Tesla has reported net income for the first quarter down 55% on last year’s level, at $1.1 billion. The result was broadly expected after Tesla’s recent announcement of a decline in first quarter deliveries and price cuts to Tesla cars, as the company faces sharper competition for EV sales aroiund the world.
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Tesla also reported first quarter revenue down 13% at $17.4 billion.
Tesla chief Elon Musk reportedly told analysts in a conference call that the company is planning ‘more affordable models’ and that they will use new technology that is being developed by the company. Reports have recently said that there could be a shift from Tesla towards autonomous tech and a robotaxi.
Tesla said in a statement highlighting its autonomous tech investment: “The future is not only electric, but also autonomous. We believe scaled autonomy is only possible with data from millions of vehicles and an immense AI training cluster. We have, and continue to expand, both. To make FSD (Full Self-Driving – Supervised) more accessible, we reduced the price of subscription to $99/month and the purchase price to $8,000 in the US.”
Reports have also suggested that Tesla has axed the smaller high volume model dubbed ‘Model 2’ and that restructuring related to that is also behind planned Tesla job cuts. Any new models will be produced on existing Tesla manufacturing lines.
Tesla also said that its latest quarterly financial results were hit by reduced vehicle prices, higher operating expenses driven by advanced tech costs as well as production disruptions and the cost of the Cybertruck ramp-up.
Model Y production at the Tesla plant in Berlin was down in Q1 due to impacts from the Red Sea conflict and the arson attack that impacted the factory.
