Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Instant Reaction: Tesla Fast Tracks Affordable Models After Earnings Miss
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
- 0:07Speaker 2: All right, Well, shares of Tesla are higher in the
- 0:10Speaker 2: after hours right now as investors continue to digest those
- 0:14Speaker 2: first quarter earnings numbers. Global vehicle inventory rose to twenty
- 0:17Speaker 2: eight days. It's a huge jump from the fifteen days
- 0:20Speaker 2: at the end of last quarter. Shares high right now
- 0:22Speaker 2: by just about five percent. First quarter revenue coming in
- 0:26Speaker 2: at twenty one point three billion dollars that was below
- 0:29Speaker 2: estimates of twenty two point three billion dollars. Also a
- 0:32Speaker 2: missed when it comes to EPs adjusted EPs, I should
- 0:35Speaker 2: say that coming in at forty five cents versus estimates
- 0:38Speaker 2: of fifty two.
- 0:39Speaker 3: Cents, shares a teslap about five and a half percent
- 0:41Speaker 3: in the aftermarket, but also Tesla to accelerate the launch
- 0:44Speaker 3: of more affordable models at getting a red sticky by
- 0:46Speaker 3: our team here at Bloomberg. All right, so let's get
- 0:48Speaker 3: to it with us, Ross Gerber, president and CEO at
- 0:50Speaker 3: Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, and also Bloomberg BusinessWeek
- 0:54Speaker 3: columnist Max Chafkin. Ross out there in Santa Monica, California.
- 0:59Speaker 3: Max here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokeer studio getting ready
- 1:02Speaker 3: for another round of Tesla bingo.
- 1:03Speaker 1: We'll get it do in just a moment.
- 1:05Speaker 3: Ross investors like it. What do you make of this
- 1:09Speaker 3: report looking backwards looking forwards?
- 1:12Speaker 4: Well, I think the good part of the report, because
- 1:14Speaker 4: this is really the only good part of the report,
- 1:16Speaker 4: is them saying that they're going to accelerate the production
- 1:19Speaker 4: of this next gen vehicle platform. And they were pretty
- 1:22Speaker 4: vague about what they're calling this or you know what
- 1:26Speaker 4: robo taxi is or is a model to coming, And
- 1:29Speaker 4: I think that'll be clarified on the conference call. So
- 1:31Speaker 4: you know, once again, we don't really watch after hours
- 1:33Speaker 4: trading because he really doesn't represent all the participants and so,
- 1:37Speaker 4: and we haven't seen the conference call yet, so we'll
- 1:39Speaker 4: see how this stock trades over the next several months.
- 1:41Speaker 4: But but there really isn't any other good news in
- 1:44Speaker 4: that report other than them saying they're going to accelerate
- 1:47Speaker 4: production even though they just fired all the people that
- 1:49Speaker 4: are in charge of accelerating production.
- 1:51Speaker 2: Hey, Ross, remind everybody take a step back here, because
- 1:54Speaker 2: Carol and I were looking at the terminal a little earlier.
- 1:56Speaker 2: You've you know, you are a longtime Tesla bull until
- 2:00Speaker 2: you weren't, and you were a longtime believer and have
- 2:02Speaker 2: been a longtime believer in the company. You guys still
- 2:05Speaker 2: own a substantial number of shares over at gerber Kawasaki,
- 2:08Speaker 2: But what is your position right now in Tesla moving forward?
- 2:12Speaker 4: So my position is that Tesla is a wonderful company
- 2:16Speaker 4: that has enormous potential with the CEO who has become
- 2:19Speaker 4: so divisive that people won't buy the cars. And that's
- 2:22Speaker 4: why saying is just going to produce more cars doesn't
- 2:24Speaker 4: address the real issue is why they're not selling cars today,
- 2:28Speaker 4: and that's the issue that needs to be addressed that
- 2:30Speaker 4: isn't being addressed. So as a shareholder, we have to
- 2:33Speaker 4: assess what the future earnings potential of a company is
- 2:37Speaker 4: based off what their business model is. And when we
- 2:40Speaker 4: start investing in Tesla over ten years ago, and we've
- 2:42Speaker 4: had a great run up until the purchase of Twitter,
- 2:46Speaker 4: and so we've been lowering our position because what we
- 2:49Speaker 4: feel is that Elon's behavior has hurt the brand in
- 2:52Speaker 4: such a way that consumers actually don't want to buy
- 2:54Speaker 4: a Tesla. It's just the best car on the road
- 2:56Speaker 4: at the best price, so people buy the car reluctantly
- 3:00Speaker 4: at this point, So I think, you know, we've got
- 3:03Speaker 4: these problems to solve, and I'm not sure if that
- 3:06Speaker 4: will be addressed on the conference call today. And that's
- 3:08Speaker 4: you know, And I don't like being called a Tesla
- 3:10Speaker 4: bear because I actually think they could turn the company
- 3:12Speaker 4: around pretty quickly if Elon changed his behavior and stopped
- 3:16Speaker 4: attacking everybody.
