Wow, a full half of Tesla's operating income came from tax credits( around $800M of $1.6B operating income).
They had a few decent misses on operating income and earnings per share.
And their operating margin is in the low 6%ish which would make it one of the worst performing auto manufacturers around at the moment.
Man things have turned quickly on Tesla.
They are still in a good cash position but their car business is really showing signs of strain at the moment.
they did announce that they'll release a more affordable model by the end of H125 so that will help, but with that timeframe its likely to be a model 3 refresh and not a new car.
One of the last questions on the earnings call that just completed, was what would happen to Tesla revenue if Trump wins and those get cancelled. His answer after a pause, was that it probably would have an impact...and would probably be worst for his competitors...but does not really matter because they are all into FSD....
He did say he considers the "woke mind virus" to be a bigger threat to humanity than climate change. So I think he's being consistent even if it hurts him and his shareholders.
I'm not sure if you're passing judgement on Musk or the person you're replying to, but just for context, both Musk and Trump often use "woke" as a derogatory word.
That is a judgement on Musk and Trump. 'Woke' is a stereo type, it is used as a dog whistle rather than an accurate description of a large set of people. It is a way of 'othering' that is both very defined and yet a complete characterure.
It is one of those terms were if you were to actually find people that are truly 'woke' and respresent everything it stands for, it would be a very difficult task indeed. It is like taking the 'No true Scottsman' fallacy and tipping it on its head.
"he's being consistent even if it hurts him and his shareholders"
That is not a luxury CEOs get. They do not have a free hand to run companies, they are hired by boards of directors who represent the shareholders. His job is to work for the benefit of shareholders, and if he can't do that then it's simply a case of firing him.
Tesla did what it needed to do: force the world towards EVs. If it dies, legacy auto and BYD will carry on. It will be a shame if Tesla dies because the board didn’t have the will to push Elon out (wrt the brand, its stationary storage business, and ~120k global employees), such is the peril of poor corporate governance.
I cancelled my Cybertruck res, and after buying four Teslas, I will not spend another dime on one until Elon is gone. Tesla is, hopefully, forced into self preservation by market fundamentals.
I support you spending your fiat as you see fit, and will encourage you all the way to the bank, your feelings costing you a chunk of change you can hopefully afford to part with. We vote with our purchasing power, and I support your right to vote. I hope you can respect my vote to not further empower a terrible human.
I also upvoted your comment and will vouch for it as well, shared perspective is important, even if contrarian or deviating materially from a consensus.
I think you might be underestimating how many potential customers are unwilling to buy from Tesla after Elon Musk decided to openly support the MAGA wing of republicans.
Not sure why that makes you more inclined to buy a Tesla or flip someone the bird?
If the CEO has to work for the shareholders benefit even outside the work then what about the rank-and-file? Should not all the Amazon employees be forced to shop only at amazon.com and WFM? Should not all Microsoft employees use only Microsoft software? Should all Google employees use Pixel phones and Netflix employees fired for subscribing to competitor streaming services or buying movie tickets?
I think your expectations of loyalty might be a bit exaggerated. A job is a job. Whether as a CEO or as a warehouse picker, it's not one's life.
All officers are employees, but not all employees are officers. C-suite employees are all officers at least. I’m not sure how far below that it expands.
So it's just the name of the position? Somebody with a title of "chief nutritional officer" has to live for the employer and somebody doing the same job with the title of "associate project manager" doing the same job of ordering lunches can have a life?
I mean, nothing stops you from making it into job requirements in your company, but, apparently, this is not a requirement at Tesla...
> I mean, nothing stops you from making it into job requirements in your company
What, nothing stops you making director-style fiduciary responsibility a job requirement for normal employees in your company? I'd, er, check with a lawyer before you try that one.
There's a Feynman brain virus that reshapes "fiduciary duty" as "profit for shareholders uber alles".
While institutional shareholders generally mean your boss is an excel sheet seeking profit, the only "duty" to shareholders is still "do not defraud them". They can, of course, seek to change the board though...
That is right in theory, wrong in practice. You can go to jail if you violate your fiduciary responsibility, you can also fulfil your fiduciary duties and easily lose your CEO job if you do not prioritize shareholder returns. I'm talking about publicly traded US based companies, like Tesla. This is how proxy advisory services like ISS and Glass Lewis, and board politics in general work. Tesla has defied the rules for a long time, because of the massive cred for innovation and value creation that Musk has accrued over time. That is finite.
I mean, can Musk argue that he legitimately believes battling the woke mind virus is for the benefit of Tesla shareholders and their returns on investment and thus fulfilling his fiduciary duty?
In theory shareholders can vote pretty much as they want regarding removal and approval of CEOs.
Breach of fiduciary duty however would be if CEO intentionally defrauded then of their value (essentially, through intentional bad care for the company)
I seem to recall that there was a US Supreme Court decision stating that that is the essential purpose of a corporation. Looking for the citation, though.
What I mean is if you’re against “woke” things and you define “woke” as things you’re against those two things can’t be in conflict.
