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Tesla is expected to release the company’s Q2 2024 results on July 23. A few hours after the earnings report goes live, Tesla executives, including Elon Musk, will hold an earnings call with financial analysts to discuss the numbers.
This is the boring part of the call; however, what’s more interesting is that during the call, Tesla is expected to give an update on the company’s biggest projects and give guidance on future plans.
In partnership with Say.com, Tesla is also expected to take questions gathered from retail investors.
If you are unfamiliar with the company, Say.com gives retail investors a voice on company matters by aggregating questions and allowing verified investors to ask questions that could later be brought up during an earnings call.
This part of the earnings call is usually the most eye-opening since retail investors are more knowledgeable about the company’s plans and better aligned with long-term goals rather than short-term financials.
So, what are Tesla retail investors interested in learning about the company on the upcoming earnings call? We have the list of questions Tesla will likely address on the call, and surprisingly, they are more negative than expected.
As pointed out in the title, if I were to summarize the sentiment of the top 5 questions, it would be a list of grievances and delayed projects.
Tesla full-self-driving & Robotaxi unveil
The first two questions concern Tesla’s full self-driving software and upcoming dedicated robotaxi vehicle (CyberCab). With over 1.3 million Tesla shares and 1.1 million Tesla shares represented, respectively, here are the two questions: “When exactly is the robot taxi event, if not 08/08?” and “When do you expect the first Robotaxi ride?”
Back in 2019, Elon Musk famously said that by 2020, Tesla will have a million robotaxis on the road. Fast forward four years, and we are still waiting for the first Tesla robotaxis to hit the street.
In Tesla’s defense, once the EV maker solves level 5 autonomy, it can send an over-the-air software update to the millions of Tesla vehicles on the road to enable this functionality.
This is to highlight that although promising 1 million Robotaxis and delivering zero looks bad on paper, Robotaxi is an all-or-nothing venture. Either the company has millions of Robotaxis or none.
Musk has been hyping up Tesla’s next FSD software, FSD v12.5. Musk promises the update will allow users to use the feature while wearing sunglasses.
Another thing Tesla investors want to highlight is the issue of the dedicated robotaxi vehicle. Given the fact that Tesla has yet to solve level 5 autonomy, it’s hard to phantom why Tesla would launch a so-called CyberCab.
Ideally, Tesla would roll out level 5 self-driving on Tesla Model 3s, use those vehicles for autonomous ride-hailing service, get a lot of field experience, and use that knowledge to design the perfect robotaxi.
Having said that, it appears that work on the CyberCab vehicle has already reached an advanced state, and Tesla investors want to know when the vehicle will be launched.
As the Say.com question points out, Tesla had originally set the CyberCab launch for August 8; however, Musk revealed that he had instructed his engineers to make some changes to the vehicle's front end.
Musk has confirmed that the CyberCab unveiling will be delayed without giving a new date, and investors appear to be interested to know the new date.
Tesla’s “breakthrough” 4680 batteries
The third Say.com question concerns Tesla’s “revolutionary” 4680 cells. When the company first unveiled the new battery design, It made some incredible promises, including a 54% increase in battery energy density, a 69% decrease in factory footprint, and an over 56% reduction in cost per kilowatt-hour.
To achieve these metrics, Tesla laid out several battery chemistry breakthroughs, including moving to silicon for the anode from the current graphite, moving to a pure silicon cathode and cutting out cobalt, dry electrode coating, which eliminates the time, money, and energy-consuming wet electrode coating process, tables design, increasing charging performance, and so on.
In addition, Musk said that by the end of 2022, Tesla will have the capacity to produce 100GWh of 4680 cells, and that number could reach 200GWh by 2023.
However, fast-forward to 2024, and except for the dry electrode coating on the anode side, none of the chemistry breakthroughs on the 4680 cells have materialized. Tesla is also far short of the production goals on the 4680 front, with the current annual production run rate estimated to be only around 24GWh.
For several quarters, Tesla retail investors have been asking about the status of 4680 cells, only getting some variation of the answer: “We are making progress, and the 4680 program is challenging.”
