Chief Investment Strategist
Summary: Tesla is in a transition year, with growth slowing down and gross margins under pressure. The company is facing a number of risks, including rising interest rates, slowing EV demand, Elon Musk's fight for more control, wage pressures, and increasing competition. Tesla shareholders should prepare for more volatility and potential disappointments in 2024.
In our earnings preview this Monday we highlighted that Tesla had come to a point where the growth narrative is key for maintain a positive sentiment on its shares. The reason is that the gross margin is under pressure. Equities are quite simple sometimes. If the margin is under pressure the revenue growth figures matter more for investors. So how did Tesla do in Q4? Here are the key highlights:
Overall, Tesla ended 2023 with 19% revenue growth but adjusted net income declining by 29% as pricing pressures hit margin. Last year will still go down in history as the year that transformed the EV industry and Tesla is likely going to be among the winning group of EV-makers in the future. But one thing is the company’s performance, another thing is the stock price. Expectations have been so high and there is clearly a “Musk premium” baked into the share price that when there are growth hiccups it will hurt the share price. This year will undoubtedly be a transition year for Tesla and shareholders should prepare themselves for more volatility and potential disappointments.
A small beacon of potential upside surprise is the energy storage business which more than doubled installations in 2023 to 14.7 GWh and booked revenue of $1.4bn. It is too early to say, but maybe the energy storage business could be the “AWS of Tesla” meaning that Amazon’s AWS cloud business for many years were growing fast but was overshadowed by Amazon’s e-commerce business before it suddenly became clear that this was where all the profit was. Tesla’s energy storage business could be a repeat of Amazon’s AWS surprise. But it is still early days. Another key aspect of Tesla that has come about is Elon Musk openly arguing, or some would say demanding, that he should have a stronger influence on Tesla. He has specifically said on X that he wants 25% of the voting rights, and that he supports a dual-class stock structure to give him this control with less economic impact for existing shareholders. The reason is that if he does not get more control he will go do AI and robotics outside Tesla. Is that a good idea to give him more control?
Our view is that a company that is as mature as Tesla should have processes in place and a great management team that whether Elon Musk is CEO or not, Tesla should be able to compete and become a top three EV-maker in the future. The question is whether the competitive landscape has changed to a point where it is more important than ever to be laser-focused on EV production instead of all these side projects. Winning the AI race is tough and robotics is an even more challenging task. Should Tesla shareholders really gamble ressources on these projects over focusing on beating BYD?
What are some of the key risks to consider as a Tesla shareholder over the coming year?
Tesla shares were down 6% in US extended trading hours last night, but the shares listed on German exchanges are down 8.5% in today’s session reflecting the failure of Elon Musk convincing the market about the near-term future.
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