It’s time for another quarterly Tesla conference call. The Q3 Tesla conference call starts in 30 minutes, at 5:30pm ET/2:30pm PT. Below is our YouTube livestream, where you can listen to the conference call live while also benefiting from various special features instead of simply a blank screen.
We include Wall Street analyst quotes and Tesla [NASDAQ:TSLA] stock price targets. We also transcribe the questions from the Q&A live (with an approximately 20 second delay to give time to hear and transcribe the questions). Furthermore, we include the name and picture of the person talking, some cool audio graphics, and a live Tesla stock price ticker.
I will also liveblog some of the commentary from the conference call in this article.
Tesla Q3 Shareholder Letter
Tesla has published its Q3 shareholder letter, where you can dig into various company updates, Tesla’s financials, production and delivery forecasts, charts and graphs, and more. The contents of the shareholder letter are the focus of the quarterly conference call, at least until Wall Street analysts get on and start asking questions.
The overarching summary of the company’s Q3 2022 update is as follows:
Image courtesy of Tesla
We will write more about updates from the company throughout the day, and I will update this article in the coming half an hour (until the livestream begins) to focus more on some of the highlights of the shareholder letter. [Update: I’m also going to provide some updates here from the livestream.]
If you have any items from the Tesla shareholder letter or conference call to highlight or comment on, join the discussion down in the comments!
Updates from Elon Musk from conference call:
Tesla FSD Beta should go out for wide release in about a month, meaning that everyone who has bought the Full Self Driving package who is living within the US and Canada should receive access to the beta software.
Elon Musk has heard/seen many concerns about Tesla consumer demand in the past month, and he emphasizes once again that demand is very strong and they are going to sell all the vehicles they can produce as far into the future as they can see.
Elon Musk mentioned that he once said he thought Tesla could be worth more than Apple was at the time if it executed extremely well. Tesla has now passed that market cap. He now indicates that he thinks Tesla’s market cap will be able to surpass that of Apple and Saudi Aramco combined. (Presumably, that refers to their current market caps.) Elon says this is the first that he has seen that level of potential from Tesla.
Elon Musk now thinks Tesla's market cap will be able to surpass that of Apple and Saudi Aramco *combined*.
— Zachary Shahan (@zshahan3) October 19, 2022
Tesla was essentially forced to even out its delivery logistics (aka delivery wave) because it was running out of trains, trucks, and boats to use to delivery vehicles as its end-of-quarter delivery volumes got higher and higher.
“We have no indication whatsoever that we will have to cut our production plans” at Giga Berlin. This was in response to the investor question “We keep hearing of the dire energy crisis in Germany this winter. What are Tesla’s plans to combat power cuts, and will there be any delays in ramp up in production from Giga Berlin because of this.”
Elon reiterated that Tesla would be handing off its first commercial Tesla Semis to PepsiCo on December 1, and that he’d be there for the handoff.
Elon thinks the Fed is looking at the rearview mirror, and its decisions make sense in that regard, but that it should be looking out the front windshield.
Elon expects to see cost reductions in 2023 as inflation drops. They are already seeing some massive drops in price in some things (like shipping out of China), but other things (like battery-grade lithium) are still crazy high.
Tesla is still considering opening a lithium refinery in Texas.
Elon still believes 100% that Tesla will achieve driver-less Full Self Driving. Seems the target is now by the end of 2023.
That’s a wrap!
Updates from the shareholder letter:
Tesla Financials
Tesla achieved the best operating margin in the automotive industry in Q3 2022 (17.2%). Its automotive gross margin was a stunning 27.9%.
Tesla also achieved record quarterly revenue, record operating profit, and record free cash flow ($3.3 billion) in the quarter.
Tesla Sales
We already wrote about Tesla’s 3rd quarter production and deliveries. For many charts and more commentary, see:
- Tesla Quarterly Sales Charts Rise Again — 9 Charts
- Tesla Achieves Record 343,830 Deliveries In 3rd Quarter
- Forecast: Tesla Could Hit 50% Production Growth Target In 2022, Unlikely To Hit 50% Growth In Deliveries
For the following matters, a table from Tesla is included at the bottom.
Tesla Solar & Storage
Tesla delivered 94 MW worth of solar power in the 3rd quarter, a 13% increase year over year (83 MW installed in Q3 2021, but a slight decrease compared to Q2 2022 (106 MW).
Tesla delivered a record amount of stationary energy storage capacity in the 3rd quarter — 2,100 MWh, up 62% from the 1,295 MWh of Q3 2021.
Tesla Service, Stores, & Superchargers
Tesla’s mobile service fleet has grown dramatically this year. It was 29% larger in Q3 2022 compared to Q3 2021 — 1,532 vehicles versus 1,190. That should ease concerns that Tesla service can’t keep up with Tesla sales.
Tesla store and service locations were also up strongly, if not by that much, growing 16% year over year from 630 in Q3 2021 to 728 in Q3 2022.
However, Tesla’s Supercharger grow was up most of all. The number of Tesla Supercharger stations around the world grew from 3,254 in Q3 2021, or 3,971 in Q2 2022, to 4,283 in Q3 2022. That’s 32% growth. It’s almost the same story with regards to Tesla Supercharger connectors. They grew by 33% year over year, from 29,281 in Q3 2021 to 38,883 in Q3 2022. Again, any concerns about Tesla Supercharging infrastructure not keeping up with Tesla sales should be long forgotten or resolved by now. This infrastructure is growing even faster than the fleet of Tesla customer vehicles on the road across the world.
Image courtesy of Tesla
Now, on to the Tesla Q3 conference call livestream. You can watch the CleanTechnica video live today via the embedded video at the top or by clicking this link to YouTube.
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