- 3:17Speaker 1: But I just don't think that's going to happen.
- 3:19Speaker 4: And so so I think the bigger issue that isn't
- 3:22Speaker 4: being addressed is doesn't matter how many cars Tesla makes
- 3:25Speaker 4: if nobody will buy them.
- 3:27Speaker 3: All Right, So Max chaff can come on and you
- 3:29Speaker 3: guys do the Elon Inc.
- 3:30Speaker 1: Podcast.
- 3:31Speaker 3: You're constantly looking at what he says, what he does.
- 3:34Speaker 3: You're looking at his kind of his assets, his portfolio,
- 3:37Speaker 3: your initial thoughts on kind of the headlines we got.
- 3:39Speaker 5: Yeah, just to kind of underlo Ross is saying something
- 3:42Speaker 5: like this, but like the note about the new products
- 3:44Speaker 5: is very vague. It doesn't say we're going to have
- 3:47Speaker 5: a model too, and it's going to come out on
- 3:49Speaker 5: this state, which is what investors, many investors have been
- 3:52Speaker 5: hoping for. It says it sounds like it's saying, I'm
- 3:55Speaker 5: reading it correctly, They're going to try to essentially make
- 3:57Speaker 5: the current models more affordable. Now that obviously could allow
- 4:01Speaker 5: them to sell more cars, but it's a slightly different
- 4:04Speaker 5: spin on things than what many people have been inspecting.
- 4:08Speaker 5: The other thing is, as Ross is saying, you know,
- 4:11Speaker 5: on a Tesla Earning's day, what Elon says, and more importantly,
- 4:15Speaker 5: how he says it is just as important as as
- 4:17Speaker 5: what's in these numbers, because he is going to hopefully
- 4:20Speaker 5: anyway clarify some of this. We also hopefully get a
- 4:23Speaker 5: sense of like where things stand with robotaxi, where things
- 4:27Speaker 5: stand with potential affordable cars, and investors seemed to react
- 4:32Speaker 5: to based on his optimism, you know, a couple quarters
- 4:35Speaker 5: ago when he was in this kind of dower mood,
- 4:37Speaker 5: we saw the stock go down. So it's like, do
- 4:40Speaker 5: we get an optimistic version of Elon or the kind
- 4:43Speaker 5: of very dour, pessimistic Elon.
- 4:46Speaker 3: Well, I wonder if you have a question for Ross Max.
- 4:49Speaker 5: Yeah, Ross, what is your reading on this on this product,
- 4:53Speaker 5: on this paragraph about the product?
- 4:55Speaker 1: Well, I think you're dead right about the two things
- 4:57Speaker 1: you just said.
- 4:58Speaker 4: Number one, they're of course vague because of the legality
- 5:01Speaker 4: of it. If they put this down and they don't
- 5:03Speaker 4: do it right, and since nobody seems to know what
- 5:06Speaker 4: Elon's going to do, and I'm sure that everybody understands
- 5:09Speaker 4: that nobody within Tesla knows what the business plan is
- 5:12Speaker 4: either because they just don't at this point.
- 5:14Speaker 1: But I think secondly, a.
- 5:16Speaker 4: Lot of it will be how does Elon answer these
- 5:18Speaker 4: questions from investors during the conference call?
- 5:21Speaker 1: And what you said is right.
