Tesla on 🔥💣💥 (My Car Week)
Tesla on 🔥💣💥 (My Car Week)
A Rought Time For Tesla. Some New Cars. First Autonomous Formula Race.
Hey!
Today is National No Pants Day, so perhaps it's of interest that I'm already writing these lines on Thursday - with trousers on! If you want to take part, always remember to throw a towel on the hot leather seats in the car ;-)
Have fun!
– Thomas
In today’s edition:
Tesla in Trouble
The Oh-G! Electrified.
The First Autonomous Formula Race was a Desaster, But Fun
Tesla in Trouble
Phew.
Tesla was the first company to prove there was a market for electric vehicles. But recently, it has been slow to innovate. And this brings the company into serious trouble, since all the other manufacturers are catching up (or overtake) and the market for EVs gets under pressure from Chinese companies.
So, here’s what happened at Tesla in the past 2,5 weeks:
Company’s sales are falling.
Tesla’s first-quarter net income plummeted 55%. The cash-flow is negative.
Margins and share price are falling.
The company also just laid off Daniel Ho, director of vehicle programs and new product introduction, as well as his entire team responsible for new car development.
At the same time, of the 26 biggest global automakers, Tesla has the oldest lineup based on when its models were first released.
The Supercharger team was fired (500 people), putting the real value of Tesla – the Supercharger network – on a questionable future. Rebecca Tinucci, Tesla’s senior director of EV charging, is also leaving. Tinucci oversaw the effort to win all the other automakers to adapt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) in the past months.
Beside this, Tesla has been cutting 10 percent (approximately 14,000 people) of its global workforce.
… which is no reason for Tesla to do other than asking shareholders to reapprove CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package, months after a Delaware court found it deeply flawed and voided it.
All 3,878 Cybertrucks produced so far – not an impressive number at all! – are recalled because of some strange issues with the accelerator pedal. Thankfully, they could fix it with a single screw … (wtf?)
The Semi-Truck is still kind of a Vaporware, of which Pepsi only received 34 of the 100 ordered so far. And the Pepsi Corp. is not happy with it at all.
Several ongoing court cases concerning the Autopilot.Tesla ended Q1 with a surfeit of manufactured cars without buyers, accumulating approximately 47,000 unsold vehicles.
The Gigacast process, an ambitious plans to manufacture the underbody of its vehicles into a single piece, has been put on hold.
Elon Musk’s reputation is falling — and it’s taking Tesla with it.
… then there's the long list of lawsuits (which has its own Wikipedia-Site for the US-things only; there are more outside the US) and investigations into issues such as structural racism and employee safety, fatal accidents using 'Autopilot', the provision of false range information, the disposal of hazardous waste, ...
On a positive note at least: Tesla has received preliminary approval for a Full Self-Driving (FSD) system in China. The company is using the mapping and navigation services of Chinese technology giant Baidu, which should also help to fulfil important regulatory requirements and allay concerns about data security. The success for FSD in China is crucial for Tesla.
Musk also prefers to focus on questionable things with Tesla: So, for August, 8th he announced the premiere of the Tesla Robotaxi - a project we haven't heard much about since the the last announcement in 2019. Back then, Musk told people Tesla wanted to have 1 million autonomous cars on the market within 4 years.
In the past week, Musk also announced his intention to invest "massively in AI". And then there's still the Tesla Bot, which Musk wants to sell for $25,000 within a year.
The strategy behind all these decisions is not clear... Is Musk planning a major reorganisation, or are these just the erratic decisions of a panicked CEO? That remains to be seen in the coming months, but the fact is: Tesla is under pressure.
In an internal memo, Elon Musk writes: “Hopefully, these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction. While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so”.
BMW and Mercedes: Good 2023, Cautious 2024
In Stuttgart, the profit margin for 2023 was a whopping 12.8 per cent. It seems that Daimler's luxury strategy is paying off, even if the EV strategy is stumbling (german report). At BMW, the margin in 2023 was 11.9 per cent - only slightly lower; not least because a lot of money is being invested in the development of the "New Class".
The figures for 2024 will look less favourable. The market situation is difficult - especially in the increasingly important EV sector and in China. The German manufacturers sell around 30% of their vehicles in China. The problem is that there is a massive price war, particularly in the EV sector, fuelled by Tesla and BYD. The latter is supported by the Chinese government, but hardly earns any more money itself. The fact that Xaomi is now also pushing into the market with low-cost cars doesn't help. Especially because the tech group can easily absorb the estimated 1.5 billion loss in the car division with the profits from the smartphone profits.
The Oh-G! Electrified.
Mercedes finally unveiled its 2025 electric G-Class.
The 116kWh battery works in tandem with four electric motors developed specially for this model – one for each wheel. The car’s total output is 587hp, and while top speed is electronically capped at 180 km/h, this G-Class can accelerate from 0-62mph in 4.7 seconds. All the details.
… Other New Beauties.
The tri-motored, electric Maserati GranCabrio Folgore.
The updates Seat Formentor and Leon share one face now - and both are nice.
The new Opel Grandland has grown to a full-sized SUV; it’s also available as EV.
The BMW i4 got a little facelift. Sidenote from the press release: the BMW i4 was the company's most successful electric vehicle in 2023, selling more than 83,000 units worldwide.
The Renault Symbioz is a new SUV, filling a gap in the lineup that no one saw …
The MINI Aceman is the next all-electric MINI … I actually lost track on what MINI is offering now in its transition phase towards an all-electric brand. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Citroën C3 Aircross - the SUV version of the nice C3; inevitable I guess
Did I mention in the past weeks, that Opel is bringing back the Frontera?
No - well, that's that.
BMW Is dropping the 'i' on its gasoline cars - ending a 40 years old tradition, to avoid confusion with the electric brand and the electric i-models. Report.
The First Autonomous Formula Race Was a Disaster, but a Lot of Fun
Does anyone remember the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL) that I mentioned in the newsletter a few weeks ago? The first autonomous formula race took place last weekend. The team from the Technical University of Munich returned with medals and the cash prize in their suitcase! Their car was the only one to cross the finish line of 4 cars racing in total, while 8 teams participated (but 4 did not qualify for the race).
There’s a 3-hours review with interviews. Also P1 with Matt & Tommy have a closer look into the tech, which is remarkably interesting.
The event can be considered a success. The teams also challenged their cars agains ex-Formula 1 driver Daniil Kwjat. At the beginning they were 10 minutes behind his best lap time, after the weekend only a few seconds … so, will be interesting where we end in the next installments …
Alfa Renames the Milano, because it is not build in Italy
Alfa Romeo has been forced into an involuntary rebrand of its new EV “Milanot”, after facing legal threats from the Italian government over using an “Italian-sounding name” for its Poland-built model. “A car called Milano cannot be produced in Poland. This is forbidden by Italian law,” Italy’s industry minister Adolfo Urso said last week, claiming that “a car called Milano must be produced in Italy. Otherwise, it gives a misleading indication which is not allowed under Italian law.” In a press release entitled: “Milano name is not okay? Junior then!” Alfa Romeo reacted to “ease relations with the Italian government,” as CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato put it. So, Alfa Romeo Junior it is.
That’s all!
– BYE