a few hairy moments for early adopters<\/a> as its AI grappled with roundabouts but then received generally rave reviews as it settled in).<\/p>\nMusk\u2019s firm also developed its new 18,000sq m \u201cTesla North\u201d showroom and service centre at Westgate in Auckland\u2019s northwest, which opened earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Singapore, Netherlands focus<\/p>\n
After reviewing Tesla\u2019s latest local accounts, tax reform advocate Nick Miller said, \u201cIt looks as if some of the cost of the purchases reported by Tesla New Zealand, although initially paid to Tesla Motors Netherlands BV, must find its way to another Netherlands company, TM International BV, a holding company which appears to hold the rights to much of Tesla\u2019s intellectual property.\u201d <\/p>\n
Tax Justice Aotearoa member Miller is a former EY senior manager in Britain and senior investigator with Inland Revenue NZ.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Tesla NZ is using the Tesla brand to market the vehicles, it\u2019s likely that part of the purchase price of the vehicles [from Tesla Motors Netherlands] contains an \u2018embedded royalty\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf such a royalty was paid separately, the company would probably have to pay non-resident withholding tax of at least 5%.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Miller highlighted a Reuters report earlier this month that said Tesla had paid federal tax for only one of the past 20 years while reporting US$18 billion in profits in Singapore and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
Reuters said its investigation found no indication that Tesla broke any tax laws and that \u201cTesla would hardly be the first company to shift profits overseas\u201d.<\/p>\n
Regularity credits had also played a role in reducing Tesla\u2019s tax exposure in the US.<\/p>\n
\u2018Astonishingly low\u2019 margin<\/p>\n
Tesla NZ\u2019s overall operating margin for 2025 was 1.7%, Miller said, \u201cwhich is tiny – well below most other motor vehicle distributors in NZ, with the exception of Ford, and well below the 3% which Inland Revenue indicates in its International Compliance Focus would be likely to trigger a review for a distributor\u201d. (Tesla NZ is not a distributor.)<\/p>\n
\u201cTesla sells directly to customers, not through dealers, so you would expect a retail margin on top,\u201d Miller said. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, Toyota NZ uses this direct sales model and has an operating margin of 6-7%. <\/p>\n
\u201cTesla\u2019s return is also astonishingly low for a company with exclusive rights to import and sell a premium product.\u201d<\/p>\n
The global picture<\/p>\n
Tesla reported better-than-expected total revenue of US$22.4b for the first quarter of 2026 as the Iran conflict boosted demand for EVs.<\/p>\n
But sales were still below the fourth quarter (US$24.9b) and third quarter (US$25.2b) of 2025.<\/p>\n
Beyond the roller coaster of Musk\u2019s political fortunes, the firm has faced challenges from the rise of China\u2019s BYD and Geely (now the world\u2019s No 1 and No 2 EV sellers by some measures), the economic slowdown and tariffs, among other factors.<\/p>\n
Shares closed today at US$398.73, below Tesla\u2019s peak 2021 value of US$407.36.<\/p>\n
Tesla recently announced plans to discontinue its cheapest vehicle, the Model 3, and its high-end, gull-wing Model X. The move would free up factories for Tesla\u2019s push into robo-taxis and humanoid robots, Musk said.<\/p>\n
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2025: $285.3m2024: $149.5m2023: $373.7m2022: $499.5m2021: $230.7m2020: $66.1m For 2025, Tesla NZ\u2019s revenue from automotive sales rose to $135.7m,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[836,13990,138,3944,40834,22773,7500,19335,4863,79173,9858,302,3234,117,111,139,69,15267,7493,6100,21938,5536,129792,6436,80],"class_list":["post-415713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-836","tag-below","tag-business","tag-car","tag-clean","tag-comeback","tag-december","tag-discount","tag-financials","tag-heyday","tag-if","tag-its","tag-months","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-reported","tag-revenue","tag-still","tag-surges","tag-tesla","tag-teslas","tag-well","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}