Q1 FY2025 Earnings Call
TSLA · Preprocessing Report
2025-04-22
Quality
100%
54
Turns
14
Speakers
4
Sections
6
Exchanges
426
Claims

Entities by group 41

technology companies 5
TeslacompanyUnited StatescompanyXcompanysay.comcompanySpaceXcompany
company executives 6
Elon MuskpersonVaibhav TanejapersonEdison YupersonColin LanganpersonLars MoravypersonTravis Axelrodperson
electric vehicles 2
Model YproductModel 3product
analysts 4
Pierre FerragupersonAdam JonaspersonEmmanuel RosnerpersonGeorge Gianarikasperson
driver assistance 1
FSDtechnology
humanoid robots 1
Optimusproduct
consumer smartphones 1
iPhoneproduct
politicians 1
Donald Trumpperson
autonomous vehicles 2
CybercabproductRobotaxiproduct
energy storage 2
MegapackproductPowerwall 3product
battery chemistry 1
LFPtechnology
vehicle models 1
SEMAproduct
interviewers 1
Joe Roganperson
Ungrouped 13
DogecoinproductNokiacompanyAustinotherDepartment of Government EfficiencycompanyEarthotherCars.comcompanyMade in America indexotherUSMCAotherSection 232otherApplecompanyBMWcompanyMercedescompanyNavalperson
REPORTING 38PROJECTING 28POSITIONING 148EXPLANATORY 73ANALYST 52

Topics 96

tariff×25model×25autonomy×21fsd×21robotaxi×17supply chain×10drone×9smartphone×7automobile×7doge×6outlook×6optimus×6energy×6future×6factory×6vehicle×6market×6company×5robot×5driver attention×5

Themes 282

launch×7localization×5affordable×5china×5business survival×4supply chain×4most valuable company×3sustainable abundance×3adoption gap×3pricing×3political backlash×2time allocation×2material impact×2general solution×2availability×2strategic importance×2capacity×2future demand×2gasoline and autonomous×2driver attention×2market entry×2weather visibility×2direct photon counting×2glare performance×2affordability×2risk of system breakage×2policy impact×2physical×2number one ranking×2company outlook×1operating pace×1fiscal reduction×1government waste reduction×1strategic choices×1operational waste×1unsustainable growth×1government anti-waste effort×1national decline×1government efficiency×1organized opposition×1fraud claims×1self-interest×1waste and fraud allegations×1team setup completion×1ongoing anti-fraud work×1weekly time commitment×1solvency×1near-term volatility×1outlook×1future products×1valuation×1reach potential×1as valuable as peers×1ride launch×1financial impact×1scaling×1near-term bumps and roadblocks×1near-term bright×1not-too-distant future×1next year or two×1exposure×1vehicle pricing×1competitive positioning×1policy decision×1presidential decision×1lower rates×1company future×1strategic priority×1unsupervised driving×1product definition×1product terminology×1fleet capability×1service scaling×1jurisdictional rollout×1nationwide rollout×1regulatory approval×1generalized ai×1autonomy hardware×1robot progress×1production outlook×1production scale×1annual production target×1production forecast×1grid energy output×1annual output capacity×1peak output doubling×1grid buffering×1annual output unlock×1utility demand×1gigawatt scale×1strong order book×1long-term scale×1strong performance×1seasonality×1seasonal demand×1production changeover×1sales leadership×1factory changeover×1difficult operational change×1operational execution×1near-term headwinds and long-term optimism×1ideal future×1abundance×1sustainability×1happy future×1happiest×1heaven on earth×1future success×1simultaneous updates×1major feat×1cross-factory update×1timeline execution×1team execution×1gross profit×1declines×1planned×1market hostility×1sold out during transition×1production timing×1transition-related sellout×1employee credit for sellout×1recent model updates×1supervised autonomy×1customer benefits×1safety advantage×1firsthand experience×1customer stories×1automotive decline×1model y pricing boost×1record level×1record despite lower deployments×1ai demand×1grid stability×1customer solutions×1sales and supply×1services and other decline×1collision profitability×1ai and vehicle development×1expense allocation×1vehicle programs×1sg&a reduction×1sequential decline×1bitcoin loss×1fx reimbursement×1volatility outlook×1vehicle manufacturing×1american-made ranking×1usmca weighted-average×1tariff management×1section 232 auto tariffs×1profitability impact×1unit impact×1energy business impact×1local manufacturing×1non-china sourcing×1international support×1capital investment impact×1equipment sourcing×1trade review×1guidance including tariffs×1tariffs actions×1brand image and near-term challenges×1best product at competitive price×1cheaper models×1start of production×1robotaxi launch×1connection status×1future growth×1current performance×1production ramp×1high-end expansion×1market share×1vehicle superiority×1market penetration×1buyer preference×1buyer tradeoff×1market analogy×1product strategy×1product design×1incumbent response×1product differentiation×1nokia decline×1market niche×1design variation×1nonexistent×1super intelligent×1single device×1human intervention×1unsupervised operation×1next steps×1improvement×1interventions reduction×1austin focus×1city issues×1austin issues×1driver takeover prevention×1autonomy reliability×1long tail of unusual cases×1rare events×1frequency×1driving distance to find cases×1missing functionality×1emergency vehicle handling×1audio input rollout×1remote operators×1unblocking×1safety measure×1safe operation×1supplier localization×1conditions×1uncertainty×1risk reduction×1analyst communication×1plans×1initial deployment and ramp×1target scale×1service availability×1day one launch×1initial fleet size×1rollout strategy×1rapid scaling×1autonomous drive availability×1texting behavior×1texting while driving×1driver distraction×1distraction while driving×1common behavior×1eating while driving×1shaving while driving×1road monitoring×1attention monitoring×1monitoring relaxation×1autonomy value×1geographic×1additional markets×1india launch×1india entry×1india difficulty×1india import duty×1india luxury tax×1india premium×1structure×1india market×1tax burden×1local collection×1market opportunity×1market friction×1q&a×1division-only×1camera glare×1glare resistance×1photon counter pipeline×1washed out images in sunlight×1added noise from photon counting×1low-light performance×1fog performance×1report accuracy×1design change×1say.com caution×1product flexibility×1upgrades and value×1quality×1production rollout×1gradual ramp×1presidential advisory role×1communicated to president×1decision making×1future comparison of forecasts×1predictable structure×1free trade advocacy×1countermeasures against protectionism×1case by case policy×1executive authority×1military capability×1social context×1manufacturing dependence×1domestic manufacturing×1global production share×1resource allocation×1parts supply constraint×1competitive leadership×1chinese rivals×1

