Elon Musk is breaking his own rule of not making announcements during Tesla earnings as the CEO appears desperate amid a brand crisis.
Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, do not report the most typical earnings.
Earlier in Tesla’s run as a public company, Musk had often been combative with Wall Street analysts. Tesla became one of the first major companies to prioritize taking softball questions from retail investors over more challenging questions from analysts.
In 2021, Musk even said that he would stop attending most Tesla earnings calls, which is highly unusual for the CEO of a major publicly traded company:
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“I will no longer be the default during earnings calls. Going forward, I will most likely not be on earnings calls unless there’s something really important that I need to say.”
However, he ended up attending virtually all Tesla earnings calls after making that comment.
Musk has also often said that “Tesla earnings calls are not a place for product announcements” and has shut down the idea of using the platform for revealing new information about the company.
The CEO appears to be moving away from that amid a crisis at Tesla.
Tesla has confirmed that, along with its earnings on Tuesday, the automaker will also hold a “live company update”:
In addition to posting first quarter results, Tesla management will hold a live company update and question and answer webcast that day at 4:30 p.m. Central Time (5:30 p.m. Eastern Time).
This is the first time Tesla has announced something like that.
This is happening amid a significant crisis at Tesla. The company experienced its first year of declining sales in 2024, and the decline accelerated in 2025 amid boycotts and protests over Musk’s involvement in politics.
Tesla’s sales are declining, gross margins are shrinking, the Cybertruck is proving to be a commercial flop, and Tesla owners are selling their vehicles in mass to distance themselves from the increasingly more controversial CEO.
Musk held the all-hands meeting publicly amid this crisis and sort of used the event to promote Tesla’s products and more directly, its stock.
Tesla’s stock is down 40% year-to-date, and it’s currently down 4% in pre-market trading a day before the earnings.
What could Tesla announce at the “company update”?
Musk’s public all-hands meeting, along with the attachment of a “company update” to the earnings, both appear to be desperation moves amid a declining stock price and brand crisis at Tesla.
With Tesla delivering ~40,000 fewer vehicles in Q1 2025 versus last year, the automaker is expected to have a tough quarter, which the CEO doesn’t want to pile onto an already long series of bad news.
Musk may use this “company update” to clarify Tesla’s plans for more affordable EVs, but if they are not ready to go into production right away, it’s unlikely, as the CEO wouldn’t want to fall into the Osborne effect.
It’s more likely that Musk will stick to the same stock-pumping approach he has in the last few years: self-driving and robotics.
The CEO has repeatedly said that Tesla is worth nothing if it doesn’t solve self-driving, and he more recently added that he sees Tesla becoming the most valuable company in the world with its humanoid robots.
I would expect Tesla’s “company update” to focus on those areas.
Musk will likely release more detailed plans about the planned launch of the “unsupervised self-driving” ride-hailing fleet in Austin. We previously reported that Tesla will use the launch of the geo-fenced, teleoperation-assisted fleet as a “win” in self-driving despite being an approach similar to what Waymo has been doing for years and that Musk has been criticizing as unscalable.
The unveiling of the latest generation of Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, also wouldn’t be surprising.
Tesla has made impressive progress on the robotics side of things with its latest prototypes, but all previous demonstrations of the robots included teleoperation by humans. Until that’s a thing of the past, the Optimus robot has only minimal use cases and value. It will be something to look out for.
Along with these potential product announcements, itis also possible that Musk will announce a proposal for Tesla to invest in xAi, which he would likely present in conjunction with the integration of Grok in Tesla vehicles and robots.
Electrek’s Take
You can sense the desperation here. Tesla is afraid that the earnings will send the stock spiraling further down, and it plans a little pumping session at the same time to compensate.
I am curious to see whether it works or not. Lately, I think the stock more closely relate to whether or not people believe Musk’s claims than anything else and certainly not fundamentals.
With Tesla’s earnings anticipated to decline in the upcoming report and future earnings likely adjusted down, Tesla will trade at record-high price-to-earnings and future earnings ratios.
Every time that happened, Tesla’s stock somewhat quickly readjusted. Still, it will be interesting to see if whatever Musk announces at the “company update” can prevent that from happening, or if Tesla shareholders will start to question whether Musk’s views on Tesla’s self-driving and robotic efforts are accurate.
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Exclusive: Here’s one of the best prices to date on EcoFlow’s mid-range DELTA 3 Plus portable power station at $535
We have secured an exclusive discount on the EcoFlow DELTA 3 Plus 1024Wh LiFePO4 Portable Power Station today for 9to5toys readers. Coming courtesy of the folks at Wellbots, using code 9TO5D3P at checkout will drop your total down to $534.65 shipped. Regularly listed at $799 directly from EcoFlow where it is currently marked down to $598, today’s deal delivers up to $264 in savings and the lowest price we can find.
