Tesla posts underwhelming financial results for Q4 2023
Enlarge / Tesla sold 1.2 million Model Y crossovers last year. (credit: John Paraskevas/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
Tesla published its financial results for the last three months of 2023 this afternoon. The good news for the company is that it met its goal of delivering 1.8 million electric vehicles to customers, as Ars reported earlier this month when the automaker published that data. But a look at the company's full financial results for Q4 are not as encouraging, and Tesla shares have fallen steeply in post-market trading.
Tesla brought in $25.2 billion in total revenue for Q4 2023, a year-over-year increase of 3 percent. Gross profits were down 23 percent for the quarter year over year, although net income (as determined by generally agreed accounting principles) increased 115 percent year over year. In large part, this was due to Tesla recording a "one-time non-cash tax benefit of $5.9 [billion] in Q4 for the release of valuation allowance on certain deferred tax assets"; non-GAAP income dropped 39 percent.
Free cash flow increased by 33 percent for the quarter, but its operating margin is almost half that of Q4 2022 at 8.2 percent.