In case you missed it, Tesla’s first-quarter numbers came in, and they have Wall Street running for the hills, with critics cheering: “I told you so.”
The company reported its first quarterly drop in deliveries in nearly four years, a moment some have termed a stark deviation from its historical trajectory of relentless growth. However, it’s worth delving deeper to understand the factors at play.
Economic and Competitive Landscape
First and foremost, the broader economic landscape cannot be overlooked. With rising interest rates dampening consumer spending power, the cost of living soaring, and the global economy showing signs of strain, the automotive sector, especially the EV market, has not been immune to these headwinds. Therefore, Tesla's sales performance this quarter cannot be viewed in isolation but as part of a larger economic tableau that has also left its mark on other sectors. The company also expected this, which prepared investors for a difficult year during the last earnings call.
Moreover, the competitive landscape has been intensifying. BYD, Tesla's closest competitor and a powerhouse in its own right, briefly overtook Tesla in sales in the last quarter of 2023, only to experience its own significant sales drop of 43% in the first quarter of 2024. This parallel trajectory underscores a shared challenge: navigating a market that is becoming increasingly saturated, competitive, and sensitive to pricing dynamics.
Musk's Commentary
In the wake of Tesla's reported delivery numbers, Elon Musk took to his platform X, which he has 180 million followers, to address critics directly. Musk's response to investment analyst Ross Gerber's continued criticism, stating, "He’s such an idiot that he can’t even tell he’s an idiot," defending Tesla's position by highlighting BYD's significant sales drop and asserting, "This was a tough quarter for everyone."
He’s such an idiot that he can’t even tell he’s an idiot.
BYD sales dropped by 42% from last quarter. This was a tough quarter for everyone.
Amidst this, Tesla's disproportionate share of media scrutiny makes these numbers seem even worse. For example, Reuters's story on BYD's 43% decline in deliveries was less than 400 words, while Tesla’s miss on deliveries was more than 800 words. The company's every move, statement, and quarterly performance is magnified, analyzed, and debated, creating a narrative battleground that extends far beyond the confines of financial spreadsheets, production lines, or even fair play.
Tesla’s Technological Innovations Extend Beyond the Car
Tesla's commitment to pushing the boundaries of technology remains unwavering, especially in the realm of Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities. The company's confidence in this revolutionary technology is apparent in a new offer of a complimentary one-month trial of its FSD software.
This bold move underscores Tesla's belief in the transformative potential of its autonomous driving technology and its readiness to showcase this innovation to a wider audience, inviting them to experience the future of driving firsthand.
Moreover, Musk's pinned post on X offers a visionary glimpse into Tesla's future, emphasizing the transformative potential of Tesla's Full Self-Driving technology.
Most people still have no idea how crushingly good Tesla FSD will get. It will be superhuman to such a degree that it will seem strange in the future that humans drove cars, even while exhausted and drunk!
The Future of Tesla and the EV Market
Tesla's strategic decisions, including price adjustments and the anticipation of a slower growth year, reflect a calculated approach to these challenges. The company's focus on ramping production for the updated Model 3 and navigating unforeseen disruptions, such as the Red Sea conflict and an arson attack at its Berlin factory, speaks to the operational hurdles it faces amid a complex global environment.
For Tesla and BYD, this period is a chapter in a longer saga of adaptation, resilience, and relentless pursuit of a future where electric vehicles are at the heart of global mobility. As the dust settles on this quarter's developments, the focus inevitably shifts to the strategies, innovations, and decisions that will define the next phase of growth for these electric vehicle titans.
Yesterday, we reported that Tesla updated their Steam integration on Model S and Model X vehicles. The update was part of their 2024 Holiday Update, but it looks like there may be more to this than a simple update.
Steam, a video game library app, makes it easy for users to buy or launch games on their computers. However, a couple of years ago, Valve, who created Steam, launched their own standalone device, the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck runs a custom OS based on Linux.
Steam Launch
When Tesla launched the redesigned Model S and Model X, Tesla introduced a dedicated gaming GPU with 16GB of RAM and touted the ability to play top-tier PC games in Tesla vehicles.
In 2022, Tesla finally launched the Steam app for the Model S and Model X as part of its 2022 Holiday Update. The Steam app runs Steam OS, the same OS as the Steam Deck in a virtual environment.
However, earlier this year, Tesla stopped including the GPU and Steam (Beta) in their vehicles, and we haven’t seen any updates to the Steam in quite some time. In fact, we thought Tesla was axing their gaming-on-the-go dreams.
SteamOS Update
The Steam app, which is still in Beta, is getting an interesting update for the Model S and Model X vehicles with the discrete GPU.
Those vehicles received an update to SteamOS 3.6 - the same version of SteamOS that runs on the Steam Deck. While nothing has visually changed, there’s a long list of performance optimizations under the hood to get things running smoother.
