As Elon Musk performed to his Christ advanced in a single day, providing sight to the blind, Tesla was killing off the automobiles that made it profitable, the 14-year-old Mannequin S sedan and 11-year-old Mannequin X SUV.
The enterprise that popularised electrical automobiles is pivoting to AI and robots as automotive gross sales fall, and income too.
Simply as Tesla’s This fall outcomes have been about to drop, the multitasking CEO was promising that Blindsight, an experimental medical gadget developed by his mind chip firm, Neuralink, is able to roll and can finally make individuals “superhuman” and see like Star Trek’s Geordi La Forge in infrared, ultraviolet and radar.
But the corporate that solid his popularity is going through its personal mortality round EVs, particularly the Cybertruck, an enormous flop, with sales halving in 2025 to only over 20,000.
Gross sales have now declined two years in a row, and Tesla has misplaced its crown because the world’s best-selling EV maker.
In 2025, China’s BYD In 2025 offered greater than 2.25 million EVs. Tesla offered 1.65 million, down from 2024, 1.78m and 2023’s 1.81m.
One other promise damaged
A budget Tesla Musk promised would enhance gross sales in 2025 by no means eventuated, but it surely’s value remembering that Musk saved up the charade that it was coming just like the pet store proprietor within the Monty Python parrot sketch, even when everyone else knew it was dead.
So Tesla is now betting on robots and autonomy for its future – in addition to investing US$2 billion within the CEO’s facet hustle, xAI. Maybe that addresses the 2024 lawsuit filed by Tesla investors claiming Musk diverted the corporate’s AI expertise and assets to his non-public enterprise.
“We’re making huge investments for an epic future,” Musk stated.
The world wealthiest orator then revealed: “I suppose I’ve, like, one, I suppose, like, it’s not precisely, it’s not precisely dangerous information, but it surely’s a, it’s, it’s, we’re it’s, it’s time to mainly deliver the Mannequin S and X packages to, to an finish with an honourable discharge. As a result of we’re actually transferring right into a future that’s based mostly on autonomy, and so in case you’re excited by shopping for a Mannequin S or X, now can be the time to order it.”
Manufacturing of each automobiles will finish in subsequent quarter. The excellent news is it’s not an Finish of Assist second. You FSD (unsupervised) could in the future work.
The choice doesn’t imply something to Australian patrons – Tesla stopped promoting the S and X right here just a few years again, though you’ll discover loads of used ones on the 2nd-hand market.
From automobiles to bots
In the meantime, the California manufacturing facility producing these automobiles might be transformed right into a manufacturing line for the long-promised Optimus humanoid robotic.
It’s value remembering that in Musk’s traditional time-bending type, the Tesla boss informed shareholders in June 2024, that “a thousand to a few thousand robots “ can be working within the firm’s factories by 2025’s finish.
This time a 12 months in the past, on the This fall 2024 earnings name, Musk stated the plan was to construct round 10,000 Optimus robots within the subsequent 12 months.
“Will these a number of thousand Optimus robots be doing helpful issues by the tip of the 12 months? Sure, I’m assured they’ll do helpful issues,” he stated on the time.
Twelve months on, in Tesla’s This fall 2025 earnings name, he conceded not a single robotic is doing something helpful – besides maybe as a prop for investor day displays.
“We’re nonetheless very a lot on the early phases of Optimus. It’s nonetheless within the R&D part,” Musk stated.
“We’ve got had Optimus do some primary duties within the manufacturing facility. However as we iterate on new variations of Optimus, we deprecate the previous variations. It’s not in utilization in our factories in a fabric method.”
However then – cease us in case you’ve heard this one earlier than – the Tesla CEO stated: “We wouldn’t anticipate to have any form of vital Optimus manufacturing quantity till most likely the tip of this 12 months.”
Within the meantime, Tesla is flatlining, aside from its P/E ratio, which sits slightly below 300x when the automotive trade common is round 15x. The shares did climb 3% right this moment after the outcomes.
Outcomes beat, however drop
Whereas Tesla beat market expectations on quarterly earnings (50 cents per share) and income (US$24.9 billion) estimates, the corporate posted its first-ever annual income fall – a 3% year-on-year decline. Web earnings fell 61%. Revenue plunged 46%.
EV gross sales fell 9% in 2025. Whole automotive revenues dropped 11%.
However Musk is upbeat, saying the brand new focus “intends to ship a message of optimism in regards to the future, like we’re almost definitely headed to an thrilling, wonderful period of abundance.”
He could also be making use of the royal “we” in that sentence, given the compensation package the board offered the world’s richest man.
The excellent news is that the full-self driving promised every year for over a decade is unquestionably, virtually, almost, any day now, nearly right here, Musk stated, believing US regulators will approve absolutely autonomous automobiles throughout half the nation by the tip of 2026.
Robo-taxis – a ship that sailed a while in the past, some would argue, with Waymo already setting up in Australia – are additionally a part of the Tesla technique, alongside the largest market bubble since Dutch tulips, synthetic intelligence. Maybe his success with child porn on X has filled Musk with possibilities.
The CEO believes they “make much more Cybercabs than all of our different automobiles mixed”.
“I’m simply guessing,” he stated, “however most likely lower than 5% of miles pushed might be the place any person is definitely driving the automotive themselves.”
He additionally stated: “I really feel very assured predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla subsequent 12 months.” Oops, sorry, my dangerous.
That’s a Musk assertion from 2019.
The corporate’s most helpful product and now worthwhile product, photo voltaic batteries, are a part of a push to provide knowledge centres, together with photo voltaic cells.
Tesla plans to spend US$20 billion this monetary 12 months on factories for Cybercab, EV semi, photo voltaic cells, batteries and robots.
As for the clusterfu Cybertruck, Musk thinks they may be helpful for last-mile cargo deliveries in cities.
Or possibly the individuals will begin shopping for them so ICE officers in Minneapolis must work a lot tougher to smash automotive home windows.
