Tesla’s death is “not close” says Musk, as operating margin drops to 2%

As Elon Musk helps undo regulations, regulatory credits keep Tesla profitable.

See full article...

 

[dobrien75]

Yeah, pretty sure this one belongs in the circular file. I always find it hilarious when government workers complain about waste in government. The entitlement is just &&chef's kiss&& -- all those other government workers are lazy bums performing unnecessary duties, but no, MY job is necessary.

(Hypocrite, leech, or troll?)

Ignore them. They are just trolling and inexpertly at that

 

[ducatisymphony]

Troll.

Yeah, I too got sucked into replying to it. Silly me

 

[Uragan]

I do. I show up an hour late every day and no one cares how good I am at my job.

Probably because you're not actually good at it.

Fortunately I’m a competent and caring person (the values Elon looks for in good government workers) and do my work out of the same civic duty as when I educate all of you.

You are certainly not competent or caring based on what you've said in your posts in this very thread. Musk and Trump would fire your ass in a heartbeat because you're a self-ascribed "socialist"... even though you have shown you have zero understanding of what socialism is or how it works.

Some of you however are quite rude.

I guess talking down at us isn't "rude" now?

Insults and foul language are corrosive to a healthy discourse.

Take your own advice before trying to tone police the forums. Additionally, leave the moderation to Aurich. That's his job, not yours.

Please note I do this for free out of the goodness of my own heart.

 

[dobrien75]

Yeah, I too got sucked into replying to it. Silly me

Having compassion for the ill-educated is a good thing

 

[ducatisymphony]

Having compassion for the ill-educated is a good thing

Thank you for your compassion!

*my attempt at demonstrating I can be self-deprecating

 

[WaveMotionGum]

I have stated before that I went to a top 20 university and am in the 95th percentile on graduate admissions exams and the IQ test. I’ve read extensively and worked in a variety of fields.

Hmm, yes, this is definitely a thing genuinely intelligent people say. You are very bad at this.

 

[cgo_12345]

@fourdegrees It's ok, you've demonstrated you don't /won't understand things. You can be quiet now.

 

[dobrien75]

Thank you for your compassion!

*my attempt at demonstrating I can be self-deprecating

I'm feeling like a bad person right now, because it is wrong to laugh at the inept

 

[AusPeter]

So that’s a no on answering my question?

 

[Natetg]

Yeah, that's not how retooling works, or at least not how it's supposed to work. You overproduce in anticipation of the shutdown by the amount you think will get you over the hump. Failing to do that is bad business, unless you're Tesla where you actually don't need the production due to declining sales and the retool is a convenient excuse to lower your production numbers

That’s how retooling works for traditional OEMs with dealer buffers, sure. But Tesla has never really operated that way. They tend to keep inventory lean, even during planned shutdowns, which means any pause hits deliveries almost immediately. It might not be how you’d run it, but it’s consistent with how Tesla has done it for years.

 

[AusPeter]

When someone ignores every data point, asks for ever-smaller corner cases, and then claims you “didn’t answer,” you’re really debating a brick wall.

So you can’t defend an optical-only based system against optically opaque contaminates?

Right, got it.

 

[Natetg]

Something something sell 250k CTs per year something something.

Something something ignore the part where Tesla told investors in Q4 they’d shut down all Model Y production lines, something something pretend that doesn’t impact Q1 deliveries, something something blame Elon and regulatory credits.

Just saying—if the Cybertruck backlog ends up materially moving earnings, then we can talk.

 

[fourdegrees]

So you can’t defend an optical-only based system against optically opaque contaminates?

Right, got it.

I’ll chime in here. Elon criticizes people for making the analogical fallacy rather than first principles but then seems to make the same fallacy by saying humans are vision only, so AI should be too. Humans are also bipedal only, but that doesn’t mean cars shouldn’t have wheels. If depth sensing works better with some other wavelength receptor and can save on compute, why not tack it on? And if they’re trying to copy humans, why not use stereo cameras three inches apart? Why imitate human vision but not bat or whale echolocation?

