Tesla filed its quarterly report on Friday evening, giving investors one more chance to review a disappointing quarter in more detail.
There aren’t a lot of surprises in the filing, which is good news, but it hasn’t stopped Wall Street from cutting earnings estimates, price targets and ratings since Tesla reported weaker-than-expected automotive gross profit margins this past week.
Friday evening, Tesla filed its so-called 10-Q quarterly report form with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A 10-Q has far more detail than a typical quarterly press release.
There is, for instance, more detail about warranty expenses. Investors like to see stable warranty expenses as a sign that quality isn’t deteriorating. They also want to see stability to ensure the impact of warranties on reported profit margins isn’t having a large, unseen impact.
Tesla’s first-quarter warranty expense came in at $532 million, or 2.7% of automotive sales, down from 2.9% of sales in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Warranty expenses at Tesla ranged between 2% and 3% of automotive sales in 2022. Things aren’t changing much. Warranty expenses at Ford Motor (F), for comparison, have been running between 3% and 4% of automotive sales for the past couple of years.
Tesla’s capital spending, on manufacturing plants and equipment, rose in the first quarter to $2.1 billion in the first quarter, up from $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter, and up from $1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
Tesla didn’t have a new plant under construction, but the company is larger—it takes more to support operations as any company grows—and it is expanding capacity at existing plants while preparing to ship its Cybertruck later this year. Capital spending as a percentage of sales has been running at about 9% of total sales over the past 12 months.
Capital spending at Ford was roughly 4% of sales in 2022, but Ford sales aren’t really growing. The 4% of sales is supporting its existing operations and helping the company transition to selling more electric vehicles. Ford’s capital spending is expected to be about 5% of sales in 2023.
Regulatory credit sales are reported in Tesla’s earnings release, but investors still like to follow the trend. The company receives credits because it produces more than its fair share of zero-emission vehicles, relative to the amount governments in some countries require. Credit sales came in at $564 million in the first quarter, up from $467 million in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Over the past five years, Tesla has generated about $6.3 billion in credit sales—about 3% of total auto sales and about 25% of total operating income reported. Over the past year, regulatory credits have accounted for roughly 13% of reported operating income.
There aren’t many surprises for investors in the quarterly report. That isn’t stopping Wall Street from cutting numbers. Sunday, Daiwa analyst Jairam Nathan, cut his 2023 estimated earnings per share to $2.95 from $3.75 a share. His price target came down to $185 from $218. He kept his Buy rating on Tesla stock.
Overall, Wall Street expects EPS of about $3.50 in 2023, down from about $3.90 before earnings were reported on April 19 and down from about $5.50 to start the year, before Tesla started to aggressively cut prices.
The average analyst price target is down to about $191 a share. It was just above $200 before earnings and about $255 a share to start 2023, according to FactSet.
About 51% of analysts covering the stock now rate shares Buy. That’s down from 53% before earnings and down from about 64% at the start of 2023. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 is about 58%.
Tesla stock was down about 0.46% in morning trading Monday. Tesla stock dropped almost 10% after earnings were report this past week, but are still up about 34% so far this year.
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