This time around, Tesla will once again have the chance to address the issue, and we hope the EV maker will clarify reports claiming that Tesla might give up on the 4680 program altogether by the end of the year.
Tesla Giga Mexico timeline
The next Tesla investor question concerns Tesla’s Mexico gigafactory. Over 940,000 Tesla shares voted for this question: "What is the updated timeline for Giga Mexico, and what will be the primary vehicles produced initially?”
Again, Tesla said the first vehicles will start rolling off the line from Giga Mexico by the end of 2024; however, we are less than six months away from the end of the year, but Tesla has yet to start construction on the factory.
According to suppliers who have contracts to supply Tesla with parts for vehicles produced at the Mexico factory, Tesla has delayed the start of vehicle production at Giga Mexico to late 2026 or early 2027.
Tesla Energy business
The fourth question is the first positive sentiment from Tesla’s retail investor group. It concerns Tesla’s energy business.
A point of appreciation for Tesla here is that for years, Musk has been saying the energy business will be as big or bigger than the car business, and finally, it appears that this prediction is coming true.
The Say.com question asks, “Will Tesla Energy continue to see rapid growth in GWh-deployed going forward?” For Q2, Tesla has already revealed it deployed 9.4GWh of energy capacity, a 134% increase over the previous record, Q1 2024.
Tesla Dojo supercomputer
The Fifth question concerns Tesla’s AI training supercomputer Dojo. It asks, “Is there any update on Dojo?”
Another reason to appreciate Musk is that the Tesla CEO identified the oncoming AI training computer craze and instructed his company to invest in this process.
However, although Musk was correct in identifying the future trend, Tesla was still not able to capitalize on the Dojo computer program.
Elon Musk says for this year, Tesla expects to pay Nvidia 3 to 4 billion dollars to purchase the company’s H100 GPUs. The sale of AI training computers has catapulted Nvidia to become the world’s most valuable company, and it’s understandable that Tesla investors want an update on this promising endeavor.
Tesla Roadster, Optimus robot, Tesla Van, x.AI
The following questions, 6 to 10, focus more on Tesla’s Optimus program, a status update on the highly delayed Roadster, questions about Tesla Van, integration with Musk’s x.AI company, and so forth.
This part of the questions has the highest likelihood of giving us an update on Tesla’s most promising programs going forward.
On the Roadster front, Tesla initially guided for the vehicle to start production by 2020; however, during the 4-year delay, Tesla has redesigned the vehicle to increase its capability.
Musk now says the redesigned Roadster will be able to fly. It will not have wings but feature similar controls as modern jets. Musk adds, "It took the combination of Tesla and SpaceX engineering to create something cooler than the Cybertruck.”
On the Optimus humanoid robot front, Musk has a lot of promise for this program. The Tesla CEO says the Optimus robot will revolutionize the world, and even if there were no questions regarding Optimus, we expect the program to be covered in detail by Elon Musk during the call.
These are some of the questions that will be discussed during Tesla’s Q4 2024 earnings call. However, if you would like your questions addressed, you can head up to Say.com/Tesla; you still have time to submit a brand new question or vote on similar questions you think better express your thoughts.
Overall, this is all the information we have; however, we’ll be sure to keep you posted on the upcoming earnings report and call. Until then, make sure to visit our site, torquenews.com/Tesla, regularly for the latest updates.
So, what do you think? Are there any questions you think should be brought up during the call? Also, what do you make of the current leading list of questions? Let us know your thoughts in the comments by clicking the red “Add new comment” button below.
Image: Screenshot from Elon Musk’s TED interview & courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
For more information, check out: Bill Gates on Elon Musk: “I Talked to Elon Recently, He Talks a Lot, I Hope He Talks More About Climate”
Tinsae Aregay has been following Tesla and the evolution of the EV space daily for several years. He covers everything about Tesla, from the cars to Elon Musk, the energy business, and autonomy. Follow Tinsae on Twitter at @TinsaeAregay for daily Tesla news.
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