I’m not saying what he (or anyone else) says today is consistent with anything else he says or has said. Just that that one statement is _internally_ consistent.
"When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all his many
subsidized projects, whether its electric cars that don't drive long enough,
driverless cars that crash, or rocket ships to nowhere, without which
subsidies he'd be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and
Republican, I could have said, 'drop to your knees and beg,' and he would
have done it..."
-Trump, who Elon is currently giving $45 million / month for his campaign.
But hey, that's pocket change compared to the brand value he has incinerated on Twitter.
Ouch! It is that age old problem. Massive wealth is unelected power, and they use the wealth to influence who we get to pick and what they do. Its not guranteed to happen but it is a sizable influence.
Elon is not giving Trump $45 million per month. Musk denied this in a recent interview with Peterson. He did say created a PAC though. [1]
I know it makes Musk an easy target and easier to attack when a report comes out saying he's donating $45m to Trump but seriously people need to stop believing blindly what the media says about anyone (and Musk especially) without fact-checking first. When I first saw the article about it in WSJ I was skeptical. There were 0 sources and it was sus.
"Oh WSJ said it so it must be true!"
WSJ's source: "according to people familiar with the matter." [2]
Where do you see he donated $45 million to it? Legit source please? Not WSJ "someone familiar with the matter"
Yes the PAC may support Trump but I don't think he's pumping 45 mil a month into it. WSJ put that article about it without any sources and Musk denied it.
You believe everything Trump says? His staff told him that after reading business insider. They didn't even bother checking their actual accounts to see if Elon's super PAC donated $45M this month.
Musk is thinking more about getting Trump elected to avoid the DOJ investigations. Seems that he is willing to sacrifice Tesla to avoid federal prosecution.
>Wow, a full half of Tesla's operating income came from tax credits( around $800M of $1.6B operating income).
Of course if Tesla didn't make those car and batteries they wouldn't have regulatory credits to sell. Also the credits were 3.5% of total revenue ($890M of $25,500M).
Hasn't this always been the case? Haven't they always been dependent on credits and subsidies to make a profit?
Tesla's received almost $3 billion in state and federal subsidies and half a billion in bailouts[0] (and has more violations[1] than most other companies of its size). Additionally, they regularly engage in probably illegal accounting practices like categorizing automobile warranty expenses as part of the "Goodwill" category rather than the cost of making the vehicle leading to a huge inflation of Tesla's claimed gross margin
I think a pivot to energy infrastructure is inevitable. The EV business can be seen as a stepping stone imo to build a strong cash position with all of the reservations. Sort of like free financing.
They own the most fast chargers across America and since EVs are forming around the NACS standard, the country's entire new electric car market will be able to use their chargers.
The fast charging infrastructure that they laid off the entire team? The one that is starting to get competition from companies with decades in the energy distribution business[1]?
I think something to do with battery production for grid usage. Combine that capability with renewable energy subsidies and you might have a good next chapter for Tesla until others catch up.
Interesting - however, they do have a financial position that may make it easier for them to pivot than some of the other manufacturers in addition to their consumer image that makes it easy to raise money in the form of EV reservations. They don’t seem to be in a super strong position either way.
Megapack is a product they've been perfecting for many years and it's already at least a v3 product.
Not only they are not using Panasonic cells in Megapack (those go exclusively to their higher-end cars), if you think all it takes to create a competing product is to have money to buy battery cells then you exemplify "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing".
Megapack is a product with lots of sophisticated electronics that takes serious engineering to develop, it's at least v3 product with years of improvements. You need high-powered voltage conversion, battery management hardware and software so that it doesn't explode etc.
Tesla is a clear leader in the field: every major energy project announced, from Australia to California, uses Tesla megapack. I don't hear much about any of the competition.
Tesla is leading in scale and expanding rapidly (just finished ramping up first U.S. factory and building another factory in China).
Even for Tesla to build another 40 GWh factory which is mostly copy & paste of their existing megapack factor, it's a year long process.
If you start with battery cells, you're looking into a multi-year design & testing & initial production for the first megapack-like product and then at least another year to scale your first factory to 40 GWh yearly production.
By which time Tesla will have few more factories and v5 of Megapack.
> every major energy project announced, from Australia to California, uses Tesla megapack
I was nodding along to most of your comment but this part is a clear exaggeration. Many of the California BESS projects are using LG systems. For example Morro Bay, Edwards Sanborn, and Moss Landing, which are among the largest on the planet, all used LG, at least for some phases.
Turns out people were right and Musk had a bunch of good ideas, some of which might have a very positive impact on the world (probably EV adoption) but all predicated on getting government money.
> their car business is really showing signs of strain at the moment.
Their car business aka "their entire business"? :-)
> Their car business aka "their entire business"? :-)
Tesla acquired SolarCity which became their Tesla Energy division so it's not just cars, they also do residential solar, batteries, and supercharger infrastructure (which more and more manufacturers are using).
