- 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 · 9m ago
How much profit is from carbon credits?
rtkwe · 2h 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 · 2h 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.
danans · 22m ago
Maybe they should have first done some market research on car buyers from Mars.
Freedom2 · 1h ago
How do you charge it on Mars?
esseph · 1h ago
No.
SoftTalker · 1h ago
Because it’s a ridiculous looking vehicle and not really practical as a truck. On top of that all the Elon hate.
rtkwe · 14m 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.
saaspirant · 2h ago
No wonder they have opened a showroom in India
decimalenough · 2h 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 · 1h 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.
financetechbro · 2h ago
Neat tool you made! Question, how do you handle hallucinations?
No comments yet
mixdup · 2h ago
The buried lede I hadn't seen in any headlines on the business news websites: 89% decrease in free cash flow. Ooof
TheAlchemist · 2h 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.
DoesntMatter22 · 1h ago
Yes because they've made capex investments. You make it like the business is suffering.
breve · 1h ago
The business is suffering. Tesla has seen a large fall in European EV market share:
The decline corresponds with Musk interfering in European politics and performing fascist salutes at a political rally. Europeans aren't on board with swasticars.
The brand damage Musk has done can only start to be repaired after he leaves Tesla. The bad reputation is going to stick until then.
Tesla was the best selling EV brand in June, so that puts it at odds with ". Europeans aren't on board swasticars".
Also you may want to reread the Hacker News rules as statements like that seem to go against them.
Edit: It literally says this in the article
"For what it’s worth, Tesla was the best-selling EV company in Europe in June,"
neogodless · 1h ago
Did we read the same article?
> Tesla sales continued to go down in Europe in the first half of the year.
The American EV maker recorded a 33% year-over-year drop in sales from January to June.
> From January to June, Tesla sold 108,878 cars in the region, while Volkswagen moved 133,465 EVs, a massive 78% year-over-year increase.
Look for the data table and note the heading "Difference from H1 2024"
> Overall, the European EV market increased by 24% year-over-year
breve · 1h ago
The article you linked to explains how the VW brand has exceeded Tesla in sales. And Volkswagen Group owns many brands (VW, Audi, Skoda, SEAT, Cupra, Porsche, etc.).
You're grasping at straws here.
defrost · 1h ago
That's a highly selective read when the data shows Tesla dropping for the past six months, sales declining, even in June, and last month (June) likely not yet having a complete up to date third party picture across the board.
The part left out from your statement about June:
but that wasn’t enough to end the first half of the year in the first spot.
In fact, out of the top five best-selling EV makers in June, Tesla was the only one to see a drop.
With 32,605 cars sold, Tesla sales went down by 21% year-over-year in Europe.
Meanwhile, Volkswagen went up 9.%, BMW by 16%, Skoda by 189% and Renault by 23%.
confirms that Europeans are indeed moving away from "swasticars" in general despite some Europeans still buying a few.
mixdup · 40m ago
I mean the business is suffering as all measures of profit and revenue have also dropped. They may have also increased capex, but doing that at the same time as income is cratering is not necessarily sound financial decision making. Especially when that capex is in "new" lines of business like AI that are unrelated to the manufacture of automobiles
e40 · 2h 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 · 2h ago
You’re not supposed to bite the hand that feeds you? surprised pikachu face
DoesntMatter22 · 1h 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 · 1h ago
OEM financing has little relation to interest rates. I’m still seeing offers of zero percent financing on new cars.
DoesntMatter22 · 1h 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 · 44m 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 · 1h 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 · 1h 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.
- 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.
> 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.
There has been talk for years of Tesla opening a local factory, but this remains just talk.
No comments yet
https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Line/All-time-by-Q...
The decline corresponds with Musk interfering in European politics and performing fascist salutes at a political rally. Europeans aren't on board with swasticars.
The brand damage Musk has done can only start to be repaired after he leaves Tesla. The bad reputation is going to stick until then.
Tesla was the best selling EV brand in June, so that puts it at odds with ". Europeans aren't on board swasticars".
Also you may want to reread the Hacker News rules as statements like that seem to go against them.
Edit: It literally says this in the article "For what it’s worth, Tesla was the best-selling EV company in Europe in June,"
> Tesla sales continued to go down in Europe in the first half of the year. The American EV maker recorded a 33% year-over-year drop in sales from January to June.
> From January to June, Tesla sold 108,878 cars in the region, while Volkswagen moved 133,465 EVs, a massive 78% year-over-year increase.
Look for the data table and note the heading "Difference from H1 2024"
> Overall, the European EV market increased by 24% year-over-year
You're grasping at straws here.
The part left out from your statement about June:
confirms that Europeans are indeed moving away from "swasticars" in general despite some Europeans still buying a few.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.