9 ms·

So he milked Tesla for another $2B to subsidize xAI, has dropped the models to 2 (3 and Y), revenue is down, growth is negative, BYD is eating Tesla for lunch,

• CursedSilicon 9mo ago
  Careful now. You'll get branded as a "Tesla hater" for stating facts like that. Or you'll get unflattering ad-homs comparing you to the Electrek guy
• cschmatzler 9mo ago
  I agree that this decision is insane and the whole Optimus/xAI bullshit is tiring, especially with the shareholders actually voting against the xAI investment, but you should try today's FSD. It's genuinely good and shouldn't be discarded wholesale because the guy sucks.
  • tonyedgecombe 9mo ago
    I'm not sure it is a bad decision given: "Tesla’s far more popular models are the 3 and Y, which accounted for 97% of the company’s 1.59 million deliveries last year."
    • rightbyte 9mo ago
      That just indicates that the other models were allready being wound down.
  • rswail 9mo ago
    The problem is not how well Tesla's FSD works, compared to other FSD from other manufacturers. The problem is that Musk has been promising it for almost 10 years and it is still not sufficiently stable to be rolled out and relied upon by car owners. FSD is only actually "ready" in terms of the whole "don't need to own a car for personal transport" when there can be passengers and no driver. When Mom can dispatch the family car to pick up the kids from school.
    • dubeye 9mo ago
      the main metric is fsd subs, the other stuff you mention is not as important
    • sejje 9mo ago
      > When Mom can dispatch the family car to pick up the kids from school. Tech level, I agree--that's FSD. But even if we had that tech today, Mom ain't sending the car without getting a police visit. You can't even let your kids go to the local playground alone anymore. They're not going to be captain and first mate alone in a vehicle if the Karens have anything to say about it.
      • 1718627440 9mo ago
        > You can't even let your kids go to the local playground alone anymore. They're not going to be captain and first mate alone in a vehicle if the Karens have anything to say about it. Yet they are perfectly fine to ride on their own for an hour in the train or tram.
  • ben_w 9mo ago
    If Tesla's FSD existed in isolation, it would be a fantastic breakthrough that signposted the future. If. It doesn't exist in isolation. The competition isn't just from the American firms, but also European and Chinese, and it isn't really possible to overlook Musk himself given both his long history of Musk over-promising and under-delivering, deflecting blame. Even the current release isn't what Musk was talking hopefully about a decade ago, e.g.: Our goal is, and I feel pretty good about this goal, that we'll be able to do a demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York, from home in LA to let's say dropping you off in Times Square in New York, and then having the car go park itself, by the end of next year. Without the need for a single touch, including the charger. - Oct 2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autonomous_Tesla_vehicles_by_Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono... Likewise, based on a video I saw recently from someone reproducing Tesla's 2016 "Paint It Black" drive, Tesla's AI is only now around the performance level that they faked in 2016. Don't get me wrong, that level was impressive… just, the world isn't isolated developments.
    • lnenad 9mo ago
      But it is still (unfortunately) the most competent publicly available ADAS.
  • ulfw 9mo ago
    Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) is officially classified as a Level 2 advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS). Despite its advanced capabilities, it requires the human driver to remain fully attentive, monitor the environment, and be ready to take control immediately. So it's literally nothing special compared to other manufacturers. I am happy to argue that's it's a better Level 2 than most others, sure. But it's still just that. No magic, no bullshitty "by 2017 the car will drive itself from New York to Los Angeles". No it hasn't and no it won't.
    • vardump 9mo ago
      ADAS levels are not only about technical capability, but also about who takes responsibility.
• lnsru 9mo ago
  The gamble with Cybertruck failed. It’s common sense, that such a vehicle will fail. The successful cars are made for masses and not for niche buyers. Common sense product could be something smaller than Model 3 for Europe and this car would eat Chinese for lunch. Expensive experiment failed, it’s time for consequences. Does Tesla have resources for another car experiment? Will it stay a car company?.. Or it will be now a manufacturer of robot soldiers?..
  • rswail 9mo ago
    BYD already have the Atto 1 (sub AUD30K here) as do other EV manufacturers (eg Nissan Leaf). Tesla could stop spending money on bullshit like the Cybertruck and spend it on vehicles that people actually need/want.
