Is Elon Musk hurting Tesla? (Mod Note Post #1)

Musk has been saying that for years. His reasoning is that if you own a Tesla with FSD, you are allowed to enter it into the fleet of robotaxis. The car will make you a chunk of money while you are not using it. As opposed to any other car, which generates no revenue so just depreciates.

And given his long term history of making promises that don't come to fruition, I'm inclined to say they're false promises.

insurance companies will have a big say in your car moonlighting as a taxi.

Under current regulations, it’s the provider of level 3 driverless cars that assume the insurance liability, and not you. It’s the one driving after all.
It’s a huge hurdle, but ensures the manufacturers don’t cut corners when perfecting the tech. cough cough

Despite a reported 71 percent drop in profits and falling sales for Tesla's cars and Cybertruck in April, Musk asserted the company's future is "brighter than ever," envisioning Tesla as the world's leading robotics company. He claims demand for his robots will be "insatiable," potentially numbering "tens of billions" and becoming akin to personal C-3PO or R2-D2 units. He urged investors to focus on the value of Tesla's "affordable AI-powered robots" rather than the non-autonomous car business.

The article chronologically reviews 19 years of Musk's unfulfilled promises:

Affordable Family Car (2006-present): In 2006, Musk promised a low-cost family car, reiterated in 2016 for "Master Plan, Part Deux." Although he stated in January this year that production would begin in the second half of 2025, Reuters reported in April that these plans were scrapped in favour of focusing on robotaxis. Musk denied this, but Reuters stood by its report.

Hyperloop (2013-2023): Musk proposed the Hyperloop in 2013, envisioning capsules travelling at over 600 miles per hour. Despite claims as late as 2022 that it could connect Boston and New York City in under half an hour, the project was shuttered in 2023. A passenger test achieved a speed of 107 mph, significantly less than proposed. It's alleged Musk floated the idea to undermine California's high-speed rail project.

Full Self-Driving (2013-present): Musk made numerous predictions about achieving FSD, consistently stating it would be ready within "about three years" or "next year."

• In 2013, he suggested 90 percent autonomous miles within three years.
• In October 2015, he promised full autonomy in "about three years," revised to "approximately two years" by December 2015.
• January 2016 saw a prediction of summoning cars from across the country within two years.
• June 2016: FSD was a "basically solved problem," less than two years away.
• November 2018: FSD by "next year."
• January 2019: FSD by the "end of this year," with certainty a month later.
• April 2019: "Feature-complete in self-driving this year," and no need to touch the wheel by the second quarter of next year.
• January 2021: Confident the car would drive itself with "reliability in excess of a human this year," but by December, he said it was "quite likely" next year.
• May 2023: Full autonomy would happen "this year."

Autonomous Charging (2016): Musk aimed for a full autonomous cross-country drive from LA to New York, including self-charging, by the end of 2017. A "snake-like" charger was trialled but never produced.

The Boring Company (2017-present): Musk introduced the concept of underground tunnels for cars travelling at 125 mph, aiming to build "one mile of tunnel per week." So far, only the 1.7-mile LVCC Loop in Las Vegas exists, where chauffeur-driven Teslas travel at 15 mph when congested.

Neuralink Brain Chips (2017-present): Musk predicted Neuralink's first product in "about four years" in 2017. Seven years later, in 2024, the first human trial subject received an implant.

Tesla Self-Delivery (2018): Musk stated Teslas would be self-delivered to customers' doors in "about a year."

One Million Robotaxis (2019): Musk claimed "over a million robotaxis on the road" by 2020. In April this year, he announced a robotaxi service unveiling in Austin, Texas, next month, starting with up to 20 Model Y vehicles, a stark contrast to his 2019 prediction.

Level 5 Autonomy (2020): Musk stated Level 5 autonomy would happen "this year" in July 2020, and was "100 percent" confident it would happen next year in December 2020. As recently as April this year, he predicted millions of fully autonomous Teslas in the second half of next year.

Optimus Humanoid Robots (2021-present): Musk has promised a "robot buddy" that can clean, mow lawns, walk dogs, teach, and babysit, with production of 5,000 this year and 50,000 next year. He later escalated this to "tens of millions" or "maybe 100 million robots a year." There is no launch date yet.