 

[Natetg]

Sure... just ignore the fact that Tesla sales have been plummeting in Europe for the past two quarters. That has nothing to do with Juniper.

That might be relevant to a broader trend discussion, but this thread, and my point, was specifically about the Q1 results and what materially impacted deliveries this quarter. The full Model Y production pause was a known, short-term factor that directly affected Q1. Longer-term demand issues in Europe are worth analyzing too, but they’re not what moved the needle this time.

 

[VoidWeaver]

If depth-sensing works better with some other wavelength receptor and can save on compute, why not tack it on?

Because “just tack it on” isn’t free. Every extra sensor adds $$(hardware), kg(packaging), W(power), and GB/s(bandwidth), plus a brand-new failure matrix the network must learn to distrust when the sensor is snow-blind, power-cycled or just dirty. Cameras already cover 100% of driving cues, so Tesla’s bet is: invest the dollars in more data + compute rather than a second stack of problems to fuse.

If a lidar-heavy fleet ever matches Tesla’s scale and turns a profit, the trade-off math might change. Until then, the cheapest part is the opinion that someone else should pay for.

 

[Kaiser Sosei]

When someone ignores every data point, asks for ever-smaller corner cases, and then claims you “didn’t answer,” you’re really debating a brick wall.

 

[AusPeter]

Something something ignore the part where Tesla told investors in Q4 they’d shut down all Model Y production lines, something something pretend that doesn’t impact Q1 deliveries, something something blame Elon and regulatory credits.

Just saying—if the Cybertruck backlog ends up materially moving earnings, then we can talk.

I’m sure selling 6k CTs in the first 3 months of 2025, when Musk aspires to sell 20k per MONTH will have negligible impact on Tesla’s bottom line. /s

Edit: 54k times $100k. That’s $5.4 billion in lost revenue just right there for Q1 of 2025 alone.

 

[Natetg]

I’m sure selling 6k CTs in the first 3 months of 2025, when Musk aspires to sell 20k per MONTH will have negligible impact on Tesla’s bottom line. /s

Sure, but even at 20k/month, Cybertruck is a fraction of Model Y’s volume. Right now it’s a rounding error. If it ever materially impacts earnings, happy to revisit. But for Q1, it just isn’t the story.

 

[Natetg]

I’m sure selling 6k CTs in the first 3 months of 2025, when Musk aspires to sell 20k per MONTH will have negligible impact on Tesla’s bottom line. /s

Edit: 54k times $100k. That’s $5.4 billion in lost revenue just right there for Q1 of 2025 alone.

Sure, but even at 20k/month, Cybertruck is a fraction of Model Y’s volume. Right now it’s a rounding error. If it ever materially impacts earnings, happy to revisit. But for Q1, it just isn’t the story.

Edit:
That math assumes Tesla could’ve built and sold 54k Cybertrucks in Q1, which doesn’t match any credible production guidance. The actual reported number was 6k delivered. Model Y production was paused at all factories for retooling, and that’s what materially impacted Q1. A hypothetical 5.4B in missed Cybertruck revenue isn’t grounded in what Tesla said they’d do—just in what they might want to do eventually.

 

[AusPeter]

Sure, but even at 20k/month, Cybertruck is a fraction of Model Y’s volume. Right now it’s a rounding error. If it ever materially impacts earnings, happy to revisit. But for Q1, it just isn’t the story.

Edit:
That math assumes Tesla could’ve built and sold 54k Cybertrucks in Q1, which doesn’t match any credible production guidance. The actual reported number was 6k delivered. Model Y production was paused at all factories for retooling, and that’s what materially impacted Q1. A hypothetical 5.4B in missed Cybertruck revenue isn’t grounded in what Tesla said they’d do—just in what they might want to do eventually.

1. Model Y retooling has nothing to do with CTs. I have no idea why you are mentioning it.

2. If Musk aspires to sell 20k CTs per month, then Tesla needs to have the capacity to deliver 20k CTs per month.

3. If Tesla had the capacity to deliver 20k CTs per month but only delivers 2k CTs per month, then Tesla had a biiiiiig problem.