    • hashtag-til 9mo ago
      Don't forget Renault 5!
      • beAbU 9mo ago
        And the Renault 4, the Hyundai Inster, and the Dacia Spring, and the Citroën C3, Fiat 500e, Kia EV3, Leapmotor T03. There are heaps of small/subcompact EVs on the European market now, all with very competitive prices. The newer ones seem to be getting cheaper and cheaper. Honestly I reckon a Tesla M2 will have a hard time succeeding in this market.
      • raphaelj 9mo ago
        Interestingly, the Renault 5 Turbo 3E is more Cyberpunk than anything Tesla is making!
      • poulpy123 9mo ago
        Is it an good car ?
        • WorldMaker 9mo ago
• darksaints 9mo ago
  Forgot that the cybertruck was a sales flop and quality joke, and that the Tesla Semi is now the elephant in the room.
  • qingcharles 9mo ago
    But... the Roadster!
  • andix 9mo ago
    The Tesla Semi was groundbreaking when they revealed it nearly 10 years ago. But now there are dozens of electric truck models, and they get delivered in substantial quantities for over a year now. At least in Europe.
• haspok 9mo ago
  That's all good, don't worry, the stock is doing quite well, near its record high. A man jumping around in spandex is all they need.
  • piva00 9mo ago
    It's actually bizarre how seemingly nothing impacts $TSLA: profits down 46%, revenue down 3%, cutting successful product lines that used to sell quite a bit, a massively failed product in the Cybertruck, FSD promises still unfulfilled, and on top of all that US$ 2 billion siphoned away to another unrelated company. With all of that, the stock closed upwards on the after market hours. Perhaps only Musk's death could cause it to tank, would have never expected to see a cult of personality being run on the top of S&P 500 market caps, what a strange world...
    • 2muchcoffeeman 9mo ago
      It’s being valued on the hope that they will crack full self driving. People still believe they will crack it.
      • brightball 9mo ago
        Have you tried FSD on a HW4 model recently?
        • Deklomalo 9mo ago
          And? FSD is good in video, given. But its not full self driving as it still requires you to keep an eye on it. Real FSD for me at least, means I can sit in a 'car' open a laptop and work. But honestly working with a laptop in a car makes it dangerous when driving fast. For my work commute, I don't need a FSD. For my holiday also not. What I want is real and save FSD something which has proofen on the road that it is really really good. We are far away from this. 5 years minimum if not 10. And while Tesla is playing around with FSD and putting it now behind a subscription and fooled everyone with the promise of FSD with HW3 and below, it will not suddenly make Tesla the single leader in FSD at all. Waymo is working on it, Xpeng can do it, BMW, Mercedes and Nvidia. For Cybertaxies alone you need a lot of infrastructure (parking spots), cleaning crew, management software etc. you need the legal framework to be allowed to drive them (not going to happen anytime soon in europe) and then you only compete with normal taxis and uber.
• BenFranklin100 9mo ago
  That about sums it up.
• FL33TW00D 9mo ago
  How can you say camera only navigation won’t work with such finality when humans manage just fine every day! You literally have an existence proof of it working.
  • kleton 9mo ago
    It would be possible to build an ornithopter, evidenced by the existence of avians, but it turned out the easiest ways to make flying machines were otherwise.
    • fooker 9mo ago
      > easiest This is the keyword here, just because the other approach is harder does not mean it is impossible. It's a decent gamble to try and do things the hard way if it is possible to be deployed on cheaper/smaller hardware (eg: no lidars, just cameras).
      • fancyfredbot 9mo ago
        Is it still a decent gamble after you've been trying (and failing) for a decade, and numerous well funded competitors are going the easy way, and when there is huge upside to being first, and when the value of FSD easily covers the rapidly falling cost of LIDAR? No. It's not a good idea. It's not a good gamble. It's stupid, and the engineers can see it's stupid. A lot of them have quit, reducing the very slim chances of it working even further.
        • FL33TW00D 9mo ago
          But why is FSD "failing" is the key question. Hint: it's not the sensor inputs that are the bottleneck!
