There will be no shortage of numbers to crunch from Tesla’s (TSLA) earnings report after today’s close — or Elon Musk comments to dissect on the earnings call.
And it’s for good reasons that the company has become this year’s battleground stock.
The EV maker’s stock has been run over, plunging 43%, since President Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
The public’s rebuke of the billionaire DOGE leader has translated into falling sales and prices. In March, Tesla’s Model S ranked first on the list of year-over-year price drops for used models, with a 17.2% or $9,944 price decline, according to new data from iSeeCars.
Tesla’s Model Y, Model 3, and Model X are also ranked in the top 20 for declines in March.
Meanwhile, Trump’s 145% tariffs on China jeopardize Tesla’s ability to get the parts it needs for its promised lower-priced models and a hyped robotaxi fleet.
Read more: The latest news and updates on Trump’s tariffs
“Hang on for some weak numbers,” Morgan Stanley autos analyst Adam Jonas warned in a note on Tuesday morning.
With sales and pricing under pressure, Jonas said investors need to pay careful attention to Tesla’s gross profit margin trend.
As seen in the data below supplied by Jonas, Tesla’s gross profit margins had already been on a downtrend prior to its latest struggles. At the current pace, Tesla could end 2025 with its second straight year of declining gross profit margins.
Further weakness on gross profit margins could call into question current analyst EPS estimates for 2025 — especially as tariffs stand to weigh further on costs of goods sold.
Wall Street analysts have only marked down their full-year EPS estimates on Tesla by 33 cents over the past 60 days, according to Yahoo Finance data.
“Recent discussions with investors revealed expectations as low as 10% or even lower [for gross margins]. We have to go back to 2Q12 (when the company delivered 5,612 cars) to find a lower auto gross margin. On our calculations, the consensus 4.1% GAAP operating margin would imply an underlying auto margin (ex energy, software, etc) of breakeven at best,” Jonas said.
Yahoo Finance will have full live analysis of Tesla’s earnings results starting at 4:00 p.m. ET. You can tune in here. You can also now listen to Tesla’s earnings call live on the Yahoo Finance platform. Simply head to Tesla’s ticker page at the start time this afternoon.
Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.
