On the one hand, Tesla's all in on automation now, on the other they just walked back their promise of full self driving for vehicles sold from 2016-2023. [1]
Apparently, they're just washing their hands of the matter and leaving out to dry the quarter million people that spent up to $15,000 on the hope that Tesla would develop them an OTA update to enable FSD with cameras. But three days later, they're also saying that automation is the most important thing to the company?
Given these two conflicting reports, is there any hope that Tesla will come to their senses and start putting LIDAR in new vehicles? I don't expect Musk to acknowledge that he was wrong, even with all the documented claims in the past about the feasibility of FSD with cameras... but it's 2025, does it matter if anyone calls him on it? Just put a LIDAR brow on the 2027 models and full steam ahead!
I'd be willing to bet that lidar is not the decisive difference between AVS that work and those that don't. I bet it's the geospatial data. Without the kind of data that Google gets from maps and other geospatial products, making an AV is not practical with current technology.
> Apparently, they're just washing their hands of the matter and leaving out to dry the quarter million people that spent up to $15,000 on the hope that Tesla would develop them an OTA update to enable FSD with cameras.
Well, just like any reliable company (in the crypto/"AI" space) that screws up with false claims like "Auto-Pilot", "Full-Self" Driving, "AI" Taxis (all within the next 2-5 years - of course those are claims > 10 years old) it just wants to move on and leave all the bad hype behind. Responsibility be damned, hype that stonck !
There was an interesting interview with Martin Eberhard, the Tesla founder the other day - Musk came in as an investor. A lot of the build a sports car then luxury car then regular then cheap plan was Eberhard, the FSD and robots stuff was Musk. (youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88KHfX_kPIY&t=990s)
> The company's sales have collapsed across the world
Well, that's news to me. According to Tesla's presentations and quarterly SEC reports, sales have most definitely not "collapsed." In the most recent quarter, revenues decreased 12%, to a still-gargantuan $22.5B/quarter, compared to the same quarter last year. Compared to the previous quarter, revenues actually increased by 16%. Yes, increased. The business generated positive US GAAP earnings and positive free cash flow. The company ended the quarter with $37B in cash, compared to $31B in cash a year ago.[a]
Note that during the most recent quarter, the company had to change-over all its factories to start making the updated Model Y, its best-selling vehicle.
I'd be curious to see how the updated Model Y does over the remainder of the year.
It's hard to take the OP seriously when it exaggerates about facts that are easily verifiable.
The article is talking about car sales, you're talking about revenues. Those are two different things. For instance, a very large portion of Tesla revenues comes from leasing and carbon credits rather than car sales. In terms of car sales, Tesla's share of the market is at it's lowest point since 2017. In most of the world, Tesla sales are very significantly down.
As a counterpoint, Apple Inc, stopped using Apple Computers Inc, only years after it had diversified it's production with consumer electronics, software, and cloud services.
Tesla is predominantly known for it's cars. Now, it wants to do AI, taxi, solar, power supply. And it's financing this through their cofounder being the pied piper to investors.
It becomes immediately obvious that there is no plan, it is just advertising the things Tesla has been doing already.
The picture at the top that shows a robot which, as usual, performs an easy task in a clean, dust and dirt free environment, may indicate that they'll focus more on robots. That is it.
Since the stock price is decoupled from all realities, they can do whatever they want.
public companies have been running on the fumes of speculative value, or some hypothetical future value according to off-the-chart P/E ratios. this is nothing new for musk. he has been promising some future that always needs to look beyond what others can envision and promise. whether we want that future, or whether he can and he will get us there that is immaterial. as long as he is moving the "future evaluation carrot" away from the investors at a steady pace he will do it.
from this point of view, his goal was never to be the best car company. it was never to serve the customers the best way possible, or have the best value. china has achieved all of that and a lot more so he needs to move the carrot again. that's it.
That problem is solved, but unfortunately the bottleneck has been for the longest time the larger, more complex electrical equipment that is used to connect chargers to the grid. Companies like the Finland-based Kempower produce the best charging equipment on the market, but their problems start where their equipment ends: the grid.
