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quote from Tesla latest earnings call, at 04 min.. "Because we're really moving into a future that is based on autonomy and so if you're interested in buying a

quote from Tesla latest earnings call, at 04 min.. "Because we're really moving into a future that is based on autonomy and so if you're interested in buying a Model S and X, now would be the time to order it, because we expect to wind down S and X production in next quarter and basically stop production of Model S and X next quarter. We'll obviously continue to support the Model S and X programs for as long as people have the vehicles, but we're gonna take the Model S and X production space in our Fremont factory and convert that into an Optimus factory, which will... with the long-term goal of having 1 million units a year of Optimus robots in the current S/X space in Fremont."

illwrks 8mo ago
So no parts when they are eventually needed!
- iknowstuff 8mo ago
  Do manufacturers tend to pump out parts for old models after they are superseded by newer ones?
  - Qwertious 8mo ago
    Their subcontractors do.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - rootusrootus 8mo ago
    IIRC, by law manufacturers are required to maintain parts and service for vehicles for a minimum of 10 years. Whether superseded, discontinued, whatever.
    - afavour 8mo ago
      But what happens when Musk decides the law doesn't apply to him...
      - rvnx 8mo ago
        The law will adapt, same as it adapted for OpenAI/Anthropic when they started doing piracy to train their LLMs Nvidia started funding piracy sites too; https://torrentfreak.com/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books/ https://torrentfreak.com/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-s... If you are billionaire+ it's "legal", and if not at least financially worth it + almost never punishment on management. If you are worth xx'000 you personally go to jail, you get into very big troubles, and get ruined.
        hvb2 8mo ago
        No? The law is just the law. But until someone actually gets a judge to rule that what they did is illegal...
        rvnx 8mo ago
        Buying a 30M USD mansion to the daughter of the judge is going to fix that.
        brnt 8mo ago
        In a banana republic.
        lovich 8mo ago
        Do you actually look at the current US landscape and think “the law is just the law” for the rich and poor alike? Getting a judge to rule on something is also part of that “the law is just the law” and it’s obvious that judges are more willing to rule on cases for the poor and powerless than the rich and connected.
        hvb2 8mo ago
    - wat10000 8mo ago
      This is an urban legend. Safety defects have to be remedied by the manufacturer for a period of 10 years, but that remedy doesn't have to involve replacement parts. https://www.nhtsa.gov/interpretations/timereplcepartpollak12-03 https://www.nhtsa.gov/interpretations/timereplcepartpollak12...
      - rootusrootus 8mo ago
        I agree, looks like you are correct. It seems that it is just one of those things that manufacturers have agreed to do voluntarily, in the absence of a specific law. I imagine they have calculated that the loss of goodwill from abandoning a product quickly would outweigh the cost savings (especially since there is so much sharing of parts that keeping a few specialty components on hand is not going to move the needle much).
        bgarbiak 8mo ago
        It’s not about goodwill. Selling parts is simply a good business. The margins at authorized dealers are crazy.
  - CodingJeebus 8mo ago
    For traditional vehicles, there's typically a large marketplace of first-party and third-party auto parts for vehicles going back several years. Depends on the make and model, but usually yes. That said, Tesla is a very unusual automaker in most senses and I'm not sure what their aftermarket parts situation is.
    - carefree-bob 8mo ago
      This is a concern for me not only for the Tesla but for the new Chinese manufacturers. When I've talked to owners of these cars (in other countries), the consensus seems to be "you use it for 5 years and then throw it away". Not because the car has poor build quality, but because there aren't local mechanics that can service it, it's impossible to find documentation such as torque specs and service procedures for anything but trivial stuff you'd find in an owner's manual, and it is very hard to find parts. It seems like an incredible waste to throw away a car after 5 years. A big part of what I look for in a car is a long lasting manufacturer that publishes to end users technical and repair information, including part numbers and procedures, together with a healthy third party part supplier ecosystem and independent repair infrastructure. That doesn't mean that information needs to be available for free or that the parts themselves are cheap -- Volvo parts are not cheap -- but they are available and the information, engine specifications, repair manuals and workshop manuals are available. If you don't have that, I'm not interested in buying the car. A car is far too expensive to treat as a disposable consumer good. I'm worried that more and more, manufacturers are locking down their systems, putting information behind paywalls where you can't make your own backup copy, and doing things like adding DRM to their parts to prevent indy shops from working on them.
  - larsnystrom 8mo ago
    It’s still possible to order new and original parts for SAAB models, almost 20 years after they went under. The spare parts are made by a separate company which is still going.
  - carefree-bob 8mo ago
