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Tesla’s post-results call with analysts just wrapped up, and investors did not hear Chief Executive Elon Musk reiterate the 20% to 30% sales growth goals he had mentioned in October.
There was also no talk of politics and the Trump administration. The closer that Musk got to it was to say he believes “we need to make manufacturing cool again in America” when asked a question that touched upon China’s manufacturing prowess.
Musk did set some ambitious Full Self Driving goals for Tesla, including a firmer target of a June launch in Austin, Texas, of unsupervised FSD.
Unsupervised implies absolutely no human intervention needed.
Tesla’s stock took a wild ride after the results, and were up 4.4% as the call ended. Tesla shares ended the regular trading session down 2.3%.
Investors are giving Tesla “a pass on the fourth-quarter miss and muted vehicle sales growth guidance, and instead focusing more on the upbeat FSD outlook,” CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson said. Its energy-storage business was also “strong,” he said.
“Ever since the election and following the swearing-in of the new transportation secretary [Sean Duffy] yesterday who pledged to give a ‘wide runway’ to companies related to autonomous vehicles during his confirmation hearing, there is a lot of optimism that Tesla will be one of the primary beneficiaries of a more accommodating regulatory environment in the U.S.,” Nelson said.
Chief Executive Elon Musk just set some lofty goals for Tesla’s Full Self Driving, the EV maker’s suite of advanced driver-assistance systems for city driving.
Besides the promise to have unsupervised FSD in Austin in June and in California at some point this year, Musk called for supervised FSD “almost everywhere” this year and unsupervised in the U.S. next year, pending regulatory approvals, and unsupervised FSD in most countries by the end of next year.
According to Tesla’s website, FSD supervised “requires that the driver pay attention to the road, their surroundings, and other road users. The cabin camera monitors continued driver attentiveness when Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is engaged.”
Unsupervised implies no human intervention needed.
Chief Executive Elon Musk is no stranger to optimistic goals, and Wednesday’s call is proving to be no exception.
Musk has talked about Tesla’s AI prowess, unsupervised FSD availability in Austin in June and in California this year, and confirmed talks with other car makers about licensing FSD.
One thing investors have not heard so far is a reiteration of sales growth of 20% to 30% this year. That has been a sticky point so far, and analysts are bound to ask it. The portion of the call with analysts just started.
Musk also took a swipe at “media.”
“Media reports when I’m late, but never when I’m early,” like when Tesla got its Shanghai factory running ahead of schedule, he said.
Tesla reported Q4 gross profit that fell 5.8% from last year to $4.18 billion, as the total cost of revenue climbed 3.9% while total revenue rose just 2.1%.
That dropped gross margin, or gross profit as a percent of revenue, down to 16.3% from 17.6% a year ago.
That was the lowest gross margin Tesla reported since the 14.5% seen in Q2 2019.
Since then, the highest gross margin seen was the 29.1% in Q1 2022.
Chief Executive Elon Musk said that Tesla is in talks with several major car makers to license FSD, the company’s suite of advanced driver-assistance systems for city driving.
That was one of the top questions on a platform that Tesla uses to channel retail investors’ questions to executives.
Musk went on to say that the take-up rate for that licensing “will be extremely high” once car makers realize that “if you don’t have FSD, you are dead.”
The CEO also predicted that Tesla will be selling Optimus humanoid robots to other companies by the second half of 2026. “Demand will not be a problem,” Musk said.
Elon Musk’s opening remarks during the Tesla earnings call clocked in at 25 minutes, and the CEO ended them by saying Tesla is the indisputable leader in AI and is so far ahead that he’d need a telescope to see the No. 2.
Markets appear to be enjoying an upbeat Elon, and the stock is up more than 5%.
Tesla will launch unsupervised, Full Self Driving as a paid service in Austin in June, Chief Executive Elon Musk said on the call. There will be “no one in the car,” he added.
Musk went on to do a bit of a self-reflection: His predictions may sound “insane” but “they will prove to be accurate,” he said.
Later on, Musk confirmed FSD in California also this year, and predicted that Tesla would launch the service in other states as well still in 2025.
The stock gathers more steam, up more than 5%.
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk repeated some of its optimistic claims about the EV maker and its trajectory in the near term.
Tesla made many critical investments last year in manufacturing, AI and robotics that “will bear immense fruit in the future,” Musk said.
“And I’ve said this before, and I’ll stand by it, I see a path. I’m not saying it’s an easy path, but I see a path for Tesla being the most valuable company in the world,” he said. It may be an incredibly difficult path, but it is an achievable path, the CEO added.
That’s “overwhelmingly due” to autonomous vehicles and autonomous humanoid robots, Musk said. Tesla laid the groundwork for that in 2024 and will continue to do so this year, setting it up for an “epic” 2026 and a “ridiculous” 2027, he said.
“Very few people understand the value of Full Self Driving,” Musk said, in another of his oft-repeated ideas.
Tesla said total operating-lease vehicle count at the end of Q4 was 180,523, which was up 6.9% from the end of Q3 and 2.2% more than a year ago.
Meanwhile, global vehicle inventory, in terms of days of supply, dropped to 12 from 19 in Q3 and 15 a year ago.
Tesla’s post-results call with analysts has started, and MarketWatch will live-blog it. Chief Executive Elon Musk is on the call.
Earlier Wednesday, the EV maker reported fourth-quarter earnings below Wall Street consensus, but the stock saw a reversal as investors seemed to latch on to the more positive aspects of the report, namely that Tesla was still on track to launch cheaper EVs in the first half of the year and that plans for FSD and robotaxi also continue apace.
The stock is up 2% in the extended session Wednesday. It traded more than 5% lower immediately after the release.
