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(The following is an op-ed sent to us by Adam Lee, Chairman of Lee Auto Malls, in advance of Toyota’s June 10 annual shareholder meeting)

Toyota can do better

Like many Mainers, I grew up hiking, camping and playing in the Maine woods. Since my son was 4 years old we have hiked and camped up north.  I don’t take it for granted that these woods will always be here or that the water and air will remain clean without all of us protecting it.

I have testified throughout the country for stronger emissions standards, chaired Maine’s energy efficiency board, and even won environmental awards. It hasn’t always made me the most popular car dealer in the room, but that’s how my dad raised me.  He always taught me to stand up for what’s right.

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That is why for years I championed Toyota vehicles. In 2001, when Ford, GM, and Chrysler were building larger and larger SUVs, Toyota introduced the Prius, which got 50 miles per gallon. At the time, we were the third smallest Toyota dealer in the state. However, I was so excited about the Prius that I brought it to every clean car fair in Maine, and in time we became the state’s largest hybrid dealer.

However, hybrids alone are no longer enough to address the growing climate crisis. That’s why for the last twelve years I have driven an electric vehicle. 

While other automakers have continued to evolve, Toyota has fallen to the back of the pack. In 2024, just 1.2% of the vehicles that Toyota sold in the U.S. were fully electric, far below the national average of 9.1%. EV sales have been growing steadily every year in the U.S., and experts expect that growth to continue.

Toyota has intentionally taken a different approach, becoming the leader in plug-in hybrids.  This is great, and we sell hundreds of them.  However, I was shocked to learn that while they develop the best hybrids in the world, they are also supporting climate deniers.  

Over the last three electoral cycles, Toyota became the top auto industry financier of climate deniers, financing 207 of their congressional campaigns. In this last election, Toyota widened the gap with other automakers, donating to more than four times as many climate deniers as Ford and nearly twice as many as GM. After not donating to the Biden inauguration, it donated $1 million to the inauguration of President Trump, who calls climate change a “hoax” and is working to dismantle environmental regulations. 

Toyota has been more aggressive than its peers in lobbying against climate action. It was ranked the third worst in the world–after only Chevron and Exxon–for its anti-climate lobbying, and for the last few years has ranked last amongst automakers. Just days after the election, Toyota wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled “Trump Can Get EVs Back on Track,” calling on the new administration to dismantle policies that encourage automakers to make cleaner vehicles. 

It also just publicly endorsed a dangerous bill from former car dealer Bernie Moreno. Moreno, who credits Toyota with organizing the coalition of car dealers that supported his Senate run, is trying to eviscerate environmental, climate, and fuel efficiency standards. That would cost drivers tens of billions of dollars and could kill tens of thousands of Americans every year. With weak standards, average fuel efficiency for cars and SUVs actually decreased between 1983 and 2000. In the year 2000, nearly 150,000 Americans died from air pollution. Then we started strengthening environmental, climate, and fuel efficiency standards. 

Thanks in large part to the very standards that Toyota and Senator Moreno want to eliminate, by 2021 those deaths had been more than halved. From 40 years in the car business, I have learned that absent good policy, automakers will not make dramatic improvements in safety or fuel efficiency. Why would we try to reverse the progress we have made?

Don’t get me wrong: I love Toyota and the cars they produce. They are well-made, reliable, affordable cars and trucks.  And they are a great company to work with.  

But even with those we love, we must tell them when they’re falling short. I want Toyota to get back to being the green car company I have been so proud to support. Stop supporting climate deniers, give me more E.V.’s to sell. Toyota can do better.

Adam Lee, Chairman, Lee Auto Malls, Maine’s largest car dealership chain

Electrek’s Take

While we don’t often run submissions sent to us in full, this one had an interesting angle given that auto dealers have long been one of the roadblocks slowing down fleet electrification, especially in the US.

While it’s true that dealers can often provide a worse EV shopping experience than direct purchases from EV-focused brands, that’s not true of all of them. Some of them get it, and Adam Lee seems to be one of them.

He’s written before encouraging EVs, and has testified in front of several states encouraging higher fuel economy and emissions standards.

