When Tesla releases its first quarter earnings this afternoon, the company’s CEO Elon Musk will field the usual questions about new products, new factories, and progress toward its futuristic vision of self-driving cars and robot workers. But Musk will also face increasingly urgent questions about its current state of affairs — and why everything seems to be going to shit.
Earlier this month, the company reported its first year-over-year sales drop in four years, a sign of rougher waters ahead. Tesla’s stock has fallen more than 40 percent since the start of the year, including a 13 percent drop in the last week. The company laid off over 14,000 employees last week, 10 percent of its global workforce — which could end up being closer to 20 percent when all’s said and done, according to Bloomberg. Today’s earnings report is expected to include Tesla’s lowest profit margins in six years, a sign that rampant price-cutting continues to exact a toll.
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Honestly, if another CEO steps in and Elon retires, the company might actually recover. Right now the image of Tesla is tied too closely to Elon who we know is an asshat.
They might finally develop the affordable, mass market car that Musk has been claiming is in the works for years, instead of idiotic and expensive passion projects like the cybertruck.
Musk thinks he already did that with the model 3, right? Billionaires have no concept of “affordable” after all.
It’s the Model 2, which he has being talking about for years but it’s not clear if it will ever happen.
“What could a banana possibly cost Michael? $10?”
Idk, I think the idea of selling trucks want bad. Americans love trucks. That being said, the execution seems very poor.
The execution is very poor, and I’d rather these dangerous monstrosities go away and be replaced by smaller, less dangerous, and more practical vehicles. And ideally, car ownership will decline over the long term with viable alternatives to driving hopefully being developed across the world (but that’s a whole other discussion).
Yes. Try living in DWF. The truck are the problem for all kinds of reasons.
Where?
Disney World France?
Dallas Worth Fort?
Musk instead is now going all in with AI and Robotaxis.
Probably realised that “full” self-driving the way people think of it is not likely to happen in our lifetimes. And Tesla’s existing system is an out and out scam.
But I expect he’ll try and combine it with his stupid tunnel idea, instead of, I don’t know, a train?
But I expect he’ll try and combine it with his stupid tunnel idea
That was the original idea. It was supposed to be self-driving buses to get a higher throughput. Then the buses went away and were replaced by normal cars, and then self driving was replaced with human drivers. The convenient lift to get to the tunnels was replaced by normal escalators and what was left from all those lofty plans was the underground taxi farce, with rgb lighting.
There’s no way in fucking hell ever that I would go into one of Muck’s underground death traps. It’s such an insanely dumb idea.
Relaxi-cabs
I’ve got coworkers who literally think Elon is humanity’s savior. This came up today (shared a pic of a tesla w/ a bumper sticker that said “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy…” and they IMMEDIATELY started gargling his metaphorical balls).
There’s a tiny sliver of market that represents the overlapped portion of 1) hopeless rednecks, and 2) people interested in owning an electric vehicle… that’s Tesla’s target customer. It’s gonna saturate in a hurry, but it’s also a cult-like following of cash cows eager to be milked. My money’s on Tesla’s performance steadying out and maintaining a not-great but not-bad-enough-to-tank-the-company level of financial success.
Depends on what you mean by “recover”. It might recover in the sense that the entire company won’t go bankrupt and will find a sustainable way to continue existing, but it will never recover to the current stock worth. Tesla has been grossly overvalued as whatever huge potential it had has been squandered. The stock will drop regardless of what Tesla does and it’s highly unlikely it will ever reach such worth ever again.
It’s not just his image. He’s an awful manager and has made some atrocious decision in the last few years affecting Tesla employees, customers and shareholders… even people who don’t buy teslas due to the unsafe FSD. He’s made Tesla a financial and physical danger to the public.
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Unfortunately this is gonna bite NASA due to them handing the lander mission to Musk and his bogus claims, and in that case there won’t be many competitors ready to pick up the slack
So far, SpaceX has been run with much less Musk involvement. That could change on a whim, but so far it seems to be a pretty well run government-supplier under Gwynne Shotwell.
The problem is starship, Musk’s mars-shot brain child, seems to be increasingly behind schedule for the Artemis missions.
Not to mention using starship is apparently forcing any moon landings to launch between 8-12 rockets to get one SpaceX lander on the moon?
Overall it seems like SpaceX is getting fucked by Musk’s involvement as well.
I’m sure it’s anyone else’s fault but Elon, just ask him he’ll say so.
It’s the fault of those 9% he fired, so everything is fine now.
/S
Since Musk outed himself as pro-right-wing idiot with his X fiasco, the mostly left leaning electric vehicle crowd is looking for untainted brands.
looking for untainted brands.
