テスラがトヨタカムリを「収益で」上回っているという主張は、実際には何の意味もありません

火曜日の夜の年次株主総会で、テスラのCEOであるエロンムスクは、同社の車に需要の問題 はなく、テスラモデル3は、トヨタカムリ、ホンダなどのヘビー級の競合他社に対して、収益で実際に最も売れている車であると皆に安心させました。アコード、そして「ホンダカローラ」が何であれ。 しかし、それは実際にはどういう意味ですか？

テスラモデル3が BMW3シリーズ、アウディA4、メルセデスベンツCクラスなどのプレミアムコンパクトセダンの競合他社をどのように売り続けているかを取り上げた後、イーロンマスクは、モデル3が収益で最も売れている車であると述べました。米国で販売されているすべての大量セダン

You can watch this moment at around the 28:30 mark in the video uploaded to Tesla’s YouTube channel. Here’s a screenshot of the comparison chart between the Model 3 and other sedans from the livestream:

Typos aside, it’s worth asking why Tesla chose to compare the Model 3 against other high volume sedans only by revenue. As far as industry measurements go, best-selling by revenue is kind of bullshit, since it’s only an indicator of money that’s coming in, and doesn’t account for how much money it takes to build, market, and deliver the car, among other expenses.

Further, as Musk said on stage, cars like the Camry, Accord, Civic and Corolla actually outsell the Model 3 by volume, they just cost less, since they aren’t in the Model 3's premium sedan segment. More interestingly, Musk said that Model 3 both outsold and brought in more revenue than all of its true competitors—the 3 Series, C Class, Audi A4—combined.

That is impressive, and definitely the kind of thing you would say at a shareholders’ meeting, to an audience primed for some good news. But Tesla is still way behind on the metric that pretty much everyone else in the industry uses to assess a business’ health: profit.

Toyota, for example, had operating income of $22 billion in the fiscal year ending in March. Honda had a little less than $7 billion operating income during the same period. BMW made about $10 billion in calendar year 2018, while Daimler took in $12.5 billion and Volkswagen made $15.8 billion in that time.

Tesla, meanwhile, said in January that it lost $1 billion in 2018, and followed up that news with another huge loss in the first three months of 2019, amid questions of whether weakening demand was starting to become an issue for the company.

Nicole Carriere, a spokeswoman for Edmunds.com, told Jalopnik that Tesla calculates the best-selling-car-by-revenue stat using some of Edmunds’ data, but she said that it’s not used internally.

“... this is not something that our analysts leverage or even calculate as a way to assess the health of an automaker’s business (profitability is a key factor that’s not accounted for in this figure),” Carriere said after we reached out for an expert opinion.

Tesla declined to comment on the record, but pointed Jalopnik to comments CFO Zachary Kirkhorn made in its first-quarter earnings conference call, when the company said it lost $702 million in the first three months of 2019.

ASP in this context stands for average selling price, and so a Model 3 with a stable average selling price of just under $50,000 sounds about right, considering the performance trim starts at $59,900 before options.

But all of these numbers won’t mean anything if Tesla can never reliably turn a profit, and it’s up to them to prove to everyone there isn’t actually a demand problem . We’ll get more hints about that when Tesla reports its second quarter figures later this summer.