Everything Tesla Announced During Its Earnings Call - Robotaxi Details, HW3 Support, FSD and More

Not a Tesla App

Did you miss Tesla’s Q3 2024 Earnings Call, or just want to review everything Tesla announced? Either way, we’ve got an outline of everything Tesla announced during the call.

This call was strongly focused on autonomy and revealed a lot more details about Tesla’s plans for its ride sharing service and the Cybercab.

Below is a section-by-section outline of both the actual earnings call and Q&A session and the investor slide deck.

Autonomy and FSD

• Tesla is still focusing hard on autonomy

• There were 50 autonomous vehicles at the We, Robot event

  • Carried thousands of people with no incidents or issues

  • 20 were Cybercabs and 30 were regular Model Ys

• Cybercab will reach volume production by 2026

  • Expected to reach 2 million units per year for initial capacity

  • Tesla could see expanding it to 4 million units per year

• There have been significant improvements in FSD year-to-date

  • FSD launched in the Cybertruck, FSD V12.5 launched most recently

  • Actually Smart Summon is a taste of Unsupervised FSD

  • Single Stack for Highway and City, all end-to-end, all neural nets coming soon in V13

  • 100x improvement in miles per intervention between FSD v11.4.9 and FSD v12.5

  • Tesla expects a 5-6x improvement in miles per intervention between FSD v12.5 and FSD v13

  • By Q2 next year Tesla expects FSD to have higher miles per critical intervention than the average human’s miles per collision

    • This is the “safer than a human” mark Tesla is aiming for

  • Hardware 4 has made significant strides in helping progress FSD due to the available processing power

• Tesla will continue to roll out more 30-day trials with every significant FSD improvement

  • FSD has seen an increased take-rate after We, Robot

Internal Testing for Robotaxi

• Tesla employees in the California Bay Area have already been testing Tesla’s Robotaxi service, which is run with Model Y’s

  • These vehicles have a safety driver

  • Tesla is also testing the Robotaxi / ridesharing app internally

Ride Hailing

• Ride Hailing/Robotaxi network’s initial rollout will begin in Texas and maybe California next year

  • California’s regulatory approvals will be challenging, and Texas may happen sooner.

  • California may be delayed to 2026

  • Other states that follow Texas could come sooner

• Driverless Teslas will be offering paid rides sometime next year

• Some recently released features were designed for the Robotaxi, but went to every Tesla

  • Robotaxis will automatically load and adopt your Tesla profile, logging you into media apps, adjusting the vehicle’s climate and seat settings for comfort

  • Navigation can be done with the phone app, and you can also track progress of Robotaxis on-route

• Cybercab, Models S3XY, already meet federal vehicle regulations for autonomy

• State vehicle regulations are all over the place, each state has different (or no) process for autonomy

Hardware 3

• “Vast Majority” of Tesla’s vehicles on the road today will be capable of autonomy

• Tesla will continue to iterate FSD on HW4 first, and then backport to HW3

• HW3 does not “fundamentally support” kernel features, and Tesla has to use tricks and additional work to get it to function

• Elon admits he is not 100% sure HW3 will be capable of autonomy

• If HW3 cannot do the job, Tesla will upgrade HW3 computers for owners who have purchased FSD.

  • Tesla has previously said multiple times this was not possible, this is big news

  • Upgrade will only cover the inference computers, not cameras or other parts

Affordable Model - 25K

• Tesla’s more affordable model is still on track for the first half of 2025.

• It will be built on the same next-gen platform as Cybercab, with an estimated 5.5mi/kWh.

  • This will be Tesla’s most efficient powertrain.

• Tesla will continue to innovate to reduce the cost of its current lineup (S, 3, X, Y, CT).

