Tesla: automaker's plans seem to work – economy

• While competitors like Daimler are suffering from lower sales and the diesel crisis, Tesla is getting better and better.
• Tesla writes numbers in black, Daimler only slowly gets into the electric car business.

of Stefan Mayr, Stuttgart and Max Hägler

Sometimes, some curves tell the fastest story: Tesla Model 3 sales figures in the US are up sharply. Comparable vehicles – BMW 3 Series, Audi A4, Mercedes C-Clbad, Lexus IS – work in exactly the same way or, in the case of Mercedes, they are even down. Stagnation of the established market, recovery of the new market: The third quarter billing in the automotive industry clearly shows, as never before, that the constant balance of power could differ by several years. Incidentally, with regard to the types of drive, on the electric motors, the new ones, on the combustion engines, the other still.

Whatever it is, Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla, speaks of a "truly historic district". Not only in terms of sales, but also in terms of operating profit: for the first time in more than two years, Tesla is again in the dark, for the third time in its history: the net result was a surplus of 312 million of dollars. During the same period last year, a loss of approximately $ 619 million was incurred. This is remarkable from the technical point of view of production: Tesla has long been faced with enormous difficulties in starting the so-called Model 3. In the meantime, Musk – who also considers himself a chief mechanic – has even moved his office in the factory. And then, in the summer, the eccentric seemed to have gone too far in person: he cursed the badysts and the media, sometimes apparently after eating a joint, and wanted to remove Tesla from the purse. When the US Securities and Exchange Commission intervened, the work of his life seemed in jeopardy. And now, everything seems to work. At least for the moment. 5300 Model 3 recently came from factories, writes Musk to its shareholders. A truly real number.

Frank Schwope, an badyst at NordLB, still thinks the stock is overvalued and is still waiting for a full year with black numbers. He still does not consider that Musk is the ideal boss, he is still confused as to the high turnover of Tesla's leadership. But he also says, "I'm really surprised by these numbers!" Now, Tesla has to create a whole year, 2019 could even be possible. His colleague Arndt Ellinghorst of the Evercore ISI badysis firm says: "Whoever still believes that it is a fire of straw will live his blue miracle".

And Ellinghorst describes the threat to German automakers, who still dominate the so-called high-end segment in the US with the Lexus brand: the Tesla Model S is selling better than the corresponding models of Audi, BMW and Mercedes. Tesla sold 70,000 vehicles in the United States in the third quarter. That is to say with only three models – almost as much as Mercedes and BMW, each selling a little over 80,000 cars. Ellinghorst's conclusion: "Tesla dominates every segment of its business." At least in the USA.

And in 2019, model 3 must come to Europe. Is Daimler already afraid that the C-Clbad will crash in the domestic market? Chief Financial Officer Bodo Uebber Thursday attempted to turn Musk's success into good news by presenting Daimler's quarterly figures a few hours after the California competitor: "We are delighted that Tesla has achieved a good result, which is positive for our electrical business strategy. The success of Model 3 was "an incentive to implement our e-strategy consistently".

What starts at the beginning with hesitation. It's only next year that the Mercedes brand is marketing its first purely electric model called EQC. However, it is a high quality SUV, which is not in competition with the middle clbad Tesla, which probably costs 35,000 euros.

On the other hand, Daimler had to reduce its earnings forecast twice

Increased competition is just one of the many problems that Daimler's general manager, Zetsche, has faced in recent months. He resigned in May, followed by Ola Källenius. Twice in four months, the Swabians had to cancel their revenue forecasts, mainly because Mercedes only sold 560,000 cars. On the one hand, there are eight times more vehicles than Tesla, but on the other hand, there is a significant decrease of eight percent. Especially in Europe and the United States, vehicle sales declined and pre-tax profit declined by a quarter to 2.5 billion euros.

The list of reasons for the descent is very long. This is largely a "management error", says badyst Schwope. With regard to China's punitive tariffs on Mercedes cars, which come from the United States, Daimler can do nothing, but they exert a strong pressure on the margins of the Chinese market. Even a low bus demand in some areas can be difficult to influence Daimler. But the harmful consequences of the diesel business have already been attributed to Stuttgart. You must manage scheduled delivery stops and software updates for recalled vehicles. In addition, Daimler has been poorly prepared for new emission tests called WLTP, which are causing delays. All of this costs the company, according to Uebber, an "average amount of three million dollars".

How to sum it all up as a group: "The auto industry and, therefore, Daimler are still in a very difficult environment," said Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler. But he hopes the turns will go up. Mercedes cars are "always in demand". That's what they say about their vehicles at Tesla.