For further comparison, this model is currently being sold for $699 on the EcoFlow Amazon storefront where the previous few deals had it sitting down at $616. We are also looking at a price drop that undercuts our previous exclusive discount from back in early February that had this model sitting down at $541.
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EcoFlow’s DELTA 3 Plus first landed on Amazon back in September 2024 to deliver a mid-range portable power supply ready to handle both emergency situations and the modest off-grid setup you might have planned for this summer.
Carrying a 1,024Wh LiFePO4, it features an 1800W AC output, 2200W (surge 3600W) with X-Boost alongside five methods of recharging (AC, Solar, 800W Alternator Charger, Smart Generator 3000 (Dual Fuel), Multicharging) and as many years of coverage on the included 5-year warranty.
For me these power stations have always been as much about peace of mind as they are useful on the campsite. Just knowing I’ve come some serious battery power at the ready just in case of the worse at home is equally as valuable to me as the portable power action, and more than worth the price of entry. With this in mind, this model in particular sits right in that sweet spot for me – enough to handle some tech out in the wild and more than enough to me through power outages and the like.
Amazon takes Hoverfly’s foldable H3 e-bike with up to 28-mile range down as low as $423 (Reg. $529)
Over at Amazon you can now find the Hoverfly H3 16-inch Folding Electric Bike in blue down at $423.20 shipped. You can also score the black colorway for $424.99. Typically priced at $529, you’re looking at as much as $106 off. This is a return to the price we saw late last month and comes within $23 of the all-time low we tracked back in January. It’s not hard to spend well over $1,000 or an electric bike, so this is an affordable way to take one for a spin this year. You can learn more about this model down below.
Folks who have been itching to pick up an e-bike, but cannot justify a premium model that’s often accompanied by a high price can now pick up Hoverfly H3 for a much more affordable cost. The brand touts that it “can travel 15.5 miles on pure electric” and nearly double that when switching to a pedal-assisted mode which ratchets that up “to more than 28 miles.” Speeds top out at 15.5 MPH and the 280.8Wh battery is removeable, allowing you to easily swap it out with a second battery if you want to go even further. My favorite feature here is that not only is the e-bike more compact than most, but that it also can be folded when not in use.
Today only: Grab Anker’s SOLIX C300 AC 90,000mAh LiFePO4 power station at $198 (Reg. $250)
As a part of its Deals of the Day sale, Best Buy is offering Anker’s SOLIX C300 AC 90,000mAh power station for $198 shipped. This is regularly a $250 power station which is now seeing a straight up $51 discount. We’ve seen this model fetch as low as $179 during Black Friday last year with our exclusive promotional discount, but it hasn’t been that low in quite a while. Today’s deal lands it within $9 of our previous mention from earlier this year, and it’s now fetching $2 less than Anker’s discounted price.
Anker’s SOLIX C300 packs a hefty 90,000mAh LiFePO4 battery, delivering up to 600W of peak power (300W continuous), making it great for charging multiple devices and powering small appliances. Unlike the DC version that’s more USB-focused, the AC model featured here has three AC outlets, three USB-C ports, one USB-A port, and a 120W car/aux port. You can recharge the C300 in multiple ways – plug it into a wall to hit 80% under in under an hour, connect up to 100W of solar panels, charge via your car, or you can even use the PD 3.1 USB-C input. For added convenience, it includes a built-in carrying handle and a light bar above the display.
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Kia announced pricing for the upcoming 2025 EV6, with lots of improvements from a mid-cycle refresh and only a slight price bump from the previous model.
The 2025 Kia EV6 has been a long time coming… and unfortunately it’s still “coming,” but at least today we’re seeing one more step towards its imminence, and the news is honestly pretty good.
To recap some of the details of the refresh of Kia’s popular electric model, this year’s EV6 is getting a few interior and exterior design changes, a quieter interior, much better vehicle-to-load capability (12kW, up from 1.8kW), a ~10% bump in battery capacity for both the smaller and larger battery options, and support for over-the-air vehicle software updates. The EV6 GT trim gains some more horsepower, but other models stay the same.
The new EV6 also comes with a native NACS port, making it one of the first non-Tesla vehicles to have this feature. It joins its cousin vehicle, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 with which it shares the E-GMP platform, as some of the only cars on the road with a native NACS port (the Ioniq 5 recently charged faster than a Tesla on the same Supercharger), after the Ioniq 5 also got a big refresh this year.
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The native NACS port is also accompanied by a relocation of the EV6’s charge port (on all but the GT model) – from the right side of the car to the left, to better mirror Tesla’s charge port location and make it easier to fit into Superchargers (while we wait for Tesla to add longer cables).
