Tesla, 2021 to 2025: From 71% Growth to the First Decline
Five Tesla fiscal years as income-statement Sankeys, covering the hypergrowth peak, the price-cut grind, and the energy business widening inside a shrinking top line.
Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, about 5% more than analysts expected, according to CNBC's coverage of last Friday's release, and the stock rose 5% on the news. The total still sits below last year. That tension, demand that keeps surprising while the totals slowly shrink, is the story of the last five fiscal years, and the charts below show what it has done to the income statement ahead of third-quarter results on October 21.
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Tesla, Inc. (TSLA), Fiscal 2021
Tesla, Inc.'s FY2021 revenue was $53.8B, up 71% year over year; gross margin 25%; operating margin 12%; net income $5.5B (10% margin).
Start with the growth year. Revenue rose 71% to $53.8 billion as the Model Y ramped on two continents, and net income cleared $5.5 billion in what was only the second profitable year in company history. The 25% gross margin was the envy of every carmaker on earth. It would last exactly one more year.
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Tesla, Inc. (TSLA), Fiscal 2022
Tesla, Inc.'s FY2022 revenue was $81.5B, up 51% year over year; gross margin 26%; operating margin 17%; net income $12.6B (15% margin).
Fiscal 2022 was the summit. Revenue grew another 51% to $81.5 billion, the gross margin held near 26 cents on the dollar, and the operating margin peaked at 17%, the best full-year mark anywhere in these five charts. Nothing here hints that the company was about to spend three years trading that margin away on purpose.
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Tesla, Inc. (TSLA), Fiscal 2023
Tesla, Inc.'s FY2023 revenue was $96.8B, up 19% year over year; gross margin 18%; operating margin 9%; net income $15.0B (15% margin).
Then Tesla started cutting prices. Repeated cuts across the lineup kept units moving, and revenue still grew 19% to $96.8 billion, but the gross margin dropped from 26% to 18% in a single year and the operating margin fell to 9%. Net income says $15.0 billion and flatters the year. A one-time noncash tax benefit of $5.9 billion, from releasing a valuation allowance on deferred tax assets, sat below the operating line, according to CNBC's earnings coverage, so the bottom of this chart owes more to accounting than to cars.
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Tesla, Inc. (TSLA), Fiscal 2024
Tesla, Inc.'s FY2024 revenue was $97.7B, up 1% year over year; gross margin 18%; operating margin 7%; net income $7.1B (7% margin).
Growth stopped in 2024. Revenue inched up 1% to $97.7 billion, the operating margin slid to 7%, and net income roughly halved once the prior year's tax benefit washed out of the comparison. What growth remained came increasingly from the energy side of the house. The car chart had stopped expanding.
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Tesla, Inc. (TSLA), Fiscal 2025
Tesla, Inc.'s FY2025 revenue was $94.8B, down 3% year over year; gross margin 18%; operating margin 5%; net income $3.8B (4% margin).
Fiscal 2025 made it official. Revenue fell 3% to $94.8 billion, the first annual decline on record, according to CNBC's coverage of the January results, and the operating margin thinned to 5%. The bright spot was the other product line. Energy revenue grew 27% to $12.8 billion with record gross profit on 46.7 gigawatt-hours deployed, per the same coverage, which is why the energy band is the one part of this chart visibly widening. Net income came to $3.8 billion, roughly a quarter of the 2023 print.
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Read oldest to newest, the charts ask a question the deliveries beat does not answer. Tesla chose volume over margin for three straight years, and the income statement paid the full fare, with the operating margin at roughly a quarter of its 2022 peak while the energy business grew inside the shell. Last week proved the cars still sell. October 21 shows what each one earns.
_Every chart on this page was rendered by Sankify from the company's own SEC filings. Nothing here is illustrative or mocked up._
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