4. The number of CT deliveries has been trending down.

5. Musk has stated the CT numbers as “soon”, not some far future date.

 

[AusPeter]

Just to clarify the context here: I brought up Model Y because it’s Tesla’s top-selling product by far, and it was paused across all factories for retooling in Q1. That’s not a side note, it’s the core driver of the Q1 delivery dip, and Tesla warned about it in their Q4 earnings call. Cybertruck, by contrast, still represents a small fraction of volume and revenue.

As for the 20k/month Cybertruck figure, Tesla hasn’t claimed they have that production capacity today, just that it’s a future target. And unlike legacy automakers, Tesla doesn’t build large speculative inventory across dealerships. So even if production ramps slower than planned, they aren’t sitting on thousands of unsold trucks clogging lots. It’s a different model.

Bottom line: Q1 results were shaped by a temporary pause in Tesla’s most important product line. That context matters, regardless of how anyone feels about Musk or the Cybertruck rollout.

So when Musk said multiple times 20k CTs per month, and soon, is it marketing or just simply lying?

And for a point of reference, FSD had been advertised for nigh on 10 years, and it still isn’t here.

 

[AdrianS]

Funny, you must not know private fire engines are a thing. But as I said before I see no problem with core emergency services being monopolized by government. When there’s a large bureaucracy like FEMA that’s massively slow and inefficient, one should seek alternatives.

The difference between taxation and a market transaction is that only one is democratic and voluntary. It’s the latter. Btw, I’m not a libertarian, I’m a socialist government worker.

You're a fucking liar if you spout the libertarian "business knows best" bullshit and call yourself a socialist.

But all you post is half-digested gibberish, so this just adds to the pile.

 

[lefizzle]

In the first 3 months of 2025 over 413,000 EVs were sold in the EU, only 36,200 were Teslas.

Having less than 10% of the European EV market when you are supposedly the world leader in this stuff with a huge market cap, that is pretty pathetic.

With the trade war and rising Anti-American sentiment in China you can pretty much guarantee sales there will decline from the already 21% drop from last year in the first quarter. Plus the fact they are currently fifth in the market behind, BYD, Li Auto, Leap and Xiaomi. BYD registered 56,000 in the week 16 2025, Tesla 6,600.

For probably the majority of markets that matter to Tesla their brand image is fatally damaged, whilst there are huge quantities of new, highly competitive Chinese brands hitting global markets at significantly lower prices.

Elon's goose stepping violent swerve to the right couldn't have come at a worse time for Tesla. Their brand is damaged, their product lineup looks quite tired, and they are now competing with the Chinese and traditional auto maker who have mostly caught up in terms of the vehicles if not the ability to make them efficiently enough to make a buck

 

[bjn]

You are certainly not competent or caring based on what you've said in your posts in this very thread. Musk and Trump would fire your ass in a heartbeat because you're a self-ascribed "socialist"... even though you have shown you have zero understanding of what socialism is or how it works.

He forgets to add the "National" bit when he describesd himself as a socialist.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

(Hypocrite, leech, or troll?)

Troll. Well, something of all three, but mostly troll. They're also starting to smell vaguely familiar but I can't quite place who they remind me of.

 

[Cthel]

She wasn't paying for insurance because she couldn't afford it. You can't possibly actually be this obtuse, can you?

And pre-ACA, she was uninsurable, due to preexisting conditions. As were a lot of other people.

When you go to the hospital on an ambulance, generally, you're in no fit state to say "take me to Baptist instead of Northern, they're 15% cheaper." And, often, because Baptist is 30 miles further away, making that choice might literally kill someone.

Making medicine capitalist is holding a gun to the head of the ill or injured. I mean, ffs, my brother died in February because he couldn't afford the ER bill or the ambulance ride, so decided to "tough it out." That's very common in the USA. Everywhere else recognizes it as insane.

Didn't you say you were a socialist? You're terrible at this. Entertaining trolls maintain consistent positions. Your views aren't consistent with socialism at all. They aren't even consistent with themselves FFS.

Or did you mean that you work for a socialist government? Hypocrisy isn't a good look, you leech. Your position is obviously surplus and wasteful and needs eliminated.

