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Tesla (TSLA) is about to release Q1 2023 financial results today, Wednesday, April 19, after the markets close. As usual, a conference call and Q&A with Tesla’s management are scheduled after the results.

Here we’ll take a look at what both the street and retail investors are expecting for the quarterly results.

Tesla Q1 2023 deliveries

As usual, Tesla already disclosed its Q1 vehicle delivery and production numbers, which drive the vast majority of the company’s revenue.

Earlier this month, Tesla confirmed that it delivered a new record of over 422,000 electric vehicles during the first quarter of the year.

Tesla also confirmed having produced 440,000 vehicles during the quarter – also a new record.

Delivery and production numbers are always slightly adjusted during earning results.

Tesla Q1 2023 revenue

For revenue, analysts generally have a pretty good idea of what to expect, thanks to the delivery numbers.

The Wall Street consensus for this quarter is $23.617 billion, and Estimize, the financial estimate crowdsourcing website, predicts a higher revenue of $24.048 billion.

Despite the new record number of deliveries, these estimates would represent a quarter-to-quarter decrease in revenue due to Tesla’s implementing large price cuts during the first quarter.

Nonetheless, it would be a massive year-over-year increase from $18 billion in revenue in Q1 2022.

Here are the predictions for Tesla’s revenue over the past two years, where Estimize predictions are in blue, Wall Street consensus is in gray, and actual results are in green:

Tesla Q1 2023 earnings

Tesla always attempts to be marginally profitable every quarter as it invests most of its money into growth, and it has been successful in doing so over the last two years now.

For Q1 2023, the Wall Street consensus is a gain of $0.85 per share, while Estimize’s prediction is higher with a profit of $0.94 per share.

The estimates have a wide range this quarter because of the price cuts Tesla implemented during the quarter. Analysts and investors are looking to see how badly it is going to affect Tesla’s margins and, ultimately, its profits.

Unsurprisingly, Tesla achieving the Wall Street consensus would be a big drop in earnings quarter-to-quarter, and the automaker would be flat on earnings year-over-year.

Here are the earnings per share over the last two years, where Estimize predictions are in blue, Wall Street consensus is in gray, and actual results are in green:

Other expectations for the TSLA shareholder’s letter and analyst call

The obvious thing is the gross margin. Investors are going to be looking for that number first. They want to know by how much it dropped and how much room there is since Tesla continued to drop prices after the end of the quarter.

If Tesla can stay in the mid to high teens, I think investors will be happy, but if it dips lower than that, they might have a problem.

Investors will also be looking at insights from management about the pricing strategy, which seems to be changing fast.

Tesla shareholders will also be looking on an update on Cybertruck production as the start of production gets closer, but knowing Tesla management, I wouldn’t expect much more than it being on track for a start of production this summer and volume production next year.

Cybertruck should not have a material impact on Tesla’s revenue in 2023.

I assume that amid margins going down, Tesla investors are going to want to have an update on Tesla’s self-driving program, which has helped margins in the past, but the program has been stalling for a while now.

According to the Say website, where investors can ask and upvote questions for the meeting, shareholders are particularly interested in Tesla Energy this quarter and its potential future impact on Tesla’s financials.

It has been a growing business for Tesla and with a ramp-up in Megapack production, it should be bigger in Q1, but I wouldn’t expect a massive jump in deployment until the second half of the year.

We will see what Tesla has to say about that.

You can join us live on Electrek this evening for intensive coverage of Tesla’s Q1 2023 financial results starting at around 4 p.m. ET for the results and through the evening for news coming out of the conference call and results.

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This $900 million solar farm in Texas is going 100% to data centers

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This 0 million solar farm in Texas is going 100% to data centers

Enbridge is going big on solar again in Texas, and Meta is snapping up all the solar power it can get.

Last month, Electrek reported that the Canadian oil and gas pipeline giant just launched its first solar farm in Texas. Now it’s given the green light to Clear Fork, a 600 megawatt (MW) utility-scale solar farm already under construction near San Antonio. The project is expected to come online in summer 2027.

Once it’s up and running, every bit of Clear Fork’s electricity will go to Meta Platforms under a long-term contract. Meta will use the solar power to help run its energy-hungry data centers entirely on clean energy.

The solar farm project’s cost is around $900 million. Enbridge says it expects Clear Fork to boost the company’s cash flow and earnings starting in 2027.

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Enbridge EVP Matthew Akman said the project reflects “growing demand for renewable power across North America from blue-chip companies involved in technology and data center operations.”

Meta’s head of global energy, Urvi Parekh, added that the company is “thrilled to partner with Enbridge to bring new renewable energy to Texas and help support our operations with 100% clean energy.”

Meta’s first multi-gigawatt data center, Prometheus, is expected to come online in 2026.

Clear Fork is part of a growing trend: tech giants like Meta, Amazon, and Google are racing to lock down renewable energy contracts as they expand their fleets of AI-ready data centers, which use massive amounts of electricity.


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Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.

