On the morning of October 11th Beijing time, Tesla held a Tesla "WE, ROBOT" (We, Robots) press conference at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, California, USA. Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk said that the cost of autonomous driving will be very low. The vehicle cost of Tesla Robotaxi will be less than $30000, and the transportation cost will be about $0.2 per mile (currently about $1 per mile). The new car is expected to be put into production in 2026.
The screen shows that the car is a two door coupe with a gull wing door design. Musk stated that the Tesla Robotaxi unveiled this time is called Cybercab and does not have a steering wheel or pedals.
At the event, Musk personally got on the Robotaxi and drove it to the Warner Bros. studio set, taking Musk to the stage. On site video shows that the silver Tesla Robotaxi has a streamlined body that is more similar in shape to a two door coupe.
Tesla official website
Previously, Musk referred to the event as a "day that will go down in history". He also called Robotaxi a "revolution in the transportation industry" and stated that Tesla Robotaxi will change the world, making it more convenient, safe, and environmentally friendly.
Musk also unveiled the autonomous freight vehicle Robovan at the press conference. The screen shows that the car can accommodate 20 people at a time, and the passenger model adopts a double row, opposite seat layout, equipped with large-sized sliding doors.
This dual-use vehicle will be used in Tesla Network, which is an automatic ride service for autonomous vehicle and personal vehicles of Tesla customers.
In Tesla's previously released Master Plan Part Deux, the company revealed that it is developing "high-density urban transportation" and hinted at the possibility of launching autonomous buses.
Musk also stated that fully autonomous driving FSD will soon be achieved, and it is expected to launch fully unsupervised FSD in Texas and California next year.
Musk also announced that Cybercab will no longer be equipped with NACS plugs and will instead use inductive charging.
It is worth noting that the press conference started almost an hour later than originally scheduled. Musk announced the reason on social media, stating that someone fainted from a sudden illness and needed care, so the press conference was postponed.
The entire press conference lasted less than half an hour, and Musk did not provide a detailed introduction to the technical details of the autonomous taxi, and even the interior was not fully disclosed.
The Tesla Robotaxi service was originally scheduled to launch on August 8th this year, but in early July, Musk said that Tesla would need to spend more time making design changes to the vehicle, so the release time was postponed for a full two months. After the news of the delayed release of Robotaxi came out, Tesla's stock price plummeted for a while.
In fact, as early as 2016, Musk described his vision for the Tesla Robotaxi in his "Tesla Vision Chapter" and stated that it would be launched "within two years".
However, so far, Musk has revealed few details about his self driving taxi. He mentioned during the first quarter earnings call in April this year that the Tesla Robotaxi will be named "Cybercab". Tesla has also hinted that the model will not have a steering wheel and pedals.
On July 24th, Tesla released its financial report showing that its revenue for the second quarter of this year was $25.5 billion, a slight increase of 2% year-on-year, higher than the previous analyst forecast of $24.63 billion. However, the revenue of the automotive business, which is the main business sector, has declined. In the second quarter of this year, Tesla's automotive business revenue was 19.88 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 7%.
The decline in automotive revenue is not unrelated to the delivery volume of new cars. Data shows that Tesla delivered 444000 new cars in the second quarter of this year, an increase of 14% compared to the previous quarter, but a decrease of nearly 5% year-on-year. Tesla has had two consecutive quarters of declining new car deliveries year-on-year. however. Musk believes that pure electric vehicles are the best choice for consumers, and as misunderstandings about range, charging, and service are gradually eliminated, pure electric vehicles will ultimately win the favor of all consumers.
Meanwhile, Tesla's net profit performance is also not optimistic. According to the financial report, Tesla's GAAP net profit for the second quarter of this year was $1.478 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 45%. Tesla stated that factors that have a negative impact on profitability include increased operating expenses from AI projects, reduced car deliveries, and a decrease in average selling price (ASP). However, in the second quarter of this year, Tesla's gross profit margin rebounded to 18%. Since last year, Tesla's gross profit margin has been running a "red light". The gross profit margins for the four quarters of last year were 19.3%, 18.2%, 17.9%, and 17.6%, respectively, and have never returned to over 20%. In the first quarter of this year, the gross profit margin has once again declined to 17.4%.
According to the financial report, Tesla's power generation and energy storage business revenue in the second quarter of this year was 3.014 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 99.7%. Among them, the installed capacity of energy storage products reached 9.4 kilowatt hours, a month on month increase of about 132%.
In fact, the changing competitive environment in the automotive market has caused Tesla's automotive business to show signs of fatigue.
According to statistics, from 2021 to 2023, Tesla's global sales growth rate continued to slow down, with year-on-year growth rates of 87%, 40%, and 38%, respectively. In the first quarter of this year, delivery volume decreased by 8.3% year-on-year, becoming its first quarterly sales decline in nearly four years. Automotive analyst Zhong Shi believes that the current competitive environment in the new energy vehicle market is very different from when Tesla was first produced domestically. In the early days, Tesla seized the market opportunity and rapidly increased sales. However, currently, domestic brands continue to accelerate product development, iterate models rapidly, and continuously lower prices, which to some extent diverts Tesla's model sales.
Therefore, when Tesla will launch new models with lower prices has become a focus of attention from the outside world. During the earnings call, Musk explicitly mentioned that the next generation of new models will begin production as planned in the first half of next year. At the same time, Tesla revealed that the next generation of new models can use existing production lines, maximizing the utilization of the existing production capacity of nearly 3 million vehicles.
In addition, with the delivery of the Cybertruck at the end of last year, Musk admitted that it would take 12-18 months for the Cybertruck to become a significant contributor to positive cash flow. In this financial report, Tesla stated that the production of Cybertruck in the US market in the second quarter of this year increased by more than three times compared to the previous quarter, and the model is expected to achieve profitability by the end of this year.