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1/ The most intelligent $TSLA bull out there? Yes, a very low bar, but my vote goes to AllianceBernstein's Toni Sacconaghi. He writes thoughtful analyses but has largely trusted Tesla guidance and maintains an absurd price target of $325. But he knows he just got fooled.
2/ In a note today, Sacconaghi realizes we've all been deceived by Tesla, and he's not happy about it. Let's get right to the deception. $TSLA has developed the nasty habit of hiding the ball in the Quarterly Update financials.
3/ The analysts have to base their conference call questions on the Quarterly Update, published only a few hours (or, this time, a few minutes) before the conference call.
4/ A few days later, $TSLA publishes the 10-Q. Time after time after time it contains details that show the claims in the Quarterly Update and on the call to have been illusory.
5/ This quarter was more of the same deception. $TSLA revealed ZEV credit revenues of $15MM in its Quarterly Update. But made no mention of other regulatory credits. 
6/ $TSLA also reported non-GAAP auto gross margins of 20% across its fleet. When Sacconaghi saw that, he noticed it was a significant drop-off from Q4, but still better than expectations.
7/ It was only in the 10-Q, of course, that we first learned $TSLA had a massive $200 million in other regulatory credits. Take those out of the equation, and the actual gross margin was just 16%.
8/ Why is Sacconaghi irked about this? For several good reasons: First, the non-ZEV credits were 13 times larger, and far more material, than the ZEV credits. For $TSLA to fail to include them in the Quarterly Update was hiding the ball.
9/ Over time, the non-ZEV regulatory credits have become far larger, and far more important, than the ZEV credits. There's no excuse for $TSLA continuing to omit them from its Quarterly Update financial reporting:
10/ For those wanting the actual year-by-year data, @Andreas_Hopf tracks it. If you study the numbers, you can see the ZEV revenues are drying up while the GHG and other credits are rising:
11/ The second reason Sacconaghi is irked is that the $215MM total for Q1 is, in view of $TSLA's past results, an unsustainable quarterly number, achieved (as usual) by hoarding and then a strategic release.
12/ The quarterly average of all regulatory credits was only $105 million in 2018. And that was achieved only thanks to heavier US sales. Remember, it is only US sales that generate the ZEV & GHG credits. But US sales have dramatically declined in 2019 with the tax credit cliff.
13/ $TSLA recently found a way to replace some of that regulatory credit income in Europe: by entering into an emissions pooling agreement with FCA. Some bulls speculated this could lead to $700 million or so in revenue over three years.
14/ Which brings us to the third reason Sacconaghi is disturbed: Musk was directly asked about the FCA agreement during the earnings call...
15/ Musk ducked the question:
16/ Perhaps there is a confidentiality agreement. But there is nothing confidential about the fact $TSLA had $200 million in non-ZEV regulatory credits in Q1. Musk decided to keep that a secret, though, and CFO Zachary Kirkhorn, a fast learner, also decided to keep quiet.
17/ (By the way, who do you think requested that the FCA agreement be confidential, FCA or $TSLA?)
18/ We did learn in the 10Q that $TSLA expects to collect only $140MM over a period of 2 to 3 years under the FCA emissions pooling agreement. That's much less than many expected. It suggests to me FCA found a seller desperate for cash, and got a bargain price.
19/ As Sacconaghi instantly grasped, there is simply no way $TSLA will average $215MM in regulatory credits per quarter in 2019. The Q1 number is a one-off. And that, along with pressure on ASPs, means gross margins are unlikely to improve this year:
20/ Despite being deceived, Sacconaghi keeps on believing. His economic model still assumes 361k deliveries in 2019 with a "Diluted non-GAAP EPS" loss of only $1.86.
21/ Will Sacconaghi finally get real, and ditch the $TSLA guidance, once its evident in Q2 that Tesla won't come close to its Q2 low-end delivery guidance of 90k? Don't count on it. Charley Brown still runs to kick that football every time Lucy tees it up.
18A/ Just got a dm from @GatorInvestor noting that $TSLA did not identify FCA as the source of the $140MM (all cash received in Q1, though only a tiny part earned). That's right, thanks, IG. (But, it's something everybody knows is true.)
This was unfortunate wording on my part. $TSLA collected all $140MM as cash, but has earned only a tiny part of it and so was only able to recognize as small part of it as part of the $200MM in non-ZEV regulatory credit income.
