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Elon Musk’s big promises apparently no longer seem to be enough for many Tesla investors.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA) fell 9% on Thursday following another dismal earnings report, released after the bell Wednesday.
Tesla’s earnings and revenue both fell by double-digit percentages following the biggest sales drop in the company’s history. The automaker also faces a number of financial headwinds, including the loss of a $7,500 tax credit for US EV buyers starting in October, and the vanishing market for regulatory credit sales, which has earned Tesla $11 billion since 2019.
But Tesla CEO Elon Musk barely talked about that on the earnings call Wednesday, although he did acknowledge the company “probably could have a few rough quarters.” Instead, he talked about his grand vision for the future, including Tesla’s long-promised robotaxi service; and its humanoid robot, Optimus, which is still in development.
The lack of details about the company’s plans to solve problems in the near term disappointed some investors and analysts.
“Investors have been very forgiving of Tesla for several quarters now, despite obvious headwinds to their business,” Garrett Nelson, analyst at CFRA Research, told CNN Thursday. “But I think its investors are taking a more realistic view of the story at this point. Some of his brilliance has been his ability to keep investors focused on the long term and ignoring the near term and intermediate term. Now, headwinds are difficult to ignore.”
Nelson downgraded the company’s stock to a neutral rating in April. But even some of the Tesla bulls on Wall Street are saying that the time for Musk to take action is running out.
“The street is losing some patience,” Wedbush Securities tech analyst Dan Ives told CNN Thursday, although he said he still believes in the autonomous vehicle and artificial intelligence vision laid out by Musk and Tesla.
Musk has made big promises about his robotaxi service, including that it would be in service within a year as early as 2019.
Tesla’s robotaxis finally rolled out in June this year, albeit in a limited portion of Austin, Texas, to friends and fans of the company, and with an employee sitting beside the empty driver’s seat. However, that limited rollout wasn’t enough to stop Musk from making extraordinary claims on Wednesday that the service would be available to half the nation’s population by year’s end. To achieve that, Tesla will need to get regulatory permission to operate in two states per week through the rest of the year, including New York, which does not allow autonomous vehicles on its roads.
Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein said that while he does believe Tesla will eventually be successful in its robotaxi venture, “the software will require further testing” and he does not expect a full robotaxi product until 2028.
But Musk has a history of making grand promises that do not pan out.
Like the Cybertruck – the only new vehicle Tesla has offered in the last six years. Musk said Tesla was supposed to be delivering 250,000 vehicles annually by this year. But full-year sales of the Cybertruck and Tesla’s two other expensive models were less than 80,000. Sales of the three plunged 52% in the most recent quarter.
Tesla also started the year forecasting it would achieve higher sales following its first annual sales drop in its history in 2024. But after two quarters of record sales declines, most investors now assume that it will not meet that goal either.
And with Musk himself barely mentioning car sales during an hour-long conference call, it doesn’t appear that is enough for shareholders any longer.
“We are mixed on Tesla’s ability to meet its robotaxi timelines, cost targets, and scale,” wrote Ben Kallo, an analyst for Baird, in a note to clients late Wednesday. “So far Tesla has received a pass due to how ambitious/revolutionary these products are, but we think continued sluggishness in the auto business could cause more focus on the near term.”
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