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Elon Musk says he is done with regular appearances on earnings calls. Tesla Inc. and its investors ought to be grateful.
Musk stated Monday, while detailing Tesla’s first quarter with more than $1 billion in profit, that he would not take part on such convention calls, “unless there’s something really important that I need to say.” He let free that information whereas answering a crowdsourced query from the web on his willingness to be interviewed by Tesla-focused YouTube channels, forward of taking questions from Wall Street.
Earlier, “important” issues Musk needed to say in earnings calls included describing public-health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic as “fascist,” calling a Wall Street analyst “boneheaded” in a rant, and saying he wasn’t in search of his highly valued company to be too profitable. Those are the sorts of performances no investor ought to miss.
Fewer microphones for Musk ought to imply fewer probabilities to put potential landmines in Tesla’s
TSLA,
path. One of Musk’s most harmful present video games is autonomous-driving predictions, which have already led to failed guarantees like a coast-to-coast autonomous driving trip and a fleet of Tesla robo-taxis by 2020.
More: It’s time for Elon Musk to start telling the truth about autonomous driving
Tesla began selling “Full Self Driving” packages for thousands of dollars nearly five years ago, with updates over the web, and regardless of nonetheless providing capabilities that cease effectively wanting the identify, Tesla has begun offering subscriptions to the assisted-driving features for up to $200 a month. Yet Musk even acknowledged questioning whether or not subscribing to Tesla’s software program was value it.
“We need to make full self-driving work in order for it to be a compelling value proposition. Otherwise, people are kind of betting on the future,” Musk stated Monday. “Like, right now, does it make sense for somebody to do an FSD subscription? I think it’s debatable. But once we have full self-driving widely deployed, then the value proposition will be clear.”
And when will that be? Well, Musk additionally stated that the subscription program “will be a significant factor probably next year.”
The factor is, there is loads of beneficial info that Tesla investors want, far more than pie-in-the-sky predictions about autonomous driving. The name additionally included better perception into Tesla’s present supply-chain points, together with semiconductor shortages, and information that the Semi and the Cybertruck would doubtless be delayed.
“In order for Cybertruck and Semi to scale to volume that’s meaningful for customer deliveries, we’ve got to solve the chip shortage,” Musk stated.
In addition to the battery supplies difficulty and a dialogue concerning the execs of supplies like nickel and the potential future for iron as a battery materials, Musk talked about small parts that have been lacking that restricted Tesla’s manufacturing worldwide, similar to what the PC industry has experienced recently.
“For example, a big struggle this quarter was the module that controls the airbags and the seat belts, and obviously you cannot ship a car without those,” Musk stated. “And that limited our production severely worldwide in Shanghai and in Fremont.”
Hopefully, Tesla can discover an govt to reply powerful questions and provides simple explanations with out the sideshow. Many investors/followers will doubtless miss Musk on future earnings calls, however they are going to be better served with out his over-reaching statements and predictions.
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