Tesla's residential solar was falling since the acquisition (SolarCity before the acquisition deployed like 4x more solar than Tesla in 2023), and now they don't even mention it in the document we're discussing. But "energy generation and storage revenue" is 12% of their revenues, and they're showing a big growth in storage deployment, so the storage part is looking good, charging too.
Why not? They are specifically addressing the things that the public (the government) have stated are important to society. How is that not noble, even if profit-motivated?
That's an interesting angle, but the usual concern about this is lobbying/pork barrel/corruption and of course, regulatory capture, especially for SpaceX.
In an ideal world, what you're saying makes sense, but at least to give an example, for an Android phone, you have to persuade 500 million people to buy it. For SpaceX to get a multi billion dollar contract with the government you only have to persuade 10 people.
The current Model Y in production is known to have significantly better suspension than Model Ys produced 2020-2022. If you have an older Model Y, you can upgrade the suspension (cost about $2k with installation).
Someone should calculate how much lower medical costs will be with fewer ice engines on the road. Honestly curious if that is one of the payback strategies for the government.
imo this is a big part of why Elon is cozying up to Trump and the right. If the left wins, there will probably be tax incentives for EV manufacturers at large because that's just part of their platform. And if the right wins, then he has bribed them and will get preferential treatment. Given his companies are so dependent on government money, it does make sense as a strategy because it ensures continuity of those handouts in both cases.
Are you referring to Audi's EVs? Or Audi in general?
Either way, looked it up out of curiosity: Audi's parent company, Volkswagen, currently has a market cap of ~58B EUR with revenue over 300B EUR in 2023. Tesla has a market cap of $772B with revenue just under $100B in 2023.
Tesla's stock is trading (and has) at a staggering multiple for the automotive industry. It's fair to call out that their competitors may have their own struggles, but negative growth in Tesla's primary product line is going to make it increasingly tough for investors to stomach that premium.
Elon has a gift for selling a vision, so I certainly wouldn't bet against Tesla on any short-term horizon, but I struggle to imagine that alone will be able to carry their stock price in perpetuity.
Audi part. Cars are not moving. If the rest of Volkswagen is similar its going to be bad. Tesla is just more visible. I think only Toyota is making money right now.
Those tax credits are pollution indulgences what Tesla sells to competitors to stall their EV programs. They completely offset any environmental benefit of buying a Tesla. There is none.
Your comment sure is catchy. Making it read like half of Tesla's income came from tax credits. When in reality 'regulatory credits' revenue isn't significant.
I'll explain for you what my comment means. Operating income is a measure we use to see how profitable a company is at its core business after you subtract the costs of running that business.
Yes the credits are a small portion of Tesla's income but after account for the costs of building cars what's' left is the operating income. Those credits are about half o that income, without them the operating income( a measure of if the core business works) would be cut in half.
Some of the 'cost' of building cars is paid for with money from 'tax credits'.
It's very clear on the diagram I linked above. You can't attribute 100% of 'operating income' to one thing. If anything you need to attribute things proportional to their inputs. Otherwise it's misleading.
Then you create a strawman scenario of 'without tax credits...'. Well no, without tax credits the spending policies and prices of other revenue streams change in order to hit net income targets.
They still trying hard to hide the fact their future profits are rapidly converging to 0, or negative if the EV credits are removed.
All the future projects are basically smoke and mirrors.
Robotaxi ?
"Though timing of Robotaxi deployment depends on technological advancement and regulatory approval, we are working vigorously on this
opportunity given the outsized potential value. "
Sure thing. So how come that Tesla is the only one company trying to solve autonomous driving that didn't even ask for any regulatory approval yet ?
As a reminder, Musk said in 2017 that his Boring Company was doing DC to NY route (in 29 minutes) and got 'verbal govt approval' and was only waiting for full approval to proceed. We're exactly 7 years later and absolutely nothing has been done.
Tesla is an AI company now. Funny chart on page 8 - Tesla AI capacity stands at '45k H100 equivalent', while the company claims it's betting it's whole future on solving autonomous driving.
But xAI, which is also a Musk's company, apparently build a 100k cluster from scratch in no time (apparently using Tesla's H100...). Something doesn't add up here at all.
> All the future projects are basically smoke and mirrors.
So were electric vehicles when he took over as CEO. In fact, that's why he ended up taking over as CEO — Tesla needed someone who could sell smoke and mirrors for long enough to do a "fake it 'til you make it" run with the entire brand, as they needed to have the cars to justify the chargers and the chargers to justify the cars.
This doesn't mean he's still the right man for the job once the dull nature of reality becomes more obvious, when EVs become boring and mundane, which is exactly what's happening in that market.
The reason the original CEO was replaced by a guy and another guy and finally Musk is because the cost of Roadster parts was higher than the price of Roadster.
What Tesla needed was someone who is un-naturally good operator: someone who can drive the costs down, motivate the employees to deliver great product at a profit.
That was Musk.
And if you think that's just a given and any CEO can do it: currently Lucid and Rivian are still loosing tons of money on their cars. So does Ford and GM. Not to mention Fisker and few others who went bankrupt in the process.
