Tesla with a decline in profits-Musk promises robotaxi offensive

Tesla experienced the second drop in profits in a row after sunken deliveries. The electric car manufacturer led by Elon Musk earned $ 1.17 billion in the past quarter, 16 percent less than a year earlier. Sales fell by twelve percent to around $ 22.5 billion. Analysts had expected a good $ 22.7 billion.

A central trigger for the development was the decline in deliveries by 13.5 percent to 384,122 vehicles. So far, the new variant of the previous bestseller Model Y has not been able to boost sales. It has been delivered to customers since March.

In addition to the controversy around Tesla boss Musk, the transition phase in the Model Y was considered a reason for the drop in sales of 13 percent in the first quarter.

Tesla also troubles increased competition from other manufacturers-Chinese brands are particularly strong outside the US home market. In Europe, where Tesla has a factory in Grünheide near Berlin, sales declines have been around for months. Meanwhile, Musk claims that the future of Tesla is already in autonomous driving and humanoid robots.

In June he started a first robotaxi service in the city center of the US city of Austin. So far, however, only a few Model Y vehicles have been on the road and only users selected by Tesla can book the trips. The driver’s space remains empty-but a Tesla employee drives in the passenger seat for safety.

Nevertheless, Musk now came a great promise: he thinks that Tesla can probably offer autonomous trips for half of the US population at the end of the year, he said. Then, however, the restriction came: “Provided the approval of the authorities.” This could not be built on the schedule, judged the long -time industry analyst Gene Munster. In the United States, permits for autonomous driving must be requested in individual states.

Teslas Robotaxis has so far covered more than 7000 miles (11,265 km) in Austin. The Google sister company Waymo, whose driverless cars make more than 250,000 trips a week with paying passengers, recently cracked the 100 million miles. Musk still claims that Tesla will quickly get number one when driving autonomous. He relies on a cost advantage: While Waymo and other developers of self-driving cars for safety rely on expensive laser radars, he only wants to get by with cameras.

In the coming year, Tesla owners could also send their cars to the streets in some US cities as robotaxis to earn money. And once the latest versions of Tesla’s “Autopilot” software are also approved in Europe, the recently weakening sales are also taking up there again, said Musk.

However, experts and rivals have concerns about Tesla’s approach. The laser radars – also known as Lidar – tap the surroundings of the vehicles and can therefore recognize objects and people even in difficult lighting conditions. On the other hand, there are doubts that cameras can correctly identify obstacles in all situations.

Teslas revenues from the car business fell by 16 percent to $ 16.66 billion in the past quarter.

At the same time, there could be short-term tailwind through the policy of US President Donald Trump in the coming months: Elegor Auto-Subventions will expire in the United States at the end of September. This could cause some interested parties to strike quickly.

How much Tesla can benefit from it is unclear: CFO Vaibhav Taneja admitted that the group may not be able to produce enough cars to meet demand by the end of September. After that, Tesla wants to launch a cheaper model. Musk now confirmed that it would look just like the Model Y. For the lower price, however, discounts on the equipment can be expected. Munster immediately warned that the sales of the more lucrative model Y could suffer.

The German car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer also pointed out that Tesla has overall overcapacity: While the group can build 2.35 million cars annually, only 1.6 million should be sold this year.

In a first reaction to the quarterly figures, the stock initially increased slightly. But when Musk spoke to analysts in the conference conference, she went on a descent and completed the post -exchangeable trade with a minus of 4.59 percent.