Tesla earnings preview: What to expect from the carmaker’s first quarter

Pras Subramanian breaks down what the Street is expecting from Tesla’s first-quarter results when the carmaker reports after the bell on Monday.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Talk to us about what we can expect from Tesla. We got the deliveries numbers already. Those were hot. What about how the earnings numbers are actually going to come through for the quarter?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, you know, first of all, thanks for having me, guys. I'd love to be on your show more often. But that's not how these things work. But anyway, yeah, tonight, a big earnings report tonight. Tesla kind of setting the tone for the week, right, with the big tech stuff coming up. On a really high level, Q1 revenue, 10.4 billion, right? So the Street's expecting 74% jump the year over year growth. On an adjusted basis, EPS $0.80, right?

And they mentioned in that report, Julie, that big record deliveries in Q1, 184,000 last quarter, most of those being the Model 3, the Model Y. So that's a big quarter for them. What are we going to hear about in this report? Are we going to hear any 2020 on full year delivery targets, right? They hit half a million deliveries last year, just short of estimates. But what are we going to hear about as we listen to Berlin and Texas, right, those new factories? Musk said that they would come online later this year. Are we going to hear any updates on that?

And then, of course, the big news. Like, what are we going to hear from Shanghai, the gigafactory there? Are we going to see more of a ramp-up and hear more concrete numbers? Our good friend Dan Ives talks about how China can make up 40% of Tesla's global output. So those are some of the big things we're watching for in tonight's report.

BRIAN SOZZI: And Pras, I'm just hoping to hear Elon Musk explain his upcoming SNL appearance on the conference call. Looking forward to listening in on that one. But, you know, you mentioned China. There are a lot of new competitors in China-- XPeng, [? Lee ?] Auto. You think Tesla's at risk here?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: You know, I think in China, they do have that-- kind of like that brand recognition that goes a long way. I mean, Elon's kind of a rock star in that country. And but good points about Nio and also XPeng. Like, you know, can they eat into that Tesla-- that Tesla kind of lead there? But you mentioned stuff like Elon and SNL. I mean, there's going to be a bunch of wild cards that we could also hear on tonight's report, right? Crypto-- are they going to talk about any kind of crypto payment, crypto processing, things like that? Are we going to go on autopilot update? The full self-driving data is kind of still out. Is that going to go bigger, in addition to the fact that we have these recent crashes with that.

And finally, lastly, the batteries, right? The battery update. The 4680 battery, are we going to hear more about that? How is that rollout going? Is it actually being produced in Fremont? Those are some big things that we might hear, as well as China, Brian.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, a lot of wild cards. It wouldn't be Tesla if there weren't those wild cards to maybe watch out for. Pras, thank you so much. Appreciate it and appreciate your patience as well.