Tesla Q2 - Patchy numbers

Tesla had quarterly results out a week ago, and they were patchy, to say the least. This is a stock that hit an all-time high above $400, and is now trading around $225 per share.

Demand for Tesla's current range of electric cars is waning, in line with most producers in the EV sector. EV sales growth has been slowing steadily for three years. What's going on, and why are we still holding on to this one?

We own Tesla shares because we want to be invested in next-generation energy and transportation systems. In addition to having an all-electric, fully-global EV production system that churns out profits at decent margins, Tesla is also a market leader in batteries, robots, software and robotaxis.

Tesla's engineering and marketing teams will roll out a new lower-priced Model 2 car soon, which should spur further buying. Owning 5% of the global car market would be achievable. Tesla's energy infrastructure business should continue its strong run. Self-driving software can be sold to other car companies, in addition to being deployed in a fleet of semi-autonomous cars, in partnership with a company like Uber. The value of these latter divisions will probably be the main driver of the Tesla share price in years to come.

One more thing. Elon Musk seems to be wasting a lot of his time on Twitter (sorry, X) complaining about illegal immigration, transgenderism and federal debt levels, and campaigning for Donald Trump. That's not great at all, obviously, we'd far rather he was running the company. But he does have a great track record as an industrialist.

We have 400 clients who own Tesla shares, at various entry levels. Some have long-term profits and others have (unrealised) losses on the position. Provided it's not too large in your portfolio, it's a good one to hold, and see how this turns out.