Elon Musk thinks you are not smart if you don’t believe in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving value
Elon Musk made new comments about Tesla’s Full Self-Driving effort, saying he believes that only some “smart retail investors” understand the value that Tesla is going to create.
During Tesla’s conference call for the release of its Q4 2022 financial results yesterday, CEO Elon Musk made some comments about Tesla’s self-driving effort.
The CEO claimed that most people are missing the value that he believes Tesla is going to create with Full Self-Driving:
Something that I think some of these smart retail investors understand but I think a lot of others maybe don’t – is that every time we sell a car, it has the ability, just from uploading software, to have full self-driving enabled, and full self-driving is obviously getting better very rapidly. So that’s actually a tremendous upside potential because all of those cars, with a few exceptions, only a small percentage of cars don’t have Hardware 3, so that means that there are millions of cars where full self-driving can be sold at essentially 100% gross margin. And the value of it grows as the autonomous capability grows. And then, when it becomes fully autonomous, that is a value increase in the fleet. That might be the biggest asset value increase of anything in history. Yes.
Musk has previously stated that when Tesla finally delivers on its self-driving promises, it will unlock tens of thousands in value in each Tesla vehicle through the capacity to turn them into robotaxis.
However, the CEO hasn’t mentioned that service in a long time as Tesla missed several previously announced timelines. Now Musk has been mainly focusing comments on improvements to Tesla FSD Beta. He has stayed away from offering a timeline to deliver on the promised capabilities.
Electrek’s Take
I always like to be careful when I talk negatively about Tesla FSD because I do believe that on its own the product is impressive and the people developing it are doing an incredible job – for the most part.
My main problem with the situation is the discrepancy between the current capacity of the product and what Tesla, and more specifically Musk, has been promising for now seven years. There’s that, and there’s the constant moving of the goalpost.
At first, it was 1 million robotaxis by the end of the year, then it was 1 million people on FSD Beta, and now it’s just 400,000 people on FSD Beta and no word on an actually useful full self-driving product.
What Musk doesn’t seem to understand is that every single investor on earth understands that a company delivering full self-driving capability in millions of vehicles would be a massive assets value increase and, yes, potentially the biggest of any in history, as Musk says.
You don’t need to be that smart to understand that.
The doubts that Musk is hearing, and I assume what is leading him to say something like this, are not due to a lack of understanding of the value of self-driving but about whether Tesla will ever deliver that capability on these millions of cars.
Musk and Tesla have lost a lot of credibility on that front due to the previously mentioned missed deadlines and moved goalposts. There’s certainly room for doubts.
The CEO said yesterday that “full self-driving is obviously getting better very rapidly,” but that’s not my experience after a year of using it in my car, nor is it the experience of most FSD Beta users I know who are not primarily pandering to Musk or trying to justify to themselves having purchased the expensive feature or Tesla stocks.
Musk has been known to block critics on Twitter, and he has surrounded himself with yes-men and sycophants who keep telling him how amazing FSD Beta is.
And again, I think it is amazing that Tesla achieved what it did with FSD Beta if the feature lived in a vacuum without the many promises made. If Tesla had never promised anything and just unveiled this through software updates in its cars, we would all be impressed.
But compared to the promises of a robotaxi service, it is a disappointing product with no clear path to achieving the company’s promises on the current hardware.
If I go into my Tesla right now and activate FSD Beta, I feel more like a driver-ed instructor trying to teach a confused 16-year-old first-time driver than someone being driven around by a robotaxi. It doesn’t make for a better driving experience.
I’d be OK with that if there were a clear path for Tesla to achieve the robotaxi capability, but with Musk believing that the progress has been incredible when it’s hard to see any meaningful improvement from a user basis over the last year, it’s becoming harder to believe him or to believe in the product.
I think that’s the disconnect between Musk believing people don’t understand the value of self-driving through software updates and people actually starting to have serious doubts about Tesla delivering it.
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Environment
Ford F-150 Lightning sales have been falling for months: What’s going on with the EV pickup?
Is Ford’s electric pickup in trouble? Sales have been down for months, and February showed no relief. What’s going on with the Ford F-150 Lightning?
Ford F-150 Lightning sales drop again in February 2025
Ford’s US sales dropped by 9% last month. Although electrified vehicles, including EVs and hybrids, both notched double-digit growth, sales of Ford’s gas-powered (ICE) models, which accounted for over 85% of deliveries, fell nearly 13%.
Hybrids saw higher demand with sales up 27.5% to 15,357, while EV sales increased 15% to 7,326. The Mustang Mach-E was a bright spot with 3,312 models sold in February, up 13% from the prior year.
With 6,841 Mach-Es sold through the first three months of 2025, Ford’s electric crossover SUV remains a top-selling EV in the US.
