Tesla did its quarterly investor/analyst call last night after releasing its mixed financials. The interesting news is that the company will release a more affordable vehicle in the first half of next year. The bad news, if you think of Tesla as a car company, is that CEO Elon Musk is sticking to his line that it isn’t.
It was also another weird, low-energy call from Musk, though I find he’s a bit more honest when he’s in these down moods. Elsewhere in the Tesla-verse is a judge’s ruling in the company’s favor that it can pursue a trial against Rivian for allegedly encouraging its ex-Tesla employees to steal trade secrets.
Alphabet, aka Google’s parents, aren’t so bothered by GM’s robotaxi shift and are doubling down with a $5 billion investment in its robotaxi arm Waymo. Does it sense blood in the water?
We work hard around here. It’s our culture. But we don’t, I hope, have the stereotypical “Japanese salaryman” kinda vibe. Toyota, also, is hoping to move away from those vibes as it takes a deliberate pause to fix the company.
Tesla Margins Drop To 14.6%
If you want to lose money, bet against Elon Musk. He has been right more than he’s been wrong, and his companies have made a lot of money for investors. He’s also destroyed shorts with the same intensity of an imperfectly potty-trained toddler after a frito pie bender.
I guess I should clarify: If you bet against Musk in the last year, depending on the timing of those bets, you might have made some money.
My question yesterday about Tesla was more about revenue than margins. Specifically, I was curious how much the company’s push to move cars at a discount would hit Tesla’s historically high margins.
If you look at the company’s Q2 financial disclosure you’ll see the answer is: a lot. Tesla’s margins, after you take out regulatory credits the company gets from other OEMs, dropped to 14.6%, versus analyst estimates of 16.29%. The company did make about $1 billion more in revenue than expected, it just made less money than usual doing it.
If The Autopian were making billions of dollars (it is not) I think I’d be fine with making a little less per dollar if I was making it up in volume. Tesla doesn’t work that way, and its margins were a big part of its perceived value. That’s at least how investors seem to be feeling today. Tesla’s stock is down almost 12% this morning.
Even though the company made a little more in total revenue (up about 2%), where it made those revenues is important:
I’m turning a bit into a broken record here, but Elon Musk does not think of Tesla as a car company. One of the few times he didn’t sound listless during the hour+ call was when he talked about buying chips and AI and his Optimus robot.
Here’s what Elon had to say about all of that:
The undertaking is massive, but I think the future is incredibly bright. I really just can’t emphasize the importance of autonomy for the vehicle side and for Optimus. Although the numbers sound crazy, I think, Tesla is producing at volume with and supervised MSD essentially enabling the fleet to operate a giant autonomous fleet. And it takes the valuation, I think, to some pretty crazy number.
That’s not a lot about cars, though Musk did basically confirm that the affordable Tesla is coming in the first half of 2025 and, rather than some mostly gigacast car, it’ll be a more traditional Tesla model that can be built on existing production lines:
We won’t get too much into the product road map here because that is reserved for product announcement events. But we are on track to deliver a more affordable model in the first half of next year.
I would suggest listening to this section (which you can do here) and you’ll notice he barely finishes his thought about the car before jumping into:
The big — really, by far, the biggest differentiator for Tesla is autonomy. In addition to that, we have scale economies and, I think, we’re the most efficient electric vehicle producer in the world.
If autonomy is so important to Tesla how long do we have to wait to see a fully self-driving robotaxi? Musk was immediately asked this question and gave a more-than-usually accurate assessment:
“It’s difficult, obviously, my predictions on this have been overly optimistic in the past. So I mean, based on the current trend, it seems as though we should get miles between interventions to be high enough that — to be far enough in excess of humans that you could do unsupervised possibly by the end of this year. I would be shocked if we cannot do it next year.”
Musk has made it clear that he’s not content with having a car company, and he doesn’t believe a car company is a particularly interesting or valuable thing to own. He owns an autonomy/robotics/taxi/airbnb/energy storage company. If you think he can pull even half of that off then you don’t really care about a short-term share drop because the impending value of the company makes it a future Apple.
If you don’t believe in him then you should run.
Tesla Can Go Ahead With Rivian Lawsuit
Did Rivian encourage Tesla defectors to steal Tesla’s company secrets in order to improve Rivian’s products? That’s the question at the heart of a lawsuit from Tesla against its rival EV automaker.
Rivian, for its part, denies this happened, and tried to get a judge in California to dismiss the case outright. According to Reuters, that’s not going to happen:
Judge Theodore C. Zayner of the Santa Clara County Superior Court tentatively denied Rivian’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, stating Tesla presented sufficient evidence for a trial.
