Elon Musk is counting on full-self driving and other new technologies and vehicles at Tesla to provide the “wow factor” that will continue to drive the electric carmaker’s profit engine.
Hyunjoo Jin and Akash Sriram for Reuters:
Tesla on Wednesday doubled down on the price war it started at the end of last year, as Musk said the company would prioritize sales growth ahead of profit. In the first quarter, Tesla posted its lowest quarterly gross profit margin in two years.
“The market wants to see that Tesla management has a tangible plan to boost automotive gross margins and companywide operating profit margins over the coming quarters and in the next year or so,” said Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein. “I also think the market wants to see a growth plan that does not involve continuous price cuts.”
Musk brushed aside those fears on Wednesday, saying the company this year would likely achieve full self driving and that would be a big profit generator. Musk has missed his previous targets to achieve self-driving capability, dating back years.
“We’re the only ones making cars that technically, we could sell for zero profit for now and then yield actually tremendous economics in the future through autonomy,” he told analysts on a conference call on Wednesday. “I’m not sure how many people will appreciate the profundity of what I’ve just said, but it is extremely significant.”
MacDailyNews Note: We’ll believe in full self-driving when we see it operating safely in real-life action.
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Check out videos of Tesla Full Self Driving software in action by Whole Mars Catalog on YouTube and Twitter. The current state of FSD Beta will blow your mind. It’s nearly ready for mass deployment.
I had been thinking this might be a buying opportunity for the stock, but if the planned catalyst for profit is reliable FSD this year that’s too much of a gamble.
It’s a very innovative company with great future prospects, the X-factor is that the mass media progs all hate Musk and want to destroy him. It’s all over Apple News too, fake, negative stories quoting random Twitter users and bystanders as bell-weathers of Tesla’s/SpaceX’s/Musk’s demise. It’s the same mechanism used against Trump and any public figure that doesn’t worship leftist psychopathy.
It’s no different from the “Apple is doomed” commentary of the last 36 years.
He was loved by most progs before taking over TWTR. He then greatly disrupted one of streams of mis-info they treasured. After that, he was evil and his cars sucked.
Was just in a Model 3 Uber and the driver used the auto drive while he hunted something on his phone. So…
How bad was the accident?