Key Metrics 39

units×5sales×5price×5market capitalization×4other income×4energy output×3gross profit×3vehicles×3time allocation×2capacity×2production×2auto margin×2profitability×2tariffs×2capital expenditures×2market share×2intervention rate×2attention monitoring×2delay×2car margin×1annual energy output×1orders×1production output×1deliveries×1margin×1operating expenses×1research and development expense×1selling, general and administrative expense×1ranking×1usmca compliance×1installed capacity×1expense×1ramp×1market size×1adoption×1interventions×1vehicle count×1tariff×1tax×1

Entities 549

Tesla×227Elon Musk×132Vaibhav Taneja×39Model Y×21FSD×16Optimus×12Dogecoin×11Edison Yu×10Pierre Ferragu×9Model 3×9Colin Langan×6Adam Jonas×6United States×4iPhone×4Emmanuel Rosner×4George Gianarikas×4Donald Trump×3Nokia×3Cybercab×2Megapack×2X×2LFP×2Austin×2Lars Moravy×2Department of Government Efficiency×1Earth×1Powerwall 3×1SEMA×1Cars.com×1Made in America index×1USMCA×1Section 232×1Robotaxi×1Travis Axelrod×1Apple×1BMW×1Mercedes×1say.com×1Joe Rogan×1Naval×1SpaceX×1

Business Segments 178

Automotive×155Energy Generation And Storage×21Services And Other×2

Sectors 108

autonomous vehicles×17robotics×16artificial intelligence×14consumer electronics×11manufacturing×8energy×5government×4logistics×3semiconductor×3smartphone×3telecommunications×3software×3drones×3ride hailing×2battery×2financial services×2aerospace and defense×2power generation×1insurance×1vehicle services×1internet retail×1supply chain×1capital goods×1consumer internet×1

Regions 61

China×15India×12Austin×9US×5United States×4America×4U.S.×2Europe×2North America×1world×1Earth×1Canada×1Mexico×1city×1Boston×1Athens×1

Metadata Distributions

Sentiment
positive 79negative 46neutral 214
Temporality
backward 46forward 76current 217
Certainty
definitive 46confident 95moderate 137tentative 57speculative 4
Magnitude
major 12moderate 182minor 145
Direction
improvement 26decline 7flat 1mixed 3none 302
Time Horizon
immediate 56near_term 109medium_term 27long_term 23unspecified 124
Verifiability
quantitative 36event 29qualitative 274
Analyst Intent
probing 16challenging 3confirming 5seeking_detail 22seeking_guidance 6

Speakers

Executives
AEAshok ElluswamyexecutiveEMElon MuskCEOKBKarn BudhirajexecutiveLMLars MoravyexecutiveURUnidentified Company RepresentativeexecutiveVTVaibhav TanejaCFO
Analysts
AJAdam JonasanalystCLColin LangananalystEYEdison YuanalystEREmmanuel RosneranalystGGGeorge GianarikasanalystPFPierre Ferraguanalyst
Other
TATravis AxelrodirOPOperatoroperator

Sections

TypeLabelSpeaker
preamblePreambleOperator
prepared_remarksPrepared RemarksElon Musk, Vaibhav Taneja, Travis Axelrod
qa_sessionQ&A Session
closing_remarksClosing RemarksTravis Axelrod

Q&A Exchanges 6

#AnalystFirmTurns
1
PFPierre Ferragu
New Street5
2
EREmmanuel Rosner
Wolfe10
3
EYEdison Yu
Deutsche Bank5
4
GGGeorge Gianarikas
Canaccord9
5
CLColin Langan
Wells Fargo10
6
AJAdam Jonas
Morgan Stanley7