“Tesla’s evidence establishes that some Rivian employees were less thoroughly investigated and not disciplined,” the judge wrote in the tentative order.
This will be one to watch.
Google/Alphabet Puts $5 Billion Into Waymo
Maybe autonomy is important. Google’s parent company Alphabet announced it’s putting $5 billion into its subsidiary Waymo just as Cruise said it was discontinuing development of its steering wheel-less robotaxi.
“This new round of funding will enable Waymo to continue to build the world’s leading autonomous driving company,” Alphabet’s outgoing finance chief Ruth Porat said Tuesday on the company’s second-quarter earnings call, adding Waymo is an “important example” of Alphabet’s long-standing investments.
Porat announced the “multiyear” investment on the call and said more information would be available in the company’s quarterly Securities and Exchange Commission filing, expected on Wednesday.
The next steps for Waymo are replacing the Jag i-Pace-based robotaxis with Zeekr-based Waymo Drivers and a more robust commercialization.
Toyota Pushes For A 4-Day Workweek
The stereotype of a Japanese “salaryman” is an overworked white-collar employee who puts in 60 hours for his beloved employer, only taking a few hours off to get absolutely blitzed while singing John Denver songs in some seedy karaoke bar.
In a way, that’s how the whole Toyota company has worked for the last few years. Toyota ended up making more money than any other public Japanese company in history last fiscal year, but at what cost? Toyota’s employees were so stretched they started cheating on emissions and safety tests they would have probably otherwise passed. Suppliers are taxed. Investors are wary.
Hans Greimel over at Automotive News has a story about how Toyota is joining a larger corporate shift in Japan to reconsider what an employee-employer relationship should look like as the company tries to slow down.
Executives likened the pause to “pulling the andon,” the Japanese term for the cord factory workers pull to stop the assembly line when they spot a problem and need to troubleshoot.
“Existing workloads should be reduced for the time being,” Sato said in May. “We should question whether a particular work is necessary or not. We might need to stop certain types.”
Will Toyota actually go for a four-day workweek? Maybe not. The overall goal is to achieve a work/life balance, whatever that means.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
This is not my joke, but someone today reminded me that the real song of the summer has been/will always be Len’s “Steal My Sunshine.” And, look, I don’t want to get too political, but there’s been a real vibe shift this week and I think we can all appreciate a little Len right now.
The Big Question
Do you like a four-day workweek? What do you do now?
YES.
I’d be fine with a four-day work week, TBH. Maybe leave Friday open for breaking news or a catch-up, but I would like more time to fix my garbage car sons.
If I work only four days a week who do I steal AC from in the summer and heating in the winter?
My working from home patterns change with temperature. No one has spotted it yet.
My first full time job was 5 eight hour night shifts with optional twelve hour weekend day shifts. It was rough earning extra money, but I did learn how to sleep standing up.
The corporate world is missing the point of the 4-day work week. The point is not to cram 40 hours into 4 days, it’s to work fewer hours, like reasonable human beings.
agreed this seems to be a weirdly common misconception-the idea is going to a 32 hour work week
Working 4 days is an option in France, and I know some colleagues who did that.
They ended up adding 2h of work per day, for no extra salary. The employer has to adapt the work force for it to be meaningful.
Isn’t the work week 35 hours, though?
If you’re like a cashier, yes. If you’re an engineer like myself, the work week is “5 days” or “4 days”.
I really thought Tesla would announce they were now a lifestyle media company selling content and experiences. Oh well, maybe next quarter.
60h in 4 days is going for it…
I’d rather 4 10’s than my current 6 8’s
If we were serious about reducing emissions, crashes and pedestrian deaths then a shorter workweek or even wfh or hybrid is the most logical thing to do. I bet it will reduce emissions more than all EV’s on the road so far. Make it optional so the people who love 5 8’s are happy.
Re: the 4-day week, I’ve told this story a few times (maybe even here?..):
About 15 years ago when I was working for AT&T (used to be the largest union employer in the US, dunno where they stand now), management pushed a company-wide survey through our unions if we would prefer 4x10hrs weeks in place of 5×8. After an overwhelmingly positive response from everybody, there was silence. A couple of weeks later the union asked management what about the survey, how are they gonna start implementing their plan.
Management’s response was “we’re not doing it, too many of you liked it!”
Good grief.Must STILL thinks he’ll make a shit ton from autonomy?? Delusional doesnt cover it.
Or maybe he’s simply continuing the narrative to keep the FSD lawsuits at bay?
