Says Tesla Year: Latest Updates and Analysis

Tesla FSD will ‘go ballistic’ next year, says guy who said that last year

Tesla will “go ballistic” next year on the back of its autonomy efforts says Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who expressed the same thing last year about this year – and many years before.

Tesla held its Q4 and full year 2024 earnings today, missing expectations on revenue and earnings. The enterprise had its first down sales year since 2011, despite a rising EV market.

The market initially responded poorly to the numbers, but recovered as Tesla guided a return to growth.

Part of that return to growth includes Musk’s prediction that Tesla’s autonomous offerings will drastically improve, leading to an “epic 2026 and a ridiculously good ’27 and ’28.” He noted that Tesla is “really going to go ballistic next year, and really ballistic in ’27 and ’28.”.

But these statements echo things that Musk has expressed before, even up until a few months ago.

Last year, in Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, Musk described no less than 6 ways that the enterprise would change the world in 2025.

Those six ways were: Tesla Semi, a new “affordable EV,” the next-gen Roadster, unsupervised full self-driving, Robotaxi, and Optimus robot.

Those last three all fall under the umbrella of autonomous operation, which Musk has pivoted increasingly towards promising on short timelines (“next year”) and with ridiculous valuations (~$20-30 trillion market cap) in an attempt to pump the stock that the vast majority of his wealth is held in.

Those promises were supposed to come this year, in 2025, when they were promised last year, in 2024.

But today, during 2025, Musk seemed to move back that promise to next year, 2026.

It’s something that has happened many times before, as Musk has continually promised fully autonomous operation for several years now. Going all the way back to 2014, we’ve heard promises that Tesla’s cars would be able to drive themselves, even across country with no driver, as early as 2017. Many of these promises included the phrase “next year,” just as today’s did, despite Musk’s earliest timelines now being 8 years ago.

In today’s call, Musk spent a lot of time highlighting recent progress Tesla has made towards large-scale unsupervised FSD, by pointing out that Tesla’s vehicles are now able to operate themselves at low-speed on well-marked private property by driving themselves around a factory parking lot. It is, at least, an improvement from being unable to drive themselves through a one-way tunnel.

Musk also went on to say that fully autonomous robotaxis would be in operation within 5 months in some US cities, and in all US cities by the end of next year. Tesla will start off in Austin, two-and-a-half years after Cruise started operation there (and later ended it), and after Waymo has already started testing in the area.

He noted that FSD would come later in Europe, mostly due to disparate regulatory regimes in the region, which he noted need to be fixed (and yet, he is lobbying to make regulations even more disparate in Europe, through advocating for parties that want to break up the EU, like the neo-Nazi AfD party in Germany, and others).

On the back of these autonomy advancements, which are coming after other companies have already started doing the same thing, Musk stated that Tesla has the potential to become “the most valuable business in the world” and “worth more than the next five companies combined.”.

But, , you shouldn’t be skeptical of his timeline. Despite the fact that he has continually been wrong, and mentioned that it’s hard to predict the future (and yet he keeps doing so), he claimed today that “the only people who are skeptical are those who haven’t [tried FSD].” So, sound off in the comments if you’ve tried FSD and yet are skeptical of Tesla reaching full autonomy next year.

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You’ll die without a solar roof says Musk, whose admin made it harder to get solar

Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressed that “your family’s life might depend on” having solar, despite that he’s part of a US government administration that has already made it harder to get solar, and seems poised to try to make it even harder.

Tesla hosted its Q4 and full year 2024 earnings call today, missing expectations on revenue and earnings. The firm had its first down sales year since 2011, despite a rising EV market. The market initially responded poorly to the numbers, but recovered as Tesla guided a return to growth.

As part of the call, an investor asked if Tesla had given up on ramping its solar roof. The product was originally unveiled way back in 2016, and hasn’t particularly lived up to the hyped expectations of the time (especially due to some, uh, hiccups along the way).

Tesla’s answer highlighted that the roof remains a core part of its residential product portfolio, along with Powerwall, and that it draws a lot of customer interest despite it being a “premium” product (in contrast to original promises that it would cost less than a regular roof). But Tesla isn’t installing the roof itself, it says it would rather produce units to send to the roofing industry.