    Yes, because they make money selling the parts, and there are warranty requirements that are hard to fulfill if you don't have parts. Often after a decade or so, companies will sell the designs to dedicated parts makers. For example, Volvo has Volvo Classic Parts, and they even have a reman program, and will even 3D print parts not available. Mercedes has Mercedes Classic Parts. Chrysler has MOPAR, etc. Here you can browse parts for a 1968 Mercedes SEL: https://classicparts.mbusa.com/c-280sel-223 https://classicparts.mbusa.com/c-280sel-223 If you are a business, the costs of designing the part has already been paid, if you can sell the design and get some royalty payments, why wouldn't you turn those old plans into cash? And of course there is a huge industry of Chinese clones and other suppliers that will provide replacement parts that are not genuine. Be prepared to pay, though :)
    - iknowstuff 8mo ago
      This reminds me that in the early days of Tesla they were complaining about the difficulty of competing on pricing with established automakers because they subsidize the cost of the vehicle at sale with profits from selling parts/service - a stream of revenue unavailable to a startup
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - hhh 8mo ago
    Yes. Auto manufacturers tend to have contracts with different tiered automotive suppliers that have heavy-hitting production lines for current vehicles, and also maintain a 'service' department where these style of products are produced. The tools for producing these parts have really good lifetimes, and you can take the tooling and put it into whatever mold machine you have written the program for, or set it up for another machine. In my experience service departments are basically a large warehouse with a small set of assembly machines running at any given time where you are setting up time to produce some random part for a day or two and then change to something else, whereas the real production assembly lines are designed to produce as many of X part for the latest car as possible. Several of the old mold machines where I worked that made parts for this service business ran DOS, with PCMCIA cards to load programs. I helped a process engineer get these PCMCIA cards working on his contraband laptop running win98 (obviously banned from the network) because we could never get them working with anything newer. This was in like 2021.
  - JKCalhoun 8mo ago
    A lot of parts are refurbished too. Transmissions, differentials for example.
  - jandrese 8mo ago
    It depends. Lots of parts are shared by multiple models or even companies so it may be the case that nobody has made for example a new water pump specifically for your car for 10 years, but the design is the same as the 2025 something else so you can just use that one. There are also warehouses with older parts that can last for years. You can also pull replacements from junked cars that have not been crushed yet. In some cases third parties manufacture replacement parts when the supply runs out, but those replacements are often of poor quality and sometimes are only vaguely shaped correctly and require extra work to actually fit on your vehicle. Keeping old cars running is a challenge, especially if the car was obscure when it was new.
- CamperBob2 8mo ago
  Wait, wait, don't tell me, let me guess: "The robots will make their own replacement parts," stated Musk.
rvnx 8mo ago
So Tesla abandons cars ? Keeps only the Cybertruck ?
- tavavex 8mo ago
  No, they'll still be making the Model 3.
  - rvnx 8mo ago
    Thanks
  - BurningFrog 8mo ago
    They'll also keep making Model Y, the most sold car model in the world.
    - Marsymars 8mo ago
      * As claimed by Musk.
    - tzs 8mo ago
      They are going to have a hard time keeping it that way in 2026, since they were just barely ahead of both #2 and #3 (Toyota Corolla and Toyota RAV4), and as far as I know Toyota hasn't done anything to annoy a large fraction of the demographics that have bought the most of their cars in recent years.
techblueberry 8mo ago
I genuinely don't understand, is the Optimus real? Isn’t there a like 10 to 1 ratio of Boston Robotics demos to Optimus demos? Has it ever been verified to actually do anything? Boston Robotics robots are over there doing backflips and the only thing I’ve seen Optimus do is in extremely controlled environments.
- RyanOD 8mo ago
  I second this. Is there anyone who actually believes Optimus is going to be a success and has any sort of data to back that up? I'm not in robotics, but I look at humanoid robots and, while incredible examples of engineering know-how, they seem to be a long way from useful in commercial applications. Am I jhust ignorant of their true value? Seems like all I ever see them doing is parkour.
  - SR2Z 8mo ago
    There is some value in producing a lot of solid hardware, but nowhere even close to Tesla's absurd valuation. I think they are perfectly capable of writing software to drive the robot - if Musk doesn't stick his head in like he did with LIDAR/FSD and impose some stupid requirement that handicaps the product.
    - techblueberry 8mo ago
      But how would we evaluate "perfectly capable" without evidence, there's just been no evidence they've done anything so far right? Am I missing something? I guess looking closer it was only announced four years ago. But it seems like it's only been smoke and mirrors so far.
      - SR2Z 8mo ago
        I think FSD is very impressive, even if it is still pretty unsafe. Tesla clearly has at least some AI chops, and if Musk can bullshit for long enough, they might have enough time to make these robots more than just props.
barbazoo 8mo ago
Autonomy or robots? Because autonomy very much still includes (personal) transportation?
NoPicklez 8mo ago
What is this supposed to mean in the sense of Tesla being in the car game for the long haul? They're stopping production of 2 of their oldest model cars, but they're continuing to make and sell their most popular models globally the 3 and the Y. The model S and X are their oldest most expensive models that aren't even sold everywhere in the world. However the Model 3 and the Model Y are, of which the Model Y was the most popular car model sold globally of any manufacturer. In Australia I see Model 3s and Model Ys everywhere. Stopping production of the S and the X, you wouldn't even notice it here.