- 5:22Speaker 4: If we have sort of a very positive Elon and
- 5:26Speaker 4: he's refocused and he's going to be working at Tesla
- 5:29Speaker 4: more and you know, he can play the room right,
- 5:33Speaker 4: maybe we get a little rally on the stock, but
- 5:34Speaker 4: it doesn't change the fundamentals. If he doesn't play the
- 5:37Speaker 4: room right, this becomes a bloodbath. So you know, I'm
- 5:42Speaker 4: just hoping that he understands the damage that he's done
- 5:46Speaker 4: and starts to mitigate this versus diving in and sort
- 5:49Speaker 4: of doubling down.
- 5:49Speaker 5: It will be interesting to see if Twitter comes up
- 5:53Speaker 5: or sorry X comes up, you know, because there is
- 5:55Speaker 5: this question in this sense that he's spent gee Whiz
- 5:58Speaker 5: a lot of time talking about X, tweeting about X,
- 6:01Speaker 5: doing X related things. There's even a potential or they're
- 6:04Speaker 5: going to have a Grock integration inside of the Tesla's
- 6:07Speaker 5: and I think that to people who are really bought
- 6:10Speaker 5: into the ev story rather than the you know, Elon
- 6:13Speaker 5: Musk genius story, which those are two important constituencies here.
- 6:16Speaker 5: I think for Tesla stock, you know, they would like
- 6:20Speaker 5: to see him spend less time on his social media network.
- 6:23Speaker 4: Yeah, well, it's not just less time, it's what he's saying,
- 6:26Speaker 4: you know, It's like it's not the time, it's that
- 6:29Speaker 4: what he's saying oftentimes is super divisive and basically racist.
- 6:34Speaker 4: So it's like, it's really hard to sell products to
- 6:37Speaker 4: people when the CEO says things that are really hurtful
- 6:40Speaker 4: to people, including me.
- 6:42Speaker 1: For that matter.
- 6:43Speaker 3: Now, and we've talked with you about that absolutely ross.
- 6:47Speaker 3: What could Elon say on the call, or Elon and
- 6:51Speaker 3: company say on the call that would make you more
- 6:55Speaker 3: excited about the company or once again say you know
- 6:58Speaker 3: kind of oh Elon really well.
- 7:01Speaker 4: If I had my dream come true, he'd say I'm
- 7:02Speaker 4: coming back to work at Tesla, because he basically doesn't
- 7:05Speaker 4: work at Tesla, and he would say, I'm done tweeting
- 7:08Speaker 4: all this garbage and politics. I'm going to really focus
- 7:11Speaker 4: on advancing sustainable transportation and energy, and that we're going
- 7:14Speaker 4: to release this lower priced car and the strategy that
- 7:19Speaker 4: we all bought into three years ago, you know, and
- 7:23Speaker 4: the stock was at all time highs and earnings were
- 7:25Speaker 4: going up, you know, fifty hundred percent a year.
- 7:27Speaker 1: You know, it was like it was like a different
- 7:29Speaker 1: world than today.
- 7:30Speaker 4: And it's amazing to me he doesn't understand this difference,
- 7:33Speaker 4: that that really is his responsibility. And so as a shareholder,
- 7:37Speaker 4: I have to say it's an extremely distressing time because
- 7:40Speaker 4: the valuation of Tesla is premised off all these great
- 7:44Speaker 4: technological innovations, none of which have come to fruition yet.
- 7:48Speaker 4: So his focus is one hundred percent what needs to
- 7:51Speaker 4: be happening right now.
- 7:52Speaker 2: Hey, Ross, I do want to just end with with
- 7:54Speaker 2: one last question about the cost of producing these vehicles.
- 7:57Speaker 2: It seems like Tesla is doing everything I can to
- 7:59Speaker 2: bring down the cost of producing these cars, the cost
- 8:01Speaker 2: of goods sold to Are they what numbers do you
- 8:05Speaker 2: want to see there?
- 8:07Speaker 4: Well, they are, but their margins continue to go lower.
- 8:10Speaker 4: If you look at the report, which I've only had
- 8:11Speaker 4: a minute to look at, you know, their vehicle margins
- 8:13Speaker 4: continue to go lower. They're operating margins go lower. Their
- 8:16Speaker 4: net margins go lower, so they're able to lower the
- 8:20Speaker 4: price of the car. But what they're not able to
- 8:21Speaker 4: do is keep that going as fast as they're they're
- 8:25Speaker 4: lowering the price of the vehicles, so it's still hurting
- 8:28Speaker 4: them even though they're lowering the cost of the car,
- 8:31Speaker 4: and it doesn't bring in a bigger market.
