Cont: Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla II

[The Great Zaganza]

Starlink has to move their satellites 50-100km down because of debris caused by Starlink. First generation Starlinks are all decaying now. Lowering their position makes it more likely that they won't burn up completely.
The environmental impact of this much material in the upper atmosphere has not been studied, especially not by the main polluter.

 

[Darat]

10,000 Starships a year!


Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Yes, at massive volume. Maybe as high as 10,000 ships per year.

Quote

SMX
@iam_smx
SpaceX is going to produce Starships like they're Aeroplanes
With a $250 million Gigabay at Starbase, the company is accelerating Starship production. The 700,000-square-foot facility is designed to manufacture up to 1,000 rockets per year.

Starship isn't a finished design yet, how can you make meaningful predictions yet? It's my understanding that it is years behind Musk's previous predictions, and I believe it's payload capacity is around 50 tons not his originally predicted 100 tons?

And we've seen even with the far, far easier to test and manufacture Cyber truck his predictions can be very wrong.

 

[arthwollipot]

Starship isn't a finished design yet, how can you make meaningful predictions yet?

You should know by now that he doesn't make meaningful predictions.

 

[jeremyp]

The numbers are in for 2025. Did Tesla's vehicle sales 'collapse' as the Musk haters predicted? Not quite. Sales are down 8.6% YoY - not a huge drop, and not unexpected (sales had already flattened in 2024 with a 1.1% decline YoY).

I agree it wasn't unexpected, but if you think 9% is not a huge drop, you are seriously deluded, especially as EV sales generally have grown over the last year.

Two years running, Tesla has contracted. It's really not a good look.

The quarterly figures are more illuminating. Q1 and Q2 sales were much lower than 2024 and 2023 (but not 2022) due to being production limited. But Q3 was a record

Only in the USA.

and Q4 was only down due to the EV credit expiring. Not bad considering the increased competition in the EV sector.

Also Q3 cannibalised some of Q4's sales and the EV credit is not coming back in the current US administration , so expect a lot more quarters like Q4.

Stock Titan says:-

Notice what they are not saying was a factor - people refusing to buy a Tesla because Musk.

There are other reasons:

• the models are long in the tooth
• Cybertruck is an Edsel sized disaster
• the cars are acquiring a reputation of being dangerous i.e. hard to get out of in a crash

At this point, more people have burned to death in Teslas than in Ford Pintos.

OTOH Tesla's battery storage sales went up 113% YoY, so overall they did fine. Unfortunately for the haters, predictions of Tesla's demise were premature. Could still happen though, depending on how well the new products coming online do.

Batteries represent a very small proportion of Tesla's business.

This year the Cybercab and Semi will be released, both of which have the potential for strong sales.

Lol. Cybercab and the semi have been slated for release "next year" every year since 2020. At what point are you going to realise Musk is lying?

The Cybertruck is also finding new international markets, and may even pick up (heh) in the US now that Ford has stopped producing the F-150 Lightning.

The Cybertruck is illegal in most international markets. To give some idea of how badly Cybertruck is tanking, one of the companies supplying parts for the batteries which are only used for Cybertruck has written down its contract from $2.9 billion to $7,400.

FSD is now good enough that even skeptics are raving about it, and will probably go fully autonomous in multiple countries during 2026. This alone could dramatically increase Tesla's EV sales.

Citation needed.

If there was one product that might be be their undoing it's Optimus, their general purpose autonomous robot. Musk wants to make a million per year, but at present they don't have a 'brain' smart enough to be useful in the wider market. But as others in the industry say 'don't bet against Musk'.

Also Cybertruck, robotaxi, the Semi and the new Roadster.

Of course the haters won't accept any of this.

It's all ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊, that's why.

They'll still be asserting that Musk is a conman and Tesla is about to collapse throughout this year and the next, breathlessly trumpeting whatever negatively spun news they can find on the company and its products (and if that doesn't work, making up stuff). I expect Musk will continue giving them reasons to foam at the mouth too, at least while Trump's still around. Plenty of entertainment to be had...

There are plenty of reasons to detest Musk besides his wrecking of Tesla.

 

[jeremyp]

Starship isn't a finished design yet, how can you make meaningful predictions yet? It's my understanding that it is years behind Musk's previous predictions, and I believe it's payload capacity is around 50 tons not his originally predicted 100 tons?

It's difficult to say what the payload of Starship is. They have so far produced three versions of which versions 1 and 2 have flown. The first version 3 flight was delayed by SpaceX's inability to make a pressure vessel that doesn't explode. Musk originally said Starship would be able to lift 100 tonnes to orbit. V1 had a theoretical capacity of 15 tonnes, V2 had a theoretical capacity of 35 tonnes and V3 has a theoretical capacity of 100 tonnes. I say "theoretical" because as of now, no payload has been transferred to LEO by any version of Starship.

 

[Darat]

In regards to where Tesla is in regards to autonomous cars, posted this in the EV thread:

Well some other companies are already at stage 4 whereas I think Tesla is still stage 3?
Mistake made - Mercedes got permission to test stage 4 a couple of years back and is planning on introducing it this year to the S-class. Second mistake made: Tesla is still at stage 3. Tesla is at stage 2.

https://www.autoblog.com/news/self-driving-mercedes-s-class-is-a-bmw-threat

Tesla is objectively well behind other car companies in FSD.

 

[dirtywick]

I tested Nvidia’s Tesla Full Self-Driving competitor — Tesla should be worried

Can Nvidia outpace Tesla?

www.theverge.com

Boston Dynamics is training an AI-powered humanoid robot to do factory work

While it's not ready to join the workforce yet, Atlas, an AI-powered humanoid, is learning how to do human tasks.

www.cbsnews.com

nvidia getting into autonomous driving and boston dynamics announcing humanoid robots for factory work

 

[acbytesla]

I like how the Patents and Trademarks Office has now refused two of Tesla's trademark applications. Robotaxi for being too general. And Cybercab for Tesla being lazy and stupid. You see, someone else registered the trademark two weeks before them.

 

[acbytesla]

Tesla 2025 sales down 29% in the UK from 2024.

 

[Dabop]

Tesla 2025 sales down 29% in the UK from 2024.

In Australia new Tesla sales (as opposed to second hand ones, which are at a all time high lol) 2025 was down 24.8% in 2025 compared to 2024- which was also down 17% compared to 2023....
This is at a time when all other EV manufacturers are seeing RISES in sales in Australia...

Biggest decline on record for Tesla sales in Australia, all thanks to one model | Drive

Tesla has reported another annual drop in Australian sales, but it is expected to remain the country's top seller of EVs.

www.drive.com.au

The 'remains the countries biggest seller of EV's' is a bit disingenuous lol- they remain the biggest seller of BEVs yes (just, by about 2500 in total) but including ALL EV's (BEV, PHEV and hybrids) is readily outsold by BYD by nearly 2:1....