Claim Taxonomy 339

REPORTING38
resultFinancial outcome for a completed period16
metricNon-financial quantitative fact7
operationalDiscrete completed event15
PROJECTING28
guidanceQuantitative expectation with number + time2
commitmentPromise with binary verifiable outcome18
targetLong-term aspirational quantitative goal8
POSITIONING148
strategyPriority, direction, or initiative99
competitiveCompany's position or advantages12
opportunityMarket condition framed as growth driver8
riskHeadwind, constraint, or uncertainty29
EXPLANATORY73
attributionWhy a specific outcome happened5
contextNon-company macro/industry fact68
FRAMING0
thesisFalsifiable belief about how the world works0
ANALYST52
questionInterrogative seeking information30
observationRestates a fact or data point12
concernFlags a risk or challenge5
estimateAnalyst's own projection or calculation1
sentimentOpinion, praise, or critique4

Transcript

Preamble
OP
Operatoroperator
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Tesla's First Quarter 2025 Q&A Webcast. My name is Travis Axelrod, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined today by Elon Musk, Vaibhav Taneja, and a number of other executives. Our Q1 results were announced at about 3 p.m. Central Time in the update deck we published at the same link as this webcast. During this call, we will discuss our business outlook and make forward looking statements. These comments are based on our predictions and expectations as of today. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in our most recent filings with the SEC. During the question-and-answer portion of today's call, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please use the raise hand button to join the question queue.
Before we jump into Q&A, Elon will be providing an update. Elon?
Prepared Remarks
EM
Elon MuskCEOTesla
Hello, everyone. Well, there's never a dull moment these days. Thanks for sure. Every day is going to be exciting. As some people know, there's been some blowback for the time that I've been spending in government with the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE. I think the work that we're doing there is actually very important for trying to sprain in the insane deficit that is leading our country, the United States, to destruction. And the DOGE team has made a lot of progress in addressing waste and fraud. The natural blowback from that is those who were receiving the wasteful dollars and the fortunate dollars will try to attack me and DOGE team and anything associated with me. So, but then I'm really left with two choices. Should we just let the waste and fraud continue? And it was continuing at a — to grow at a really unsustainable pace that was bankrupting the country or to fight the waste and fraud and try to get the country back on the right track. And I believe the right thing to do is to just fight the waste and fraud and get the country back on the right track and working together with President Trump and his administration.
Because if the ship of America goes down, we all go down with it, including Tesla and everyone else. So, I think this is critical work. Now, the protests that you'll see out there, they're very organized, they're paid for. They're obviously not going to say, admit that the reason that they're protesting is because they're receiving fraudulent money or that they are the recipients of wasteful largesse, but they're going to come up with some other reason. But that is - the real reason for the protests, the actual reason is that those receiving the waste and fraud wish to continue receiving it. That is the real thing that's going on here, obviously.
So, now that said, I do think there's the large slug of work necessary to get the DOGE team in place and working in the government to get the financial house in order is mostly done. And I think starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly. I'll have to continue doing it for, I think, probably the remainder of the President's term, just to make sure that the waste and fraud that we stop does not come roaring back, which will do if it has the chance. So, I think I'll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the President would like me to do so and as long as it is useful. But starting next month, I'll be allocating probably more of my time to Tesla and now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done.
So, at Tesla, we've gone through many, many crises over the years and actually been through many near-death experiences. We were probably on the ragged edge of death at least on maybe a dozen times. It's been so many times. This is not one of those times. We're not on the ragged edge of death, not even close. So — but there are some challenges, and I expect that this year will be, there will probably be some unexpected bumps this year.
But I remain extremely optimistic about the future of the company. The future of the company is fundamentally based on large-scale autonomous cars and large-scale, large volume, vast numbers of autonomous humanoid robots. So the value of a company that makes truly useful autonomous humanoid robots and autonomous useful vehicles at scale at low cost, which is what Tesla is going to do, is staggering. I continue to believe that Tesla, with excellent execution, will be the most valuable company in the world by far. But that's an important if, we must execute well. But if we do execute well, I think Tesla will be the most valuable company in the world by far. It may be as valuable as the next five companies combined.
So, but there'll be a few bumps along the road before that happens. I said I think on the last earnings call that we'll start to see the prosperity of autonomy take effect in a material way around the middle of next year. We expect to have these — be selling fully autonomous rides in June in Austin, as we've been saying for now several months. So that's continued, but the real question from financial standpoint is when does it really become material and affect bottom line of the company and start to be a fundamental part of the — when does it move the financial needle in a significant way? That's probably around the middle of next year, second half of next year. And then once it does start to move the financial needle in a significant way, it will really go exponential from there.
So that's, I'd encourage people to look beyond like the, some sort of bumps and bundles of each road immediately ahead of us. But left your gaze to the bright shining sort of down the hill, I don't know, some Reagan-esque imagery. And that's where we're headed and not too distant future. Like I said, kind of next year or two. So, let's see.