Just looking at model Y sales in Ireland for Jan-Apr of the 3 years it’s been on sale, and it’s never really been much, I don’t know why I thought it was more, maybe it’s because I’m in Dublin commuter-land and we have a bunch of them about:

2023: 710

2024: 369

2025: 242

The juniper would need to be an overwhelming sales success in Ireland for it to surpass the one year that the Y sold in any meaningful volume, 2023 total sales: 2,200. (2024 was 1,200).

It’s always been surprising to me that a medium suv and the biggest selling car on the planet never sold at all here really, irrespective of the musk stuff

63% of all Y’s 23-25 were registered in Dublin, and that rises to 90% if you include the 3 Dublin commuter counties of Meath Kildare & Wicklow, and also include Cork.

for sure, but I’d call it upper levels of EV suitability.

As I said, I live in commuter-land, probably 20km from the Liffey, and I’d say every 4th house has some sort of BEV. It’s the most suitable place in the country to own an EV.

When I travel to Granny’s house 160km away, I can hardly remember ever seeing one single EV that was owned locally.

buying e.g. a Toyota or a VW is a country-wide thing, but I get the impression that buying a Tesla is seen as more of ‘a Dublin thing’ (which is bourne out in the numbers)

Not sure why it's the most suitable? Isn't the major factor in owning an EV the ability to install a charger? And the areas with the most lack in that regard are big cities with limited or no off street parking in many areas.

Commuting distances are generally not large outside Dublin whereas there can be great distances from the dormitory counties like Wicklow, Meath and Kildare. Round trip commutes of >100km are routine.

I would have considered financial considerations would be (up to now) much more a factor than commuting distance or suitability (whatever that means). Dublin and surrounding counties being more affluent.

It's also a matter of income and affordability. Incomes and Disposable incomes are significantly higher in Dublin than the rest of the country. Dublin has a lot of tech and financial services companies and a lot of people working in those sectors in my experience are more likely to be 'early adopters' or are more receptive to Teslas/EVs. So when your colleague buys one, then another colleague and so on, they're talking about how nice they are to drive, low running costs etc.

That might make sense in theory, except the sales numbers say that it’s exactly the opposite, and countryside dwellers have almost no interest in EVs, with 25% of EV sales (and only 10% of Tesla’s) across 21 rural counties.

Sticking to the topic, Tesla have a sales network problem of course, which might explain the gap in rural sales.

It's an EV issue in general, VW in your example are at nearly 75% of their EVs being sold in the counties you listed vs around 60% of overall sales.

Not as high a disparity as Tesla probably due to a wider dealer network, wider range of cars a huge fleet on the road available for trading up and their own bank which means they're really just leasing the cars

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/30/elon-musk-trump-drug-use

Musk's drug use getting a bit more attention. Apparently he's damaged his bladder from the amount of ketamine he takes... If this was a musician, it would be going towards a rock bottom point tbh.

Over what time period are the Tesla shares up? It’s meaningless to make the statement “Stock price is up” without stating a time period.

Let’s take your sample in the world where Tesla sales are actually up this quarter compared to the same quarter last year: Ireland. By what, 5%?

In comparison, EV sales are up by 26% in this country.

5% is worrying in comparison.

Tesla need a CEO who will spend their full time with the company and not spend their days trying their hand at politics and amplifying eejits like Nigel Farage and Enoch Burke.

it’s a (potentially) fascinating turnaround in someone’s fortunes in just 48 hours.

He’ll get nothing from the US government in this Trump term without a pretty serious act of contrition - and lets be clear, both the republicans and democrats will be looking for Musks financial backing, so a truce isn’t beyond reason.

It’ll be hard to sell EVs in America’s without the incentives that Trumps bill removes, and impossible to send anything to space, never mind Mars, without NASA strict approval.

That said, the US have no other options for manned space travel to the ISS (alternatives are still years away, and they won’t buy seats from the Russians) , so they’ll keep using SpaceX for sure, irrespective of what Musk said last night.

doesn’t seem like a very solid investment thesis tbh.

That said, Tesla is a pure momentum play. It’s not possible to do any rational valuation/analysis on it.

You believe in elons vision, or you don’t own the shares. Pretty simple.

All the meme cryptos, doge etc dropping hard too, along with anything Trump related - DJT, the Trump and Melanie memecoins, News Max shares etc etc - it’s one big dumpster fire overnight 🔥