Then, CEO Elon Musk went into a soliloquy about the benefits of having home solar, which are true if perhaps a little overstated:

I think it looks really cool, and your house generates electricity. And if you combine it with the Tesla Powerwall battery, then you can be self sufficient, so that even if the grid turns off – even if the grid turns off for several days – your house still works. And your roof looks awesome. So it’s like, I recommend anyone who can afford it, get Tesla’s solar roof and Powerwall, your family’s life might depend on it. And just in terms of convenience, your kids are not gonna yell at you cause their computers don’t work and their power went out and they cant charge their phone. Actually happens. You literally cant even call anyone cause your phone’s out of juice.

Despite the answer being a bit rambly, there’s an significant portion in there, when Musk says “your family’s life might depend on it.”.

This is perhaps a little alarmist, but there is a point to be made in there. Having ready access to energy can be helpful in a bad situation, like for example during increasing natural disasters which Musk himself seems to deny are happening.

So, while Musk is wrong about climate change, he’s right that solar and batteries can increase resiliency of a home – which could, indeed, be lifesaving for that home’s residents in certain circumstances. But it’s still hyperbolic, and self-serving, to leverage these fears in order to sell a “premium” product – one which costs in the multiple tens of thousands of dollars – to fearful family members.

But then we must consider the larger context in which these words were noted.

The White House’s occupant opposes solar.

Unfortunately for the US, and for Elon Musk’s businesses selling renewable energy products, that three-time candidate finally managed to get more votes than his opponent (while still failing to attain a majority, and despite committing treason in 2021, for which there is a clear legal remedy). And after campaigning against solar, he’s already started attempts to marginalize it as an energy source in his first week squatting in the Oval Office.

On his first day occupying the seat on which traitors do not belong, he signed a memo stating that the US should focus on all forms of energy except wind and solar, the latter of which the enterprise that virtually all of Musk’s wealth comes from sells.

Mr. Trump has also attempted to freeze disbursement of funds related to the Inflation Reduction Act, some of which go to solar projects. The IRA reduces energy costs for Americans and was responsible for a massive boost in American manufacturing, both things which Mr. Trump opposes.

We’re not sure what effect these directives will have, given their questionable legality and the fact that Congress is responsible for government budgets, not former reality TV hosts. But then again, it should be expected that a convicted felon would break the law again, especially if noted felon displays no remorse for their illegal actions.

And Mr. Trump has ignorantly promised – inasmuch as the promises of a compulsive liar ever matter – to continue to attack this cheap, clean energy source in his quest to make life worse for Americans. Many estimate there is more nonsense to come, and given past experience with the ignoramus in question, that seems like a good bet.

But we’re talking about Elon Musk here, what does he have to do with all of this?

Elon Musk’s involvement in anti-solar actions.

Elon Musk spent much of last year campaigning for Mr. Trump, despite that he made it openly clear that he wants to harm solar, the fastest-growing energy source in the US, which is cheaper and cleaner than fossil fuels. That candidate instead favors dirty, costly fossil fuel energy.

As a thank you for Musk’s massive bribes to Mr. Trump’s campaign, he has been appointed to the Department of Government Efficiency. This is not an actual department, but an advisory panel with no official authority.

It was created to be helmed by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, two of the supposedly most intelligent and capable republican operatives, who nevertheless were both tasked to do a job that would normally accomplished by one person (Ramaswamy has since quit or been forced out, before the job even started). The panel has a redundant mission to the already-existing Government Accountability Office – making it a redundant office to reduce redundancy (no, this is not a Monty Python sketch, this is apparently real life).

So, Musk is an “official” part of this administration which is making these anti-solar moves.

It’s a change from Musk’s previous statements about solar power. Even as in recent times as 2022, Musk has decried anti-solar moves, and yet he’s now thrown large chunks of his personal wealth and effort into a group committing several of them.

While Musk and his advisory panel haven’t necessarily been directly associated with these anti-solar actions, the idea of freezing government funds is related to the supposed purview of his so-called department, so it would be reasonable to think that he might have some input into this.