  • CT is now profit neutral/approaching profitability

Semi

• Semi factory is well under construction, CapEx for the factory is complete

• Pilot builds of the updated Semi begin next year

• Production ramp begins in 2026

• Lots of signaled demand from trucking companies

  • Tesla is not expecting a demand issue

• Cost per mile per ton is far lower than diesel trucks

  • Companies that don’t adopt Semi won’t be able to keep up

• Pepsi’s drivers don’t want to go back to their old vehicles, fight to stay on Tesla’s Semis

• “Couple hundred” already deployed this year

  • Tesla is training the Semi fleet on FSD, will deploy FSD to the Semi when its ready.

Roadster

• Roadster is the “cherry on the icing on the cake”

• Not a priority for the Tesla mission

• Will come after other items that have a bigger impact on the mission (25K Model, etc.,)

• Design is close to finalization

Service

• Tesla is trying to fix issues upstream - at the factory level - to reduce service wait times

• Tesla is looking to establish dedicated service facilities where they have dedicated lanes and technicians for certain specific issues

• Throughput of service matters

• Tesla, unlike other auto manufacturers, services cars

  • Normally, car dealers, not manufacturers make money on service

  • Tesla does not make money on service

  • Tesla has an incentive to reduce servicing costs as much as possible

• Tesla is working on automating vehicle diagnostics and prep work

  • Vehicle self-diagnoses, information is provided to Tesla

  • Parts arrive, lift is booked and tools prepared

  • Vehicle arrives, technician is fully aware of the issue and can immediately fix the problem without wasting time

  • Already, most of the time Tesla doesn’t need to diagnose the issue, the car diagnoses itself and reports potential problems to Service.

4680 Cell

• Tesla has produced the 100 millionth 4680 cell in Q3 2024.

• Rapidly becoming the most competitive cell in terms of price

  • Tesla’s internally produced 4680 will be the most cost-competitive cell in North America

• Continued progress on the dry-cathode line and expanding past the initial test batch

• Tesla will continue to rely upon external cell providers

  • Lots of capacity is needed for both vehicles and stationary storage that can’t be achieved internally

AI and Optimus

• AI training capacity is still expanding

• Tesla is not compute constrained right now, especially with Cortex coming online

  • FSD is getting good enough that it is hard to find and figure out issues

  • Can see 10,000 miles of FSD video and not find an issue in current builds

• Tesla is testing both virtually and physically

  • Real-life physical testing offers additional benefits, interacting with real humans, etc.,

• Optimus’ new hand has 22 DoF, and is extremely humanlike

  • Tesla is likely the only company that can scale humanoid robots

  • This is likely due to Tesla’s extreme vertical integration, including batteries, actuators, sensors, software, and inference

  • FSD provides the humanlike brain, while Tesla’s factories can provide volume production capabilities

• Grok in Tesla / Infotainment

  • Tesla will keep expanding what’s available for infotainment, will include AI support

  • Will also include browser improvements, movies, games, productivity

Energy

• Energy is still doing well, lots of space to continuing scaling this business sector

• Megafactory Lathrop is doing 200 Megapacks a week, for 40GWh a year

• Shanghai will begin doing 20GWh per year, starting Q1 2025

• Tesla wants to ship at least 100GWh per year by the end of 2025

• Tesla wants to meet the stationary energy demands for a sustainable energy future

  • This includes the delivery of multiple terawatt hours per year

• No material limitations on stationary battery business expansion

  • No rare materials or complex procedures are involved in the production process

Financial & Deliveries

• Tesla has pushed out record deliveries this quarter.

• No other EV company or EV section of another automaker is profitable

• Tesla’s future is the world’s future - autonomous and fully electric

• As Tesla executes on its objectives, Tesla will become the most valuable company in the world.