Comparing Steam Deck to Tesla Vehicles
Let’s take a look at the Steam Deck - according to Valve, its onboard Zen4 CPU and GPU combined push a total of 2 TFlops of data, which is fairly respectable, but much lower than today’s home consoles. The Steam Deck is capable of 720p gaming fairly seamlessly on low-to-medium settings on the go and is also built on the AMD platform.
AMD-equipped Teslas, including the Model 3 and Model Y, are packing an older Zen+ (Zen 1.5) APU (processor with a combined CPU and GPU). AMD claims that the V1000 - the same embedded chip as on AMD Tesla vehicles (YE1807C3T4MFB), brings up to 3.6 TFLops of processing power with it, including 4K encoding and decoding with the integrated GPU on board.
While that’s not enough for 4K gaming or comparable to a full-blown console or desktop GPU, that’s enough raw horsepower for light gaming and is currently more powerful than the Steam Deck.
The Model S and Model X’s GPU brings that up to about 10TFlops of power - comparable to modern consoles like the Xbox Series X at 12 TFlops.
Steam Gaming for All Vehicles?
The fact that Tesla is updating SteamOS even though the feature is no longer available in any new vehicles could indicate that Tesla is not only bringing Steam back to Teslas but that it’s going to play a much bigger role.
While SteamOS is run in a virtual environment on top of Tesla’s own OS, we could see Tesla bring SteamOS to all of its current vehicles, including the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck. Steam in these vehicles would likely support any game that’s capable of running on the Steam Deck.
We think this Steam update, which includes performance improvements and a variety of fixes, has quietly passed under most people’s radars. This could be a very exciting update for those who enjoy gaming, especially for those who love to do it in their Tesla.
As part of Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, Tesla included two awesome new features - Weather at Destination and the long-awaited Weather Radar Overlay. These two features are big upgrades built upon the weather feature that was added in update 2024.26. The original weather feature added an hourly forecast, as well as the chance of precipitation, UV index, Air Quality Index, and other data.
However, this update also added some smaller weather touches, such as the vehicle alerting you if the weather at the destination will be drastically different from the current weather.
Not a Tesla App
Weather At Destination
When you’re navigating to a destination and viewing the full navigation direction list, the text under the arrival time will show you the expected weather next to your destination. You can also tap this, and the full weather pop-up will show up, showing your destination's full set of weather information.
Note the weather under the arrival time
Not a Tesla App
You can also tap the weather icon at the top of the interface at any time and tap Destination to switch between the weather at your current location and the weather at your destination.
You’re probably considering that the weather at your destination doesn’t matter when you’re three hours away - but that’s all taken into account by the trip planner. It will add in both charge time and travel time and show you the weather at your destination at your expected arrival time.
And if the weather is drastically different or inclement, such as rain or snow, while you’ve got sunshine and rainbows - the weather will be shown above the destination ETA for a few moments before it tucks itself away.
Tesla also recently introduced a new voice command. Asking, “What’s the weather?” or something similar will now bring up Tesla’s weather popup.
The weather pop-up above the ETA
Not a Tesla App
One limitation, though—if you’re planning a long road trip that is more than a day of driving, the weather at destination feature won’t be available until you get closer.
Weather Radar Overlay
As part of the improvements to weather, Tesla has also added a radar overlay for precipitation. You can access the new radar overlay by tapping the map and then tapping the weather icon on the right side of the map. It’ll bring up a radar overlay centered on your vehicle. It’ll animate through the radar data over the last 3 hours so that you can see the direction of the storm, but you can also pause it at any point.
You’re able to scroll around in this view and see the weather anywhere, even if you zoom out. It also works while you’re driving, although it can be a little confusing if you’re trying to pay attention to the navigation system. If you like to have Points of Interest enabled on your map, the weather overlay will hide POIs except for Charging POIs.
Requirements / Data
Unfortunately, you’ll need Premium Connectivity for any of the weather features to work, and being on WiFi or using a hotspot will not be enough to get the data to show up. The data, including the weather radar, is provided by The Weather Channel.
As for supported models, weather and weather at destination are available on all vehicles except for the 2012-2020 Model S and Model X. The weather radar has more strict requirements and requires the newer AMD Ryzen-powered infotainment center available on the 2021+ Model S and Model X and more recent Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
![Tesla Updates Santa Mode & Rainbow Road to Use Ambient Lighting and Updates SteamOS [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/tesla-screen/ambient-lighting-santa-mode-rainbow.webp/bd6dd7459fc8963516a33efd3bd54466/ambient-lighting-santa-mode-rainbow.jpg)
![Tesla Builds Cybertruck Tunnel While Production Lines Pause [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/2024/cybertruck-tunnel.webp/822a2c10124f46fe13e0d45cefdd9d33/cybertruck-tunnel.jpg)
![Impressive Tesla FSD Videos: Making Room for Vehicles & Mastering Tight Maneuvers [WATCH]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/2023/fsd-beta-vis-3.jpg/9c0bfda120e9fecc4ddb111b350565ac/fsd-beta-vis-3.jpg)
_300w.png)