You can do apples-to-apples comparison of execution of Musk vs. CEO of Lucid or Rivian by looking at "money burn at year N" of company's existence. Lucid and Rivian are still accumulating "money burn".
> The reason the original CEO was replaced by a guy and another guy and finally Musk is because the cost of Roadster parts was higher than the price of Roadster.
Interesting, I had not heard about that aspect.
That ability to see and remove unnecessary costs matches what Musk managed with SpaceX, so I can believe he also has that skillset; but more recently with Tesla (and continuously with Twitter) it's felt like he saw the costs and rejected the idea that any of those things might have value.
This would still make him the wrong person going forward, but for different reasons.
One way in which I think he would continue to bring value to Tesla, is that he can be an excellent showman (which goes with selling smoke and mirrors until the reality catches up), and this makes Tesla models far more iconic than many other more forgettable modern cars. For example, although everything about the Cybertruck screams "unsafe" to me, it also looks cool and nobody's going to confuse it for a different brand of truck.
EVs were ready. The Nissan Leaf was the first successful mass market one.
Rockets that land themselves were talked about since the 60s and prototyped by Lockheed in the 90s as the DC-X. (Search YouTube for some flight tests.) The funding just wasn’t there after the Cold War was over and excitement about space was at a low point.
I’m not taking away from the great accomplishments of the engineers at Tesla and SpaceX. What I’m pointing out is that in both cases Musk was raising money to complete and bring to market things that were already quite proven to be achievable. EVs and vertical landing rockets had been done, just not as well.
Rapid tunneling, FSD, and Neurolink are all things nobody has done or done well. Success rate is much worse in that domain because there is a lot less prior art to draw from and less certainty about a solution.
I think the Roadster predates the Leaf by about 2 years? My memory of the era was mostly people saying how they thought batteries were a dead end and hydrogen was the future, but that may have been marketing rather than engineering doing the speaking.
I think SpaceX is meaningfully different than Tesla; even now, Musk seems to display a substantially different personality with regard to SpaceX vs. everything else — the similarity is the optimism, sure, but in he's a lot more willing to say "this is hard and I will make mistakes".
As for how hard the SpaceX stuff is: all I can do there is look at all the rocket companies and space agencies that were openly laughing at what SpaceX was proposing to do. I think SpaceX is where the market proof is for that, rather than the other way around.
Based on what I've heard from civil engineers and neuroscientists, with regard to TBC and Neuralink they regard him much as the annoying speaker with no self-awareness in https://xkcd.com/793/
FSD sounds like what happens with time estimation for someone new to software engineering projects — you have to take what they say, double the number, and increase to the next highest unit: "1 day" means "2 weeks"; "3 months" means "6 years"; and if someone says "next year" in 2016, pencil 2036 into your diary.
The roadster predates the Leaf but it was very expensive. The Leaf was the first affordable EV and in that they beat Tesla by a couple years.
Anyone laughing at what SpaceX was doing was ignorant of things like the DC-X. I suspect a fair amount of that laughter was actually fear from a moribund industry happy with the status quo rather than actual skepticism that it could be done.
Some skepticism about a company the size and budget of SpaceX being able to do it might have been reasonable. That is probably the most impressive thing. The DC-X was Lockheed.
No they weren't; profits are what's left over. If profits were 0.5B your argument wouldn't make any sense. You're just taking arbitrary numbers and comparing them to trick people.
I think the author just wants to say that if the regulatory credits are not there, then the profits will be 0.9B less than the reported net profit today, which is about 0.5B. This is a fairly reasonable statement, and it is assuming that they sell the same number of cars and people are already paying the maximum amount they are willing the pay.
You could argument that if the credits are not there, Tesla will sell less cars, and the net profit will be even more slim.
If the credits are not there, prices and spending of things change across the board to hit net income targets. You have no idea how it turns out. It's not 1:1. Again, credits are a fraction of the revenue, that can be absorbed.
If net profit was 0.5B, and next quarter they lost regulatory credits, it would make even more sense. Tesla would have a negative net profit next quarter, all else equal.
Companies continually changes prices and spending across the board to hit net income targets. Without credits (a small fraction of revenue) the prices of other revenue streams change to absorb it. It isn't 1:1.
I think it's pretty bizarre to see a financial document that reads more as an advertisement for the business as a consumer wanting to buy their product rather than actual financial performance details.
Also I am so certain the humanoid robot is not very productive and someone in management pushed hard to get it on the line and photographed just before the Q2 report deadline, what a joke.
Fairly typical or at least happens often enough that an earnings call deck is provided. I did not watch this call but this should be the slide deck they went over. Definitely more the norm for annual calls, both a formal SEC filing will be made and often the deck to go along with the presentation. From a public perspective I don't think anything in here is an "advertisement". They (mgmt) is trying to show you their narrative, how they think about the company and whats coming up. Think of it as a software roadmap. If you think this one is an advertisement you should see clothing consumer materials like Nike, they will walk through a number of their product lines in a very "ad" like tone.