With respect to supply chain risk, something that Tesla has been working on for several years is to localize supply chains. This actually makes sense from a cost standpoint and from a logistics risk standpoint, is to have the supply chains be at least located on the continent in which the car is built. And so we are, I think the least, a company, the least affected car company with respect to tariffs, at least in most respects, I mean, it remains to be seen. Now, tariffs are still tough on a company when margins are still low. But we do have localized supply chains in North America, Europe, and China.
So that puts us in a stronger position than any of our competitors. And undoubtedly, I'm going to get a lot of questions about tariffs, and I just want to emphasize that the tariff decision is entirely up to the President of the United States. I will weigh in with my advice with the President, which he will listen to my advice, but then it's up to him, of course, to make his decision. I've been on the record many times saying that I believe lower tariffs are generally a good idea for prosperity, but this decision is fundamentally up to the elected representative of the people being the President of the United States. So, you know, I'll continue to advocate for lower tariffs rather than higher tariffs, but that's all I can do. So, now let me walk you through why I'm so excited about the future of Tesla.
So, first of all, autonomy. The team and I are laser focused on bringing robotaxi to Austin in June. Unsupervised autonomy will first be solved for the Model Y in Austin. And then — actually you should parse out the terms robotic taxi or robotaxi and just generally like what's the Cybercab because we've got a product called the Cybercab and then any Tesla which could be an S3 extra wide that is autonomous is a robotic taxi or robotaxi. It's very confusing. So the vast majority of the Tesla fleet that we've made is capable of being a robotaxi or robotic taxi.
And as we're going from — once we can make the whole system work where you can have paid rides fully autonomously with no one in the car in one city, that is a very scalable thing for us to go broadly within whatever jurisdiction allows us to operate. So, because we're solving for is a general solution to autonomy, not a city specific solution for autonomy.
Once we make it work in a few cities, we can basically make it work in all cities in that legal jurisdiction. So, if it's — once we can make it based to work in a few cities in America, we can make it work anywhere in America. Once we can make it work in a few cities in China, we can make it work anywhere in China, likewise in Europe, limited only by regulatory approvals.
So, this is the advantage of having a generalized solution using artificial intelligence. And the — an AI chip that Tesla designed specifically for this purpose as opposed to very expensive sensors and high precision maps of a particular neighborhood where that neighborhood may change or often changes and then the car stops working. So, we have a general solution instead of a specific solution. Then, with regards to Optimus, we're making good progress in Optimus. We expect to have thousands of Optimus robots working in Tesla factories by the end of this year, 10 years forward. And we expect to scale Optimus up faster than any product, I think, in history, to get to millions of units per year as soon as possible. I think I feel confident in getting to a million units per year in less than five years, maybe five years. So, by 2030, I feel confident in predicting a million Optimus units per year, it might be 2029.
So, let's see with respect to energy, energy business is doing very well. The Megapack is — enables utility companies to output far more total energy than would otherwise be the case. When you think of the energy capability of a grid, it's much more than, say, total energy output per year. If the powerplants could operate at peak power for all 24 hours, as opposed to being at half power, sometimes a quarter power at night, then you could double the energy output of existing power plants. But in order to do that, you need to buffer the energy, so that you can charge up something like a battery pack at night and then discharge into the grid during the day. So, this is a massive unlock on total energy output of any given grid over the course of a year.
And utility companies are beginning to realize this and are buying in our Megapacks at scale. So, at this point, a gigawatt class battery is quite a common thing. So, we have many orders and offer for gigawatt and beyond batteries. And we expect the energy — the stationary energy storage business to scale ultimately to terawatts per year. So very, very good numbers. Now, Q1, first quarters of a year are usually pretty tricky. Because it's usually the worst quarter of the year because people don't want to go buy a car in the middle of winter during the blizzard. So we picked Q1 as a good quarter to do a cutover to the new version of the Model Y and we changed production of the world's best selling cars with — remember the Model Y is the best selling car of any kind on earth with a 1.1 billion unit per year output of a single model. And we did this changeover at the same time in factories all across the world. So congratulations to the Tesla team on an amazing job in pulling off what is a very difficult transition. So yeah, it's really very impressive work. So, yeah. In conclusion, while there are many near-term headwinds for us and the border industry, the future for Tesla is brighter than ever. The value of the company is delivering sustainable abundance with our affordable AI powered robots. So this, I like this phrase, sustainable abundance for all. If you say, like, what's the ideal future that you can imagine? That's what you'd want. You'd want abundance for all in a way that's sustainable. It's good for the environment.
Basically, this is the happy future. If you say what's the happiest future you can imagine. One which is that would be a future where there's sustainable abundance for all. Closest thing to heaven we can get on Earth, basically. So, thank you again to the test team for all their efforts of the challenging time. I look forward to continuing to lead the team to great success in the future.
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TA
Travis AxelrodirTesla
Great. Thank you very much, Elon. Before we move on, Vaibhav has some opening remarks as well.
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VT
Vaibhav TanejaCFOTesla
Thanks, Elon. As Elon mentioned, in Q1, we achieved something which has never been undertaken in the automotive industry of updating all our factories for the best-selling car in the world, all at the same time. And this is, people don't understand, this was not a small feat. We're not aware of anybody else being able to do the best-selling car all at once within a quarter. And that too hitting all the timelines which we had established at the beginning. So, big kudos to the team for making this happen. Additionally, we also hit record gross profit for energy storage business in the quarter. Now, getting back into the business, there has been a lot of speculation as to the reasons for decline of our vehicle deliveries in the first quarter. We had previously guided that we will be updating all factories and this will lead to several weeks of lost production, which did happen as planned.
