Tesla shareholders have voted for the questions they wish to ask Elon Musk and Tesla’s administration on the upcoming incomes outcomes this week. The questions have one thing in widespread: they’re primarily about failed guarantees.
It ought to be attention-grabbing to see Elon Musk skate round all these questions.
Tesla goes to launch its This autumn 2024 and full-year 2024 monetary outcomes on Wednesday after market shut.
After the discharge of the outcomes, Tesla will maintain a convention name the place it should take questions from Wall Avenue analysts and Tesla shareholders.
The shareholders can vote on the inquiries to be requested on the Say Applied sciences platform.
Right here, I’ve included a listing of probably the most upvoted questions, and I’ve discovered a typical thread: most of them contain failed guarantees.
Unsurprisingly, the primary query is about “unsupervised full self-driving” (FSD). It’s on prime of most Tesla shareholders’ minds as CEO Elon Musk himself claims that Tesla is nugatory if it may’t ship on self-driving – one thing Musk stated would occur by the top of yearly for the previous 5 years.
Musk’s newest timeline for unsupervised FSD was communicated throughout Tesla’s final earnings when he claimed Tesla would launch “unsupervised FSD in California and Texas round Q2 2025”.
With the timeline approaching quick, shareholders are asking whether or not or not it’s nonetheless occurring:
Is unsupervised FSD nonetheless deliberate to be launched in Texas and California this 12 months? What hurdles nonetheless exist to make this occur?
As we not too long ago reported, the newest knowledge about FSD exhibits that Tesla is at fewer than 500 miles between vital disengagement, whereas the pinnacle of the FSD program not too long ago stated that unsupervised ought to obtain a disengagement equal to the human collision fee: 1 each 670,000 miles.
It’s additionally doable that Tesla will launch a smaller geo-fenced fleet of self-driving autos as an alternative of its broader promised unsupervised self-driving for its buyer fleet. In that case, it might require lesser efficiency, however it might nonetheless want a roughly 50x improve over the present efficiency.
The second most upvoted query is about Optimus:
When will Tesla begin promoting Optimus and value?
Final 12 months, Musk stated that Tesla ought to use its Optimus humanoid robotic extra inside the corporate in 2025 and promote it to 3rd events in 2026.
The subsequent query is about Musk giving fairness entry in his non-public corporations to Tesla shareholders:
Elon has stated publicly that long run shareholders of Tesla could have the flexibility to put money into his different corporations. Might you present some readability/coloration as to what that appears like? Brokerage companies use FIFO so anybody who trades gained’t have the true size of time as investor.
That’s one thing that he has been speaking about for years with SpaceX, however he by no means made it occur.
Tesla shareholders are additionally upvoting a query about making FSD switch everlasting:
Are you able to please tie bought FSD to our proprietor accounts vs. locked to the automobile? This can assist us take pleasure in it in any Tesla we drive/purchase and reward us for hanging in so lengthy, a few of us since 2017.
This has been requested a number of instances on Tesla earnings name and Musk has at all times stated no. He prefers utilizing a “switch window” as demand triggers somewhat than doing the fitting factor and letting folks switch the software program bundle that they paid for, however Tesla by no means absolutely delivers.
I wrote an entire article about this final weekend, explaining how Tesla is doing the fallacious factor right here.
The subsequent query is about cheaper Tesla autos:
Is there a brand new inexpensive Tesla mannequin coming quickly?
That is one thing Tesla has been promising for years, however Musk has steered Tesla away from it. He canceled Tesla’s deliberate “$25,000 mannequin” – saying that it was ineffective amid self-driving.
Over the previous couple of years, he had Tesla centered on the Cybertruck and Robotaxi as an alternative.
Extra not too long ago, Tesla needed to course appropriate amid declining gross sales and so they introduced two new cheaper fashions primarily based on Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y which can be supposed to come back within the first half of 2025. That seems to be what the shareholders need an replace on with this query.
Subsequent, they wish to know the standing of the Tesla Semi:
What’s the standing on mass manufacturing of the Tesla Semi? How do you venture it should have an effect on income at scale?
Tesla Semi is one in all Tesla’s most delayed car packages. It was first unveiled in 2017 and it was supposed to enter manufacturing in 2020. It then entered right into a low-volume pilot manufacturing in late 2022, and it is just now anticipated to enter quantity manufacturing subsequent 12 months.
The beginning of manufacturing on the new manufacturing unit for the electrical truck is predicted by the top of 2025.
The subsequent query is about HW3 computer systems:
Is it anticipated that Tesla might want to improve HW3 autos and in that case, what’s the timeline and anticipated impression to Tesla’s CapEx?
For nearly a 12 months, we have now been reporting that HW3 computer systems have reached their limits. On the final earnings name, Musk lastly admitted it may be true.
Since then, HW3 autos have fallen additional behind HW4 autos, however there’s no plan for a retrofit in sight.
The final query requested whether or not Tesla is giving up on the photo voltaic roof:
Has Tesla given up on ramping their photo voltaic roof product?
That’s a good query. Musk as soon as stated that Tesla would produce 1,000 new photo voltaic roofs per week by the top of 2019, however by 2022, our knowledge pointed to about 23 photo voltaic roofs per week.
Tesla has since stopped even reporting its photo voltaic deployment.
Electrek’s Take
I predict that Tesla will double down on Optimus with this earnings name and/or announce or unveil their cheaper autos.
Optimus will get a whole lot of flak, however I feel Tesla can remedy humanoid robots earlier than it may remedy self-driving. There’s worth in humanoid robots, not almost as a lot as Elon claims, as it’s usually the case, however I feel they’ll begin leaning extra on that to wow buyers than self-driving.
The one different issues that meaningfully drive earnings are cheaper autos. Tesla beforehand stated that these would launch within the first half of 2025 so they’re mainly because of be unveiled. I might count on one thing to be introduced on that entrance.
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