Edit: Not to suggest that their narrative is correct but that's the general aim of these calls. See Snowflake below.
It gives off some strong "faceless worker trapped in a box doing repetitive menial work" vibes. I get the whole 'humans can do so many different things, so make a human-shaped robot to do all those things' idea, hence Boston Dynamics' Atlas, but humans do all those things at a kinda mediocre speed.
Developing general control systems for 6+ axis arms and picking the correct number and size of arms for whatever strength/speed you need seems far more useful. Yeah, you can pick up your one-size-fits-all gimpbot and put him in the cage to put different cells into different boxes, but the hard part IMHO is the control software/training, not the hardware.
Well, it's not as bad as Q1. But way down from last year.
It's amusing to see what Tesla puts in a filing in which material mis-statements are felonies.
It's quite different from what Musk says when he can get away with it.
The phrase "full self driving" is never written out. They do use "FSD (Supervised)" twice, both with the footnote in tiny type "Active driver supervision required; does not make the vehicle autonomous." The closest thing to a mention of real autonomous driving is "Looking ahead to future
autonomous driving and robotaxi service, we continued progress on software and hardware
development." Remember that Tesla announced the reveal of their robo-taxi for August 8, 2024, but that's been cancelled.[1]
On the battery front, Tesla is having a bad year.[2] Tesla is trying to make their own cells, rather than buying them from Panasonic or CATL. It's not working well at all. Also, note the total absence of any mention of solid-state batteries. That's clearly the coming technology, and Tesla is nowhere in that space. (Yes, solid state batteries are real. On sale at Home Depot now.[3])
This is a big car company having a so-so year. Ford and GM have years like this. Ford's P/E ratio is around 15. GM's is around 6. Tesla's is around 68. Nothing in this report justifies that.
> This is a big car company having a so-so year. Ford and GM have years like this. Ford's P/E ratio is around 15. GM's is around 6. Tesla's is around 68. Nothing in this report justifies that.
Telsa is not a car company, any anyone that thinks that way is completely missing the point
Tesla currently makes most of it's revenue from cars, but that is not going to remain true for long.
Energy storage, Optimus and self-driving cars are predicted to generate much, much more.
Of course, I'm not saying it's a certainty, but it's clearly the goal. Elon bets everything on his visions, so it's either going to come true or Tesla will fail. Either way, Tesla won't be a "car company" much longer.
If Tesla is really betting its future on those other projects, like Optimus or Dojo, could you explain why they are not mentionning them almost at all in regulatory fillings ?
They are only mentionned is some very broad way, without any specifics - mostly on Twitter, through Musk or other non legally binding communications.
I will give you a hint. The chances of going to prison for lying to investors are very low. The chances of going to prison for lying in regulatory fillings are very different.
> could you explain why they are not mentionning them almost at all in regulatory fillings ?
I don't understand the legalities around regulatory filings, or why a company would be required to file details about their future plans and goals. If they're planning to make a ton of money from some future product, what regulatory filings are they required to make about that?
In the last two investor calls Elon has said repeatedly he expects Optimus and self-driving to value tesla at well over $5B.
Again, I'm not saying for one second I think it will come true, just that Elon is being extremely clear that is the plan. I firmly believe it will either come true or Tesla will fail.
> I don't understand the legalities around regulatory filings, or why a company would be required to file details about their future plans and goals.
Seriously ? Tesla is a publicly traded company. It's mandatory to disclose all the financials, what business it's in etc, to give investors an accurate view of what future revenues and profits could be.
And Tesla is doing that - and in those papers they are pretty much saying, we are 100% a car making company.
Here you have the latest Annual Report and proxy statements:
Is Apple filing details about Vision Pro version 4, or the VR display built into the heads up display of every car?
Of course not.
Apple are clearly planning many, many years of product strategy including things that may or may not come true and that may or may not make billions of dollars. Some companies play their cards close to their chest and keep everything a secret from everyone (Apple) and some don't (Tesla).
Neither strategy requires them to file with the government about their future plans.
> in those papers they are pretty much saying, we are 100% a car making company.
Yeah, right now that is what they're making money from, and that is what they are filing. In the future they plan to make gobs more money from other things which they are currently working towards. How much money and effort do you think Apple are currently putting into products that could generate as much profit as the iPhone? Are they filing about those?
Well, there's a third option: Optimus joins self driving to be the stock pump du jour, but Tesla attempts to methodically builds its core businesses, EVs and energy storage, to grow into its current valuation.
Just like you, I'm not saying this will happen. But I do think it most closely matches the Tesla playbook of the previous decade.
Energy storage is going to be huge, but probably low-margin. Anyone who can buy batteries can be in that business, as with solar. The biggest grid-scale battery operation in the US, Manatee in Florida, uses battery modules from Samsung. Not Tesla.
Selling equipment to utilities is profitable, but not hugely so.