• Tesla has done an excellent job executing in a difficult fiscal and regulatory environment so far

• As cyclic fiscal and standing regulatory challenges are overcome, Tesla can continue to expand and grow in value

• Automotive revenue grew Quarter over Quarter

  • Financial incentives have hurt direct profit numbers, but increased overall sales considerably

  • Tesla will continue to offer compelling financing options, but sparingly

  • Tesla has a compelling overall package - safety, autonomy, features, total cost of ownership

  • Tesla acknowledges there is an awareness gap about these items with new and old buyers alike

• Tesla has had their vehicle margins grow Quarter over Quarter due to optimizations

• Tesla continues to squeeze costs without compromising on the customer experience

• Tesla has benefitted from lower freight and duties by delivering vehicles locally in markets where possible

  • North American vehicles from North America, European vehicles from Giga Berlin, Asian vehicles from China

• Decline in interest rates as economy steadies will have a drastic impact on automotive demand

  • Due to interest rates, people have been holding onto cars longer, especially in North America

  • This has impacted new vehicle sales, as people are hesitant to spend money

  • Tesla sees an opportunity to educate and find new buyers in this market sector

• Energy saw a decline in Q3, due to cyclic conditions

  • Projects are long term, and many begin in Q3, while ending in other quarters

  • Q4 will show growth for Energy

  • Q3 has been Tesla’s off-quarter for Energy (2021, 2022, 2023)

• Tesla’s Q2 restructuring continuing to impact the company, will have no more impacts after Q4

• GPU deployments continue, and Tesla will continue making quarterly investments, but sparingly

  • As it stands, Tesla has more GPU capacity than they can work with now - not compute constrained

• Fragmented regulatory landscape will cause issues for the rollout of the Robotaxi Network and Unsupervised FSD

• Most automotive companies have not internalized autonomy or EVs, and Tesla is a leader in both sectors
  

If you’d like to listen to the earnings call, it’s available below.

Plus, Tesla put out a highlight list of some of their biggest achievements for this quarter here on X.

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A Closer Look at the New 2025 Model Y Juniper Refresh

@tslachan on X

Now that the Model Y Juniper refresh has officially been announced in the Asia-Pacific markets, the initial vehicles from Giga Shanghai are starting to make their way to showrooms throughout the region.

And that means lots of new pictures. Let’s take a look at some of the latest close-up shots of the 2025 Model Y.

Light Bar Close-Up

Our first up-close look at the new front end of the new Model Y. This car is likely en route to a showroom prior to the start of Tesla’s big sales push for the Chinese Lunar New Year, and this is one of the closest and cleanest shots of the new front end.

The sharp new front of the Juniper

@DriveGreen80167 on X

The new front light bar is very visible, even when it’s off. It’s more than a thin strip of lights. The headlights are located directly below the light bar at either end. You can also see the new squared-away sharp lines - starting from the lightbar gaps and going up the hood. The new design looks far more aggressive and sharp when viewed at this angle.

Wheels

And the new wheels are pretty interesting, too - especially since they don’t seem to have full aero covers on them. We’re wondering if Tesla intends to introduce aero covers for these wheels later - or if they’ll just stay uncovered. They look pretty good - but the black hubcap in the center stands out against the rest of the wheel. Time will tell whether the clean black finish holds up with use.

We're a big fan of these new fan-blade wheels

@DriveGreen80167 on X

Either way, they’re pretty good looking - but we’d prefer to see them in an all black finish - similar to the Shadow Gemini’s that are currently available. Hopefully, once the Model Y refresh arrives in North America and Europe, that option will be available in addition to the Crossflow wheels.

Video

One of the first videos showing off some of the new Model Y features.

New Model Y is Epic! pic.twitter.com/4zxf6bgkYh

— Tsla Chan (@Tslachan) January 22, 2025

Interior

The refreshed Model Y also brings a ton of changes to the interior. In addition to the Launch Edition exclusive dash, we also get a good shot of the new ventilated seats, as well as the return of the turn signal stalk.

The best interior shot we've seen so far

@DriveGreen80167 on X

The new Model Y also has the same new center console as the Model 3 Highland - with the two-part slider. For now, it seems like the Launch Edition will include rubber pedal covers - nothing fancy like the metallic ones available on the Performance variants yet.

Rear End Close-Up

On the rear end of the vehicle, we get a close-up view of the new reflective light bar. Tesla claims this is an industry-first, and it does look very cool. The actual light is located on the inside edge of the piece that overhangs the reflective portion. The reflective portion itself is painted to match the vehicle - and isn’t a glossy surface, but rather matte.

