By WSJ Staff
Tesla spent much of its earnings call Tuesday shifting attention away from its rough first-quarter results by highlighting the carmakers efforts in other technologiesparticularly self-driving cars.
Here are five things that stood out from the electric-vehicle makers quarterly update.
Coming Soon: A Lower-Priced Car
Musk said Tesla was accelerating the launch of new models, including vehicles that would sell at more affordable prices. News of a possible lower-priced car helped lift the companys stock price by 13% in after-hours trading.
The company declined to share details about the new models Tesla has in the works, including how much they would differ from existing offerings. Musk said these vehicles likely would launch sooner than late 2025, when the company had previously said a less-expensive car would arrive.
Its not contingent on any new factory or massive new production line. Itll be made on our current production lines much more efficiently, Musk said on the companys earnings call Tuesday.
Rough Start
Teslas beginning to 2024 was worse than expected. Earnings fell 55% in the first quarter, and quarterly sales declined year-over-year for the first time in nearly four years. Both numbers were below analysts' average estimate.
On the call, Musk cited several unforeseen challenges as well as EV sales being under pressure globally. He noted, though, the companys drop in China sales was less than its competitors.
The Cybercab?
Musk unnerved some analysts on Wall Street when he recentlyand abruptlyannounced plans to unveil a robotaxi in August. He underscored the companys reprioritization around making fully autonomous cars work on the call, imploring anyone to try Teslas latest version of the advanced driver-assistance system it calls Full Self-Driving.
"If somebody doesnt believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company," he said.
Though it wasnt used in the companys earnings presentation, Musk shared a possible name for the robotaxi, referring to the model as the "Cybercab."
Musks Desire for More Control
Asked if he had come up with a mechanism to achieve his goal of obtaining 25% voting control of the company, Musk said shareholders have the opportunity to re-approve his compensation package, which a Delaware judge rescinded earlier this year, and suggested the company could turn to a share buyback.
"If the company generates a lot of positive cash flow, we can obviously buy back shares," Musk said. He currently directly holds about 13% of Tesla shares.
In January, Musk said he wouldn't feel comfortable developing robotics and artificial intelligence at Tesla without having 25% voting control of the company's stock. "Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Tesla," he tweeted.
Musk said Tuesday that Tesla is on a path to solving how to make driverless cars with or without him, but he suggested maybe not when it comes to the humanoid robot dubbed Optimus.
"There's enough momentum for Tesla to solve autonomy -- even if I disappeared -- for vehicles," Musk said. "Now there's a whole range of things we can do in the future beyond that. I'd be more reticent with respect to Optimus."
Plans to Launch an Uber Competitor
Musk shared more details about a planned autonomous ride-hailing service that would compete with Uber and Alphabets Waymo driverless car unit.
Musk said Tesla would own some cars for the fleet, while also allowing owners to deploy their own vehicles for service, comparing it to Airbnb.
In a slide deck previewing the service, the automaker included an image of a Model Y SUV as a vehicle responding to pick up a passengerindicating Tesla doesn't want to only have its planned robotaxi model used on the network.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 23, 2024 20:26 ET (00:26 GMT)
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