- Total revenue fell by 12% year-over-year (16% contraction in the core automotive segment)
- Operating margin fell to just 4.1% (was 6.3% a year ago)
- For a second straight quarter, production significantly outpaced deliveries. Global unsold inventories now at 24 days of supply (was 18 days a year ago)
- Free cash flow collapsed by nearly 89.1% to just $146 million
Despite all the bad news and missteps, Tesla is still profitable with tons of money in the bank. Lots of room to turn things around. The company is not going away any time soon.
That trillion dollar market cap, OTOH? That seems super vulnerable.
wredcoll · 1d ago
How much profit is from carbon credits?
bryanlarsen · 1d ago
Carbon credits aren't profit, they're revenue. You have to ship a car to claim the credits, they're not free money.
akmarinov · 1d ago
$500 million
saaspirant · 1d ago
No wonder they have opened a showroom in India
decimalenough · 1d ago
Teslas are stupidly unaffordable for the average Indian, especially with the 100% tariff currently in place for non-Indian car imports.
There has been talk for years of Tesla opening a local factory, but this remains just talk.
freeopinion · 1d ago
I doubt that Tesla intends to market to the average Indian. I'm not sure it has reached out to the average American, yet. I think it has, but only at the bottom of its target market.
decimalenough · 1d ago
Oh, I'm sure it doesn't, but my point is that there's no way sales in India will have a meaningful impact on Tesla's bottom line anytime soon.
freeopinion · 1d ago
Obvious math:
Population of US: ~340M
1 percenters of US: ~3.4M
1% of 1 percenters of US: ~34K
Population of India: ~1.4B
0.1 percenters of India: ~1.4M
1% of 0.1 percenters of India: ~14K
So if you only target the extreme top of the wealth demographic in India, the numbers still matter. If you somehow convinced 1/2 of 1% of the millionaires in India to purchase a Cybertruck and donate it to a local mobile health clinic, you would increase global sales of Cybertrucks by 100%.
Is there any way sales in New Mexico will have a meaningful impact on Tesla's bottom line? West Virginia? South Carolina? There are more Tesla dealerships in New Mexico than in all of India.
spacemadness · 1d ago
Teslas are unaffordable for the average American as well. Assuming we consider buried in debt for 5+ years unaffordable.
akmittal · 1d ago
Tesla model Y starts at 70,000 USD in India. In india they wont sell well till India reduces import duty and they have price around 30-35K USD
TheAlchemist · 1d ago
The only reason the showroom in India was opened, is for Tesla influencers to pump it on Twitter.
rtkwe · 1d ago
I'm surprised the product backlog is so thin and I'd love it if they had broken that out. Months back there were seemingly huge backlogs of Cybertrucks piling up all over the place for example and I wonder if they are still piling up.
> Tesla has confirmed through its delivery report that Cybertruck sales have now dropped to ~5,000 units per quarter.
> After planning for a production capacity of over 250,000 units per year, Tesla is currently selling the pickup truck at a rate of ~20,000 units annually.
barbazoo · 1d ago
Was Cybertruck supposed to be a Mars vehicle first and consumer car second or vice versa or not related at all? I’m imagining Musk seeing the need for a Mars vehicle and gambling that maybe people on earth will like it too. In that context the whole debacle seems less severe.
rtkwe · 1d ago
The thing can barely handle unpaved hardened dirt tracks on Earth you think it was ever actually designed for completely undeveloped terrain like Mars?
The vehicle built for Mars is pure unadulterated marketing fluff just like the 'bullet proof' windows and siding that can only stop slow pistol rounds.
danans · 1d ago
Maybe they should have first done some market research on car buyers from Mars.
philistine · 1d ago
How can a car that has no sealed compartment be used on Mars if there are no affordances for the bulky suits?
This car's marketing touted it as a vehicle built for Mars and you somehow believed it hook line and sinker.
barbazoo · 1d ago
Oh I was just assuming, it’s not a strongly held belief.
