Tesla shares slide as Musk warns of ‘rough quarters’ ahead

Tesla shares dropped 8% on Thursday after CEO Elon Musk admitted the company could face a “few rough quarters” amid its pivot from car sales to autonomous ride services. The EV maker posted a 12% revenue decline and 16% fall in profits for the quarter.

New York:  Tesla shares sank Thursday after CEO Elon Musk said the company could face a “few rough quarters” as it transitions to a future focused less on selling cars and more on offering people rides in self-driving cars.

Late Wednesday, the electric vehicle maker reported another quarter of lackluster financial results, with revenue dropping 12 per cent and profit falling 16 per cent. Many prospective buyers have been turned off by Musk’s foray into right-wing politics, and the competition has ramped up in key markets such as Europe and China.

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Tesla faces the loss of the USD 7,500 EV tax credit and stands to make much less money from selling regulatory credits to other automakers after recent changes to federal tax law. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on countries including China and Mexico will also cost Tesla hundreds of millions of dollars, the company said on its earnings call.

Musk spent the call talking less about car sales and more about robotaxis, automated driving software and robotics, which he says is the future of the company. But he acknowledged those businesses are a ways off from contributing to Tesla’s bottom line.

Tesla began a rollout in June of its paid robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, and hopes to introduce the driverless cabs in several other cities soon. Musk told analysts that the service will be available to probably “half of the population of the US by the end of the year — that’s at least our goal, subject to regulatory approvals.”

“We’re in this weird transition period where we’ll lose a lot of incentives in the US,” Musk said, adding that Tesla “probably could have a few rough quarters” ahead.

He added, though, “Once you get to autonomy at scale in the second half of next year, certainly by the end of next year, I would be surprised if Tesla’s economics are not very compelling.”

In early trading Thursday, Tesla share were down 8 per cent to around USD 305.