So we’d love to see more dealers like this, who understand more about the market and the world they live in, and recognize that you can’t sell cars on a dead planet. Instead of the typical nonsense we’ve heard about from the dealer lobby.

We continued the conversation briefly through email, and Lee brought up some points which we’ve pointed out many times before – that if the US wants to stay competitive globally, it needs to recognize the transition that is happening in the auto industry.

Lee said that other dealers and the car industry as a whole are “all shortsighted” in their resistance to EVs, which is something you may have heard before from yours truly. He mentioned that China is “wisely” focusing on EVs, and that “China will do what Japan and South Korea did, quietly and quickly come to dominate the industry.”

Which is a relevant warning to the company who was the main protagonist in that initial takeover.

Toyota helped push Japan to the top of the list of global auto exporting companies in the 1970s, where it remained in one of the top two spots for the last 5 decades, due to its better processes and technology and its embrace of car styles that better fit a global market that was worried about limited gasoline supply.

That dominance held until last year, where China is now on the top of that list… due to its better processes and technology and its embrace of car styles that better fit a global market that is worried about limited gasoline supply.

The resistance to change could harm not just Toyota, but Japan as a whole. The country is behind on electrification, and car exports are a huge part of its economy. One report says Japan could lose 14% GDP and millions of jobs by stalling on EVs.

And given Toyota’s annual shareholder meeting is coming up on June 10, this is the right time for shareholders to demand that Toyota protect their investment for the long term and take EVs more seriously. The company is not headed in the right direction right now, and needs change. Its investors, its dealers, its customers, its countrymen, and indeed everyone on the planet should be concerned about this.


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Tesla (TSLA) releases Q2 2025 financing results: earnings down 23%

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Tesla (TSLA) releases Q2 2025 financing results: earnings down 23%

Tesla (TSLA) released its financial results and shareholders’ letter for the second quarter (Q2) 2025 after market close today.

We are updating this post with all the details from the financial results, shareholders’ letter, and the conference call later tonight. Refresh for the latest information.

Tesla Q2 2025 earnings expectations

As we reported in our Tesla Q2 2025 earnings preview yesterday, the Wall Street consensus for this quarter was $22.279 billion in revenue and earnings of $0.40 per share.

The expectations had been significantly downgraded over the last month, as analysts were surprised by Tesla’s announcement of much lower deliveries than expected in the first quarter.

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How did Tesla do compared to expectations?

Tesla Q2 2025 financial results

After the market closed today, Tesla released its financial results for the first quarter and confirmed that it delivered on expectations with earnings of $0.40 per share (non-GAAP), and it exceeded revenue expectations with $22.496 billion during the last quarter.

Tesla’s earnings per share are down 23% year-over-year amid a booming EV market.

Operating income decreased 42% year-over-year to now less than $1 billion, and almost half of it came from regulatory credits.

Tesla’s cash on hand has decreased this quarter for the first time in years. The company lost about $200 million of its giant war chest – now sitting at $36.8 billion.

We will be posting our follow-up posts here about the earnings and conference call to expand on the most important points (refresh the page to see the most recent posts):

Here’s Tesla’s Q2 2025 shareholder presentation in full:

Here’s Tesla’s conference call for the Q2 2025 results:

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Tesla teleoperated robot failed while serving popcorn on first day of new diner

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Tesla teleoperated robot failed while serving popcorn on first day of new diner

Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, which CEO Elon Musk claims is ahead of the industry and will sell in the trillions of dollars, failed while serving popcorn on the first day of Tesla’s new diner launch.

Musk has been touting Optimus as a revolutionary product that will generate “trillions of dollars” per year for Tesla.

It’s the latest pivot that the CEO has led Tesla into, as electric vehicle sales are declining, and it is becoming increasingly clear that its self-driving effort is unlikely to be profitable anytime soon.

The company needs new revenue streams to justify a $1 trillion valuation, given its declining revenue and earnings.

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However, we have been reporting on how the program appears to be in shambles lately.

Last month, Tesla’s head of the program, Milan Kovac, left the company just a few months after being promoted to vice-president.

Earlier this month, we learned that Tesla paused production to perform some much-needed upgrades to the current version of the robot, as it is reportedly currently only able to move some batteries within Tesla’s workshop at a rate lower than that of human workers.