I’m just trying to make sense of the situation. It’s a shit car, ugly as hell, everyone hates it, etc you don’t see that very often nowadays. Everything is usually so sterile and researched to death in advance. By the time it hits the market there is usually going to be some demand. It’s new to me that a billionaire just whips his dick around and does whatever he wants, market fit be damned.
BobaFloutist · 1d ago
There was this idea that they would be able to take individual steel sheets, cut them and fold them into shape with some interior welds to cheaply and efficiently manufacture the body. The stainless steel and the weird shape came from what they thought this process would require.
Then the process didn't work, but either marketing or just Musk we're already attached to the shape and aesthetic.
"Exoskeleton" is I think what they were calling it.
Freedom2 · 1d ago
How do you charge it on Mars?
rtkwe · 1d ago
If there are cars on Mars there's people and therefore power there too. It's completely unfit for purpose but Martian rovers will be electric if we ever go there that's guaranteed.
Freedom2 · 23h ago
That's fine, but by then the Cybertruck will likely be outdated. So I don't understand the assertion that the Cybertruck was "built for Mars" when there's no humans on Mars. And there's no evidence it's futureproofed to be suitable for Mars anyway.
rtkwe · 8h ago
That was pure dumb marketing fluff through and through just combining two things Musk routinely hyped at the time Mars and electric cars. The thing can barely handle packed dirt trails much less untouched Martian terrain it's completely unfit for off roading.
cyberge99 · 1d ago
Solar station.
esseph · 1d ago
No.
SoftTalker · 1d ago
Because it’s a ridiculous looking vehicle and not really practical as a truck. On top of that all the Elon hate.
rtkwe · 1d ago
I know why it's happening I just wonder how long their inventory tail has grown at this point or if they have scaled back production to the point it's not threatening to take over every random parking lot in the nation.
TheAlchemist · 1d ago
They don't split the numbers among models - so it's stuck with the 'Other models' production. It is scaling back significantly - it was 24k cars produced in Q2 2024, down to 13k this Q.
Deliveries where ~3k lower than production each quarter, so there are 15k of them stuck somewhere. Given the pace of depreciation, they may even soon be available at the price Elon initially announced !
mixdup · 1d ago
Unsold new units do not depreciate. Of course they may discount them to move them but it's not depreciation like a used car
rtkwe · 1d ago
Their prices have been falling for new and they're competing against a lot of low milage regret purchases on the used market.
SoftTalker · 1d ago
They do, but the owner is the one who realizes it.
A "new" car that is last year's model will effectively hit the owner with a year's depreciation the moment they sign the sales contract.
Zigurd · 1d ago
Dodge Hornet?
financetechbro · 1d ago
@dang - why did my other comment asking about hallucinations get flagged? It was a genuine question
financetechbro · 1d ago
[flagged]
No comments yet
mixdup · 1d ago
The buried lede I hadn't seen in any headlines on the business news websites: 89% decrease in free cash flow. Ooof
TheAlchemist · 1d ago
And this is *before* the regulatory credits went away 3 weeks ago, and *before* 7500$ / car subsides go away end of September. In Q3 Tesla will start seriously bleeding money.
mgiannopoulos · 1d ago
Do you mean Q4?
Q3 will probably have good numbers due to people rushing to take advantage of the EV credit.
jjfoooo4 · 1d ago
Wouldn't that behavior already be reflected in these numbers?
TheAlchemist · 1d ago
Thing is, Tesla is not making much on each car they sell now, given how many discounts they need to offer. They were making a lot of money on regulatory credits, but these are likely to be gone already (in theory the companies should continue to buy them, but the Bill signed by Trump removes any penalties for not doing so effective immediately).
So yeah, sales may jump in the US (and will continue to crater in EU and China), but that won't do much for their profits. It can only help 'move the metal' as they say.