Energy storage also strikes me as a scenario where it is trivial to shop for the best deal. There is no halo around a product for industrial users who are just looking for technical specs given price. Worst for battery manufacturers, I assume it is straightforward to mix and match brands/technologies as the grids expand over time.
Honestly, this downturn in profit is not surprising. (Copying from the other thread)
- A lot of Tesla competitors have caught up (outside of self driving) and energized their sections of the EV market. I see way more Korean EVs on the road than ever before for example.
- EV growth is slowing due to various factors, but so are cars in general due to economic issues.
- Elon opened up the NACS as a gambit for not having to change their own chargers. NACS won, but a lot of prospective EV buyers are waiting for NACS native vehicles from other manufacturers.
- Elon has really alienated massive chunks of the EV demographic. Identity politics are inherently tumultuous.
As a launch batch Model Y owner myself, I’m definitely looking elsewhere whenever this car needs replacing. I want more comfort and just a better driving experience (turn signal stalks, an instrument cluster etc in the more accessible models) and the only reason I went with Tesla is the charging network is unmatched in NA.
I do not have a very rosy outlook on Tesla as long as Elon remains in charge. He got it where it is, but he’s increasingly a liability.
> - A lot of Tesla competitors have caught up (outside of self driving) and energized their sections of the EV market. I see way more Korean EVs on the road than ever before for example.
Mercedes already have certified level 3 self driving. (With some caveats, but that’s more than any of Tesla offerings)
> In 2024, our vehicle volume growth rate may be notably lower than the growth rate achieved in 2023, as our teams work on the launch of the next generation vehicle and other products. In 2024, the growth rates of energy storage deployments and revenue in our Energy Generation and Storage business should outpace the Automotive business.
Pretty bleak YoY numbers for car sales. They are pretty open about pivoting away from cars at least.
> Preparation of Semi factory continues and is on track to begin production by end of 2025.
Okay. That's why you've delivered 36 of the 100 units that were scheduled for seven years ago (2017), and none since then, which is why PepsiCo, Sysco, UPS and Walmart have all since terminated their agreements.
But it's "on track". Sure.
Last time Musk tried to throw out an excuse for this, it wasn't production capacity, it was "battery availability". Meanwhile:
> In Q2, we produced over 50% more 4680 cells than in Q1 and continued to see cost improvements.
> Both Megapack and Powerwall achieved record deployment in Q2, resulting in 9.4 GWh of total storage deployments. Overall, the Energy business achieved record revenues and gross profit in Q2.
"We're breaking so many records in battery availability and production capacity, you guys! We just haven't been able to make any for the Semi in seven years."
1. Semi is not dependent on 4680 batteries. And that's still a minority of the battery mix they use. 4680 form factor is still limited to Cybertruck and some Model Y production.
2. Semi has been in initial and testing production, only selling to customers close to the factories and engineers so they could service them quickly, learn and adapt new models.
3. More new Semi trucks have been recently delivered to Pepsi and internally to Tesla.
4. "On track" compared to previous released information from last few quarters.
Semi is still a small part of the business and not as prioritised as it takes a lot to develop a new program for big trucks when the company hasn't been in that niche before. At the same time they are developing various charging solutions with customers and on their routes before they rollout. Still learning from customers and drivers what is the best utilisation for these products.
I still don't get why they prioritised the cybertruck Vs the semi... Makes no sense at all. Markets are way different in size, I guess margins too. A shame really
Maybe because the Semi is not a viable product at all ?
This is a truck, that is 7 years after unveil and they still did not communicate the most important metrics for a truck, about it's weight and hauling capacity.
Low volume halo products make good testbeds. Stainless steel, 48V, etherloop, steer-by-wire. Better to "learn things" on fat margins and low volume than to jump the gun on Model 2 and Robotaxi and "learn things" on thin margins and high volume.
Don't believe everything you read on the internet, especially the places pushing an agenda. As a self-described non-douche (at least, I don't go around judging people simply for buying a particular model of car), the CT is actually quite a good vehicle. I've had mine for a few months now and really like it. Granted I don't use it much for "truck" stuff but it has been a fantastic family car and the attention it gets is incredible.
>PURCHASE, N.Y., May 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today PepsiCo Beverages North America (PBNA) announced the expansion of its electric-powered fleet across California. In the next several months, fifty Class 8 Tesla Semi trucks will operate out of its manufacturing and distribution facility in Fresno, Calif., and 75 Ford E-Transit electric vans will step-change the electrification of its equipment services fleet across the state. The electric vehicle deployment will help the company progress toward its ambitious pep+ (PepsiCo Positive) goal to reach net zero emissions by 2040.
Then that is new, certainly, and maybe they have reconciled. The date certainly matches and makes at least some of my information out of date.
> PepsiCo made initial payments for 100 Tesla Semis in 2017
> But according to the food-and-drinks maker and one of its executives with knowledge of the deal, PepsiCo was using only 36[1] of Teslas promised 100 electric trucks as of [April 2024].
So they're getting 14 more "in the next several months", it seems. And still are owed 50 more from a seven year old order? They're more patient than I, it seems.