- 8:33Speaker 1: But you're not creating any demand. And this is I
- 8:37Speaker 1: have said it a hundred times. Every company in America
- 8:39Speaker 1: advertises for a reason.
- 8:41Speaker 4: People need to know why your products are superior. And
- 8:44Speaker 4: all the Tesla people have bought in Teslas, you know,
- 8:47Speaker 4: so all these YouTubers can tweet all they want, but
- 8:49Speaker 4: everybody wanted to Tesla bought a Tesla. So you've got
- 8:51Speaker 4: to get new customers. And the new customers are being
- 8:54Speaker 4: told that charging sucks and evs are bad and this
- 8:57Speaker 4: and that and that, and Donald Trump says they're bad
- 8:59Speaker 4: and this is all they see all day. And then
- 9:02Speaker 4: it's like, why would they go buy a Tesla because
- 9:04Speaker 4: there's not one ad anywhere that tells you how great
- 9:07Speaker 4: the cars are?
- 9:07Speaker 1: Because they are.
- 9:08Speaker 3: Great, right and you still own them right real quickly?
- 9:11Speaker 1: Yes or no, yeah I do.
- 9:13Speaker 4: I just don't understand why they don't tell people how
- 9:15Speaker 4: great their vehicles are.
- 9:16Speaker 3: All right, Ross Gerbert, so appreciated. We know you've got
- 9:19Speaker 3: to I think run over to our TV guys. President
- 9:21Speaker 3: CEO Gerba Kawasaki, so appreciate you joining us. Max Chafkin
- 9:25Speaker 3: is staying with us a Bloomberg BusinessWeek and we want
- 9:27Speaker 3: to roll into the conversation.
- 9:28Speaker 2: Ed Ludlow, Yeah, he's co host of Bloomberg Technology on
- 9:31Speaker 2: Bloomberg TV. He joins us from the San Francisco Beer.
- 9:33Speaker 2: I do want to note care all the Tesla first
- 9:35Speaker 2: quarter automotive gross margin excluding regulatory credits is at sixteen
- 9:38Speaker 2: point four percent yea for the quarter.
- 9:40Speaker 3: Stack up six point three percent in the aftermarket.
- 9:42Speaker 2: Hey, I'd come on in here and explain why you
- 9:44Speaker 2: think the stock is moving higher given that a lot
- 9:46Speaker 2: of these numbers came in below estimates.
- 9:49Speaker 6: Yeah. I think that the print and the numbers in
- 9:51Speaker 6: after has have nothing to do with the quarter gone.
- 9:53Speaker 6: Everyone's looked past it. Frankly, what the shareholder deck outlines
- 9:59Speaker 6: is almost line line exactly what Danna and I outlined
- 10:02Speaker 6: in the Big Take on Sunday, which is on the
- 10:04Speaker 6: affordable ev A big body of work had already been
- 10:07Speaker 6: done at the component and production process level, and Tesla
- 10:12Speaker 6: is moving forward with a more affordable lineup of evs
- 10:15Speaker 6: based on that technology. It was really misunderstood. It's like
- 10:18Speaker 6: the world was banking on the Honda Civic of evs
- 10:21Speaker 6: and Tesla to be the one to bring it. But
- 10:23Speaker 6: my understanding from sources that was never the case. And
- 10:25Speaker 6: if you read the shareholder deck, they spell it out
- 10:28Speaker 6: pretty clearly. They've looked at this kind of more holistically
- 10:31Speaker 6: and there will be more affordable evs coming late twenty
- 10:33Speaker 6: twenty five. Caution caveat Muskers often miss his own deadlines.
- 10:38Speaker 4: You know that.
- 10:38Speaker 6: I always say that, but it's like.
- 10:40Speaker 5: A something for everyone.
