On Wednesday evening’s fourth-quarter 2024 earnings call, Tesla investors wanted to hear CEO Elon Musk’s plans for more affordable electric vehicles, how he’ll balance his role in the White House with running his company and whether he feels his public persona is hurting the brand.
They didn’t really get any of that.
What investors and analysts did get was more promises about robotaxis, artificial intelligence, robotaxi services and autonomy, much as they’ve heard for more than a decade now—except arguably bolder than ever. Musk and his team confirmed that Tesla plans to launch a robotaxi service in Austin this summer, and the CEO made clear that he’s hinging the future of the company on robotics rather than competing with the likes of General Motors, Hyundai and BYD.
But at the end of the call, Musk did get a policy question from analyst Dan Levy at Barclays.
“I know we’ve heard a lot about President Trump’s plans to reverse the EV mandate,” Levy said. “I think there’s a view that, given regulation is a driver of EV uptake, this could slow EV uptake in the U.S. So what would be your view on the right policy in the U.S., given your comments in the past of the need to push for sustainable transport?”
Yet Musk—who’s been actively serving in the Trump White House in an unofficial advisory role where he is said to be heavily involved in policy decisions and actions to reduce government spending—demurred.
“At this point, I think that sustainable transport is inevitable,” Musk said. “I’m highly confident that all transport will be autonomous, electric, including aircraft, and that simply, it can’t be stopped.” He likened the rise of electric vehicles to the advent of the steam engine or the internal combustion engine.
“Even if you’ve been the biggest horse advocate on Earth… like, ‘horses are the way, not these new-fangled automobiles,’ you can’t stop the advent of the automobile and you can’t stop the advent of electric cars,” Musk said. “It’s going to happen.”
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He added, “The only thing holding back electric cars was range, and that is a solved problem.”
That answer may well be true. After all, sales of purely internal combustion vehicles have been in decline globally since 2018. Last year, EVs and hybrids together made up 20% of U.S. new car sales and that number is significantly higher globally, propelled especially by China, where EVs alone make up 50% of new car sales.
But Musk’s answer feels a bit toned down from his own past statements.
Last year, he told reporters in Washington that he wanted to “get rid of all credits” when asked if he supports ending the EV tax credits, and has repeatedly said he wants to “end all subsidies”—even as his own company draws significant revenue and capital to expand its charging network from those subsidies. Musk and others have implied that if Trump is successful in ending the EV tax credits (or getting Congress to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, more specifically) then Tesla is far enough along with driving down battery costs to be fine; less advanced competitors will suffer instead.
Yet multiple critics and analysts have said that Tesla’s own EV sales will likely suffer too if the tax credits end, especially as Musk’s own foray into far-right politics alienates many traditional electric car fans. Tesla’s sales saw their first annual decline ever in 2024 and the latest investor call offered little in the way of information about new models.
Meanwhile, Levy’s question referred to the “mandate”—the not-so-accurate term that refers to the Biden administration’s stricter fuel economy and emissions rules that were pushing for a mostly-EV market in the U.S. by the next decade. Earlier today, Trump’s new U.S. Transportation Department Secretary Sean Duffy issued a memo explicitly targeting those rules and what he called “forced” electrification. Most transitions toward electrified cars globally happened with government investments, subsidies and stricter regulations—all factors that helped China take the lead in that race. Duffy’s appointment to the post earlier this week was applauded by the American Petroleum Institute.
Maybe Musk does believe that a purely market-based approach is the way for electrified automakers like the one he runs to succeed in the long run. Or maybe he simply didn’t want to speak out of turn against the boss. Regardless, Tesla’s CEO is banking on breakthroughs in autonomy and his new friends in the government at a time when his car company’s sales could use all the help they can get.
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