        • fooker 9mo ago
          Yeah you could be right. Not my area of expertise, so I’d rather not try to predict what will work and what won’t.
    • 9mo ago
• ako 9mo ago
  Even though tesla has only 2 models, i would still consider it for a new car, if not for Elon Musk. I have an Y, and it does everything i want it to do. Drives nicely, lots of (cargo) space, no friction charging when driving in Europe. Just plug it in a supercharger and it loads fast. No hassle with subscriptions and cards. Very reliable. With the 3 and the Y they're already catering for a large part of the market demand, but a smaller model, and a stationwagon might help get it up to 80%+ of all demand.
  • backscratches 9mo ago
    Up until recently teslas were regularly ranked around the world as the least reliable car brand. https://www.topspeed.com/germany-declares-tesla-model-y-is-least-reliable-vehicle-on-sale/ https://www.topspeed.com/germany-declares-tesla-model-y-is-l... and https://electrek.co/2025/12/11/tesla-ranks-dead-last-used-car-reliability-study-but-theres-catch/ https://electrek.co/2025/12/11/tesla-ranks-dead-last-used-ca...
    • ralfd 9mo ago
      That is bad. One issue seems to be that brakes of electric cars can get issues over time as they are not used enough (because instead of true braking the regenerative recuperation is used). Good though: If you are in an accident Teslas are the safest car one can buy https://www.ancap.com.au/media-and-gallery/media-releases/221c38 https://www.ancap.com.au/media-and-gallery/media-releases/22... > The Tesla Model Y achieved the highest overall weighted score of any vehicle assessed by ANCAP in 2025, recording strong performance across all areas of occupant protection and active safety technology.
    • arpinum 9mo ago
      TUV inspection failures are not a good indication of reliability. The lack of Tesla dealers and no need for yearly servicing means issues get caught at the inspection step for Tesla where for others they are caught at the pre-inspection step. Also, you need a breakdown of the failures as wear and consumables (washer fluid low, splits in wipers, headlight alignment, mobile phone holder in wrong location) can be a failure but would not be a good indicator for lack of quality.
• dizhn 9mo ago
  > BYD is eating Tesla for lunch For some reason my Youtube echo chamber is trying to convince me that BYD makes so many cars but cannot sell them. It's really bizarre. Other things it's trying to convince me of "Don't get an electric car. Period", "Ukraine won. Done deal", "Trump is devastated" about something else every day. Yes I do want the latter two to be true and it's playing on that but I don't get the BYD thing.
  • yorwba 9mo ago
    BYD is selling a lot of cars, but they're also making a lot more cars than they can sell at sticker price in China, as does every other Chinese car company. This oversupply leads to all kinds of distortions, like dealerships registering cars as "sold" to make their sales targets and then selling those brand-new cars as "used" at a discount. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/local-chinese-governments-promote-zero-mileage-used-car-exports-inflating-sales-2025-06-23/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/local-... Maybe your YouTube echo chamber additionally thinks that this will cause BYD to collapse, but I doubt that. There are about a hundred Chinese EV manufacturers in worse financial shape, who're likely to go bankrupt first, which should reduce oversupply enough for BYD to survive.
    • dizhn 9mo ago
      Right. I can imagine seeing lots full of unsold cars might be interpreted as "there is no demand", especially if they are trying to push a particular narrative.
    • maxglute 9mo ago
      There's not really NEV oversupply, the EV adoption curve will keep shooting up from 50% to 100%, many PRC EV companies will die from competition/pricewar consolidation not broader oversupply, since EV industrial base is still undersupply relative to 100% adoption curve. Oversupply is in legacy ICE displacement due to rapid domestic EV penetration. "Zero-milage used car" accounting trick is primarily to export excess capacity of gasoline cars (now that EV has taken over) that aren't moving domestically anymore. MOST of PRC exports are ICE, IIRC 60-80%, there's plenty of global demand for ICE still. Pushing domestic sku new car with crushed domestic demand as "used" exports where there's plenty of demand = meet sales target, but less through discounts but import fees engineering - used cars circumvent import duties, certifications, warranty requirements etc. It's a lifehack to unload domestic ICE inventory, not EV. This also likely transient effect because NEV transition in PRC happened so fast ICE manufacturer that target domestic market caught flat footed. They need a few years to either retool to EV or shift primarily to target export markets that still has appetite for affordable gasoline cars.