The ripple effect of the change is not having enough new Model Y available in most markets for people to see and experience till the last few weeks of the quarter. Additionally, the negative impact of vandalism and unwanted hostility towards our brand and our people had an impact in certain markets. Despite this, we were able to sell out legacy Model Y in US, China, and a few other markets within the world. And again, just so that people understand, we were producing the legacy Model Y till middle to end of February. And we switched over and we were able to still sell out within that period. So, again, big achievement by all the people at Tesla to make it happen.
We've been extremely — we have a very extremely competitive vehicle lineup, which with most vehicles going through a recent update, and add to that, if it wants an FSD, you have a personal chauffeur which can take you almost anywhere under supervision. There are numerous stories shared by customers ranging from how it has improved their daily commute, to providing mobility to customers with disabilities, to giving older customers the ability to travel comfortably and independently. Not only is FSD Supervised safer than a human driver, but it is also improving the lives of individuals who experience it. And again, this is something you have to experience, and anybody who has experience just knows it. And we've been doing a lot lately to try and get those stories out, at least on X, so that people can see how other people have benefited from this. Now, coming into some of the financial stuff, auto margins declined sequentially primarily due to a reduction in the total number of deliveries, lower fixed cost absorption due to factory change awards and lower regulatory credit revenues offset by a slight increase in pricing due to the launch of new Model Y despite incentives which we had to sell legacy Model Y. Our energy storage business, like I said before, has achieved yet another milestone of create highest gross profit in the quarter. This was despite sequential decline in deployments. The importance of this business, as Elon mentioned, is pretty profound, especially in this environment. Because, in order for our grid to work properly with the demands from AI and all this, you need some more stability. This is by far the simplest and best solution, which we are aware of, which can help do this. And we've also developed certain unique solutions to help our customers to achieve this. Additionally, on the Powerwall side, we've been selling the new Powerwall 3, and it's been received with very good reception from customers, and to the extent that we are currently supply constraint.
On services and other margins, they were slightly down sequentially, primarily because of the pressure on our used car business and insurance business. Note that we continued our journey to improve profitability in our services and collision business through better labor productivity. As previously discussed, our operating expenses continue to increase sequentially, primarily due to our AI-related initiatives, including Optimus, and also cost of development for our vehicle programs, including Cybercabs, SEMA, and cheaper models. These expenses flow through R&D. We believe even in the current environment, it is the right strategy, in making investments in these areas to position us for the long term. These increases were offset by decreases in SG&A changes in our vertical effort program.
Other income reduced significantly on a sequential basis. The primary reason was Bitcoin mark to market loss in Q1 versus gain in Q4, resulting in a $472 million drop. The remainder of the change is because of FX reimbursement. With the adoption of the new mark to market standard for Bitcoin, we expect increased volatility in other income in addition to the FX volatility.
I know tariffs is the hottest topic which people talk about and it has various impacts to our business. And as Elon mentioned, on the vehicle business, we've been on this journey of regionalization for years. Specifically in the US, Model Y has been rated the most American model made car on Cars.com Made in America index three years ago. [This end product] (ph) of the all the work which team has been doing all the years and to the extent that today, if you look at our vehicle lineup in US, we're about approximately on a weighted average basis 85% USMCA compliant. So, like Elon said, this definitely gives us a bigger edge as compared to our other OEMs in terms of managing the tariffs, but we're not immune because when the Section 232 auto tests become effective in May, which includes Canada and Mexico, and Canada and Mexico has been part of our regionalization study.
They will have an impact on profitability. And I know research modeling on this impact has been up about a couple of thousand units which is pretty much in line with what we've been forecasting. The impact of tariffs on the energy business will be outsized since we source LFP battery cells from China. We're in the process of commissioning equipment for the local manufacturing of LFP battery cells in the US. However, the equipment which we have can only service a fraction of our total installed capacity of late. We've also been working on securing additional supply chain from non-China based suppliers, but it will take time. Also note that, in spite of all the impact on US from energy — from tariffs on the energy business, we do have a Megafactory China which just started operations in Q1, and that should take care of our business outside of the US. There's also an important impact of tariffs on our capital investments. I know this is going to sound counterintuitive since in order to launch manufacturing or expand lines, we have to bring equipment from outside the US because there is not that much capacity in the US. And the current trade environment, such equipment being brought in is subjective.
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EM
Elon MuskCEOTesla
The expense is bringing in from China right now.
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Vaibhav TanejaCFOTesla
Exactly.
And the reality is that China has the basic one, which has the most capacity to provide [inaudible]. Our CapEx guidance inclusive of [tariffs] (ph), even with the optimization we have tried to do, it is forecasted to be still in excess of 10 billion this year. We're still evaluating what more to do on this one. To summarize, we have near-term challenges in our business due to tariffs and brand image. We think our strategy of providing the best product at a competitive price is going to be a winner, and this is the reason we're still focused on bringing cheaper models to market soon. The start of production is still planned for June. Additionally, the advancement in FSD related features, including pilot robotaxi launch in Austin later this year, should help create a new era of demand. I would like to thank everyone at Tesla and our customers.
