On July 22, Caixin reported that Tesla released its second quarter financial report on Tuesday. Due to lower-than-expected profits in the second quarter, the company's stock price fell more than 8% after hours at one point. $Tesla (TSLA.US)$He also mentioned Waymo's commercial robot taxi service. He criticized that Waymo's autonomous taxi business is "restricted" and "fragile", while Tesla's autonomous taxi system should be able to work anywhere in the world, not just in limited geographical areas.

During the earnings conference, Tesla CEO Musk showed off his "pie-in-the-sky" approach, emphasizing the company's immense prospects in autonomous driving and other areas. However, it is apparent that the market has not been moved by Musk's beautiful picture for now, against the backdrop of the delayed RoboTaxi launch event.

Furthermore, against the backdrop of the U.S. election's tilt towards Trump, some investors are concerned about the impact of Trump's policies on electric car companies, which is hindering them from investing in Tesla. Musk also acknowledged that Trump's policies may have "some impact" on Tesla if he is re-elected.

Competition in the electric car market is becoming increasingly fierce.

According to the financial report, Tesla's second-quarter revenue was $25.5 billion, with market expectations of $24.8 billion, compared to $24.927 billion in the same period last year. Operating profit in the second quarter was $1.605 billion, a year-on-year decline of 33%, with market expectations of $1.81 billion. The adjusted earnings per share were $0.52, lower than the market's expected $0.6.

Although Tesla is still the best-selling electric car in the U.S., its market share is being taken away by more and more competitors due to the long absence of new models.

Musk acknowledged this at the beginning of the conference call. He said that Tesla faces more competition from electric cars in this quarter. Other electric car brands are also discounting, which is making Tesla's situation "a little more difficult."

But he also said he didn't think these new competitors would be a long-term problem. He also mentioned again that Tesla plans to launch more affordable models in the first half of 2025.

Tom Narayan, capital analyst at the Royal Bank of Canada, said that although Tesla launched discounts and promotions this quarter to attract more buyers and help push deliveries beyond expectations, it "may put pressure on profit margins." He added: "We expect Tesla's stock price to decline, especially considering the strong rise in stock price over the past month."

The long-term value of Tesla lies in "automation."

Considering that competition in the electric vehicle market is getting more and more intense, Musk chose to sketch out the "automation" fantasy at the conference call.

He emphasized that the long-term value of Tesla is in "automation" and reiterated his vision that Tesla will eventually become the "Airbnb on wheels."

Since about 2016, Musk has been exploring Tesla's road to automation, namely "Fully Self-Driving (FSD)." Tesla is working on a stand-alone self-driving taxi service called Robotaxi, which is highly anticipated by the market.

Musk also revealed that Tesla will hold a Robotaxi unveiling event on October 10, later than the previously announced date of August 8.

During the Q&A session of the conference call, Musk was asked when shareholders could expect the "first self-driving taxi" to hit the road. Musk did not provide a very specific timeframe, instead saying that his past predictions were "too optimistic," but "if we can't do it next year, I would be shocked."

Musk also vowed that Tesla will solve the problem of autonomous driving, saying that anyone who does not believe in Tesla's autonomous driving should "sell their stock."

He made an ambitious statement: anyone who does not believe in Tesla's self-driving technology "should not hold Tesla's stock," and instead, anyone who believes in Tesla's ability to solve the problem of autonomous driving should buy Tesla's stock because "all other problems are noise."

Musk expects that Tesla's autonomous driving technology will not encounter regulatory obstacles in the U.S. and other regions. He mentioned that FSD will land in China, Europe and other countries after the 12.6 version is released. After these versions are released, the company will submit them for approval by relevant regulators and is expected to obtain approval by the end of the year.

What will happen to Tesla under Trump's presidency? As the US presidential election approaches, the prospect of Trump coming to power will also have an impact on Tesla. Recently, Trump has stated in an interview that he will end the "electric car mandate" on the first day of his term, and the "Inflation Reduction Act" released by Biden in 2022 may be revoked, which imposes tax exemptions for electric vehicles and other green energy-related products.

Musk said this could have "some impact" on Tesla, but it's not catastrophic for the company. He also emphasized that this will be a bigger blow to Tesla's competitors.

In addition, he mentioned that Tesla's plan to build a factory in Mexico is still on hold because "we need to see what happens after the election." This is because Trump has already considered imposing high tariffs on cars produced in Mexico.

He added that Tesla is increasing the output of existing factories and plans to produce autonomous taxis and Optimus at its headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Is the future bright for Optimus and Dojo? Musk apparently hasn't forgotten to draw a big pie for Optimus robots and Dojo supercomputers at the financial report meeting.

Musk said he believes that by next year, Tesla's factories will have "thousands" of Optimus humanoid robots that can perform different tasks. "Optimus has already started performing tasks in our factory," he said. "We expect to start limited production of Optimus 1 version for Tesla use early next year."

As for Dojo, Musk said that Tesla is about to complete its largest artificial intelligence training cluster. He claimed that Tesla will double its investment in Dojo supercomputers because Nvidia's GPU prices are too expensive.

"Earlier today," Musk wrote on Twitter, "By the end of this year, Dojo #1 will provide online training equivalent to about 8,000 H100s. Not huge by, but not trivial either."

Is the future promising for Optimus and Dojo?

Musk said, "We do see a path to using Dojo to compete with Nvidia, I think we have no choice because demand for Nvidia is so high... Obviously, they (Nvidia) have an obligation to raise GPU prices to a level that the market can bear, which is very high, so I think we really will make Dojo work."

Editor/Somer