Ford’s electric pickup didn’t fare as well. F-150 Lightning Sales were down nearly 15% last month with only 2,199 units sold. Through March, Ford has sold 15% fewer Lightning models than it did at this time last year.
Sales of the electric pickup have been slipping for months now. In the final three months of 2024, F-150 Lightning sales were down 10%.
The Lightning, alongside Rivian’s R1T, are no longer the only electric pickups on the market. Ford is facing new competition with the Tesla Cybertruck, Chevy Silverado EV, and GMC Sierra EV, arriving.
According to Cox Automotive, the Tesla Cybertruck slipped past the Lightning to become the fifth best-selling EV in the US last year with nearly 39,000 units sold. Ford’s Lightning was sixth with just over 33,500 models sold.
Ford extended its “Power Promise” promo earlier this year to boost demand, giving EV buyers a Level 2 home charger and other benefits, but Lightning sales are still down.
The American automaker cut Lightning production at its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center last year, citing slower-than-expected demand. A new report from Automotive News claims Ford is now ending a pilot program to stock and distribute EVs through regional hubs after it failed to catch on. It was designed to speed up deliveries.
Although Ford plans to launch a smaller midsize electric pickup, it won’t arrive until at least two more years. With new competition, like the Ram 1500 REV and Volkswagen Scout pickup, hitting the market over the next few years, Ford may find it even harder to attract buyers.
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Costco’s Auto Program recently introduced some new member-only incentives, and the 2025 Volvo EX90 BEV is now on its list.
Volvo is offering Costco Executive Members $2,000 off the 2025 EX90. Costco Gold Star and Business members are eligible for $1,500 off. The incentives are available on all versions of the Volvo EX90 for members who purchase or lease from February 24 to April 30, 2025. It’s the only non-GM EV that’s that’s eligible for an incentive through the EV program.
The offer is compatible with A-Plan pricing for employees, as well as Affinity Pricing for teachers and first responders. Costco members will have had to have been members as of February 23 and be the primary members on the Costco account to qualify.
However, CarsDirect gave the heads up on how buyers can get up to $10,000 off the EX90’s MSRP. As we stated, if you’re a Costco Executive Member, that’s $2,000 off. Then, add the $7,500 EV Lease Allowance and a $500 loyalty discount on leases if you currently own or lease a Volvo or have owned or leased a Volvo within the past six months.
With the destination fee included, the base EX90 MSRP starts at $81,290, so that brings it down to $71,290, a more than 12% discount, a pretty good deal.
The 2025 AWD Volvo EX90, which can seat seven passengers comfortably, has a range of up to 310 miles and is NACS-compatible. It has a 510 hp engine, 110 kWh battery capacity, and can go from 0-60 mph in 4.7 seconds.
Read more: Review: Volvo EX90 is a smooth AWD 7-seat luxury kid-hauler
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Environment
Tesla chairwoman sells $33 million worth of TSLA as she lets Elon Musk destroy the brand
Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm has sold another $33 million worth of Tesla stocks (TSLA) as she lets Elon Musk destroy the company’s brand.
As the head of Tesla’s board of directors, Denholm is amongst the few people who actually have oversight over Elon Musk at Tesla.
While Musk is CEO, he owns only about 13% of Tesla’s shares. Still, he is seen as having complete control over the company and the board, which is actually what led to a judge rescinding his compensation package last year.
That’s partly because when he “negotiated” himself a $55 billion compensation package with the board, the board also gave itself exorbitant compensation, which it eventually had to partly give back to the company after shareholders sued it for excessive compensation.
Despite Musk making threats to shareholders to get more control over Tesla and resorting to resource tunneling, the board, including Denholm, has remained silent.
Meanwhile, Denholm has been pocketing generational wealth through Tesla.
The chairwoman has received hundreds of thousands of Tesla shares at a discount through stock options as part of the previously mentioned “excessive board compensation,” and she has been selling them as son as she is allowed.
Last month, she sold $43 million worth of Tesla stocks, and today, Tesla revealed through a required SEC filing that Denholm is another 112,390 Tesla shares worth over $33 million through Merill Lynch:
With this sale, she has now sold over $100 million worth of Tesla stocks over the last 3 months.
Kimball Musk, Elon’s brother, and Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer Taneja Vaibhav also recently sold ahead of a recent drop in the company’s stock price.
Electrek’s Take
Over $100 million in the last three months—that’s apparently the going rate for a chairperson to let Elon Musk destroy years of work building the Tesla brand.
That’s a hard deal to pass on, especially if you have low morals, which is Tesla’s main problem right now. Musk has surrounded himself with yes people with low morals.
He has distanced Tesla from its mission and no one is saying anything because they are let go or getting compensated to shut up about it.
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