Tesla 3Q22 earnings digest

How does it track against my investment case?

Media coverage for TSLA 0.00%↑ is enormous and I can imagine you don’t need my two cents to get a decent picture. But I just wanted to share some of my initial thoughts on those aspects that I believe are underappreciated based on the comments I am seeing out there.

My investment case is that Tesla wraps hardware and software products around the battery, the most important economic good of the coming decades. The more they wrap, the more value they add, the more revenue they generate and the more valuable they become. Cars are the first instance. Stationary storage, grid management and AI applications will follow.

Given that constraints in the battery supply chain are THE limiting factor to further growth, market share and competition are at best secondary input parameters for me. The primary question for the validity of my investment case is therefore whether they continue to demonstrate their ability to scale production inline with their growth targets while keeping costs under control. If you are interested, I have outlined my general approach to the stock in the article below:

How (not) to handle the Tesla Beast in the 2020s

So, let’s dive into their 3Q22 earnings. Has it affirmed or compromised my investment case?