starting in the US where Tesla revealed
the biggest slump in earnings in more
than a decade as the road gets
increasingly Rocky for the electric car
industry Tesla made profits of $1.1
billion in the first three months of the
year that's a fall of 5 55% on this time
uh last year revenues were 9% lower and
both numbers were worse than investors
had been expecting but Tesla shares well
they've taken a real pounding this year
they actually jumped by nearly 12% in
after hours trade after the company
promised quicker progress on new more
affordable models Aon delill has been
looking at the
numbers it's been a rocky road for Tesla
this year higher interest rates are
taking a bite out of consumer purchasing
power and pushing Big purchases Out Of
Reach competition with China especially
rival electric vehicle maker byd is
heating up sales have been falling and
so is Tesla's stock it's down more than
than 40% this year the mod Y the
company's been cutting prices and
announced layoffs and then on Tuesday
the company reported its first quarter
earnings missing expectations on
earnings and revenue and the company is
anticipating lower deliveries this year
compared to
2023 but investors have one bright spot
to look to Tesla announced it's speeding
up the launch of a lower priced vehicle
more affordable models could be a boon
for cash strapped us consumers and a hit
in big competitive markets world
worldwide like China and India Erin
Delmore there well I also spoke to Seth
Goldstein who's a strategist at the
investment manager Morning Star where he
chairs their committee on electric
vehicles he gave us his reaction to the
results from Tesla well we knew that
deliveries were going to fall and so
we're likely going to see a revenue
Decline and a and a larger profit
decline due to the challenges in the
quarter and not not only just lower
sales but the production issues as well
as ramping up new vehicles like the
cyber truck that we're going to weigh on
profits but looking looking at the
quarter you know the bad news is already
largely known so now the question for
investors was what was Tesla's strategy
going forward were they going to cancel
the affordable vehicle as was rumored in
the media or were they going to continue
it and Tesla said they're going to
accelerate it plus full self-driving is
on track to start generating more and
more Revenue so looking forward I think
the bad news was largely priced into the
stock Tes confirmed their strategy and
that's why we saw the stock rise in
after hours despite results coming in
below consensus now of course what's
going on with Tesla reflects what's
going on in the global economy and
things have changed radically since this
this firm first came to our attention
and was a disruptor within the car
industry now every big car maker in the
world is getting its electric vehicles
out there so just talk us through the
future for Tesla as the compet ition
gets
tougher well now now Tesla is no longer
the first mover they don't have that
advantage of being the incumbit in the
market now they have to make the case to
Consumers of why you should buy a Tesla
versus another vehicle um especially
Tesla was one of the first long range
electric vehicles versus early EVS had a
much shorter range usually half the
range of a Tesla or less and so that was
pretty easy for consumers who wanted the
longer range to choose a Tesla now Tesla
to rely on things like the full
self-driving rely on the performance
specs the battery life um you know
offering consumers more infotainment
while they charge those sorts of
ancillary products and services as a
reason to buy Tesla over another EV
brand because the EV Market especially
in the luxury space where Tesla
currently operates is largely saturated
with new players and incumbents and so
Tesla no longer enjoys having that sort
of market dominance that they once had
and just quickly Seth are you concerned
at all about Elon Musk still being in
charge of Tesla as the boss as CEO there
was a lot conversation some time ago
when uh he bought X and the wrangling
and the the legal wranglings over X that
he was not focused on Tesla enough he
was busy with other
things well Elon confirmed on on the
earnings call that he spends the
majority of his time at Tesla and I
think we've seen we've seen a very
strong management team from Tesla that
includes Tom Zoo who's the effective coo
who makes a lot of the pricing and
Manufacturing decisions and so I think
Elon is is more than capable of
continuing to be the CEO of Tesla as
well as meet his other business ventures
and you know with X he's he's taking
more of a a technology role he's not the
CEO of that company so I think he'll be
able to run Tesla and Tesla will still
be able to meet their
goals interesting Seth Goldstein there
from Morning Star well Tesla is the
first of the so-called magnific 7 that's
the tech companies that dominate us
markets to report quarterly earnings
today we'll be hearing from Facebook and
Instagram owner meta Thursday we have
results from Google owner alphabet as
well as Microsoft over the past week or
so around a trillion dollars has been
wiped off the value of big tech
companies but on Tuesday us markets were
higher with the tech heavy NASDAQ index
up
1.6% so maybe some optimism is coming AC