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Travis AxelrodirTesla
Fantastic. Thank you very much, Vaibhav.
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Q&A Session
Q&A 1/6
TA
Travis AxelrodirTesla
Great. Thank you very much.
And the last question, we already covered earlier, whether Robotaxi was still on track for this year. So, with that, we can move on to analyst questions. The first question is going to come from Pierre at New Street. Pierre, please unmute yourself.
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Pierre FerraguanalystNew Street
Hey, guys. Can you hear me?
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Yeah.
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Pierre FerraguanalystNew Street
That's great. I'm super excited to hear robotaxi and Optimus becoming the very tangible future for Tesla. But I have actually a question on the legacy, not legacy, in the current like auto business. And when I look back to the ramp of Model 3 a few years ago, I really saw it as being the iPhone of cars, a new product, completely reinvented, very different user experience, vastly superior, impossible to match for traditional competitors. And for the iPhone, which resulted in the high end of the smartphone market quadrupling in size and actually Apple taking 60% market share. And so when you look at the Model 3 and the Model Y today, I think they are still actually vastly superior to any other cars. And I wonder why they've taken about 15% of their addressable market and not more actually? So, another way to put it is, why are there so many people still buying BMWs and Mercedes, knowing that Model 3 and the Model Ys are out there and available? And I wonder if you're trying to solve that internally. If you understand why — what are these auto buyers buying a Model 3 or Model Y missing? And if you have ideas of things you could do to address that, maybe there is enormous value left on the table there. Yeah, that's what I'm wondering these days.
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Yeah. The reality is that, in the future, most people are not going to buy cars. So it's kind of what, one could sort of say, look, if you think one to continue with your phone metaphor, I mean, you can remember the days of the flip phones when there was a hundred different flip phone designs. And I would, the mistake that lump manufacturers made was to try to make that many different variants of a flip bone, but which was a mistake. They should have made the iPhone. So, because obviously everyone's going to want a smartphone. But in the beginning of when the iPhone came out, I was like, wow, I can't believe these guys are not reacting as though this is death.
But they didn't, they kept making the variants of smartphones. Nokia, I think, at one point was the most valuable company in the world or close to it, but they kept making flip phones. Trying to find another market niche.
Maybe somebody wants a phone of a different style, maybe this different color or whatever it is. Nope. They just want a super intelligent phone that can do everything. Just one. So I said this many years ago. But in the in the future, in the not too distant future, buying a gasoline car that is not autonomous will be like riding a horse while using a flip phone. Some people still do it, but it's rare.
Q&A 2/6
TA
Travis AxelrodirTesla
Great. Thank you. The next question comes from Emmanuel Rosner at Wolfe. Emmanuel, please unmute yourself.
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Emmanuel RosneranalystWolfe
So, Elon, the public version of the FSD software still has a decent amount of, I guess, intermittent human interventions that are required. So, what's still required for the software on your end to get to a level where it doesn't need to be supervised?
And I'm asking that in the context of, obviously, the June launch being in the next couple of months. What still needs to happen?
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Unidentified Company RepresentativeexecutiveTesla
We're working on a number of items too.
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Go ahead.
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Unidentified Company RepresentativeexecutiveTesla
I mean, we are aware of the interventions that are happening in public bus, and that's why we are hardcore burning it down.
And really speaking, some initial launch city helped us focus on, like, solving all the issues that we face here. For example, like, we're just focusing on Austin. We're not, like, solving all the issues that customers in Boston or somewhere else might face. And then here, we just, like, have big list of all the issues, just burn it down, and that's what the team is working on along with other sort of, like, redundancy issues. For example, if one of the computers goes down, right down the customer fleet, it would, like, throw the red hands and ask you to take over, but we don't want that kind of situation. So you're solving both, like, the reliability issues of the autonomy software and also the reliability issues of the system software, like, together for Austin.
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Yeah. It really just we just worked through a long tail of unusual interventions. So, and these are really very rare. Like, as a single intervention every 10,000 miles. I mean, that's a lot of driving you got to do to even find one case within Athens.
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Unidentified Company RepresentativeexecutiveTesla
Yeah. And some interventions that have been due to systematic, like, missing functionality. For example, for handling emergency vehicles correctly, you don't need to con consume audio as an input. But then the customer facing versions don't have audio input, but the version that's in — that's going to be in Austin will have audio input and so on.
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Emmanuel RosneranalystWolfe
Okay. But would you have, like, remote operators, for example?
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Unidentified Company RepresentativeexecutiveTesla
I mean, every now and then, if a car gets stuck or something, someone will, like, unblock it. But it's just because we are a bit conservative and are tend towards more safety than even if we get stuck every now and then, we do have remote support. But it's not going to be required for safe operation. If anything, it's just required for more availability.