So, with all these changes, alongside stupid government actions aimed at increasing inflation for Americans, we’d perhaps expect a price bump… and it turns out we got a relatively small price bump, of just a few hundred dollars on the low-end specs, though rising to a $2,200 increase on the top-end GT spec (the only one with a horsepower boost).
Here’s the new pricing, compared to the old pricing:
Pricing – MSRP1 (excludes $1,475 destination)
Old price
New price
EV6 Light
$42,600
$42,900
EV6 Light Long Range RWD
$45,950
$46,200
EV6 Light Long Range AWD
$49,850
$50,300
EV6 Wind
$48,700
$50,300
EV6 GT-Line
$52,900
$54,200
EV6 Wind AWD
$52,600
$54,300
EV6 GT-Line AWD
$57,600
$58,900
EV6 GT
$61,600
$63,800
Perhaps one reason Kia was able to avoid larger inevitable price increases that are coming to many products for Americans as a result of boneheaded tariff announcements is because the 2025 EV6 will be built in Kia’s facility in Georgia (except for the top-end GT trim).
Kia says the models are in production now, but we’re still waiting on them getting delivered to customers. Usually vehicles come out a little bit before their model year starts (so 2025 cars will ship in the last few months of 2024), but the 2025 EV6 has taken its sweet time coming out. We suspect the NACS transition has had something to do with this (there has, after all, been a lot of back and forth about Kia Supercharger compatibility…), but Kia is tight-lipped about the reasons for such.
This move suggests that we finally might not have much longer to wait, though, so start getting ready and maybe call your local dealer if you want to get in line for the new EV6 (and hopefully get it before some bonehead tries to raise its price more or gets rid of tax credits because his oil bosses said so).
If you’d like, you can use our affiliate link to get in touch with your local dealers about the Kia EV6, and try to be one of the first in line to get the newest iteration of one of the better EVs on the road.
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Tesla is being squeezed out of the Chinese market, and the pressure is currently falling on the sales workers, who are reportedly being pushed to their limits.
Over the last few years, Chinese automakers have stepped up their game significantly, and they are now not only competitive at the lower end of the market with affordable electric vehicles. They are also starting to put pressure on higher-end automakers, like Tesla.
China is the world’s biggest EV market by a significant margin, and it has been a critical part of Tesla’s growth phase from 2020 to 2023.
But now Tesla is facing incredible competition from the likes of BYD, Xiaomi, NIO, Li Auto, and others.
Tesla has been hoping that its updated Model Y would help it stay comptivie in the Chinese market, but there are now reports to the contrary
The automaker has already been offering subsidized 0% financing to try to boost Model Y and Model 3 sales in the country.
Now, a new report on China’s Jiemian News based on interviews with current and former Tesla salespeople in China claims Tesla is now pushing for its Chinese sales staff to work 13 hours a day every day (translated from Chinese):
As the group that deals with the most front-line consumers, Tesla sales have in fact clearly felt the strong pressure to close deals. Many Tesla sales told Jiemian News that due to the inability to meet assessment targets on time, they have given up their two-day weekend off and switched to working seven days a week, “working from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, with an average daily working time of nearly 13 hours.”
The report claims that Tesla has instructed sales staff to aim for selling a car every day, but they are having trouble achieving half that rate:
According to the Tesla salesperson, the store assessment standard in Beijing is to sell at least one car per day, which means that they need to sell about 30 cars per month. But in reality, it is difficult for many salespeople in the store to sell 3 to 4 cars per week. They need to keep following up with customers and try their best to persuade them in order to get as close to the target as possible.
To sell a car per day, Tesla sales staff are told to create 10 user profiles, complete three online test drive invitations, and complete four test drives every day.
According to the report, the higher requirements also come with limited pay – resulting in record turnover at some of Tesla’s stores in China.
They used a Tesla store in Beijing as an example, where they claim they can do a full sales staff turnover in just a month and a half.
One Tesla salesperson told Jiemian that it is now way more difficult to sell Tesla vehicles in China:
“The days when we didn’t have to introduce products to users and orders were ‘automatically’ delivered to their doorsteps are gone forever.”
Tesla was also a victim of its own success in the country, where its vehicles have become somewhat familiar in the last few years, and the brand is no longer perceived as premium as it was in 2022-2023.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla was having problems in China before Trump’s election, but the problems appear to be getting worse.
Since last year, Tesla has already basically not been making any money on the Chinese market since it primarily sells lower-end RWD Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, which are already low-margin products, and Tesla has to subsidize them with 0% financing on top of it.
That’s in large part due to competition.
Unlike in North America and Europe, Tesla hasn’t been suffering from brand issues due to Elon Musk’s involvement in politics in China, but it might be changing now.
Trump’s escalating trade war with China is reaching new heights, deterring Chinese consumers from purchasing American brands.
I think Tesla was already being squeezed out of the Chinese market due to competition, but the trade war is likely to accelerate this process.
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