Can Tesla’s Energy Business Save It as Car Sales Fall?

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Quick Read

  • Tesla Inc.’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) electric vehicle sales are on the decline.

  •  It may have to depend on its energy and storage business to prop up earnings in the meantime.

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Can Tesla’s Energy Business Save It as Car Sales Fall?

© Win McNamee / Getty Images News via Getty Images

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) is in two businesses. One is electric vehicles (EVs) and the other is energy and storage. Energy and storage revenue rose 67% in the past quarter to $2.7 billion. That is well under auto revenue, but EV revenue was down 20% to $14 billion. The energy and storage segment has an impressive cost of revenue of $1.9 billion.

Energy Storage News reports that “the segment provides products for both residential and large-scale energy storage. This includes the Powerwall for homes, the Powerpack for businesses, and the Megapack for utilities and large-scale projects.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented in late 2024 that the storage business was “growing like a wildfire.”

The energy and storage business will not surpass EV sales, but it might provide most of Tesla’s operating income in the short term. This is similar to what AWS did for Amazon when its core e-commerce business slowed.

Tesla needs to be able to produce a positive net income, particularly if its EV sales continue to decline. In Europe in May, sales dropped by double-digit percentages year over year. In China, the world’s largest EV market, sales fell 15%. Tesla does not report U.S. sales, but there is a good chance they declined in May as well.

Tesla is counting on its AI-driven products to push its share price back up. It launches its self-driving robotaxi in Texas this month. Its success or failure could move the stock price in the near term.

In the meantime, Tesla has a rapidly growing division that could prop up Tesla’s earnings.

Tesla Bull, Base, & Bear Price Prediction and Forecast

 

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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