I've looked at this space from an infrastructure investment perspective. Its really tough, and generally not considered "infrastructure" by most infra folks because of the lack of long term revenue contracts. There is not a great way to underwrite the risk of utilization of the chargers. The customers need to show up. Unless you can guarantee some of the revenue, you have a lot of capex with no clear path to repay it. The chargers also require a lot of maintenance and the grid connection is challenging with low consumption and high peak load, and long wait to get connected... Investors have been staying away.
Gas stations are a tough business, too. But they've had a century to develop a working business model. A charging station is different enough that the business has entered the race to the bottom before they figured out how to adapt the gas station business model profitably.
I know people in the sector who made a lot of money from very quickly from installing charging equipment when it was a novelty. They think it's a race to the bottom now, and I don't think it's going get more profitable, certainly not Tesla-valuation level profitable
Let's stipulate the Tesla has done the best job of building a network of chargers that actually works. On that basis, Tesla could spin it off as the highest valued charging network in existence.
The problem is that charging revenue provides Tesla an astronomical contribution to the share price, with Tesla's current price to earnings ratio. It would only make sense to sell it if Tesla were pressed for cash. Instead Tesla has more cash than they've felt like deploying to, for example, update their product line. No need to pile more on top of that.
I read that as “niche for Tesla”. It’s not what their primary product was supposed to be. But, with more EVs being compatible, it might end up being the most stable part of the company. It’s not as sexy as cars, robots, or robotaxis, but it should be consistently profitable.
Readit News
Apparently, they're just washing their hands of the matter and leaving out to dry the quarter million people that spent up to $15,000 on the hope that Tesla would develop them an OTA update to enable FSD with cameras. But three days later, they're also saying that automation is the most important thing to the company?
Given these two conflicting reports, is there any hope that Tesla will come to their senses and start putting LIDAR in new vehicles? I don't expect Musk to acknowledge that he was wrong, even with all the documented claims in the past about the feasibility of FSD with cameras... but it's 2025, does it matter if anyone calls him on it? Just put a LIDAR brow on the 2027 models and full steam ahead!
[1]: https://electrek.co/2025/09/05/tesla-changes-meaning-full-se...
A fool and their money something something.
Well, that's news to me. According to Tesla's presentations and quarterly SEC reports, sales have most definitely not "collapsed." In the most recent quarter, revenues decreased 12%, to a still-gargantuan $22.5B/quarter, compared to the same quarter last year. Compared to the previous quarter, revenues actually increased by 16%. Yes, increased. The business generated positive US GAAP earnings and positive free cash flow. The company ended the quarter with $37B in cash, compared to $31B in cash a year ago.[a]
Note that during the most recent quarter, the company had to change-over all its factories to start making the updated Model Y, its best-selling vehicle.
I'd be curious to see how the updated Model Y does over the remainder of the year.
It's hard to take the OP seriously when it exaggerates about facts that are easily verifiable.
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[a] https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/TSLA-Q2-...
Quarter over quarter, vehicle deliveries increased 14%.
That's most definitely not a "collapse."
Well I suppose a 60% fall isn't 100%.
Please don't attack a straw-man.
Tesla is predominantly known for it's cars. Now, it wants to do AI, taxi, solar, power supply. And it's financing this through their cofounder being the pied piper to investors.
According to Martin, he is their first major investor.
According to mainstream media, he is the co-founder.
I'd call him the second, but the fanboys would be majorly pissed.
https://www.tesla.com/master-plan-part-4
It becomes immediately obvious that there is no plan, it is just advertising the things Tesla has been doing already.
The picture at the top that shows a robot which, as usual, performs an easy task in a clean, dust and dirt free environment, may indicate that they'll focus more on robots. That is it.
Since the stock price is decoupled from all realities, they can do whatever they want.
from this point of view, his goal was never to be the best car company. it was never to serve the customers the best way possible, or have the best value. china has achieved all of that and a lot more so he needs to move the carrot again. that's it.
The problem is that charging revenue provides Tesla an astronomical contribution to the share price, with Tesla's current price to earnings ratio. It would only make sense to sell it if Tesla were pressed for cash. Instead Tesla has more cash than they've felt like deploying to, for example, update their product line. No need to pile more on top of that.
Strange choice of word for something that is becoming mainstream.