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Tesla ending Models S and X production

cnbc.com

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Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#251

Post by tombert »

tempestn wrote: post #54
vannevar wrote: post #29

The next shoe to drop will be shifting Model Y production from Fremont to Austin. Fremont will make Model 3s. Austin will make Model Ys and Robotaxis/2s. Cybertruck will be canceled. None of the Tesla plants will be making robots at any scale for many years.

Agreed, let alone 1M units a year!

My dad found it extremely amusing that Elon said "we just have to solve the 'AI problem' and we'll have robots doing shopping for us", or something like that. I can't remember the exact verbiage, but that was the gist.

The word "just" is doing a lot of work there. Going by that logic: We "just" need to figure out cold fusion to have effectively infinite energy. We "just" need to develop warp drives to travel across the galaxy. We "just" need to figure out the chemo problem to cure cancer.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#252

Post by defrost »

01100011 wrote: post #250
defrost wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Chinese EV's are flying out of their factories, well, a few are - most are self driving out to the shipping yards. This despite the 2025 support by the Chinese state for the Chines EV industry now being almost nothing. By contrast, defenders of China could point out that the data show that subsidies as a percentage of total sales have declined substantially, from over 40% in the early years to only 11.5% in 2…

You'd expect subsidies to drop as supply chains mature and economies of scale kick in. What about subsidies to inputs like electricity, aluminum, batteries, etc?

You would be better answered by reading the link and any methodology references.

Perhaps "support" already factors in all relevant subsidies.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#253

Post by Slothrop99 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #124
harshaw wrote: post #15

I am confused about what Tesla is doing. They have effectively two automobile products now with one failed product (cybertruck). reading various articles about this doesn't make it more clear. Do they not want to be a car company?

The X and S were always very low volume niche products unlike the much more mainstream Y and 3. I wouldn’t read much into it.

S you can understand, because sedans are dead. But every other US auto company is making big profits with large SUVs, so I don't get dropping X.

Agree with other posters who say whatever you think of Musk, Tesla styling has gotten very stale.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#254

Post by vannevar »

bamboozled wrote: post #226
vannevar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with being a car company is that they'd have to compete with China. It's possible, but they'd have to make additional capital investments to keep up. They've just wasted a ton of money on a failed Musk vanity project (Cybertruck) and squandered a ton of goodwill in their home market via the DOGE fiasco. Cash flow is not what it once was, and if they're going to make a big capital investment, they're proba…

The problem with being a car company is that they'd have to compete with China. As if China cannot produce kick ass robots ? What special sauce does Musk have here that a country with a massive pool of highly trained and educated engineers and decades of manufacturing expertise don't have?

I'm sure China can. But nobody is producing consumer humanoid robots at any scale yet, so Tesla can at least make the argument that they'll make better robots when people actually start buying robots. People are buying cars at scale right now, and existing Tesla models have fallen behind their Chinese competitors.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#255

Post by aloha2436 »

parineum wrote: post #236
adastra22 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars, maybe. Tesla is valued much larger than the rest of the auto industry combined though. Humanoid robots? Ain’t nobody made the business case for that. It is pure vibes.

Tesla is valued at more than the auto industry because they are doing more than the entire auto industry. Honda is going to come out with a new Civic next year. It's going to look like the old Civic. Tesla is trying to create self driving taxis to make the rest of the auto industry obsolete. If you think that can happen, they should be worth more than the rest of the industry.

> Tesla is trying to create self driving taxis to make the rest of the auto industry obsolete.

They are one of many organisations trying to do that and they are not the most successful at it.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#256

Post by [deleted] »

laughing_man wrote: post #213
sampton wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't remember when was the last S/X refresh. It's nuts they just let it go stale and shut the factory down.

Musk's goal all along was to get away from boutique production. He wants to sell millions of cheaper cars, not thousands of cars for wealthy people. Not sure it's going to work out. Without some big jumps in battery tech, EVs are going to be difficult to sell without subsidies.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#257

Post by Slothrop99 »

annexrichmond wrote: post #219
harshaw wrote: post #15

I am confused about what Tesla is doing. They have effectively two automobile products now with one failed product (cybertruck). reading various articles about this doesn't make it more clear. Do they not want to be a car company?

How do you suppose Cybertruck is a failure? I see just as many of them as Rivians, while releasing over 5 years later.

Ignoring who makes it, this kind of gimmickmobile usually sells well for about a year, and then everyone who wants one has one. It was never going to be a tentpole.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#258

Post by mywittyname »

parineum wrote: post #236
adastra22 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars, maybe. Tesla is valued much larger than the rest of the auto industry combined though. Humanoid robots? Ain’t nobody made the business case for that. It is pure vibes.

Tesla is valued at more than the auto industry because they are doing more than the entire auto industry. Honda is going to come out with a new Civic next year. It's going to look like the old Civic. Tesla is trying to create self driving taxis to make the rest of the auto industry obsolete. If you think that can happen, they should be worth more than the rest of the industry.

> Tesla is trying to create self driving taxis to make the rest of the auto industry obsolete.

This is a pretty baffling take. Most people in the world operate their own cars, and even if taxis were free, a large portion of them would continue to operate their own cars because it's convenient.

Taxis also don't replace a good chunk of the new vehicle market. People driving fleet trucks aren't going to work out of taxis. The top selling vehicles in the USA are pickup trucks, and it isn't even close.

Lastly, even if they succeed, competition will catch up and the market will be saturated.

In 20 years, people will still be buying the humble Civic. While the next 20 years at Tesla will probably be a string of market failures and wacky promises of personal space craft or some shit.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#259

Post by officerk »

kccoder wrote: post #246
testing22321 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the earnings call Elon said “we’re hoping to debut [next gen roadster] in April, hopefully. It’s gonna be something out of this world.” (I’m just the messenger, don’t shoot me)

He didn't specify the year.

He said it's on April 1st [1]. So, yeah.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/06/tesla-delays-reveal-of-pro...

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#260

Post by runako »

Retric wrote: post #245
laughing_man wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk's goal all along was to get away from boutique production. He wants to sell millions of cheaper cars, not thousands of cars for wealthy people. Not sure it's going to work out. Without some big jumps in battery tech, EVs are going to be difficult to sell without subsidies.

Musk would love to be selling several billion dollars per year of model S/X sales, the issue is they aren’t that competitive with other cars in the luxury segment thus the falling sales numbers. Tesla’s doesn’t really have a complex strategy at this point, they are getting squeezed out of the high end by legacy automakers where their lower cost batteries don’t matter as much. They are absolutely fucked on the low end…

> getting squeezed out of the high end by legacy automakers where their lower cost batteries don’t matter as much. They are absolutely fucked on the low end as soon as Chinese cars enter the picture.

The deep irony here is that after ~15 years of trying ti differentiate from the legacy American automakers, they land in a very similar competitive position. Chinese EVs are in the process of running the table outside the protectionist markets of the EU + US/Canada.

Eventually those protective barriers will fall as they protect a relatively small number of citizens by taxing the majority. It remains to be seen whether the US and European domestic producers will survive.

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