Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 45 posts

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#21

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

peacebeard wrote: post #20
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://electrek.co/2025/12/15/tesla-reports-another-robotax... >Last month, Tesla confirmed the fleet had traveled roughly 250,000 miles. With 7 reported crashes at the time, Tesla’s Robotaxi was crashing roughly once every 40,000 miles (extrapolating from the previously disclosed Robotaxi mileage). >For comparison, the average human driver in the US crashes about once every 500,000 miles.

Ah, I misunderstood "Robotaxis" to be referring to autonomous taxis in general, not Tesla's Robotaxi's specifically. Thank you for clarifying.

The capitalization the parent poster used on Robotaxi may have been intentional to assist with interpretation. While it can be a generic term, I believe only Tesla uses it as a brand name: https://www.tesla.com/robotaxi

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#22

Post by JumpCrisscross »

taylodl wrote: post #5

Given that Robotaxis are currently crashing at a much higher rate than human-driven vehicles, it seems risky to put a large majority of your company's future earnings and growth in that basket. On the Optimus front, I spent years in manufacturing. This industry is conservative and deeply relationship driven. Plants prioritize uptime and proven reliability, and they're slow to adopt newcomers. ABB is the 800-pound gor…

> Given that Robotaxis are currently crashing at a much higher rate than human-driven vehicles

Robotaxis/cybercabs or whatever are not currently self driving. They’re Level 3, given the requirement for human monitors. To my knowledge, they’re doing fine safetywise as Level 3 systems.

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#23

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #21
peacebeard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I misunderstood "Robotaxis" to be referring to autonomous taxis in general, not Tesla's Robotaxi's specifically. Thank you for clarifying.

The capitalization the parent poster used on Robotaxi may have been intentional to assist with interpretation. While it can be a generic term, I believe only Tesla uses it as a brand name: https://www.tesla.com/robotaxi

Wait, is Cybercab deprecated in favour of Robotaxi now?

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#24

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Tesla is a one-way bet on cameras-only autonomy.

If Waymo or BYD (or Mercedes or GM, lol) get to Level 5 before 2030, and Tesla is still struggling with Level 4, the door shuts. Cameras-only autonomy starts getting banned. (We may see it sooner in e.g. China, India, the EU, and New York and California as a result of Trump-Musk politics.)

That said, it’s a Musk company, so downside is capped. If it fell below $100 to 500bn, xAI or SpaceX will buy it.

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#25

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The capitalization the parent poster used on Robotaxi may have been intentional to assist with interpretation. While it can be a generic term, I believe only Tesla uses it as a brand name: https://www.tesla.com/robotaxi

Wait, is Cybercab deprecated in favour of Robotaxi now?

I think it's this...

Robotaxi: Tesla's autonomously driven ride hailing service. Currently using Model Y's or whatever, maybe using Cybercabs once those actually exist, maybe eventually also leveraging Tesla vehicles owned by others (lmao no one who has though that through for more than a minute or two actually wants to risk their vehicle like that)

Cybercab: A Tesla vehicle explicitly built for the Robotaxi service, containing no driver controls whatsoever because they're expected to operate without any (local) human oversight

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#26

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #25
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, is Cybercab deprecated in favour of Robotaxi now?

I think it's this... Robotaxi: Tesla's autonomously driven ride hailing service. Currently using Model Y's or whatever, maybe using Cybercabs once those actually exist, maybe eventually also leveraging Tesla vehicles owned by others (lmao no one who has though that through for more than a minute or two actually wants to risk their vehicle like that) Cybercab: A Tesla vehicle explicitly built for the Robotaxi service,…

This is some USB committee bullshit.

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#28

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Zigurd wrote: post #6

Does anyone pay for Grok? Despite claims of profitability, SpaceX still needs huge investments despite having spent all the lunar lander money without producing anything more than a render. Tesla is valued at more than the rest of the car industry put together, even after two years of stagnation and collapsing margins. Though it overlaps the AI bubble, Elon accounts for more of a general tech bubble than anyone else.…

> Despite claims of profitability, SpaceX still needs huge investments

This is false. SpaceX is cash flow positive.

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#30

Post by Zigurd »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28
Zigurd wrote: post #6

Does anyone pay for Grok? Despite claims of profitability, SpaceX still needs huge investments despite having spent all the lunar lander money without producing anything more than a render. Tesla is valued at more than the rest of the car industry put together, even after two years of stagnation and collapsing margins. Though it overlaps the AI bubble, Elon accounts for more of a general tech bubble than anyone else.…

> Despite claims of profitability, SpaceX still needs huge investments This is false. SpaceX is cash flow positive.

SpaceX is in fact not profitable. Depending on how you price internal transactions for manufacturing and launching Starlink satellites you can fudge the hell out of the term "cash flow positive." In fact, SpaceX continued to take outside investments in 2025.
Post reply on HN