- 10:41Speaker 6: Yeah, you know that, And that was me protecting myself
- 10:45Speaker 6: from all the people who may go after me on
- 10:47Speaker 6: social media. But explicitly it states that they are working
- 10:51Speaker 6: on a purpose built ROBOTAXI. And so we went into
- 10:55Speaker 6: this saying, if you're a Wall Street institutional giant who
- 10:58Speaker 6: really wanted to see an affordable EV, or you're the
- 11:00Speaker 6: technology investor or the retail investor that's kind of all
- 11:03Speaker 6: in on the Tesla thesis around autonomy, you've got that
- 11:07Speaker 6: as well, And really I think the market adjoining in
- 11:09Speaker 6: hands to play that in after hours.
- 11:13Speaker 5: You know, the question is like what is an affordable
- 11:16Speaker 5: EV And I think one of the things one of
- 11:18Speaker 5: the ways that Elon Musk could clarify is to is
- 11:21Speaker 5: to sort of say that, you know, he over the
- 11:23Speaker 5: weekend amid all this speculation, he tweeted a screenshot showing
- 11:28Speaker 5: the model. Why priced at twenty nine thousand dollars sounds prettyffordable.
- 11:32Speaker 5: Course that includes tax credit, which you know not everybody gets,
- 11:36Speaker 5: and a and like a five thousand dollars sort of
- 11:40Speaker 5: assumption of gas savings.
- 11:41Speaker 4: So so like you could.
- 11:43Speaker 5: Imagine a situation where he tries to argue, like, look,
- 11:46Speaker 5: we're going to cut a bunch of costs out of
- 11:48Speaker 5: this thing, and we're going to make it affordable as is,
- 11:52Speaker 5: like we don't need an additional model, which is a
- 11:54Speaker 5: really intriguing proposal. That is a huge, you know, pretty
- 11:58Speaker 5: big departure from how the car industry normally does things,
- 12:02Speaker 5: and in certain ways I get is saying maybe not
- 12:04Speaker 5: that surprising, right, that's kind of you know, Elon Musk
- 12:07Speaker 5: has long model this company after Apple. You know, Apple
- 12:10Speaker 5: sells a very you know, modest product line all the
- 12:13Speaker 5: products kind of look the same. They're all kind of expensive.
- 12:15Speaker 5: You know, you could sort of imagine his effort to
- 12:18Speaker 5: do this, and and you know, who knows if it's
- 12:20Speaker 5: going to work, but it definitely is outside of what
- 12:23Speaker 5: you know, a normal sort of car company, nor normal
- 12:26Speaker 5: car company analyst would expect to see, would want to see.
- 12:28Speaker 3: You know, guys, I'm looking at a live blog Craik
- 12:31Speaker 3: Kanter weighing in our BNF Electric Vehicle analysts and saying,
- 12:35Speaker 3: you know where he talks about these new models and
- 12:38Speaker 3: talks about I don't know, new models ahead of our
- 12:41Speaker 3: previously communicated startup production the second half of twenty twenty five,
- 12:44Speaker 3: accelerating that launch, he he writes by including these statements
- 12:48Speaker 3: in the investor decka shows Tesla has identified that a
- 12:50Speaker 3: lack of new models is a problem. But are there
- 12:53Speaker 3: actually actions being taken or just a continued lack of clarity?
- 12:56Speaker 3: And I guess you know, I'm going to go back
- 12:58Speaker 3: to you Max for a second, like, right, we want
- 13:01Speaker 3: a little bit more specifics, right, And what this means?
- 13:04Speaker 5: Yeah, again, it almost it does have the feel of
- 13:08Speaker 5: a deck that's being written for maximum optionality, and and
- 13:11Speaker 5: you know this is all happening.
- 13:13Speaker 1: Very very quickly.
- 13:14Speaker 5: You know, we saw we've seen Elon Musk get re engaged.
- 13:18Speaker 5: It appears in any case, you know, connected this layoff
- 13:21Speaker 5: in a way that has seemed, at least according to
- 13:24Speaker 5: you know, the reports that Bloomberg is published that Ed
- 13:26Speaker 5: has has written very hasty, and so you do wonder
- 13:30Speaker 5: like maybe they are trying to figure this out as
- 13:32Speaker 5: we speak, and and and who knows if we're definitely
- 13:35Speaker 5: going to get that level of clarity on the call
- 13:38Speaker 5: from Elon Musk, although given Elon Musk like he cannot
- 13:41Speaker 5: help himself but sort of say controversial things. You know,
- 13:44Speaker 5: he's got that sort of trump characteristic of being sort
- 13:47Speaker 5: of really really honest. Sometimes to a fault, he may
- 13:51Speaker 5: you know, spout something off that could send the stock
- 13:53Speaker 5: in any number of directions.
