Tesla’s quarterly profit falls 45% as sales drop despite price cuts

DETROIT —  Tesla’s second-quarter net income fell 45% compared with a year ago as the company’s global electric vehicle sales tumbled despite price cuts and low-interest financing.

The Austin, Texas, company said Tuesday that it made $1.48 billion from April through June, less than the $2.7 billion it made in the same period of 2023. It was Tesla’s second straight quarterly net income decline.

Second-quarter revenue rose 2% to $25.5 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $24.54 billion, according to FactSet. Excluding one-time items, Tesla made 52 cents per share, less than analysts’ expectations of 61 cents.

Earlier this month Tesla said it sold 443,956 vehicles from April through June, down 4.8% from 466,140 sold in the same period a year ago. Although the sales were better than the 436,000 that analysts had expected, they still were a sign of weakening demand for the company’s aging product lineup.

For the first half of the year, Tesla has sold about 831,000 vehicles worldwide, far short of the more than 1.8 million for the full year that Chief Executive Elon Musk predicted.

The company’s widely watched gross profit margin, the percentage of revenue it keeps after expenses, fell once again to 18%. A year ago it was 18.2%, and it peaked at 29.1% in the first quarter of 2022.

Tesla said it posted record quarterly revenue “despite a difficult operating environment.” The company’s energy storage business took in just over $3 billion in revenue, double the amount in the same period last year.

Shares of Tesla fell in trading after Tuesday’s closing bell. The shares had been down more than 40% earlier in the year but have since recovered most of the losses.

Krisher writes for the Associated Press.