Obviously, the self-described leftist™ solution is to replace those unelected "qualified doctors" with elected medical practitioners.

I'm sure the guy who runs the slickest electoral campaign will know exactly how to treat that acute myocardial infarction you're suffering from.

Oh, and allow them to charge the market price for "being allowed to keep living" - it's only fair after all!

/S

 

[fenris_uy]

Sure, but even at 20k/month, Cybertruck is a fraction of Model Y’s volume. Right now it’s a rounding error. If it ever materially impacts earnings, happy to revisit. But for Q1, it just isn’t the story.

Edit:
That math assumes Tesla could’ve built and sold 54k Cybertrucks in Q1, which doesn’t match any credible production guidance. The actual reported number was 6k delivered. Model Y production was paused at all factories for retooling, and that’s what materially impacted Q1. A hypothetical 5.4B in missed Cybertruck revenue isn’t grounded in what Tesla said they’d do—just in what they might want to do eventually.

Tesla own information from Q4 says that they build the capacity to build over 125K Cybertrucks per year, or over 30k per quarter. Building 6k, means a lot of idle capacity that they built.

 

[orwelldesign]

Troll. Well, something of all three, but mostly troll. They're also starting to smell vaguely familiar but I can't quite place who they remind me of.

Y'know what!! You're right! This is... man, I can't remember their nick, but someone with this exact schtick trolled around for awhile. Hadn't seen them in about 18 months, but that "I am very smart' post? I bet you could trawl through the archives and find out who, because the top 20, 95%, and "well read" stuck out to me even then.

Nobody who's actually smart needs to tell people they're smart. It's self-evident.

 

[Penforhire]

Sealions don't read the room. They are acting 'all libertarian all the time,' like they swallowed Ayn Rand whole. While I sympathize with some waste concerns the answer is not "cut whatever I don't like" (which oddly enough aligns with MAGA news sources). I'd say I'm glad they are not in governance over us but we're living with others acting with the same wrong approach.

For their benefit, I go back to "f'ing inspector generals, how do they work?" To cut them out was an early indicator that government spending will not be intelligently improved.

 

[Natetg]

Tesla own information from Q4 says that they build the capacity to build over 125K Cybertrucks per year, or over 30k per quarter. Building 6k, means a lot of idle capacity that they built.

Sure, Tesla said they’re targeting 125K Cybertrucks a year, but you can’t really call it a “drop” when the product hasn’t meaningfully ramped up to begin with. It’s a new model on a new platform with limited configurations and uncertain demand.

And this is where their build-to-order model matters. If orders are slow, they don’t flood inventory, they scale production to match. That’s by design, not failure.

Meanwhile, the Model Y, Tesla’s best-selling product by a mile, was paused at all factories in Q1. That’s what actually moved the numbers. Not speculative CT volume, not investor dreams, and not a tweet from Elon. Just operations.

 

[AusPeter]

Missing a production target isn’t lying, it’s called forecasting, and it happens in every business. Acting like every missed projection is a moral failing is just lazy analysis.

Tesla’s model is fundamentally different. They don’t flood dealer lots with unsold inventory. If Cybertruck demand lags or production ramps slowly, the impact is limited by design. That’s not a bug, it’s the point.

And again, none of this changes the core issue: Q1 deliveries were down because Model Y, their top-selling product, was paused across all factories for retooling. That’s not speculation, it’s something Tesla told investors in Q4. Ignoring that while obsessing over Elon’s Twitter habits isn’t analysis, it’s deflection.

You really are obsessed with the model Y aren't you. You continually bring it up even when it's not relevant.

Sure forecasting isn't a science, but when your actual deliveries are a small fraction of your forecasts and a small fraction of your capacity (in which in order to achieve would have been a major capex cost in the first place), then your product has major issues.

So either there is a huge issue with the CT deliveries, or Musk was lying about what was expected of the CT. You can't have it both ways. And no amount of trying divert to the model Y will change that.

---

Edit: Although "¿Por qué no los dos" could still be apropos here.