- 13:55Speaker 2: And to that point, you know, what's like, what's what
- 13:57Speaker 2: are you looking for on the call at if you're
- 14:00Speaker 2: when you're tuning.
- 14:00Speaker 6: In the car. So I don't want to be inconsistent,
- 14:03Speaker 6: you know, I posted in the blog before we kick
- 14:05Speaker 6: things off, clarity, but actually to be fair, I think
- 14:09Speaker 6: that Tesla has given us one single line of clarity.
- 14:12Speaker 6: So I'm just going to read it. This update may
- 14:14Speaker 6: resolve in a result in achieving less cost reductions than
- 14:19Speaker 6: previously expected. So Carol read out the section in which
- 14:22Speaker 6: they outline the explanation. There will be multiple affordable models,
- 14:26Speaker 6: but I think that the market, and indeed, because Elon
- 14:29Speaker 6: Musk kind of guided us there was thinking this will
- 14:31Speaker 6: be a brand new model, maybe it will be called
- 14:34Speaker 6: M two, Maybe it will specifically cost twenty five thousand
- 14:38Speaker 6: US dollars. I think in that single line of the
- 14:41Speaker 6: shareholder deck on page ten, they're saying it will be
- 14:45Speaker 6: less expensive than the average cost of a Y or three.
- 14:47Speaker 6: Now it will not be twenty five thousand dollars. And
- 14:50Speaker 6: so now we go to the big picture clarity. How
- 14:53Speaker 6: many of these things will you build? And what is
- 14:56Speaker 6: the strategy with that visa v ROBOTAXI because they all
- 15:00Speaker 6: occupy the same physical production space in Austin. Based on
- 15:04Speaker 6: our understanding, I also would think maybe the tone of
- 15:08Speaker 6: Elon Musk tim to answer your question, I thought he'd
- 15:11Speaker 6: be a bit combative and frazzled. Yeah, now I just
- 15:14Speaker 6: don't know.
- 15:16Speaker 3: Wait wait for surprise, all right, ed, Lola, We're gonna
- 15:22Speaker 3: let you go because we know you've got a full
- 15:23Speaker 3: play to continue. But of course Bloomberg Technology co host
- 15:26Speaker 3: ed Ludlow. But we got to talk about with Max
- 15:29Speaker 3: final minute here or so Elon Bingo right.
- 15:33Speaker 5: You know again, I've talked about this three months ago.
- 15:37Speaker 5: This is a thing that many Tesla watchers, bulls bears,
- 15:40Speaker 5: everybody in between, Elon Musk, super fans, Elon Musk's haters
- 15:44Speaker 5: tend to do, which is to kind of create a
- 15:46Speaker 5: Bingo card and look for some of his catchphrases. So
- 15:50Speaker 5: we at the Elon Ing Podcast, we've got a new
- 15:52Speaker 5: episode out right now and we have this Bingo card.
- 15:55Speaker 5: Just want to flag a few items. Horse that would
- 15:58Speaker 5: be one. Now, Elon Musk has said that anyone who's
- 16:02Speaker 5: driving a non autonomous card not a robotaxi, it'll be
- 16:05Speaker 5: like driving a horse compared to a car. So see
- 16:07Speaker 5: if he tries that line on us a few others
- 16:11Speaker 5: and to Grock uh uh and uh for reasonably optimistic.
- 16:16Speaker 5: He's often reasonably optimistic about lots of things. So so yeah,
- 16:20Speaker 5: lots of fun to be had here and we'll see
- 16:21Speaker 5: if anyone gets bingo.
- 16:23Speaker 3: It's a fun card.
- 16:24Speaker 2: Quefully we'll get you back in three months and also
- 16:27Speaker 2: earlier than three months. I'll be sure to check out
- 16:29Speaker 2: the Elon Inc. Podcast wherever you get your podcast. That's
- 16:32Speaker 2: Max Chafkin, a columnist for Bloomberg Business Week,