Gotta love that new reflective light bar

@DriveGreen80167 on X

In the next image, we can also see that the rear camera is mounted in a new location. It doesn’t have the camera lip that the 2024 Model Y has been shipping with, as the camera is now mounted on the very edge of the new raised bumper. This also means the camera is much higher up than it previously was. This location change likely means that the new Y will require some additional training time for both FSD and Actually Smart Summon, as well as the new front bumper camera.

This is going to be an interesting change - we’re not sure how this new camera location will handle snow, rain, and road muck, but this is likely the main reason for it being moved up and away from the road.

The updated camera positioning is noticeably higher

@zhongwen2005 on X

We’re excited to see the new Model Y in person. This refresh has been a long time coming and there are many details that are still waiting to be discovered.

Customer deliveries are supposed to begin in just a couple of months - May at the earliest - in the Asia-Pacific region. We’re hoping to see the refresh arrive in Europe and North America by summertime and then see the launch of the Performance variant shortly thereafter.

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Tesla Drive-in Diner Details Found in Latest Tesla App Update

A rendering of what the Tesla app may look like with the Tesla Diner added

Not a Tesla App

Tesla has been planning to create its own drive-in diner with Superchargers since at least 2022, when it filed paperwork for the one-of-kind supercharger location. In 2023, Tesla’s then Senior Director of Charging Infrastructure, Rebecca Tinucci, said during a presentation that you "can't forget to do cool s***."

The slide presentation showed off an illustration of a retro-looking Tesla Diner restaurant with a rooftop patio and an old-school drive-in movie screen behind it. People could be seen lining up to get inside, hinting that whatever the restaurant serves is worth the wait.

Since then, Tesla has begun and practically completed the construction of its Tesla Diner project. The location includes two 45-foot outdoor LED screens that will play short films, and it’ll also serve food up to 77 guests while their vehicle is being charged.

As the completion of the diner approaches, Tesla has now revealed several other bits of information in the latest Tesla app update. Thanks to a decompile by Tesla app iOS, we see that Tesla’s diner will closely tie in with the Tesla app itself.

Integrated With the Tesla App

Several phrases were found in Tesla’s latest app update, which includes things like show_diner, Diner Home Screen, profile_settings_diner_description, and View menu & amenities. It sounds like you’ll be able to view the diner’s menu directly from the Tesla app, but if we had to guess, there will be a lot more to it than that.

Following Tesla’s seamless integration with Superchargers, we expect the diner experience to be similar. You may soon be able to order food directly from the app and have it charged automatically to your card on file, letting you skip the payment portion completely.

Since Tesla knows which Supercharger stall you’re connected to, we also expect Tesla to take full advantage of this and bring the food directly to your vehicle without you needing to specify your location. So imagine this, you’ll pull up to a Supercharger and plug it in.

Tesla Diner UI

An image was also found in the app update that hints at where the Tesla Diner options will be located. The image found is the same ratio and similar size to other images found in the main menu of the Tesla app. In addition, the phrase “profile_settings_diner_description” could be the string used for the text that will show up in this menu. Since this menu is used to guide users to Tesla pillars such as products, charging, referrals and more, we expect the diner menu to only show up if you’re geographically near the Tesla diner.

What’s round and shiny but still not yet open?
Tesla diner

Lots of Supercharging stalls being installed in the adjacent lot pic.twitter.com/Ggl5iZE205

— AL Set (@AlSet51241438) January 4, 2025

Opening Soon?

Supercharger stalls, landscaping, and more are already in place at the Tesla Diner. The fact that Tesla is now including code related to the diner in the Tesla app indicates that Tesla may be ready to open up the diner to the public very soon.

For now, the location remains quiet, but it will soon become a 24-hour diner with a steady flow of traffic as Tesla owners visit to enjoy a unique charging and dining experience.

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