I wish them good luck for the hunt
I’ll settle for one where the CEO isn’t a Nazi.
But… Volkswagen!
Oh, wait.
Where are all the well-meaning auto companies? Where?
Tesla’s biggest market is China, not America. Elon’s antics are not the cause of this drop. Selling Teslas in China getting harder due to American policies against China. How many Teslas do you think they will let Elon sell if the US bans Tiktok?
I thought you nailed it, but then I read past the first sentence. Tesla is failing in China because they can’t compete with price. Even a lot of the luxury models are now cheaper than a Tesla.
Exactly BYD is their biggest problem. Also they can’t claim higher build quality so you’d really pay more for just the brand.
He shot down his cult of personality in favor of the base that shits on electric cars and bombed his brand by releasing an all-purpose truck that can’t even survive a car wash. Tesla will get what it deserves with a CEO like him.
Yet another CEO of a luxury item company that thought fame made him untouchable finds out that running your mouth off will turn people off from buying something they don’t actually need. If you sell a product favored by progressive and left leaning individuals and go on right wing rants you’re gonna have problems. That, and massively under-delivering on promised car features.
*I figure at the price point Tesla cars are they are indeed a luxury item. It’s a luxury to be able to afford them and afford the statement an owner makes by buying one (early adopter, environmental, whatever) There’s plenty of ICE cars, hybrids, or PHEV that are cheaper, more reliable, and have better service availability.
also moving all the controls to a touch screen? stupid. A car isn’t a smart phone
I figure at the price point Tesla cars are they are indeed a luxury item
Tesla has luxury models and trim levels, but I’d say several variants of the Model 3 and Model Y are fairly price competitive with its competition, especially if accounting for government tax subsidies.
The average new car transaction is about $47,000, and several Tesla options fall well under that average.
It’s weird, because in many ways he could’ve been viewed as a champion of the left. He owns one of the largest brands in “sustainable” travel, owns a space company, and has money to burn.
I think he probably had a mental breakdown a few years ago, and that what we’ve seen is from him is basically untreated mental illness, exacerbated by being pals with the likes of Rogan and Chappelle, two guys that can handle fame and not give a fuck.
But things could’ve been very different if he weren’t such a cunt.
He comes from a South African Apartheid family that got rich with blood diamonds. Can’t expect much more from that than a white nationalist.
We have different ideas of what the left is, I guess
Pretty much.
The dude is school on Sunday, no class.
Skipping on an entry level model will be a mistake that will cost them greatly.
I wonder if there was ever an entry-level model to begin with. It’s been on the cards for about a decade, and many people have looked at Tesla saying “wow, a good electric car, I’ll definitely get one once they’re affordable”.
Yeah. Especially considering EVs were generally going to be more appealing to younger people as new technology that demonstrates care for the environment and future
I think people just realized that Tesla’s aren’t that great. They’re not build well, simple repairs cost a fortune and for the same price you get better vehicles from other manufacturers, especially from ones in China.
Also, the resale values are…not good.
Really? I looked at prices of used EVs recently and was dissappointed at how expensive they were. I would have liked to be able to afford one as a first car.
Used prices have plummeted in part because new prices have dropped a lot. If new prices stabilize (big if), the resale value should retain itself a bit better going forward.
It’s normal for a 1-year-old car to lose 20% of its value compared to a brand new model. But if you bought a $60,000 model a year ago, and that model dropped to $50,000 new, then your one-year-old car might only be worth $40,000 or so (20% less than a new car, but 33% less than what you paid for it).
You can’t get the Chinese ones in the U.S., so options are more limited. But there are still alternatives.
This is all because they failed to award Elmo with those billions. Quick, there is still time to save the company. /s
I guess… Now’s the time to short?
No, never short Tesla. The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
This is a fantastic quote btw
I would have thought the same thing but the after hours ticker has the stock up damn near $20 which is just insane to me.
I guess they were expecting even worse?
He made a lot more promises, and uncancelled the reportedly canceled Model 2. Investors in Tesla feed on his investor call grandstanding lies.
Tesla should pay the CEO that 56 billion bonus. It would immediately improve the situation
No it won’t. Yall never be successful with this kind of thinking.
Incantation works only AFTER blood offering of 1k of employees. Fire first, bonus later.
Then and only then Mamona will be happy to improve stock.
🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
I’m honestly shocked. Who could have predicted? 😲
What’s amazing is he immediately announced a new car and the stock rebounded. ISTG, its like there nothing to be gained being honest, smart, and lawful when dumb criminals get rewarded openly for their scams.
He wants the board to pay him for his mistakes outside of Tesla. I say its time to reign in his conflicts of interests.
Well that’s embarrassing
aw yehh die!!!