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Isuzu’s first electric pickup is impressive, but it’s not cheap

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Isuzu's first electric pickup is impressive, but it's not cheap

A fully electric Japanese electric pickup truck? It’s not a Toyota or Honda, but Isuzu’s new electric pickup packs a punch. The D-MAX EV can tow over 7,770 lbs (3,500 kg), plow through nearly 24″ (600 mm) of water, and it even has a dedicated Terrain Mode for extreme off-roading. However, it comes at a cost.

Meet Isuzu’s first electric pickup: The D-MAX EV

After announcing that it had begun building left-hand drive D-MAX EV models at the end of April, Isuzu said that it would start shipping them to Europe in the third quarter.

By the end of the year, Isuzu will begin production of right-hand drive models for the UK. Sales will follow in early 2026.

Isuzu announced prices this week, boasting the D-MAX EV features the same “no compromise durability” of the current diesel version.

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The D-MAX EV pickup features a full-time 4WD system, a towing capacity of up to 3.5 tons (7,700 lbs), and an added Terrain Mode, which Isuzu says is designed for “extreme off-road capability.” With 210 mm (8.3″) of ground clearance, Isuzu’s electric pickup can wade through up to 600 mm (24″) of water.

Powered by a 66.9 kWh battery, Isuzu’s electric pickup offers a WLTP range of 163 miles. With charging speeds of up to 50 kW, the D-MAX EV can recharge from 20% to 80% in about an hour.

The electric version is nearly identical to the current diesel-powered D-Max, both inside and out, but prices will be significantly higher.

Isuzu D-Max EV specs and prices
Drive System Full-time 4×4
Battery Type Lithium-ion
Battery Capacity 66.9 kWh
WLTP driving range 163 miles
Max Output 130 kW (174 hp)
Max Torque 325 Nm
Max Speed Over 130 km/h (+80 mph)
Max Payload 1,000 kg (+2,200 lbs)
Max Towing Capacity 3.5t (+7,700 lbs)
Ground Clearance 210 mm
Wading Depth 600 mm
Starting Price (*Ex. VAT) £59,995 ($81,000)
Isuzu D-Max EV electric pickup prices and specs

Isuzu’s electric pickup will be priced from £59,995 ($81,000), not including VAT. The double cab variant starts at £60,995 ($82,500). In comparison, the diesel model starts at £36,755 ($50,000).

The EV pickup will launch in extended and double cab variants with two premium trims: the eDL40 and V-Cross. Pre-sales will begin later this year with the first UK arrivals scheduled for February 2026. Customer deliveries are set to follow in March.

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AI startups raised $104 billion in first half of year, but exits tell a different story

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AI startups raised 4 billion in first half of year, but exits tell a different story

In this photo illustration, Claude AI logo is seen on a smartphone and Anthropic logo on a pc screen. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

OpenAI and Anthropic continue to lead a fundraising bonanza in artificial intelligence, raising historic rounds and stratospheric valuations.

But when it comes to finding AI exits for venture firms, the market looks a lot different.

AI startups raised $104.3 billion in the U.S. in the first half of this year, nearly matching the $104.4 billion total for 2024, according to PitchBook. Almost two-thirds of all U.S. venture funding went to AI, up from 49% last year, PitchBook said.

The biggest deals follow a familiar theme. OpenAI raised a record $40 billion in March in a round led by SoftBank. Meta poured $14.3 billion into Scale AI in June as part of a way to hire away CEO Alexandr Wang and a few other top staffers. OpenAI rival Anthropic raised $3.5 billion, while Safe Superintelligence, a nascent startup started by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, raised $2 billion.

While Meta’s massive investment into Scale AI amounted to a lucrative exit of sorts for early investors, the overarching trend has been a lot more money going in than coming out.

In the first half, there were 281 VC-backed exits totaling $36 billion, according to PitchBook. That includes the roughly $700 million acquisition of EvolutionIQ, an AI platform for disability and injury claims management, by CCC Intelligent Solutions, and the public listing of Slide Insurance, which builds AI-powered insurance offerings for homeowners. Slide is valued at about $2.3 billion.

Read more CNBC reporting on AI

“The dominant exit trend right now is frequent but lower-value acquisitions and fewer IPOs with significantly higher value,” said Dimitri Zabelin, PitchBook’s senior research analyst for AI and cybersecurity.

CoreWeave’s IPO, which took place at the very end of the first quarter, was the exception on the infrastructure side. The stock shot up 340% in the second quarter, and the company is now valued at over $63 billion.

Zabelin said the pattern of more investments in applications with smaller deals has been in place for the past year.

“Vertical solutions tend to plug more easily into existing enterprise gaps,” Zabelin said.

The acquisitions wave is being driven, in part, by what Zabelin calls bolt-on deals where larger companies buy smaller startups to enhance their own future valuations, hoping to enhance their value ahead of a future sale or IPO.

“That also has to do with the current liquidity conditions in the macro environment,” Zabelin said.

Outside of AI, activity is slow. U.S. fintech funding dropped 42% in the first half of the year to $10.5 billion, according to Tracxn. Cloud software and crypto have also seen sharp pullbacks.

Zabelin said IPO activity could pick up if economic conditions improve and if interest rates come down. Investors clearly want opportunities to back promising AI companies, he said.

“The appetite for AI, specifically vertical applications, will continue to remain robust,” Zabelin said.

— CNBC’s Kevin Schmidt contributed to this report.

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