illwrks 8mo ago

So no parts when they are eventually needed!

iknowstuff 8mo ago
Do manufacturers tend to pump out parts for old models after they are superseded by newer ones?
- Qwertious 8mo ago
  Their subcontractors do.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- rootusrootus 8mo ago
  IIRC, by law manufacturers are required to maintain parts and service for vehicles for a minimum of 10 years. Whether superseded, discontinued, whatever.
  - afavour 8mo ago
    But what happens when Musk decides the law doesn't apply to him...
    - rvnx 8mo ago
      The law will adapt, same as it adapted for OpenAI/Anthropic when they started doing piracy to train their LLMs Nvidia started funding piracy sites too; https://torrentfreak.com/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books/ https://torrentfreak.com/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-s... If you are billionaire+ it's "legal", and if not at least financially worth it + almost never punishment on management. If you are worth xx'000 you personally go to jail, you get into very big troubles, and get ruined.
      - hvb2 8mo ago
        No? The law is just the law. But until someone actually gets a judge to rule that what they did is illegal...
        rvnx 8mo ago
        Buying a 30M USD mansion to the daughter of the judge is going to fix that.
        brnt 8mo ago
        In a banana republic.
        lovich 8mo ago
        Do you actually look at the current US landscape and think “the law is just the law” for the rich and poor alike? Getting a judge to rule on something is also part of that “the law is just the law” and it’s obvious that judges are more willing to rule on cases for the poor and powerless than the rich and connected.
        hvb2 8mo ago
  - wat10000 8mo ago
    This is an urban legend. Safety defects have to be remedied by the manufacturer for a period of 10 years, but that remedy doesn't have to involve replacement parts. https://www.nhtsa.gov/interpretations/timereplcepartpollak12-03 https://www.nhtsa.gov/interpretations/timereplcepartpollak12...
    - rootusrootus 8mo ago
      I agree, looks like you are correct. It seems that it is just one of those things that manufacturers have agreed to do voluntarily, in the absence of a specific law. I imagine they have calculated that the loss of goodwill from abandoning a product quickly would outweigh the cost savings (especially since there is so much sharing of parts that keeping a few specialty components on hand is not going to move the needle much).
      - bgarbiak 8mo ago
        It’s not about goodwill. Selling parts is simply a good business. The margins at authorized dealers are crazy.
- CodingJeebus 8mo ago
  For traditional vehicles, there's typically a large marketplace of first-party and third-party auto parts for vehicles going back several years. Depends on the make and model, but usually yes. That said, Tesla is a very unusual automaker in most senses and I'm not sure what their aftermarket parts situation is.
  - carefree-bob 8mo ago
    This is a concern for me not only for the Tesla but for the new Chinese manufacturers. When I've talked to owners of these cars (in other countries), the consensus seems to be "you use it for 5 years and then throw it away". Not because the car has poor build quality, but because there aren't local mechanics that can service it, it's impossible to find documentation such as torque specs and service procedures for anything but trivial stuff you'd find in an owner's manual, and it is very hard to find parts. It seems like an incredible waste to throw away a car after 5 years. A big part of what I look for in a car is a long lasting manufacturer that publishes to end users technical and repair information, including part numbers and procedures, together with a healthy third party part supplier ecosystem and independent repair infrastructure. That doesn't mean that information needs to be available for free or that the parts themselves are cheap -- Volvo parts are not cheap -- but they are available and the information, engine specifications, repair manuals and workshop manuals are available. If you don't have that, I'm not interested in buying the car. A car is far too expensive to treat as a disposable consumer good. I'm worried that more and more, manufacturers are locking down their systems, putting information behind paywalls where you can't make your own backup copy, and doing things like adding DRM to their parts to prevent indy shops from working on them.
- larsnystrom 8mo ago
  It’s still possible to order new and original parts for SAAB models, almost 20 years after they went under. The spare parts are made by a separate company which is still going.
- carefree-bob 8mo ago
  Yes, because they make money selling the parts, and there are warranty requirements that are hard to fulfill if you don't have parts. Often after a decade or so, companies will sell the designs to dedicated parts makers. For example, Volvo has Volvo Classic Parts, and they even have a reman program, and will even 3D print parts not available. Mercedes has Mercedes Classic Parts. Chrysler has MOPAR, etc. Here you can browse parts for a 1968 Mercedes SEL: https://classicparts.mbusa.com/c-280sel-223 https://classicparts.mbusa.com/c-280sel-223 If you are a business, the costs of designing the part has already been paid, if you can sell the design and get some royalty payments, why wouldn't you turn those old plans into cash? And of course there is a huge industry of Chinese clones and other suppliers that will provide replacement parts that are not genuine. Be prepared to pay, though :)
  - iknowstuff 8mo ago
    This reminds me that in the early days of Tesla they were complaining about the difficulty of competing on pricing with established automakers because they subsidize the cost of the vehicle at sale with profits from selling parts/service - a stream of revenue unavailable to a startup
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- hhh 8mo ago
  Yes. Auto manufacturers tend to have contracts with different tiered automotive suppliers that have heavy-hitting production lines for current vehicles, and also maintain a 'service' department where these style of products are produced. The tools for producing these parts have really good lifetimes, and you can take the tooling and put it into whatever mold machine you have written the program for, or set it up for another machine. In my experience service departments are basically a large warehouse with a small set of assembly machines running at any given time where you are setting up time to produce some random part for a day or two and then change to something else, whereas the real production assembly lines are designed to produce as many of X part for the latest car as possible. Several of the old mold machines where I worked that made parts for this service business ran DOS, with PCMCIA cards to load programs. I helped a process engineer get these PCMCIA cards working on his contraband laptop running win98 (obviously banned from the network) because we could never get them working with anything newer. This was in like 2021.
- JKCalhoun 8mo ago
  A lot of parts are refurbished too. Transmissions, differentials for example.
- jandrese 8mo ago
  It depends. Lots of parts are shared by multiple models or even companies so it may be the case that nobody has made for example a new water pump specifically for your car for 10 years, but the design is the same as the 2025 something else so you can just use that one. There are also warehouses with older parts that can last for years. You can also pull replacements from junked cars that have not been crushed yet. In some cases third parties manufacture replacement parts when the supply runs out, but those replacements are often of poor quality and sometimes are only vaguely shaped correctly and require extra work to actually fit on your vehicle. Keeping old cars running is a challenge, especially if the car was obscure when it was new.
CamperBob2 8mo ago
Wait, wait, don't tell me, let me guess: "The robots will make their own replacement parts," stated Musk.