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Anyway, it's only a couple months away, so you can just see for yourself in couple months in Austin.
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Q&A 3/6
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Travis AxelrodirTesla
Great. Our next question comes from Edison at Deutsche Bank. Edison, please unmute yourself.
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Edison YuanalystDeutsche Bank
Hi. Thank you very much for the question. So I wanted to ask about the Optimus supply chain going forward. You mentioned very fast ramp up. What do you envision that supply chain looking like? Is it going to require many more suppliers to be in the US now because of the tariffs? How does one kind of think about what needs to happen there?
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Let's see how things settle out. I don't know yet. Right. I mean, so some things we're doing as we've already talked about, which is that we're already taking tremendous steps to localize our supply chain. We're more localized than any other manufacturer, and we have a lot of things underway to increase the localization, to reduce supply chain risk associated with geopolitical uncertainty. Did you have a follow-up?
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Edison YuanalystDeutsche Bank
Yeah. Wanted to come back actually to the robotaxi then. Do you have a sense on how many cars or how big the scale will be initially and how that might ramp up? I know you're targeting millions of vehicles in the second half kind of next year. But initially at launch, how many vehicles would be reasonable? And is it going to be as simple as if one goes to Austin, let's say, in late June or July, you'd be able to request?
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Yeah. We're still debating the exact number to start off on day one, but it's, like, I don't know, maybe 10 or 20 vehicles on day one. And watch it carefully. They scale it up rapidly after that. So, we want to make sure that you're paying very close attention the first time this happens. But, yeah, you will be able to — end of end of June or July, just go to Austin and order a Tesla for autonomous drive.
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Q&A 4/6
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Travis AxelrodirTesla
Great. The next question comes from George at Canaccord.
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George GianarikasanalystCanaccord
Hi, thank you for taking my question.
It has to do with FSD pricing. Can we envision when you launch unsupervised FSD that there could be sort of a multi-tiered pricing approach to unsupervised versus supervised similar to what you did with autopilot versus FSD in the past? Thank you.
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Vaibhav TanejaCFOTesla
I mean, this is something which we've been thinking about. I mean, just so you know, for people who have been trying FSD and who've been using FSD, they think given the current pricing is too cheap because for $99, we're basically getting a personal show.
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Yeah.
I mean, we do need to give people more time to like, they want to look at like, like, key breakpoint is, can you read your text messages or not? Yes. Can you write a text message or not? Because, obviously, people are doing this, by the way, with autonomous cars all the time. And if you just go over drive down the highway and you'll see people texting while driving, you know, doing 80 miles an hour.
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Unidentified Company RepresentativeexecutiveTesla
And putting on makeup on at the same time.
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Yeah. Putting on makeup, doing their hair with them mirror down and texting and driving at 80 miles an hour. This is a common occurrence. So, people eating lunch, you name it. Shaving. So, anyway, but right now, the car is very insistent that you pay attention to the road. So, which reduces the value somewhat because it's very rigorous about you paying attention to the road. And we'll gradually lighten up on that with every few weeks or every month, we'll relax that a little bit, make up so you can be more and more able to do things you want to do and not have the car to manage your attention. So that that that value, it'll really be profound when you can basically do whatever you want, including sleep or and then that $99 is going to seem like the best $99 you've ever spent in your life.
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Travis AxelrodirTesla
Great. And, George, do you have a follow-up?
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George GianarikasanalystCanaccord
My follow-up is about geographic expansion. Just maybe discuss additional markets. There's been some news around India recently that you could launch, this year and next. Thank you.
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Vaibhav TanejaCFOTesla
So, yeah, I mean, we we've been working on getting into India. India is a very hard market. And especially the current and I don't want to talk just about tariffs, but the current tariff structure with India is that any car which we send in is subject to 70% tariff.
Also, like, a 30% luxury tax on it. So, the same car which we're selling is, like, 100% more expensive than what it is. So that creates a lot of, you know, anxiety. It's like, people feel, okay, they're paying too much for the car.
And by the way, we're not getting the money. The local government is getting the money. And that's why we've been very careful trying to figure out when is the right time. We, like I said, we are working on it. It's a great it would be a great market to enter because India has a big middle class, which we would want to tap in, and that is the market which we want to be in. But, again, these kind of things create a little bit of tension which we're trying to work around.
Q&A 5/6
TA
Travis AxelrodirTesla
Great. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Adam Jonas at Morgan Stanley. Go ahead, Adam. We can't hear you, Adam. So, maybe we'll put you back in the queue, and we'll move to Colin Langan from Wells Fargo, while Adam figures out his audio. Colin, please unmute yourself.
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Colin LangananalystWells Fargo
Great. Do you hear me?
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Travis AxelrodirTesla
Yes.
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Colin LangananalystWells Fargo
You're still sticking with division-only approach. A lot of autonomous people still have a lot of concerns about sun glare, fog, dust.
Any color on how you anticipate on getting around those issues? Because of my understanding, it kind of blinds the camera when you get glare and stuff.