How does an agreement work like this between big companies? I assume Pepsi lawyers have must-be-delivered-by dates. Typically, would everyone just walk away from the deal? Tesla would owe penalties? Or is it such a small investment for Pepsi, nobody important cares about the deal?
I think the 7% yoy decline of sales has the reasoning as "due to pricing, attractive financing options and mix" but I think it is a bit dishonest if Elon's political shift to the right, alienating the left who think climate change is a problem and catering to the guy who says electric cars can go to hell and "drill baby drill" isn't part of the narrative.
You were likely thinking of the news that EV growth has slowed. A lot of headlines try and make it sound like EV sales are slowing but it’s the rate of growth that is.
All the news I've been able to find about EV sales slowing is from 2024, GGP's link is about 2023.
https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/q1-2024-ev-sales/ says "EV share of total new-vehicle sales in Q1 was 7.3%, a decrease from Q4 2023." Though looking at the raw statistics[1], that's still a 2.6% YoY increase so hard to say if the downturn is merely seasonal or part of a larger trend. I couldn't find any data at all about Q2 2024, which is what the Tesla report we're discussing is for.
It’s misleading when Tesla is one company with 4 old models and 1 new model, and the competition is 17 companies with dozens and dozens of mostly all brand new models.
Sure, that plays a role. You're also sticking your head in the sand if you think Musk's behavior is not an extreme own-goal that's hugely damaging to Tesla. It doesn't take a Musk hater to see that there are, in fact, a whole lot of new Musk haters in exactly Tesla's target market.
Being a celebrity is hard, and frankly Musk messed up by turning himself into one. That can only be explained by ego or lack of foresight.
GP said this needs to be "part of the narrative," and they're absolutely, unequivocally right. People hate him and don't want to be affiliated with him, justified or not.
I bought a Model 3 back in 2020 and got the self-driving option mostly on a whim. Until recently, it was a handy feature on freeways but a gimmick on surface streets. Ever since the update a couple months ago, it actually does drive itself. I can't remember the last time I intervened. If I did, it was probably to make the car do something dangerous or technically in violation of traffic laws, as you have to be aggressive sometimes in city driving.
You also have people like John Carmack saying, "I have made multiple two hour drives without touching the wheel." His main complaint is that the car makes him touch the steering wheel if he's wearing sunglasses (because it can't track his eyes to determine whether he's paying attention).
I don't think owners will rent out their cars as taxis any time soon, but the technology really does seem to be there.
The technology really isn't there. Individuals' subjective experience of safety is totally irrelevant when you're talking about a system as huge as "automobile travel."
Even 99.999% reliable miles is still dangerous at 3.2 trillion miles per year
Would the comparison not be human drivers? If it's 99% percent reliable I would say that's far safer than humans and makes far more sense already? What am I missing
You think humans are only 99% reliable on a per-mile basis?! That would mean your average person crashes every ~100 miles, or about once every two days.
You can not just go around asserting comparative advantage when your baseline is so far off it is farcical.
I did not have the same experience with the free trial. It tried to crash in to curbs, and really drives in ways that make you think it isn't really planning very far ahead: driving towards parked cars and swerving at the last second instead of making an early correction to move over in the lane slightly, driving too fast for conditions, hard braking at stop signs, stopping very early, or very late for stop signs. This is in addition to all the other bad behavior: getting confused about where lanes are and blaring the alarm sound, taking no regard for other cars when merging, trouble following curves smoothly and respecting limit lines.
It was a couple months ago, whenever the free trial for everyone was. Bay Area peninsula suburbs. The neighborhoods that Tesla engineers live and drive in frequently.
We must have the old version in Australia because we bought extended autopilot for our 2024 M3 Highland and it drives for about 10 seconds before drifting into the left or right adjacent lanes and making everyone nervous.
And it tried to kill me on the freeway when it pretended it was going to merge and then just kept driving straight into the gutter.
In fact I have been thinking about asking for a refund because it is LESS capable than our 2020 Corolla’s adaptive cruise.
Really crappy situation to be waiting for someone to fix software that you paid for. If EAP is actually OK overseas, why don’t we have it here??
In Australia, self-driving features beyond lane keeping are banned, and lane keeping is limited to imparting a maximum lateral acceleration of 3 meters per second squared. Because of these restrictions, all Teslas in Australia are using a gimped version of autopilot from 2-3 years ago.
Well if two people say it on the Internet without providing any documentation, evidence or references to larger-scale reports, that sure proves the claim, doesn't it?
I've commented on a few Waymo threads about how I'm a total convert to self-driving cars (or at least to Waymos) so it does seem like it's possible for autonomous cars to work at some level.