That’s despite Tesla claiming for months that the robot is already performing useful work within its factories and plans to ramp up production to 100,000 units per month next year, with the goal of starting to sell the robot.

Aside from gullible Tesla shareholders, not many people believe this narrative. The main issue is that Tesla is not seen as having a lead in humanoid robots, which is still a nascent industry, and its previous demonstrations have been misleading.

For example, Tesla was less than forthcoming about its robots being teleoperated by humans during its ‘We, Robot’ event last year.

The launch of its new diner in Los Angeles was the latest occasion to showcase Optimus. Tesla had an Optimus robot serve popcorn to customers.

Again, Tesla employees at the event confirmed to attendees that the robot was teleoperated, which makes the demonstration unimpressive to start with, but the disappointment doesn’t stop there.

The robot was seen frozen and stopped operating during the first day of the Tesla diner launch.

Attendees were told that the robot lost connection.

Electrek’s Take

To be clear, Tesla can only get the Optimus robot to serve popcorn for a short period before it fails, even with the use of human teleoperation.

Yet, Musk claims that Tesla will make 100,000 of these next year and sell them to customers.

It makes no sense. It’s similar to Tesla’s robotaxi service in Austin, which requires teleoperation and a human safety monitor with a finger on a kill switch at all times.

That said, I honestly believe that Tesla will be able to scale Optimus faster than its robotaxi service. However, they will both scale much slower than Tesla shareholders currently believe and the competition is already ahead of both.

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Meet the BYD Atto 1 — A $12,000 EV for the masses

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Meet the BYD Atto 1 — A ,000 EV for the masses

BYD officially launched the Atto 1 in Indonesia on Wednesday. Starting at just $12,000 (IDR 195 million), the Atto 1 is now one of the most affordable EVs on the market.

BYD launches the Atto 1 entry-level EV

The Atto 1 is a rebadged version of BYD’s top-selling electric car in China, the Seagull EV. BYD’s smallest and most affordable EV is sold under the names Dolphin Mini and Dolphin Surf in other overseas markets.

BYD introduced the Atto 1 at the Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show (GIIAS) on Wednesday, priced from IDR 195 million, or about $12,000.

The new entry-level EV is available in two trims: Standard Range Dynamic and Long Range Premium. Powered by a 30.08 kWh BYD Blade battery, the standard range Atto 1 Dynamic offers a NEDC range of 300 km (186 miles).

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Upgrading to the Premium model costs IDR 235 million ($14,500), but it’s equipped with a bigger 38.88 kWh battery, providing an NEDC range of 380 km (236 miles).

BYD-Atto-1-EV
BYD Atto 1 EV (Source: BYD Indonesia)

The interior resembles that of other BYD brand vehicles, featuring a minimalist, high-tech smart cockpit. It features a 10.1″ intelligent touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as a 7″ digital driver’s instrument display.

Meanwhile, the Long Range Premium version comes with an added wireless charging pad and a tilt-and-telescopic steering wheel.

BYD-Atto-1-EV
BYD Atto 1 interior (Source: BYD Indonesia)

At 3,959 mm long, 1,720 mm wide, and 1,590 mm tall, the Atto 1 is smaller than a Toyota Yaris, but slightly bigger than the Kia Picanto.

“This launch in Indonesia marks the first release of the Atto 1 in ASEAN, and the car is now available for pre-order,” BYD Indonesia’s operations director, Nathan Sun, said at the event.

BYD-Atto-1-EV

The Atto 1 is BYD’s third electric vehicle to arrive in Indonesia, and the brand’s most affordable yet. BYD also sells the Seal, starting at IDR 629 million, Atto 3 SUV (IDR 515 million), and Dolphin (IDR 425 million).

Indonesia is the largest auto market in Southeast Asia, and EV sales are picking up with new government policies supporting local production. In the first half of the year, the EV market share doubled to 10% from 5% in the same period last year.

Earlier today, Toyota, which controls around 30% of the Indonesian auto market, announced plans to begin building EVs locally by the end of 2025.

Source: JakartaGlobe, BYD Indonesia

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