• maelito 9mo ago
  Also in Europe, an old state company called Renault is beating Tesla with the R5.
  • 3D30497420 9mo ago
    I just saw an R5 on the street in the bright green. Super cool looking car. There are a whole bunch of promising small EVs coming out in the EU. Hyundai Inster, VW ID.1, Kia EV2, etc.
    • philjohn 9mo ago
      Took one for a test drive - it was fun. The only downside is compared to some other compact/city EV's the legroom in the back is REALLY bad (and I'm not exactly tall). The legroom in my son's VW e-Up! is markedly better, despite it being a smaller car.
  • brightball 9mo ago
    Wasn’t Renault an F1 competitor for many years?
    • rkomorn 9mo ago
      It was but I'm not sure how that's relevant. Also not sure what the point of the "old state" part of the parent comment was. Renault is just another big carmaker.
      • kgwgk 9mo ago
        It has been listed in the stock market since 1996, the French state owns 15% now (and so does Nissan).
        • rkomorn 9mo ago
          And the point is?
• hnlmorg 9mo ago
  > the only thing keeping Tesla where it is is the bullshit dispersal field that surrounds Musk. I'm not 100% what you mean by "dispersal field", but outside of America, Elon's image in recent years has done more harm to Tesla than good.
  • Slartie 9mo ago
    I think he meant "keeping TSLA where it is". Tesla's sales have suffered, yes, and Elon's image is a significant contributor to that, besides all the reasons directly related to the cars themselves. But Tesla's stock price is still stuck in irrational heights, not even remotely justifiable by the company's performance. It just seems that people reconsider purchasing a physical object way quicker than they reconsider a stock investment. Maybe because the stock investment, especially in TSLA, is considered more like a gamble - "as long as others also think that this stock will skyrocket, even just because they think that others like me think it will skyrocket - as long as that's the case, I'm good with buying shares".
  • a2tech 9mo ago
    Tesla is a meme stock. Its being buoyed up by retail investors (Elon Musk fanbois) and, its been said, by Saudis and others who were trying to curry favor with him (possibly to try and get Trumps ear or other greasy bullshit). The stock is completely divorced from reality, which also attracts further investment--as long as its disconnected from the fundamentals of being a company that has to make a profit, you can argue its worth 100 million billion dollars or a googel, both are just as valid.
• bluescrn 9mo ago
  Yet he's still doing less damage than others chasing the AI bubble, as competition is growing in the EV market. Meanwhile, RIP Windows, Google Search, and maybe the entire games industry, maybe even then end of affordable home computing and being forced to rent computing power from 'the cloud'.
  • jfyi 9mo ago
    Google search? They already have an AI assistant at the top of every search result. Google is winning the AI race. They did with self driving and they are doing it with LLMs. They are sitting back quietly not making noise and then massively rocking the status quo regularly. I suspect they are going to do similar in the field of quantum computing.
  • mathw 9mo ago
    Less damage... with his CSAM-making bot. Yeah. Less damage.
• jjav 9mo ago
  > He doesn't have FSD, camera only navigation without sensor fusion with LIDAR will fail, the only thing keeping Tesla where it is is the bullshit dispersal field that surrounds Musk. So if I hear what you're saying, the stock will be up another 50% this year!
  • uyzstvqs 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    • InsideOutSanta 9mo ago
      Tesla has become a meme stock. The stock's performance is disconnected from the company's performance. I agree that Tesla has clear strengths, like the vast amount of data they've collected from their cars, and their charging network, but it's also obvious that something is going very, very wrong with that company. The stock value is not reflecting that.
      • moralestapia 9mo ago
        Tesla is trading at 10x its revenue, which is kind of OK, so there's that. (Do. Not. Look. At. P/E.)
        • malshe 9mo ago
          10x revenue for a company with declining sales is way overvalued.