On this subject, though, I happened to ride a Waymo to a destination only 1-mile away (hurt my knee last week! Not that lazy! Cost ~$8.00 btw) to meet a friend yesterday and it's the first time I got into the Waymo and didn't even watch the road because I guess I'm over the hump of worrying it's going to do something dumb (probably not sensible to give over so quickly, but just sharing how my behavior has changed over maybe 15-20 rides). The friend I met also happened to have a Model 3 with FSD and he offered to give me a ride home in it with FSD enabled. Aside from this blue prompt on the display that forces the driver to interact with the wheel to say "I'm still here" it didn't have any material difficulties with the route. Very short drive of course. But he did have to intervene because of the prompt at least 3 or 4 times, and even one time when we were stopped at a light FSD started turning the wheel even though we were going straight. You could see the car to the left of us get nervous because it noticed this wheel turn and so they moved over a little fearful that the Model 3 was going to go into their lane either right there at the red light or when it turned green. However, once the light turned green the wheel went straight and FSD just proceeded us through the intersection. An oddity for sure. We couldn't quite figure out why it thought it needed to turn the wheel.
The reason I bring this up is to share a datapoint of 1, but also because it got me thinking about Tesla's rollout of robotaxis. It seems like before they actually let these cars drive without a driver they're going to have to remove that blue, take-the-wheel prompt while drivers are still in the driver's seat. And then they'll have to have a bunch (hundreds of thousands, millions?) of miles under their belt where there's zero/near-zero intervention from the driver to confidently deploy an actual robotaxi. So I guess the point at which you hear that Tesla no longer requires the driver to take the wheel is the point at which the public will know that Tesla now thinks it's getting close to having a robotaxi. That assumes Tesla does the sensible thing of course and takes that intermediate step. Would be odd to skip it for sure while you have a "safety driver" in the driver's seat.
Assuming Waymo is able to drive safely, it seems like a matter of time until Tesla is able to achieve the same, no? I can’t see why Waymo should be able to do it but Tesla should not given enough time.
This could be outdated info, but don't they have quite a bit of hardware bolted to the car that Tesla doesn't have? Tesla seems to be betting that they can work some software magic with fairly basic hardware, whereas Waymo (I think) has taken an approach that relies on input from quite a few more sensors.
That is not how any technology works, let alone literal bleeding edge technology, unless you mean Tesla will just scrap their technology and then just buy it from Waymo.
Assuming SpaceX can make reusable rockets, it seems like a matter of time until Blue Origin is able to achieve the same, no? I can’t see why SpaceX should be able to do it but Blue Origin should not given enough time.
Assuming Microsoft can make a desktop operating system, it seems like a matter of time until IBM is able to achieve the same, no? I can’t see why Microsoft should be able to do it but IBM should not given enough time.
See how ridiculous that sounds. Serious technological R&D is not something you can just pick up off the ground with money and time.
I would be surprised in 20 years if nobody is making rockets similar to Space X.
For OS - which is software, more similar to EV - Linux devs are able to make a much better OS than Windows, commercial success on the consumer front be damned. OS is pretty much commoditized but everybody uses Windows for enterprise because of vendor lock in, not because it’s hard to make an OS. Arguably, windows is the worst of the three popular OS’s despite having the largest commercial success.
OpenAI was able to make great GPT models and everybody else followed suit pretty quickly.
I think bleeding edge tech with larger moats takes longer than bleeding edge tech with smaller moats. The moat for self driving is low enough that there are many companies pursuing it with only VC funding. Compared to self landing rockets, which is being pursued by two companies backed by the richest men on earth.
The argument you are making here is that somebody else will figure it out. However, the argument you made before depends on that any arbitrary entity will figure it out with time and money. Those are categorically different.
If, in the first place, you actually meant that somebody else will figure it out, then it is logically unsound to argue that a arbitrarily chosen entity, Tesla in this case, is a shoe-in to figure it out as well. You need to present actual arguments for why they in particular will be a somebody.
If you actually thought the argument you presented initially was logically sound, then you meant everybody and the arguments you have just made are irrelevant as they only argue “there exists”, not “for all” which is what your initial argument rested on.
tl;dr You are mixing up “there exists” and “for all”.
Because of underlying decisions about their respective approaches, it's not certain that Tesla will actually be able to achieve the same as Waymo. Specifically, Waymo does pre-mapping, and uses LIDAR, probably other things, that Tesla won't do, so with those two differences, it's not clear that the computing power is available for Tesla to achieve the same level of self driving as Waymo.
Seems like quite the blunder - maybe Tesla thinks they can add LIDAR to their own fleet of robo-taxis. Otherwise they bet the future of the company pretty foolishly.
Hardware stack. While Waymo stuffed their cars with all possible radars and lidars, Tesla sticked to cameras. I didn’t wash my model Y for a while and it is continuously complaining about not working cameras. Looks like that camera based autonomous driving isn’t low hanging fruit.
They had a few decent misses on operating income and earnings per share.
And their operating margin is in the low 6%ish which would make it one of the worst performing auto manufacturers around at the moment.
Man things have turned quickly on Tesla.
They are still in a good cash position but their car business is really showing signs of strain at the moment.
they did announce that they'll release a more affordable model by the end of H125 so that will help, but with that timeframe its likely to be a model 3 refresh and not a new car.