Cybertruck: A rough road ahead for Tesla's big bet

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For once, America's most outspoken mogul is trying to lower expectations, said Therese Poletti in MarketWatch. On a Tesla conference call with investors last week, Elon Musk, the usually bombastic chief, brooded about high interest rates, Tesla's earnings slide, and production snags for the company's long-awaited Cybertruck. Musk said the inaugural deliveries for the odd-looking electric pickup are scheduled for Nov. 30, but warned that scale production wouldn't come until 2025. "We dug our own grave for Cybertruck," Musk griped, referring to the setbacks that have haunted the concept since it was unveiled in 2019. "Not only was Musk cautious about the Cybertruck's timing, he also said he was worried about the effect higher interest rates" would have on sales. Maybe Musk, for once, was heeding advice to avoid making overzealous predictions to Wall Street, but his worries about the economy appeared real.

Musk can't help but be worried after Tesla's "stunningly bad" quarterly numbers, said Shawn Tully in Fortune. After the electric-vehicle maker "posted its lowest quarterly earnings per share in two years," the company is now "only modestly profitable and getting less so." Musk always hyped the idea that Tesla would "achieve the profitability not of a heavy manufacturer, but of an Apple or Oracle." But Tesla is now looking more like an ordinary carmaker. Tesla's price cuts this year have not produced a corresponding jump in sales, said Liam Denning in Bloomberg. Ford and General Motors are also extending their timelines on electrifying trucks; after a loud rollout of the electric F-150 Lightning, Ford is now pushing hybrids. It's time to ask if "electrification’s momentum has stalled." Tesla is no ordinary stock and investors usually buy "the promise of whatever's next." However, "if the growth story is in doubt, the stock will need a lot more than a new truck."

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There's no need to panic, said Jonathan Guilford at Reuters. Let's not forget that "Tesla's competitors keep losing money on every electric car they sell," while Tesla still holds nearly half the market share in the U.S. for EVs and most of the country's charging stations. Musk's revised car designs for cheaper production should also preserve Tesla's sizable lead. And Musk may have more cards up his sleeve, said Stephen Wilmot in The Wall Street Journal. Tesla's expenses for AI and other R&D projects are way up, suggesting something is afoot. "In a flash of his old optimism, Musk said driverless cars and humanoid robots" still held the potential to make Tesla "the most valuable company in the world by far."

The economy still has to cooperate, said Theron Mohamed in Business Insider. "Like a car mechanic," Musk "ticked off a long list of concerns," noting that many American households appear to be "just scraping by as higher prices and steeper interest rates on credit cards, mortgages and car loans squeeze their monthly budgets." The anxiety caused by the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts is a global headwind, too. "If the macroeconomic conditions are stormy," Musk said, "even the best ship is going to have tough times."

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