    • p_l 9mo ago
      Fun fact - recently it was declared that both Tesla and CCP EVs are to be treated as completely untrusted and not accepted in any semi-secure facilities in Poland (so including pretty much any military location)
    • lisdexan 9mo ago
      >Tesla is leading and succeeding. People have faith in Musk as a leader. Nobody trusts CCP EVs, just like nobody trusts Huawei or Xiaomi phones. That sounds literally like a religious mantra. Do rational investors have 'faith' in the Costco CEO? Do they even know his name on top of their head?
• brightball 9mo ago
  I assume the S and X are being cancelled because 3 and Y are cannibalizing them with a very close product for a much better price point. Both have premium trim options. There’s very little difference in interior space. Aside from the doors on the X there’s just not much differentiation.
  • FeloniousHam 9mo ago
    I own the Y and drove the S as a loaner. The S is a noticeably better car. Also has 1000hp.
    • brightball 9mo ago
      I've got a 2025 Model 3 and was blown away by what a great vehicle it is for the price point. I'd be curious how much of a difference there is between and S and a Model 3 Performance.
      • FeloniousHam 9mo ago
        Even if the acceleration numbers were equivalent, the S is roomier, the seats are more comfortable, the dash screen is helpful, the ride is plush and quiet.
• torginus 9mo ago
  I have an opinion on EVs that basically the only models that make sense are the ones shaped like the 3 and Y. I feel like EVs are a checkbox product - you either make things 'good enough' for the customer - range, driving dynamics, power, charge speed, smart features, autonomous stuff or don't. To get range right you need a big battery and low drag and efficiency - the only way you can make the first 2 things in the same vehicle is to create an aerodynamic shape. This is a packaging problem, you need to make the car low, and long - so you stretch it out, so the battery can be thinner and no longer pushes up the rest of the vehicle. You also have a lot of place in the front for crash structures, and aero shaping. Finally since your car is big (D segment), you can charge more money as per conventions of the market. If you make a C or B segment car, you either reduce the battery size to save money, which makes it impractical for general use or pack in all that stuff into a smaller volume, and you get a car thats more expensive to make than a Model 3, while having worse drag and range, while the market expects you to charge less for it. These small cars only make sense with a small battery, but you wouldn't want one for yourself as a second car - hence the robotaxi. So no, your hypothetical Model 2 would not be cheaper if you didn't compromise it in some major way, which they dont wanna do. Upwards differentiation is also hard for Tesla - base models are already powerful enough, have all the smart features, they wont compromise on autonomous stuff etc. This is not only my opinion but the market's - S and X sold like 2 orders of magnitude less cars than the 3 and Y.
  • ben_w 9mo ago
    I think the S and X (and Roadster) sold less because they were expensive early models trying to create a "premium" halo-effect (if so, they succeeded). For range, how much range is sufficient? This may be one area where the EU and US need fundamentally different vehicles, as per the saying "in America 100 years is a long time, in Europe 100 miles is a long way". Certainly the EU market supports B-segment with 44kWh @ 320 km / 199 miles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroën_C3#Europe_(2024) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroën_C3#Europe_(2024)
  • SecretDreams 9mo ago
    > This is not only my opinion but the market's - S and X sold like 2 orders of magnitude less cars than the 3 and Y. They sold less because they're far more expensive and have to compete against much more well put together products. Meanwhile, their platforms are 10 years old and there are now other offerings in an overall niche field. You're right about aero to an extent, but aero is only felt on long highway drives and it can be mitigated somewhat with a couple more cells. Some consumers will choose style for a cost premium. Others will choose something more expensive simply because they don't want to support Musk.
• vcanales 9mo ago
  On top of that, the factory is getting converted to make robots...
• epolanski 9mo ago
  "How I feel about Tesla? I wouldn't buy it and I wouldn't short it". Charles Munger.
  • groundzeros2015 9mo ago
    He’s been dead for more than a year. Is this his 2018 take?
• ForHackernews 9mo ago
  SpaceX is going to go public so he doesn't need Tesla any more.
