Its benefits have collapsed 71%

“Tesla is already discarding 20 million cars in 2030”. With these words he titled Information Bloomberg In May 2024. The article refers to Impact report that the company presented last year collecting the work of 2023.

Impact reports are studies carried out from within companies to sell their values ​​and strategies for the future, a habitual way of acting among companies that are part of the SP500, they explain in the economic newspaper. That promise, that of produce 20 million cars Annually, it did appear in the impact reports related to the work of 2021 and 2022.

Then, the company had to begin to doubt whether, in fact, to meet the expectations of car sales by 2024. Year after yearthe company has grown meteorically since 2018 when it produced just over 254,000 vehicles. In 2023 it already stood at 1.8 million cars produced and it was expected that in 2024 it could break the barrier of the two million cars.

The perspectives could not be better. In 2023, The Tesla Model and it was the best selling car In the world (of any technology) And repeated in 2024. However, the fence narrowed. Of the more than 200,000 cars that Tesla Model and accumulated advantage in front of the Toyota Rav4In 2024 the victory was minimal, certifying almost a technical draw with the Toyota Corolla (1.09 million units for Tesla and 1.08 million units for Toyota)

That little more than a million units sold of Tesla Model and was the first symptom that Tesla, for the first time, was going to sell less cars than the previous year. Although he did everything possible to not happensales stayed at 1.7 million cars, weighed by the expected arrival of a renewed electric SUV and a brake in sales.

Now, the financial results of 2024 throw new numbers. Tesla not only wanted to be Toyota in a decade. He assured that he could double the production of the largest car manufacturer in the world. Today, last year’s results question how far the company can grow.

Some results to cover your eyes

It doesn’t matter where you look at The Tesla results reportalmost all games are bad. In fact, they are worse than what Wall Street analysts pointed out despite a alarm voice given a few hours before that these will be confirmed.

If we take a look at its production and deliveries, the Q1 of 2025 has been marked by the renewal of Tesla Model and that has undoubtedly weighed its best selling model. It remains to be seen to what the car update manages 16% less than in the same quarter of 2024. Their deliveries fell 12%, to 323,800 units. This fall is, without a doubt, partially placed by the last push of the company in the last months of 2024, placing cars that the company had in stock at the beginning of 2025.

But the number of deliveries of “other models” is especially striking. Here are the Tesla Model S, X and Cybertruck, their vehicles that point to the luxury market. Between January and March 2025 they placed 12,881 units in total, a figure 24% lower than that of 2024 despite the fact that this quarter they are delivering to full performance the Tesla Cybertrucka car that It was promised as a success and a supervent despite his Huge cost For the client. In January 2024, the car still arrived with happiness regarding the deliveries they can make today.

With these sales figures, Tesla has gotten into the worst results since 2022 and, as far as economic returns are concerned, Since 2021. His profitability was not so low for four years. Its income from the sale of cars has been 13,967 million dollars, far from the 17,378 million dollars of the same quarter of 2024 (the first is usually the weakest for the company) and very far from the 19,798 million dollars of the last quarter of 2024.

Although its energy business continues to grow, the fall in sales has been so large and the decisions taken to maintain their rhythm (very attractive discounts or financing) have led the company to earn 409 million dollars. 71% less that in the same quarter of last year, when he got a benefit of 1,390 million dollars. Throughout the year a growth of the same should be expected since the first quarter of 2024 was far from the third and fourth quarter when benefits of more than 2.1 billion dollars were achieved.

However, the figure gives another alarm. If it is not for the purchase of regulatory credits, Tesla would be in losses. It is where in Forbes They put the focus. The company has only earned just over 400 million dollars and has entered 595 million dollars, which are “free” because they do not generate any cost by being payments that other companies do to comply with emission regulations in the United States. Without them, Tesla would have entered losses.

To the results we must add the drop in the price of the shares in recent months and serious damage to the company’s brand image since Elon Musk was part of the United States government. To the point that the company’s own director has confirmed that will leave part of your government work to focus on the company of electric vehicles, which has been held by investors with a slight climb in the last hours of the day.

Tesla said power fold Toyota’s productive capacity. But it begins to verify what happens when the competitive advantage in the sector begins to be lost. Until now, their forecasts have been based on the fact that it could always be kept ahead of the competition. But that competition begins to press strong. They are offering cars that are approaching (and much) in the autonomy/price relationship to what Tesla offers. Your brand image is not stained by a CEO that has starred multiple political controversies In recent months.

And, in addition, it is having trouble getting a new cheaper and affordable electric car model. That which should give sales to sales and that, they say, can produce 20% in costs. A car that, of course, has been delayed again.

Photo | RANAMOTORWORKS and Gage Skidmore

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