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

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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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Tesla in Talks With Palo Alto to Launch Robotaxi Service

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Tesla is now in talks with the city of Palo Alto regarding the launch of its Robotaxi service in the city. According to Palo Alto Online, the city has already held a preliminary meeting with Tesla to discuss a potential partnership.

The city of Palo Alto has been looking for an alternative transport option for its citizens, as the free Palo Alto Shuttle ceased operations in 2020. Palo Alto currently has a rideshare carpool service called ‘Link,’ which offers citizens a cheaper alternative to Uber.

Advantages for Palo Alto

Robotaxi could offer the citizens of Palo Alto an excellent alternative means of transportation. They’d be able to summon their own Cybercab for their trip rather than waiting for a pooled form of transportation like Link.

The best part is that Robotaxi, with its extremely low cost per mile, is likely to also cost the residents less while also being more convenient and more widely available. This could be a massive advantage for its residents, who were previously relying on the free shuttle network and now use the fairly inexpensive but somewhat inconvenient Link service.

Robotaxi Testing Grounds

This deal with Palo Alto could represent an excellent opportunity for Tesla to gather additional data and start testing their autonomous taxi service. However, the City of Palo Alto confirmed that “the potential Tesla deal won’t be realized for some time because of regulatory hurdles.” Tesla will need to work with two California bodies to get this off the ground. 

Before this Palo Alto plan can get off the ground, the Robotaxi service will have to be approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, and the Cybercab will also have to be approved by the California Department of Motor Vehicles before it can be used. Once regulatory approval is granted, Tesla will likely begin working in earnest to get their Robotaxis off the ground.

During its Robotaxi event, Tesla announced that it plans to start its Robotaxi service with Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in 2025, with the Cybercab entering the picture in late 2026. It’s not clear whether this potential deal keeps this timeline on track or helps expedite it.

Getting the Robotaxi service off the ground in a small location will be an excellent opportunity for Tesla to refine the overall experience, from the Robotaxi app, which is expected to be a separate riding-sharing app, to the user interface in the Robotaxi.

Tesla will also need to continue developing its automated charging and cleaning hubs, which will undoubtedly need to be refined and adjusted as it gets tested in the real world.

The next two years will undoubtedly be very interesting years for Tesla, as they’ll be facing the biggest steps of regulatory approval for both Unsupervised FSD, as well as Robotaxi.

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Tesla Breaks Ground on World's Largest Supercharger, Featuring Solar, Megapacks and Canopies

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Tesla’s largest Supercharger site today is at the Harris Ranch complex in Coalinga, California. There are a staggering 98 charging stalls. An interesting fact about Harris Ranch is that it was also the first and only battery swap station that Tesla tried back in 2014. While other companies like Nio have continued battery swap stations, Tesla decided to focus on charging instead.

Tesla’s Harris Ranch Supercharger will now be dwarfed by its upcoming 168-stall Supercharger in Lost Hills, California, which will span more than 30 acres.

Solar, Megapacks & Canopies

The new site in Lost Hills has been dubbed Oasis and will be able to charge a large number of vehicles daily. If every spot is filled and a vehicle takes 15 minutes to charge and five minutes to park and plug in, Oasis could charge 4,896 vehicles in a 12-hour period. That’s nearly 10,000 vehicles per day at max throughput, assuming 24/7 usage.

However, that’s not all Tesla is packing into this new Supercharger location. The site will spread across 30 acres and will be home to 11 Megawatts of ground-mounted solar, as well as canopies for a good portion of the installation. With the deployment of 10 Tesla Megapacks, there will also be 39 megawatt hours of energy storage. That storage amount is enough to charge about 650 Model Y Long Ranges by itself.

The groundbreaking crew at the Oasis site.

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Max de Zegher, Director of Charging at Tesla North America, mentioned in an article on X that Oasis needs the Megapacks to operate because the local utility wouldn’t be able to meet its power demands. Tesla is leveraging its vertical integration to address the power demand and make the charger a reality, whereas another company may simply not be able to create such a massive charging site in the area.

The Megapacks could also help Tesla offset higher energy costs during peak hours and also help provide power during short outages.

Tesla is working with the local power utility to increase its capacity. While the site will only have access to 1.5 MW at its opening, Tesla will add additional stalls as power availability increases, eventually reaching its goal of 168 stalls.

While this location will be Tesla’s largest Supercharger site in the world, it still pales in comparison to China’s 637-stall charger in Shenzhen. This Chinese charging site supports Shenzhen's all-electric taxi fleet and delivers more than 160 MWh of power daily.

However, this is a fantastic achievement for Tesla, especially when earlier this year, the future of Supercharging was uncertain. We’re excited to see all the stalls, vehicles, solar, and Megapacks around the site, not to mention the likely amenities that will be there. Tesla may also include one of its special Superchargers here, possibly one to celebrate the world’s largest Supercharger.

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