed the previous record last week (see Roland Pircher tweets). With Model S/X deliveries starting in China this week I am guessing that will be their focus and will add a bit of icing to the new record. Also WuWa reported that Shanghai production seems to have switched to European models in recent days with several hundred cars at the docks.

Those European countries reporting on a daily basis also seem to be at or close to record delivery levels so I am hoping this reflects the situation in those that only report on a monthly basis.

With this in mind my feeling is that the 440k Piper Sandler envisage is in the right ballpark.

Gary Black also makes the point that it would be disappointing for production to greatly exceed deliveries this quarter and in spite of the slow recovery at the beginning of March from the line updates for model 3 around 450k production is what I am hoping for.

As always this is an attempt to make sense of all the conflicting info that swirls around - could well be wildly out. Hope I do not have too much egg on my face when the P&D figures are released.

 

[petit_bateau]

Gary Black tweeted the info distributed by Tesla on consolidated analyst estimates. Delivery consensus is just over 420k with a standard deviation of 16k. Rob Maurer also quoted Piper Sandler as stating their view of 440k deliveries.

It seems that China deliveries passed the previous record last week (see Roland Pircher tweets). With Model S/X deliveries starting in China this week I am guessing that will be their focus and will add a bit of icing to the new record. Also WuWa reported that Shanghai production seems to have switched to European models in recent days with several hundred cars at the docks.

Those European countries reporting on a daily basis also seem to be at or close to record delivery levels so I am hoping this reflects the situation in those that only report on a monthly basis.

With this in mind my feeling is that the 440k Piper Sandler envisage is in the right ballpark.

Gary Black also makes the point that it would be disappointing for production to greatly exceed deliveries this quarter and in spite of the slow recovery at the beginning of March from the line updates for model 3 around 450k production is what I am hoping for.

As always this is an attempt to make sense of all the conflicting info that swirls around - could well be wildly out. Hope I do not have too much egg on my face when the P&D figures are released.

My hugely considered prediction (!) is Production = 461,310 and Delivery = 461,310

To get this I've simply applied a 95% factor to my original forecast of 485,590 to account for all the hoo-hah observed with shut downs and refurbs/upgrades and to try and stay in line to an extent with observed numbers from Berlin and Austin to the extent we understand them.

The subsequent quarters would then be

510,680

535,910

537,720

for a full year of

2,069,900

So, there is my entry into the Q1 P&D sweepstakes. I'm used to being the high side entry

 

[Doggydogworld]

Gary Black tweeted the info distributed by Tesla on consolidated analyst estimates. Delivery consensus is just over 420k with a standard deviation of 16k. Rob Maurer also quoted Piper Sandler as stating their view of 440k deliveries.

It seems that China deliveries passed the previous record last week (see Roland Pircher tweets). With Model S/X deliveries starting in China this week I am guessing that will be their focus and will add a bit of icing to the new record. Also WuWa reported that Shanghai production seems to have switched to European models in recent days with several hundred cars at the docks.

Those European countries reporting on a daily basis also seem to be at or close to record delivery levels so I am hoping this reflects the situation in those that only report on a monthly basis.

With this in mind my feeling is that the 440k Piper Sandler envisage is in the right ballpark.

Gary Black also makes the point that it would be disappointing for production to greatly exceed deliveries this quarter and in spite of the slow recovery at the beginning of March from the line updates for model 3 around 450k production is what I am hoping for.

As always this is an attempt to make sense of all the conflicting info that swirls around - could well be wildly out. Hope I do not have too much egg on my face when the P&D figures are released.

Troy bumped his final estimate to 427k on a late March surge in Europe (partly driven by discounting).

China is a record for sure. 123k through 3/26 based on insurance registrations, add another 10-12k for the final 5 days.
US is a record for sure, driven by price cuts and Bidenbucks. It's just a matter of how many they could produce.

In Europe the daily reporters all look great:
- Norway a record 9.5k, up from prior record of 8.7k set last quarter
- Netherlands 3.7k up from 2.9k last quarter (but nowhere near the crazy Q4 2019 BIK-palooza record of 16.9k)
- Sweden a record 4.4, almost double 2.2k last quarter
- Spain a record 2.0k, up from 1.3k last quarter

Together these are up 4.5k from Q4, which bodes very well. But UK and especially Germany are so big each can easily add or subtract 5k by itself. Even Troy's new, higher estimate is 7k below Q4, which means the countries that don't report daily are down 11-12k. That seems unlikely with such strong growth in all 4 daily reporters. I usually trust his work, but IMHO the huge adjustment he had to make for Europe in the final week or so indicates he missed something. Even if the non-daily countries are just flat with Q4 Europe would easily set a new record and global deliveries could hit 440k.