Did I miss the applied part of their primary goal “to procvide
affordable vehicles”.
akmarinov · 1d ago
They have 5 models that they sell, but only 2 are available to order in Europe, lol
7e · 1d ago
And 0 models are desired by European buyers.
2OEH8eoCRo0 · 1d ago
When does pumping that stock up go from fiduciary duty to fraud? Musk is bad for the company yet Musk as CEO props up the meme stock. Is it fraud to keep on Musk then?
ceejayoz · 2h ago
> When does pumping that stock up go from fiduciary duty to fraud?
Musk has already been in hot water more than once for that in the past.
"In 2018 the SEC reached a settlement with Musk and Tesla after finding that Musk had deceived investors when he tweeted out that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private. Under that settlement Tesla and Musk both paid fines of $20 million, and Musk agreed to have his tweets about material events at the company approved by others at Tesla. He also gave up the title of chairman of Tesla, although he retained the CEO title."
"In April 2022, Musk disclosed he had purchased 9% of the shares of Twitter ahead of his purchase of the entire company later that year. The SEC sent him a letter wanting to know why he had not disclosed those purchases within 10 days of crossing the 5% threshold of shares owned, as required by securities law."
e40 · 1d ago
Who would have thought that alienating yoyr target market could impact sales??
I hope the purchase of twitter and the subsequent leverage he has on politics and government is worth it. /s
darth_avocado · 1d ago
You’re not supposed to bite the hand that feeds you? surprised pikachu face
cyberge99 · 1d ago
He literally alienated BOTH American political constituencies.
DoesntMatter22 · 1d ago
Realistically the biggest thing that's impacting their ability to sell their cars is high interest rates.
The company still has 37 billion in cash on hand and has a great backlog of products.
Pretty interesting chart to be seen here. Why are interest rates affecting Tesla more than any other OEM?
SoftTalker · 1d ago
OEM financing has little relation to interest rates. I’m still seeing offers of zero percent financing on new cars.
DoesntMatter22 · 1d ago
From what you linked, Audi is down 19%, Rivian down 22%, Volkswagen down 20%. Audi and Rivian are both luxury brands and so is Tesla. Rivian is also a higher end car brand and they are getting cooked, down far more than Tesla, and don't suffer any of the Elon stigma.
The brands you mentioned are bargain brands. Tesla is a luxury vehicle. Answer seems pretty obvious. Also Tesla is not generally going to sell to apartment renters very often as there typically are not places to charge, so I personally think part of it is that there is a diminishing pool of possibile customers.
matthewdgreen · 1d ago
I’m on the list for an R2S to replace my Model 3, but it won’t be available until 2026 sometime at the earliest. Rivian’s problem is that they make one expensive car (in truck and SUV variants), and their market for that is saturating. Meanwhile I am literally trying to give them my money for a smaller SUV and they can’t make it fast enough. Not sure any of these problems are relevant to Tesla, which has a bunch of models that it can produce (and aren’t selling.)
SoftTalker · 1d ago
Most of the people who want an EV already bought one by now. I expect demand to fall or at best remain flat.
DoesntMatter22 · 1d ago
I do agree with this, it's not really convenient if you don't own a home. Also, where I live, electricity is expensive, and car insurance on Tesla's are also high, and gas prices are pretty low.
esseph · 1d ago
That can afford one
ahahahahah · 1d ago
> Audi and Rivian are both luxury brands and so is Tesla.
Tesla is pretty widely regarded as non-luxury. If not for their price, they'd probably best fit into economy class. At best, only the model S and X would be considered luxury cars, and look at how the sales of those have totally cratered.
- Total revenue fell by 12% year-over-year (16% contraction in the core automotive segment)
- Operating margin fell to just 4.1% (was 6.3% a year ago)
- For a second straight quarter, production significantly outpaced deliveries. Global unsold inventories now at 24 days of supply (was 18 days a year ago)
- Free cash flow collapsed by nearly 89.1% to just $146 million
source: https://www.signalbloom.ai/news/TSLA/teslas-q2-revenue-drops... (disclaimer: I run this)
That trillion dollar market cap, OTOH? That seems super vulnerable.