rvnx 8mo ago

So Tesla abandons cars ? Keeps only the Cybertruck ?

tavavex 8mo ago
No, they'll still be making the Model 3.
- rvnx 8mo ago
  Thanks
- BurningFrog 8mo ago
  They'll also keep making Model Y, the most sold car model in the world.
  - Marsymars 8mo ago
    * As claimed by Musk.
  - tzs 8mo ago
    They are going to have a hard time keeping it that way in 2026, since they were just barely ahead of both #2 and #3 (Toyota Corolla and Toyota RAV4), and as far as I know Toyota hasn't done anything to annoy a large fraction of the demographics that have bought the most of their cars in recent years.

techblueberry 8mo ago

I genuinely don't understand, is the Optimus real? Isn’t there a like 10 to 1 ratio of Boston Robotics demos to Optimus demos? Has it ever been verified to actually do anything? Boston Robotics robots are over there doing backflips and the only thing I’ve seen Optimus do is in extremely controlled environments.

RyanOD 8mo ago
I second this. Is there anyone who actually believes Optimus is going to be a success and has any sort of data to back that up? I'm not in robotics, but I look at humanoid robots and, while incredible examples of engineering know-how, they seem to be a long way from useful in commercial applications. Am I jhust ignorant of their true value? Seems like all I ever see them doing is parkour.
- SR2Z 8mo ago
  There is some value in producing a lot of solid hardware, but nowhere even close to Tesla's absurd valuation. I think they are perfectly capable of writing software to drive the robot - if Musk doesn't stick his head in like he did with LIDAR/FSD and impose some stupid requirement that handicaps the product.
  - techblueberry 8mo ago
    But how would we evaluate "perfectly capable" without evidence, there's just been no evidence they've done anything so far right? Am I missing something? I guess looking closer it was only announced four years ago. But it seems like it's only been smoke and mirrors so far.
    - SR2Z 8mo ago
      I think FSD is very impressive, even if it is still pretty unsafe. Tesla clearly has at least some AI chops, and if Musk can bullshit for long enough, they might have enough time to make these robots more than just props.

barbazoo 8mo ago

Autonomy or robots? Because autonomy very much still includes (personal) transportation?

NoPicklez 8mo ago

What is this supposed to mean in the sense of Tesla being in the car game for the long haul? They're stopping production of 2 of their oldest model cars, but they're continuing to make and sell their most popular models globally the 3 and the Y. The model S and X are their oldest most expensive models that aren't even sold everywhere in the world. However the Model 3 and the Model Y are, of which the Model Y was the most popular car model sold globally of any manufacturer. In Australia I see Model 3s and Model Ys everywhere. Stopping production of the S and the X, you wouldn't even notice it here.