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 LFP Batteries Can Now Be Warmed up While Supercharging Using Innovative Feature

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Tesla’s been on a roll with Supercharger improvements lately, from the 325kW charging update for the Cybertruck, to 500kW with V4 Superchargers coming next year. While those improvements have been limited to the Cybertruck, Tesla didn’t put all their focus on their new flagship vehicle, but looked at their more affordable vehicles as well.

LFP Battery Heating

Tesla’s Superchargers can now heat LFP Batteries - those that are in the Model 3 and Model Y Rear Wheel Drive variants. This applies to Long Range and Standard Range models, which saw a limited run. This is another update included as part of the 2024 Tesla Holiday Update - which really arrived with a lot of unannounced new features and capabilities.

The change is pretty interesting - Superchargers of the V3 and V4 variety can now pre-heat batteries for Model 3 and Model Y vehicles equipped with LFP battery packs. That means those vehicles are able to get back on the road faster when it's extremely cold. Of course, Tesla still advises you to precondition before you arrive, saving drivers time and money.

Max de Zegher, Tesla’s Director of Charging, also commented on the new feature. Essentially, Tesla is inducing an AC (alternating) ripple current through the battery to warm it up. Keep in mind that Superchargers are DC charging. That means it is possible to get a cold-soaked LFP vehicle on the road 4x faster than before, assuming that it didn’t precondition at all and that it is in the worst-case scenario (below 0ºF).

In essence, Tesla is using some engineering magic to turn the circuits inside the LFP battery into an electric heater - and powering that heater through the Supercharger. An AC ripple current is a small oscillation in the DC charging current that generates heat through electrical resistance, warming up the battery. Those ripples are a byproduct of converting AC to DC and back - so Tesla is using the onboard charger to induce those ripples to warm up the battery. Definitely an innovative technique that’s really only possible with the versatility of the NACS connector.

We’re hoping Tesla can implement this across their full lineup of vehicles, but we’ll have to wait and see how it is trialed across LFP vehicles first and if it is even possible on vehicles with 2170 or 4680 battery packs.

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Tesla Included FSD V12.6.1 and V13.2.4 in the Same Update: What Caused This and What It Means

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Tesla launched two FSD updates simultaneously on Saturday night, and what’s most interesting is that they arrived on the same software version. We’ll dig into that a little later, but for now, there’s good news for everyone. For Hardware 3 owners, FSD V12.6.1 is launching to all vehicles, including the Model 3 and Model Y. For AI4 owners, FSD V13.2.4 is launching, starting with the Cybertruck.

FSD V13.2.4

A new V13 build is now rolling out to the Cybertruck and is expected to arrive for the rest of the AI4 fleet soon. However, this build seems to be focused on bug fixes. There are no changes to the release notes for the Cybertruck with this release, and it’s unlikely to feature any changes when it arrives on other vehicles.

While this update focuses on bug fixes, Tesla’s already working on bigger features for FSD V13.3, which we have already confirmed to include improvements to highway following and speed control.

FSD V12.6.1

FSD V12.6.1 builds upon V12.6, which is the latest FSD version for HW3 vehicles. While FSD V12.6 was only released for the redesigned Model S and Model X with HW3, FSD V12.6.1 is adding support for the Model 3 and Model Y.

While this is only a bug-fix release for users coming from FSD V12.6, it includes massive improvements for anyone coming from an older FSD version. Two of the biggest changes are the new end-to-end highway stack that now utilizes FSD V12 for highway driving and a redesigned controller that allows FSD to drive “V13” smooth.

It also adds speed profiles, earlier lane changes, and more. You can read our in-depth look at all the changes in FSD V12.6.

Same Update, Multiple FSD Builds

What’s interesting about this software version is that it “includes" two FSD updates, V12.6.1 for HW3 and V13.2.4 for HW4 vehicles. While this is interesting, it’s less special when you understand what’s happening under the hood.

The vehicle’s firmware and Autopilot firmware are actually completely separate. While a vehicle downloading a firmware update may look like a singular process, it’s actually performing several functions during this period. First, it downloads the vehicle’s firmware. Upon unpacking the update, it’s instructed which Autopilot/FSD firmware should be downloaded.

While the FSD firmware is separate, the vehicle can’t download any FSD update. The FSD version is hard-coded in the vehicle’s firmware that was just downloaded. This helps Tesla keep the infotainment and Autopilot firmware tightly coupled, leading to fewer issues.

What we’re seeing here is that HW3 vehicles are being told to download one FSD version, while HW4 vehicles are being told to download a different version.

While this is the first time Tesla has had two FSD versions tied to the same vehicle software version, the process hasn’t actually changed, and what we’re seeing won’t lead to faster FSD updates or the ability to download FSD separately. What we’re seeing is the direct result of the divergence of HW3 and HW4.

While HW3/4 remained basically on the same FSD version until recently, it is now necessary to deploy different versions for the two platforms. We expect this to be the norm going forward, where HW3 will be on a much different version of FSD than HW4. While each update may not include two different FSD versions going forward, we may see it occasionally, depending on which features Autopilot is dependent on.

Thanks to Greentheonly for helping us understand what happened with this release and for the insight into Tesla’s processes.

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