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Actually, it does not blind the camera. The we use an approach which is direct photon count. So when you see the — a processed image, so the image that goes from the sort of photon counter, so the silicon photon counter that gets goes through a digital sig signal processor or image signal processor, that's normally what happens. And then that that then the image that you see looks all washed out because if it's, you point the camera at the sun, the post processing of the photon counting washes things out. It actually adds noise. So part of a breakthrough that we made some time ago was to go with direct photon counting and bypass the image signal processor. And that and then you can drive pretty much straight at the sun, and you can also see in what appears to be the blackest of night. And then here in fog, we can see as well as, like, people can, probably better, but I'd say probably slightly better than people, but than the average person anyway. And yeah.
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Colin LangananalystWells Fargo
So the camera is able to see when there's direct glare on it. I'm little surprised by that. Okay.
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Yeah.
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Colin LangananalystWells Fargo
Okay.
And then just there are obviously media reports the other day that the affordable model was delayed. It doesn't sound like that's correct. Those reports also talked about it being more of a cheaper version of the Model Y. Any color on what we should expect? Is it a cheaper version of Model Y, or is it actually going to be a design change with it?
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Vaibhav TanejaCFOTesla
So I think Lars already covered it in answering one of the say.com cautions. The real thing which we are trying to focus on is affordability. And using our existing lines, there's always limitations when you're using existing lines as to how many different form factors can you bring to. So that's the way I would say you should think about it. And I don't know if Lars, anything more to add.
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Lars MoravyexecutiveTesla
Yeah.
And I think I said this before in other calls. Like, with the recent upgrades on the Model 3 and Model Y platforms, we made some pretty great cars at pretty great prices, and we added a bunch of features and things like that. I think it's easy to consider that, moving forward, Tesla doesn't make bad cars, and we always make, you know, our intent is not to make a car that is any worse than any car we've ever produced in the past. And so, models that come out in next months will be built on our lines and will resemble, in form and shape, the cars we currently make. And the key is that they'll be affordable, and you'll be able to buy one.
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Q&A 6/6
TA
Travis AxelrodirTesla
Great. We might have time for one last question. Adam, we'll try your audio again. You want to try to unmute yourself, Adam? All right. Unfortunately, it's still not working. There you go.
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Adam JonasanalystMorgan Stanley
Sorry, guys. Technology.
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Travis AxelrodirTesla
Go ahead, Adam
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Adam JonasanalystMorgan Stanley
Yeah. Hi. Yeah.
In the February 28 Joe Rogan interview, Elon, you advocated for a ramp in tariffs, to give people time to adjust. Otherwise, quote, you said the system would break, and bad things would happen. So are things breaking yet? And if the announced — as if the tariffs as announced remain in place, when would things start breaking?
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, I'm not — I'm one of many advisors to the President, I am not the President. So, and — but I made my opinion clear to the president and that — and other people made their opinion clear to the President. He is the — he listened — he talks to many people, and he makes his decision. And, I'm hopeful that the President will observe whether my predictions are more accurate than the predictions of others and perhaps weigh my advice differently in the future.
We shall see. But, I'm an advocate of predictable tariff structures and generally, I'm an advocate for free trade and lower tariffs. But now, one does need to take a look at where — if some country is doing something predatory with tariffs or is providing extreme support for — if a government is providing extreme financial support for a particular industry, then you have to do something to counteract that. So, but I think that's on a case by case basis strategically. But, the President is the elected representative of the people and his fully within his rights to do what he would like to do.
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Adam JonasanalystMorgan Stanley
Okay, Elon. I respect that. Just as just as a follow-up, and thanks again. Between China and the United States, who in your opinion is further ahead on the development of physical AI, specifically on humanoids, and also drones? I'd be interested in. And is it even close and kind of how, yeah seriously.
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Elon MuskCEOTesla
I think you know the answer for drones. I mean a friend of mine, Naval, made this posted on X. I reposted it. But I think a prophetic statement, which is any country that cannot manufacture its own drones is doomed to be the vassal state of any country that can. And we can't America cannot currently manufacture its own drones. But that's again, unfortunately.
So, China, I believe, manufactures about 70% of all drones. And if you look at the total supply chain, China is almost a 100% of drones, are have a supply chain dependency on China. So, China is in a very strong position. And, here in America, and we need to shift more of our people and resources to manufacturing because this is and I have a lot of respect for China because I think China is amazing, actually. But the United States should not have such a severe dependency on China for drones and be unable to make them unless China gives us the parts, which is currently the situation. With respect to humanoid robots, I don't think there's any company in any country that can match Tesla.
Tesla and SpaceX are number one. So, and then now I'm a little concerned that on the leaderboard, ranks two through 10 will be Chinese companies. But I'm confident that rank one will be Tesla.
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Closing Remarks
TA
Travis AxelrodirTesla
Great. Well, I think that's unfortunately all the time we have for today. We appreciate all your questions and look forward to talking to you next quarter. Thank you very much, and goodbye.
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