I remember when “Steal My Sunshine” was fresh and playing on the radio, and I shit you not, my mum misheard the lyrics and thought they were singing “If you’re still bisexual”.
I still autofill in those lyrics when I hear it now.
As a child of the 70s i get this 100%. Stupid low quality radios.
I probably still have dozens of incorrect lyrics in my brain XD
I believe Elliot Musky will soon tire of Tesla and sell it. GM would be the only American company silly enough to buy it. He’ll probably sell to a Chinese company just to tell everyone to pound sand. His interest is waning and he has newer projects to bankroll.
I wouldn’t mind a 4 day week in a general sense, but we’d probably have to hire another person on my team because of coverage concerns. So yeah, not gonna happen in my team.
Been working mostly rotating 4-10’s for over 20 years now. Started in the automotive field, now in law enforcement and I love it! It certainly isn’t for every person or vocation and yes, sometimes that first day off is absolutely a recovery day, but it’s still well worth it for me.
The one thing that cannot be bought back by anyone, now matter how much resources we may have, is our precious time. I’m required to be physically at work for the same total minimum amount of hours weekly, but every single day that I wake up where I’m free from having to prepare for work, having to commute to and from work (SF Bay Area traffic :() and having to decompress from work after a rough day is another day that I can thoroughly enjoy myself, no matter how I spend it, and I keep that day in my pocket, is the way that i see it.
Also, the lesser number of total days worked (weekly, monthly, annually) means less energy (fuel, electricity, etc.) being burned, less pollution being generated, 1 less space being taken in the daily commute, and because all of us are here because we love our vehicles, it also means considerably less mileage and less wear and tear, maintenance, etc. on them in the long run.
My work operates on 12 hour shifts and its quite nice to get the whole work week done in 3-4 days
“He’s also destroyed shorts with the same intensity of an imperfectly potty-trained toddler after a frito pie bender.”
COTY. Calling it.
If you like Steal My Sunshine, then you should really give the whole album You Can’t Stop Te Bum Rush a listen. I bought it for the single (back when you had to do that), but it has become one of my favorite albums. It’s got quite the wide range of genres, but a couple of the songs, namely The Hard Disk Approach and Junebug, are most excellent. I highly recommend it if you have the means.
“You only have TWO jobs? You lazy Lima bean!” from In Living Color via my wayback machine memory. Kids these days! I did way more 72hr. weeks from the 80s till mid naughts. Now retired to 24/7 caregiver. Living the life!
The Japanese culture is pretty interesting from a work perspective. Women are allowed to go home 30 min before males since they have to go home and cook. Or how nobody can leave until the boss leave the office. They also don’t like to change the way they do things even if its more efficient or use less resources, if it works how it is today, don’t change it. I don’t see they changing all of that overnight.
I lost all interest in Tesla since their CEO announced to donate an absurd amount of money for political reasons, even if it was for democrats, it doesn’t make it right. Instead of focusing more in the goals and vision of the company to support their employees, he decided to donate money when there are things inside that need to be fixed first.
The fact that a Japanese executive is acknowledging the potential issues with that work culture AT ALL is kind of wild tbh. Really goes to show just how much Japanese culture is primed to change as the older generations age out.
I prefer 5 eight’s to 4 ten’s. I am only productive for so long in a day so 4 ten’s just becomes me killing time and then being too tired to do anything on my “day off”.
If you are talking about 4 eight’s then sign me the fuck up. I am way more productive when given less time to do something.
We have construction site that has gone to 4 ten’s, the workers say they just get another day to go spend money instead of making money…They go out to eat or more shopping etc.
That’s a good point! Thankfully I’m a lazy POS so I usually just slept til 11 on the off day and played video games.
I tried four tens for a summer a few years ago and was surprised that I didn’t like it so I went back to five eights. I might give it another try at some point.
I’m on 5 sevens, our team offered to move to 4 nines, but management wouldn’t bite.
Ah well, at least I’m done at 2pm every day.
I used to work first shift. Getting in at 6am sucked, but being home by 3pm felt like a superpower. I had a whole 7 hours to be productive and cook anything no matter how complicated and still have it ready for dinner time. Also didn’t have to take time off for doctors appointments.
Really goes to show how beneficial flexibility can be. Doesn’t always work for running an assembly line, but for most types of work it can be very beneficial to allow employees some flexibility in their schedule so they can do what works for them, whether that’s 5 eights in the office or 4 tens from home.
I haven’t done a show in 15 years. I just lie low in NYC.
I loved you in Mystery Men