Tesla guides return to growth thanks to cheaper new models and self-driving
With the release of its financial results today, Tesla is guiding a return to growth in 2025 thanks to new models and self-driving.
Where did we hear that before?
After market close today, Tesla released its Q4 2024 financial results, and it missed Wall Street expectations on both revenue and earnings per share.
The stock dropped 5% on the news, but it quickly regained, and it is now up 4% – seemingly on Tesla painting a pretty outlook for 2025.
Tesla’s growth died in 2024.
Vehicle deliveries are down, income from operations is down -20%, and EPS is down 153% (122% non-GAAP).
It was objectively a bad year, yet Tesla’s stock is up 112% over the last 12 months.
Most of that has been attributed to shareholders trusting Elon Musk that Tesla will finally deliver its unsupervised self-driving this year and the CEO’s link to President Trump leading to presumed help in getting regulations out of Tesla’s way.
In its shareholders deck today, Tesla said that it plans a return to growth in 2025 thanks to new models and autonomy:
With the advancements in vehicle autonomy and the introduction of new products, we expect the vehicle business to return to growth in 2025.
The “new products” are the previously announced Model 3/Y based vehicles that are expected to be in the $30,000 to $40,000 range. They are expected to be unveiled soon as Tesla is still guiding a start of production in the first half of 2025.
Many people are still confused as to why we haven’t seen these vehicles yet, considering how soon they are supposed to be in production, but these are expected to very closesly resemble Model 3/Y and therefore, they might be hard to differentiate.
During the last earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said he sees Tesla achieving 20-30% growth in 2025.
This time, Tesla is not putting any number on its anticipated return to growth in its automotive business and it linked the growth rate to the following:
The rate of growth will depend on a variety of factors, including the rate of acceleration of our autonomy efforts, production ramp at our factories and the broader macroeconomic environment. We expect energy storage deployments to grow at least 50% year-over-year in 2025.
Musk also linked his last growth prediction to Tesla advancing autonomy. His latest prediction, for what it is worth considering his track record, is that Tesla will finally deliver its unsupervised self-driving in California and Texas around Q2 2025.
Virtually every expert disagree with this and Tesla never shared any data suggesting that this is a possibility.
In fact, crowdsourced data about Tesla’s FSD program points to the company being years away from achieving its goal.
Electrek’s Take
This time! This time is the right one.
To be fair, I do believe that more affordable Tesla models are coming. However, I have doubts about how much they can contribute to Tesla’s growth. I anticipate significant canabilization of the Model 3 and Model Y programs.
I also have concerns about how smooth the production ramp will go after Tesla lost a lot a talent over the last year.
As for autonomy, I don’t think I need to get too much into it. Elon’s track record on it talks for itself.
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Tesla has wiped off the 26,000 miles on the odometer of a Cybertruck in service, scratched the vehicle, and then returned it to the owner like nothing happened.
A Tesla Cybertruck owner in Oregon was quite surprised when he went to pick up his Cybertruck, which was in service to install a new lightbar, fix some panel gaps, and figure out an ABS alert that wouldn’t go away.
According to a thread on the Cybertruck Owners Club, Tesla had wiped the odometer clean on the Foundation Series ‘Cyberbeast’, which had over 26,000 miles on it.
The owner shared a video of the Cybertruck’s odometer going from 0 to 1 mile for the second time:
The odometer on the vehicle was wiped and both the app and service many also showed the same mileage.
The owner shared a screenshot of the app after 15 miles:
He went to the online forum for advice:
Anyone else have their odometer Thanos-snapped after a controller swap? Can Tesla unsnap it or am I forever “True Mileage Unknown”?
Interestingly, Tesla is currently being sued for allegedly messing with the odometers of its vehicles. However, the lawsuit is for accelerating the mileage, not reducing it, like in this case.
It was not the only surprise from this service visit for this Cybertruck owner.
The owner was not satisfied with the lightbar installation, which he claims has a half-inch gap on the passenger side while it is flush on the driver side. He wrote:
It’s basically smiling sideways at everyone.
It’s also unclear why Tesla was messing with the vehicle’s tailgate, but it ended up having a bolt moving around it, causing scratches and Tesla left a bolt unbolted:
At this point, the truck was returned with more problems than it had when it entered service.
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Nissan is on the brink of collapsing. After the Honda deal fell through, it looks like another Japanese automaker is tossing it a lifeline. As Nissan struggles to stay afloat, Toyota is emerging as a potential “backer” in a new tie-up.
Are Toyota and Nissan partnering?
“If we don’t take action now, the situation will only get worse,” Nissan’s President, Ivan Espinosa, said during a press conference on May 13.
Facing falling sales, ballooning debt, and slumping profits, Nissan introduced a new recovery plan last week, “Re:Nissan.” The struggling automaker aims to cut costs by 250 billion yen to return to profitability by FY 2026.
As part of its efforts to turn the business around, Nissan will cut 20,000 jobs by FY2027. It’s also abandoning plans to build a new EV battery facility in Japan. Seven other plants will be closed, including one in Thailand and two in Japan.
After its planned EV merger with Honda fell through in February, rumours surfaced that Nissan was scrambling to find another partner.
According to a new report from Japan’s MainiChi, a Toyota executive recently reached out to Nissan about a potential partnership. The tie-up could involve Toyota acting as Nissan’s “backer” to support it while it restructures.
Nissan and Toyota both unveiled a wave of new electric vehicles set to roll out over the next few years. The upgraded Nissan LEAF EV will arrive in the US and Canada later this year with more range, an NACS port, and a new crossover style. It will be one of ten new Nissan or Infiniti models to arrive by 2027.
In Europe, Nissan will launch the next-gen LEAF later this year, followed by the new Micra EV and Qashqai electric crossover. In 2026, the new Nissan Juke EV will join the lineup.
Meanwhile, Toyota’s upgraded bZ electric SUV (formerly the “bZ4X”) will arrive at US dealerships in the second half of 2025.
In 2026, the smaller C-HR electric SUV and rugged bZ Woodland EV will follow. By the end of the year, Europe will see three new Toyota electric SUVs: the C-HR+, Urban Cruiser, and upgraded bZ4X.
Electrek’s Take
Toyota already has a stake in several Japanese automakers, including Subaru (20%), Mazda (5.1%), Suzuki (4.6%), and Isuzu (5.9%), so backing Nissan wouldn’t come as a shock.
Espinosa said Nissan was open to new partnerships. Nissan’s chief said the company will continue collaborating with others, including Mitsubishi, which will use the upcoming LEAF as the basis for its new EV for North America.
Japanese carmakers have been notoriously slow in shifting to all-electric vehicles, which is now costing them in key overseas markets like Southeast Asia, Central and South America, and others.
Chinese EV leaders, like BYD, are quickly expanding overseas to drive growth this year. Next year, it will launch its first kei car (see the first spy shots), or mini EV, which is already being called “a huge threat” to Japan.
Pooling resources and teaming up may be the best (or only) option at this point. Can Toyota help Nissan turn things around? Or will it be too little, too late? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Check back soon for details. This is a developing story. We’ll keep you updated with the latest.
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