Tesla’s earning calls in the last few quarters have always been a study in extremes: The EV-maker’s profits from making and selling cars and batteries keeps shrinking, while CEO Elon Musk’s promises of wonders to come for the likes of robotaxis and humanoid robots keep ballooning. The Q1 edition, held after the market close on April 22, set a new standard. Digging into financial statements reveals that Tesla earned almost zip in repeatable, bedrock profits on the EV side. Yet Musk greatly ramped his already super-ambitious investment agenda for pending blockbusters, “revolutionary” offerings that he’s long promised as a year or two away, but that suffer serial delays, and keep gestating as prototypes either in the labs, or making trial runs on the roads.
So the question arises that didn’t get answered on the call: How is Tesla going to pay for all that extra CapEx when the only arm generating cash is fading? And can it possibly earn a big enough return on all the capital newly piled on its balance sheet to reward shareholders?
