Cars and Drivers

What Will Drive Tesla Earnings After the Close?

Chris Lange

Published: October 24, 2018 12:45 pm

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 3:54 pm

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) is scheduled to release its third-quarter financial results after the markets close on Wednesday. The consensus estimates call for a net loss of $0.19 per share and $6.3 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had a net loss of $2.92 per share and $2.98 billion in revenue.

Earlier this month, Tesla announced its third-quarter deliveries ahead of the report. In the quarter, deliveries totaled 83,500 vehicles: 55,840 Model 3, 14,470 Model S and 13,190 Model X. To put this in perspective, in just this quarter, Tesla delivered more than 80% of the vehicles that it delivered in all of 2017, and it delivered about twice as many Model 3s as it did in all previous quarters combined.

Previously, the company guided that Model 3 vehicles would see deliveries in the range of 50,000 to 55,000. Also, the 26,903 Model S and X vehicles were slightly higher than the second quarter and in line with full-year guidance.

Separately, 8,048 Model 3 vehicles and 3,776 Model S and X vehicles were in transit to customers at the end of the third quarter and will be delivered early in the fourth quarter. The overall target of 100,000 Model S and X deliveries in 2018 remains unchanged.

The third-quarter Model 3 deliveries were limited to higher-priced variants, cash/loan transactions and North American customers only. Management believes that there remain significant opportunities to grow the addressable market for Model 3 by introducing leasing, standard battery and other lower-priced variants of the car, and by starting international deliveries.

Tesla stock has underperformed the broad markets in the past 52 weeks, with the share price down about 13%. In just 2018 alone, the stock is down 5.5%.

A few analysts weighed in on Tesla ahead of the report:

• JMP Securities has an Outperform rating and a $350 price target.
• Macquarie has an Outperform rating with a $430 price target.
• Evercore ISI’s Hold rating comes with a $299 price target.
• Merrill Lynch has a Sell rating with a $200 price target.
• Goldman Sachs has a Sell rating with a $210 target.
• Cowen has a Sell rating with a $200 price target.

Shares of Tesla were last seen trading at $295.50 on Wednesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $314.52 and a 52-week trading range of $244.59 to $387.46.

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