There has been talk for years of Tesla opening a local factory, but this remains just talk.
Population of US: ~340M
1 percenters of US: ~3.4M
1% of 1 percenters of US: ~34K
Population of India: ~1.4B
0.1 percenters of India: ~1.4M
1% of 0.1 percenters of India: ~14K
So if you only target the extreme top of the wealth demographic in India, the numbers still matter. If you somehow convinced 1/2 of 1% of the millionaires in India to purchase a Cybertruck and donate it to a local mobile health clinic, you would increase global sales of Cybertrucks by 100%.
Is there any way sales in New Mexico will have a meaningful impact on Tesla's bottom line? West Virginia? South Carolina? There are more Tesla dealerships in New Mexico than in all of India.
> Tesla has confirmed through its delivery report that Cybertruck sales have now dropped to ~5,000 units per quarter.
> After planning for a production capacity of over 250,000 units per year, Tesla is currently selling the pickup truck at a rate of ~20,000 units annually.
The vehicle built for Mars is pure unadulterated marketing fluff just like the 'bullet proof' windows and siding that can only stop slow pistol rounds.
This car's marketing touted it as a vehicle built for Mars and you somehow believed it hook line and sinker.
I’m just trying to make sense of the situation. It’s a shit car, ugly as hell, everyone hates it, etc you don’t see that very often nowadays. Everything is usually so sterile and researched to death in advance. By the time it hits the market there is usually going to be some demand. It’s new to me that a billionaire just whips his dick around and does whatever he wants, market fit be damned.
Then the process didn't work, but either marketing or just Musk we're already attached to the shape and aesthetic.
"Exoskeleton" is I think what they were calling it.
Deliveries where ~3k lower than production each quarter, so there are 15k of them stuck somewhere. Given the pace of depreciation, they may even soon be available at the price Elon initially announced !
A "new" car that is last year's model will effectively hit the owner with a year's depreciation the moment they sign the sales contract.
No comments yet
So yeah, sales may jump in the US (and will continue to crater in EU and China), but that won't do much for their profits. It can only help 'move the metal' as they say.
Musk has already been in hot water more than once for that in the past.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/13/business/elon-musk-sec-fine-d...
"In 2018 the SEC reached a settlement with Musk and Tesla after finding that Musk had deceived investors when he tweeted out that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private. Under that settlement Tesla and Musk both paid fines of $20 million, and Musk agreed to have his tweets about material events at the company approved by others at Tesla. He also gave up the title of chairman of Tesla, although he retained the CEO title."
"In April 2022, Musk disclosed he had purchased 9% of the shares of Twitter ahead of his purchase of the entire company later that year. The SEC sent him a letter wanting to know why he had not disclosed those purchases within 10 days of crossing the 5% threshold of shares owned, as required by securities law."
I hope the purchase of twitter and the subsequent leverage he has on politics and government is worth it. /s
The company still has 37 billion in cash on hand and has a great backlog of products.
At least in the U.S., the big 3 (Toyota, GM, Ford) all showed Year-over-year growth of automotive sales in Q2.
https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/q2-2025-ev-sales/
Pretty interesting chart to be seen here. Why are interest rates affecting Tesla more than any other OEM?
The brands you mentioned are bargain brands. Tesla is a luxury vehicle. Answer seems pretty obvious. Also Tesla is not generally going to sell to apartment renters very often as there typically are not places to charge, so I personally think part of it is that there is a diminishing pool of possibile customers.
Tesla is pretty widely regarded as non-luxury. If not for their price, they'd probably best fit into economy class. At best, only the model S and X would be considered luxury cars, and look at how the sales of those have totally cratered.