Further, Musk has shown in the past that when an administration does something he objects to, he’s willing to leave an advisory position in protest. He did this in 2017 when Mr. Trump signaled that he wanted to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, an action which Musk noted was “not good for America or the world” and quit an advisory board that he had been on (Trump did the same thing again last week, and Musk didn’t resign his position this time, signaling his newfound spinelessness).

So – the fact that Musk has not pulled out of the administration despite these anti-solar moves, combined with the fact that he has shown disapproval through resignations before, hints at that he at least tacitly accepts these moves to make it harder for you to install solar.

So… Elon Musk says you’ll die without solar, but wants to make it harder for you to get it?

And now we get to the point of this all: if Elon Musk thinks that your family is in mortal peril if it doesn’t install solar panels, but he also seems okay with government making it harder to install solar panels, does that mean he wants you to die too?

Worth a thought, especially for those apparently few investors who are still onboard for Tesla’s mission, rather than just holding onto base hopes that the corporation might benefit from some unspecified corruption.

Although, given the policies we’ve seen, which will directly harm Tesla’s business, maybe even that latter group might reconsider how the corruption is working out for them.

If you’d like to install home solar from a organization that *isn’t* working actively to harm solar adoption in the US, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers.

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Tesla’s charge port location is due to Elon Musk’s garage layout, says Lucid CEO

Lucid CEO and former Tesla chief engineer Peter Rawlinson proposes that Tesla’s charge port location, and why everyone has to back into Supercharger stations, is due to Elon Musk’s garage layout back when Model S was designed.

If you have ever charged a Tesla vehicle at a Supercharger station, you most likely had to back into the stall. That’s primarily because Tesla’s charge port is located at the back left side of the vehicle.

There’s no standardization of charge port location on electric vehicles, and it is causing a bit of a problem right now as Tesla opened its Superchargers, with most of them equipped with small cables, to other electric vehicles with different port locations.

Tesla was early in making electric vehicles, so its choice of charge port location was key and influential.

Peter Rawlinson was the chief designer of Tesla’s Model S, its first EV designed from the ground-up. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has denied that since Rawlinson is now a competitor leading Lucid Motors, but there’s plenty of evidence that he was in fact in charge of the Model S engineering despite Musk’s vengeful asserts to the contrary.

Now, Rawlinson has given some interesting insights into the decision-making behind Tesla’s charge port location. He says that he was pushing back then (circa 2010) for the now popular front driver-side fender charge port location (via PC Mag):

I told him, look, it [should be] the front fender on the left-hand side. Most Americans drive nose in rather than parallel park. And if you drive nose in, you want the charge port on the front. You don’t want a long, dirty old cable coming past the doors. And you don’t want to put the charge port on the very front, like the Nissan Leaf, because it’s a vulnerable spot. You can have a slight bump or fender bender, which could mean you couldn’t open it if it was damaged.”.

The Lucid CEO says that Musk insisted that this wouldn’t work for him because it wasn’t compatible with the way the garage in his rented mansion at the time was set up:

Well, that wasn’t acceptable to [Elon]. He unveiled it wouldn’t suit the layout of his garage in Bel Air. So I unveiled, ‘Well, where do you want it, then? What suits the layout of your garage in Bel Air?’ He unveiled it’s going to be on the rear because he could trip over the cable. He was renting the property, and he didn’t even own the place, but we put the charge port on the Model S on the left hand rear because of the layout of his rented garage in Bel Air!

Musk was in financial difficulties at the time and was renting a mansion in Los Angeles. He even claimed he had to borrow money from friends to cover rent.

With the Air, Lucid’s first EV, Rawlinson put the charge port where he wanted it originally for the Model S, but now that Tesla has opened the Supercharger network to all other EVs, he had to recognize that the value the network brings to consumers is bigger than the limitation of the charge port.

He noted that now the upcoming new Lucid Gravity will have the same charge port location as Tesla’s:

Because of that, every Tesla charger across the land you have to reverse into because the charge port’s in the rear, which is just nutty. [But] if you can’t beat them you’ve got to join them. So now we’ve put our charge portion on the left rear of Gravity to be compatible.

Rawlinson also added that he is happy with Tesla’s help to get Lucid vehicles working on the Supercharger network,.

After all, it is undoubtedly the best fast-charging network in North America. There’s no question about that.

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