 

[petit_bateau]

credit @Troy

 

[EVNow]

Together these are up 4.5k from Q4, which bodes very well. But UK and especially Germany are so big each can easily add or subtract 5k by itself. Even Troy's new, higher estimate is 7k below Q4, which means the countries that don't report daily are down 11-12k. That seems unlikely with such strong growth in all 4 daily reporters. I usually trust his work, but IMHO the huge adjustment he had to make for Europe in the final week or so indicates he missed something. Even if the non-daily countries are just flat with Q4 Europe would easily set a new record and global deliveries could hit 440k.

Will have to wait for final Europe numbers to see what happened. Won't be surprised if US numbers are less than anticipated.

 

[petit_bateau]

For the record

 

[Doggydogworld]

Will have to wait for final Europe numbers to see what happened. Won't be surprised if US numbers are less than anticipated.

It was a good quarter considering Q1 is seasonally weak. For a couple weeks I've told people on Seeking Alpha to expect ~425k. I did think the very strong numbers from Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden might indicate upside, but it seems not. I don't understand why sales would be so strong in those countries (and apparently Denmark and Portugal) but weak in the big Euro countries.

US S/X sales were a few thousand less than anticipated. US 3/Y sales may be a couple thousand below Troy's estimate, but that's only ~1%. Rest-of-world is a bit of a guess, easy to miss by a few thousand there.

 

[DarkandStormy]

For the record

View attachment 924186

Inventory build of, what, 75k units over TTM? Where are the units?

 

[Doggydogworld]

Inventory build of, what, 75k units over TTM? Where are the units?

Almost 80k, actually. Some of that is semi-unwinding of the wave. Some is recovery from insanely low 1Q22 levels (remember Shanghai shut down in late March 2022, so inventory in China was almost zero). And some is a conscious decision to keep the factories running even if inventory grows a bit.

3/Y isn't an issue at 14 days, some of it on boats. But S/X inventory is 127 days!

Inventory helps capture customers that would otherwise go elsewhere. There are always some who need a car quickly due to sudden job change or car accident or whatever. And there are some who simply prefer to buy from inventory vs. order-and-wait.

 

[DarkandStormy]

Almost 80k, actually. Some of that is semi-unwinding of the wave. Some is recovery from insanely low 1Q22 levels (remember Shanghai shut down in late March 2022, so inventory in China was almost zero). And some is a conscious decision to keep the factories running even if inventory grows a bit.

3/Y isn't an issue at 14 days, some of it on boats. But S/X inventory is 127 days!

Inventory helps capture customers that would otherwise go elsewhere. There are always some who need a car quickly due to sudden job change or car accident or whatever. And there are some who simply prefer to buy from inventory vs. order-and-wait.

At 80k, that's about 18 ships worth of inventory.

Also, look at the month by month breakout in Europe. They're not really unwinding any wave there it seems.

 

[petit_bateau]

Inventory build of, what, 75k units over TTM? Where are the units?

Inventory at end of Q4-2022 was 70,249 being 13d of deliveries (i.e. sales, at 75d/qtr)

Q1-2023 increased inventory by 17,933 bringing it to 88,182.

88,182 / (422,875 / 75) = 88,182/5,638 = 15.6 days of sales, i.e. rounds to 16d

So overall this is not a particularly significant growth in inventory. Especially when considering that includes stock in transit on ships as well as rail and road transport, plus show rooms, plus holding centres. For example that would be only (say) 8-10 shiploads in total. So 4 ships at sea; 2 shiploads in factory parking lots awaiting loading; 2 shiploads at unloading sites; and 2 shiploads spread around (750+) showrooms and delivery centres. The point being pretty quickly you can very reasonably account for 88k units.

It looks to me like the inventory changes are beginning to stabilise as the wave has significantly unwound. At least that is how I (cautiously) interpret the data, and provided that nothing slips.

 

[heltok]

I expect shipments of Y from China to Europe to go down which in itself should lower the number of days in inventory. Many countries still lack S/X for both deliveries and inventory, so expect these to keep being shipped around the world. Imo Tesla should make sure they always have a few performance 3/Y and plaid S/X in every country for any impatient customer willing to pay the premium.

 

[UltradoomY]

After the release of the P&D report - I would like to post my quarterly EPS prediction

Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share - $1.09
Including $340M in Credits

Lower input costs as well as cost associated with unwinding the wave have led to positive gains in EPS / off set by a modest price decrease.
I have ASP as flat from Q4 to Q1 (23) and stabilizing.
Also I have energy contributing to the EPS at $0.10 per share this Q
Fiscal costs due to currency are a tail wind in Q1 as opposed to a head wind in prior Q's.

Anyone else?