• londons_explore 9mo ago
  > camera only navigation without sensor fusion with LIDAR will fail I'm not so sure on this one. I think we'll see it this year. It will have embarrassing bugs (ie. running over cats which are hiding under the car) and we'll see lots of issues to begin with (ie. the car stops in the middle of a freeway because a camera got splattered with mud). But I think they'll achieve the goal of something that can be deployed fairly widespread without public outrage causing it to be banned without lidar.
  • brk 9mo ago
    It's been "coming this year" for almost a decade now. The bugs you describe are not embarrassing, they are critical issues that prevent it from being called FSD.
    • londons_explore 9mo ago
      This is the first year that I personally think that it will come this year... Actions speak louder than words, and the fact that a 'cybercab' production line is firing up this year is also a strong indicator - the fact they didn't do that 5 years ago means tesla leadership didn't think it was going to work back then. 'cybercab' wouldn't sell well as a 2 seater if it couldn't self drive. (although the actual mass production will be delayed till next year is my guess, but we'll see model 3 or y being used for a taxi service in the meantime)
      • brk 9mo ago
        It will be interesting to see. At this point, I think much of what is coming out of Tesla in both words and actions is stock price theater. They "fired up" a Cybertruck production line and we all see how that went.
  • vimda 9mo ago
    How are those "bugs" not immediately disqualifying? "Move fast and break things" is not an acceptable strategy for controlling 2 tonne bricks hurtling down the freeway
• ACCount37 9mo ago
  This LIDAR wank annoys me. If you can train a policy that drives well on cameras, you can get self-driving. If you can't, you're fucked, and no amount of extra sensors will save you. Self-driving isn't a sensor problem. It always was, is, and always will be an AI problem. No amount of LIDAR engineering will ever get you a LIDAR that outputs ground truth steering commands. The best you'll ever get is noisy depth estimate speckles that you'll have to massage with, guess what, AI, to get them to do anything of use. Sensor suite choice is an aside. Camera only 360 coverage? Good enough to move on. The rest of the problem lies with AI.
  • lateforwork 9mo ago
    Even the best AI can't drive without good sensors. Cameras have to guess distance and they fail when there is insufficient contrast, direct sunlight and so on. LiDARs don't have to guess distance.
    • slfnflctd 9mo ago
      Cameras also fail when weather conditions cake your car in snow and/or mud while you're driving. Actually, from what I just looked up, this is an issue with LiDAR as well. So it seems to me like we don't even have the sensors we need to do this properly yet, unless we can somehow make them all self-cleaning. It always goes back to my long standing belief that we need dedicated lanes with roadside RFID tags to really make this self driving thing work well enough.
      • ACCount37 9mo ago
        Nah. That's a common "thought about it for 15 seconds but not 15 minutes" mistake. Making a car that drives well on arbitrary roads is freakishly hard. Having to adapt every single road in the world before even a single self-driving car can use them? That's a task that makes the previous one look easy. Learned sensor fusion policy that can compensate for partial sensor degradation, detect severe dropout, and handle both safely? Very hard. Getting the world that can't fix the low tech potholes on every other road to set up and maintain machine specific infrastructure everywhere? A nonstarter.
• sbaildon 9mo ago
  The linked article is clear as to why the S and X don’t need to be in Tesla’s product line > Tesla’s far more popular models are the 3 and Y, which accounted for 97% of the company’s 1.59 million deliveries last year
  • bearjaws 9mo ago
    Why are they still making the cybertruck then? I see way more Model S and X than Cybertruck.
    • dmix 9mo ago
      Regardless, it's probably better to have one flashy car that doesn't sell big numbers than 3. They might treat it as their high end test car or something or plan to figure out a new top tier model.
    • groundzeros2015 9mo ago
      Probably because it’s a segment they think they can grow and is a new vehicle type, rather than redundant.
    • assimpleaspossi 9mo ago
      Probably the same reason Ford makes one, too.
      • quest88 9mo ago
        Ford recently stopped it. https://www.npr.org/2025/12/15/nx-s1-5645147/ford-discontinues-all-electric-f-150-lightning https://www.npr.org/2025/12/15/nx-s1-5645147/ford-discontinu...
• korp 9mo ago
  Sounds like you get your news from Reddit.
• ouchhhlib 9mo ago
  775 bn wbu https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/ https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/
• deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]