Tesla shareholder meeting: Elon Musk teases products, warns of ‘challenging 12 months’
Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk hinted at Tuesday’s shareholder meeting that new Tesla products are coming, he’s open to trying advertising, confirmed that a Cybertruck delivery event will take place this year and also warned that the electric car giant is not immune to global economic challenges .
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The meeting took place at Tesla’s Austin factory on Tuesday night and came just days after Musk announced that there will be a new person on the way up on Twitter, signaling to TSLA shareholders that he may have more time to devote to the global electric car giant .
There was a degree of uncertainty during the gathering, with Tesla possibly choosing to reveal new details about the Cybertruck, a revamped Model 3, a next-generation EV, updates on battery development and more. However, Musk and Tesla executives remained largely mum on these topics.
The Tesla boss stressed on Tuesday that the next 12 months will be “challenging” and that “Tesla is not immune to the global economic environment.”
Meanwhile, Musk did not announce any new products Tuesday, saying “this is not the time.” However, the Tesla CEO added that there are two projects in the pipeline.
“I just want to emphasize that we are actually building a new product,” Musk said. “There are two new products that I think you will be very excited about.”
Musk also expressed openness to running Tesla commercials and shot down rumors that he is stepping down from his role as Tesla CEO.
“It is not so,” he said.
Tesla shares jumped 3% to 171.54 on Wednesday. During Tuesday’s market trading, TSLA rose 0.1% to 166.52.
The Tesla share has lost around half of its market value since the last annual meeting in August 2022.
Tesla Stock: A Cybertruck Update
Musk also confirmed on Tuesday that a Cybertruck delivery event will take place later in 2023.
“Sorry for the delay, but we’re finally going to start delivering production Cybertrucks later this year,” he said.
But it’s not really new.
Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, Tesla reported that the Cybertruck remains “on track to start production later this year” with plans for a delivery event in the third quarter.
The Tesla boss recently teased the Cybertruck, driving it during a groundbreaking ceremony at the company’s Corpus Christi lithium refinery.
Tesla is also close to starting trial production of a revamped Model 3 in Shanghai, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. However, it is unclear when real production will begin in China and later in the US
Since the Tesla investor day in early March, the company has been quiet about the next-generation vehicle, which will be produced at the new plant in Mexico.
Musk continues to stress autonomous driving
Musk has long touted Tesla’s full self-driving technology and the potential value it adds to the brand.
On Tuesday, Musk said full self-driving would be “much, much better” than a person driving a vehicle. Musk also claimed that being able to update millions of cars to make them go from manual driving to autonomous will be the “single greatest real estate value increase in history.”
The Tesla CEO previously said that “the value of a car that’s autonomous is enormous,” during the first-quarter earnings call.
Musk also emphasized that improvements in full self-driving are “really quite dramatic.”
“The trend is very clear towards full autonomy, and I hesitate to say this, but I think we will do it this year,” Musk said, referring to self-driving vehicles, earlier.
Musk tweeted on May 8 that Tesla will launch a free one-month trial for all cars in North America once full self-driving is “super smooth (not just safe).”
The annual meeting comes after the quarterly report
On April 19, Tesla reported a big first-quarter revenue decline while earnings missed views. Profit margins for the global electric car giant also fell below 20% as the company pursued an aggressive price-cutting strategy in the first part of 2023. Tesla reported revenue rose 24% to $23.33 billion on earnings of 85 cents per share, down 20% compared to 2022.
The EV company’s total gross profit came in at $4.5 billion, with Tesla’s gross margin at 19.3%, down from 23.8% in the fourth quarter and 29.1% a year earlier.
Automotive gross margins excluding regulatory credits and leases fell to 18.3% from 23.8% in the fourth quarter. It is still below the “floor” of 20% gross margin that Tesla had previously targeted.
Musk told analysts that Tesla is “comfortable” with its 2023 production target of 1.8 million. However, he downplayed the 2 million production figure he used at the end of the fourth quarter.
“These are volatile times,” Musk said. “From a production standpoint, if things go well, we have a shot at 2 million vehicles here. But that’s the upside.”
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Tesla shares
The electric car giant is up around 67% from a low in January, but has pulled back considerably since the end of March. Tesla stock remains below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages.
If Tesla stock continues to rise, it could potentially form a double bottom base with a buy point at 207.89. But which direction the share may go is still uncertain.
TSLA stock bulls could be spying on aggressive moves, such as the 50-day line or perhaps a downtrend line from the top of the three-month consolidation. However, the risk remains high, especially in the current market.
Tesla shares are in eighth place in IBD’s industry group for car manufacturers. TSLA has a 56 Composite Rating out of 99. The stock also has a 19 Relative Strength Rating. The EPS rating for Tesla stock is 93 out of 99.
Follow Kit Norton on Twitter @KitNorton for more coverage.
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