特斯拉三季度交付48.65万辆超预期，EV业务趋稳

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Let's talk a little Tesla. It's been a while since we talked about Tesla. It's almost like it's fallen a little bit out of the zeitgeist, as Tom Keane would say. Maybe it's because it's been eclipsed by, if you want to talk about Elon Musk, you talk about SpaceX. But Tesla delivered some better than expected um cars during the most recent period. Stocks up 5% today, but it's down about 17% year to date. Uh so they reported better than expected sales for the third quarter, delivering 486,500 vehicles worldwide.

Craig Trudeell, Global Autos editor. It's it's front and center for him uh at Bloomberg News. He joins us live here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Craig, um so they did had a pretty good quarter in terms of deliveries. There used to be a time when that was the number everybody really hung on here. What's going on at Tesla these days? Yeah, it's it it uh is difficult to cover because it's sort of it feels like Groundhog Day a little bit where uh this is a company where people increasingly care less about the you know here and now business and care much more about uh you know the future and you know can Elon sort of make good on all of uh this hype that he's built for you know humanoid robots and uh the AI business.

Uh in the meantime, you know, they're still in the business of of making and selling cars. And uh it's also, you know, not a whole lot going on there in terms of, you know, dramatic moves, at least in the last couple of quarters. You have had uh you know, much better expected uh deliveries, but uh it is a company that's kind of in a holding pattern where, you know, when they do have a good quarter, it's you know, uh roughly 500,000 units, but they've yet to to crack that threshold.

And uh that's you know happened now kind of repeatedly just the last 3 years call it.

Yeah. It it just feels like there's not a whole lot of excitement when it comes to Tesla vehicles. They only have um three consumer models now. Um Model Y and Model 3 and and the Cybertruck if you're into that. If you're if you're if you're into driving a car that looks like uh it's from the Minecraft movie. But in any case um the car sales are still really really important to Tesla the company. Right.

Hugely. Yeah. and and uh they do have an energy business that uh is important and uh is kind of an AI play right uh you know and they've they've been selling an awful lot of uh uh battery storage uh systems actually to Elon's uh other company SpaceX. Uh so it's a little bit of uh you know uh from one hand uh of Elon's empire to the other. Um that that of course uh though is is still a fraction of of the amount of uh revenue and the the business that they bring in.

I mean it generates cash flow. That's what they need.

Absolutely. And and uh you know this is a a company that I I think you know is benefiting from the fact that there's been some pullback in terms of uh competition here in the US market where uh Ford and Stalantis I would say in particular really sort of re have rethought electric vehicle plans in light of uh the Trump administration uh pulling support and and incentives a year ago. Uh so so there's maybe a little bit more room to breathe but also a shrinking uh you know market for for EVs in the US.

Things are also just getting more and more intense by the day in in China and even uh the the very competitive uh Chinese you know manufacturers are having a hard time there this year which is I think maybe an underappreciated story.

All right. Talk to us about Tesla and its presence in China. Where are we now? Where where did it come from? What's the future for this thing?

I mean you know they they really uh were sort of had the the red carpet rolled out uh for them. Uh I I think there was a sort of view that uh uh you know on the part of the CCP if we bring in this really competitive uh company from from outside uh that you know kind of gets everybody uh motivated to to move faster a and uh be much more competitive. It might raise the game for the domestic industry. That really uh proved to to be a great strategy because Tesla uh it was a win-win for Tesla and and China. you saw the rise of of the likes of BYD.

Uh J uh is now you know uh much more relevant on a global stage. Uh you you've also seen uh kind of even in the tech space some EV uh you know noise being made. uh but but it is absolutely the case that a lot of those uh domestic players have kind of uh surpassed uh Tesla uh both you know both in in that market and even in in Europe where you've seen uh you you've seen real traction on the part of those those domestic manufacturers.

So pick up on what you were just saying about how the EV market in China is slowing down quite a bit and even the Chinese manufacturers are now struggling to keep up the pace of sales. Yeah, it's a a little bit has to do with uh some incremental pullback in in state incentives. Uh I think it also has to do uh with with um kind of the the property market and some of the pressures that we've seen. Uh I think just in general there's there's uh you know a little bit of headscratching going on because uh maybe some of those factors understandably would lead to some pressure but we we've been seeing uh you know on the order of 20% you know month after month of of year-over-year decline and that's really substantial for for a car market the size uh of China.

It is you know far and away uh bigger than anywhere else in the world. And so to see uh you know this industry with so many companies that that uh rely on that uh that market for volume uh move that that substantially I think uh it's actually reverberating uh you know I I think especially for like a Volkswagen and and is a major factor in why they're having so much issue.

All right. You are my Michigan State contact my only I have two Michigan State contacts. Um can you guys ever be relevant in the Big 10 football again?

And it's not just it's not just you guys. It's Rutgers, it's Maryland, it's there's, you know,

I missed I miss Mark Dantonio. Uh those were the days we had like a single year with uh with with Tucker uh who Mel Tucker who who uh you know faded fast. Uh

but it's just a question of resources. Is Michigan

State can they do it? I think it it helps to have uh you know a former walk-on basketball player who now runs a mortgage company uh cutting checks, but that seems to be working much better for the basketball program than the than the football program.

Question, Paul, can be relevant.

Well, Craig can take the big question here. Absolutely. Exactly. I'm of the opinion that of all the big four power conferences, there's three or four teams for and then everybody else is just an also run. That's it.

But Indiana, of course, was the big exception last year. So,

that's exactly right. Why can't Michigan State do an Indiana? Why can't do an Indiana? You know, so you know,

stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App.

Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. Let's talk a little bit about what's going on with consumerf facing companies. Um, we know that consumers aren't feeling great about the economy right now. The consumer confidence data showed that. But do we spend, do we not spend in that environment? It kind of depends. Um, and you look at a company like Nike, which is very much dependent on consumer sentiment.

Um, the stock is down 5%. And Paul, this all ties back to this restructuring t