Elon Musk delivers a speech at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas on June 13, 2024.
Source: Tesla Inc.
Tesla Second-quarter earnings will be released after the bell on Tuesday. The company’s July 2 vehicle delivery report beat analysts’ expectations but was still down from a year earlier.
Tuesday’s earnings call will give investors a better understanding of what Chief Executive Elon Musk and the company are doing to return to growth after reporting the biggest drop in first-quarter revenue since 2012.
Some institutional investors will focus on the health of Tesla’s gross margins and operating expenses after the company implemented massive layoffs and offered price cuts and other incentives to boost electric vehicle sales.
As of Monday, analysts expected Tesla to report adjusted earnings per share of 62 cents for the fiscal year ending June 30 on revenue of $24.77 billion, according to the London Stock Exchange.
Submitted by retail investors question Through the Say Technologies platform in advance, we hope to get answers about the company’s plans to delay the launch of the “dedicated robot taxi” CyberCab and the progress of its autonomous driving technology. They are also seeking details about Tesla’s near-term priorities, the prospects for its fast-growing battery storage business and the status of a new factory it has promised to build in Monterrey, Mexico.
Tesla shareholders also raised political concerns ahead of the call, given Musk’s recent support for former President Trump and the CEO’s emergence as a huge donor to the Republican Party during this presidential election cycle.
One asked: “Do you believe the Trump/Vance administration will support Tesla and electric vehicles? Based on your conversations, how confident are you?” Another asked: “What about Elon Musk? Can you support/fund a political party that denies climate change while Tesla’s mission statement is directly about combating climate change?”
Republican presidential candidate Trump said he would eliminate subsidies and other federal programs specifically to help buyers and manufacturers of pure electric vehicles, but not traditional automakers.
Reuters reported last week that Musk’s political and polarizing rhetoric “raised concerns about Tesla’s brand, especially in liberal states like California, which accounts for 10% of the company’s global deliveries.” According to the California New Car Dealers Association, Tesla registrations in the state fell to 52,211 vehicles in the second quarter.
Investors also submitted questions through Say Technologies about Tesla’s progress in developing humanoid robots that the company plans to use in its factories.
Musk claimed at the annual shareholder meeting in June that Tesla’s Optimus robot would be the catalyst that one day boosts the company’s market value to an astronomical $25 trillion. Musk also called himself “morbidly optimistic” at that meeting.
humanoid robot
Tesla’s “Optimus Prime” Tesla Bot humanoid robot is displayed at the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, China, on July 6, 2023.
Cost Photo | Noor Photo | Getty Images
Earlier on Monday, Musk said on social media Post on XTesla’s Optimus humanoid robot will be “genuinely useful” and “produced in small quantities” for Tesla’s internal use next year. He added that they were “hopefully” ready for higher volume production and could be used by “other companies in 2026.”
In April, Musk told Tesla shareholders during a first-quarter earnings call that Optimus would be “in limited production at the natural factory itself, performing useful tasks by the end of the year” and that Tesla “may be able to bring it to For sale” to the end of next year. “
Tesla is a latecomer among technology companies developing humanoid robots. Its Optimus competitors include Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, Unitree, etc. Robotics companies such as Sanctuary, Apptronik, 1X and Fourier are also working on dexterous manipulation hardware that mimics the human hand.
Musk has long promised investors that future Tesla products or services would be ready soon, even if they didn’t exist outside of design concepts.
For example, the billionaire executive promoted the next-generation Roadster concept at an event in November 2017, and again in a series of tweets in June 2018. He said at the time that “the SpaceX option package for the new Tesla Roadster will include about 10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around the car.” He wrote at the time that the engines would increase speed and “even allow Teslas to fly ”. Six years later, the updated Roadster still hasn’t entered production, even though the electric car maker has taken $250,000 deposits from customers who want to buy one.
As another example, in 2015, Musk told shareholders that Tesla cars would achieve “fully autonomous driving” within three years. In 2016, Musk said that by the end of 2017, Tesla vehicles would be able to drive off-road without any human intervention. funds.
The promises of these investors have yet to materialize.
Tesla has recently made major changes to its driver assistance software, sold in the United States as Autopilot and FSD-S (Full Self-Driving Supervision), earning excitement and praise from the automaker’s many fans and owners.
Musk and other top executives are expected to discuss the challenges the company faces before it can deliver on these long-term self-driving promises during a conference call on Tuesday.