Afeng Technology News, Beijing Time July 27, CNBC published an article on Saturday stating that Tesla's car sales are declining, profits are shrinking, and the revenue from regulatory credit sales will dry up due to Republican policies. In the past, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, used "big promise" style commitments to convince investors to ignore revenue and profit data, but this is no longer effective.

After releasing another rather bleak quarterly report this week, Musk told analysts on a conference call that Tesla's electric vehicles will soon achieve full autonomy, allowing owners to earn money while sleeping. He also stated that if regulatory approval is obtained, the autonomous taxi service recently piloted in Austin, Texas, will be expanded to other states, with the goal of covering half of the U.S. population by the end of this year.

Drop of more than 20% against the trend

However, Musk's promises did not work, and Tesla's stock fell 8% on Wednesday as investors focused on Tesla's immediate challenges, including the rapid rise of low-cost electric vehicle competitors, especially in China, and consumer boycotts of Musk's political activities, which have damaged Tesla's brand image in the United States and Europe.

Tesla's second-quarter car sales revenue fell 16% year-over-year, with weak sales in Europe and California. Musk said that due to the upcoming expiration of electric vehicle subsidies and President Trump's tariff policies, the company may face "several difficult quarters" in the future.

Tesla's stock rebounded slightly on Friday, rising 3.5%, but it still ended the week lower, falling 22% this year, making it the worst-performing tech giant. The Nasdaq index rose 1% this week, increased by more than 9% since 2025, and set a new closing high on Friday.

Profit is also important

"Of course, we like autonomous taxis and robots," wrote analysts at Canaccord Genuity in a research report released after the earnings report, recommending buying Tesla stock. "In the long run, Tesla is expected to benefit from these future opportunities."

However, these analysts also said they are paying attention to the income statement (profit and loss data). "But we also place great importance on current growth. We need a shift in the trend of the income statement," they stated in the report.

From the perspective of Jefferies analysts, Tesla's new report had "no highlights." Goldman Sachs said that Tesla's autonomous taxi business is still small in scale and has limited technical data.

Promises that are hard to fulfill

Musk once called himself a "pathologically optimistic person." His promises about autonomous cars, humanoid robots, and cheaper electric vehicles have repeatedly won shareholder support and driven the stock price to soar.

However, in the field of autonomous driving, Musk has failed to meet his self-set goals over the past decade. Now, Wall Street has found that Tesla lags behind Alphabet's Waymo in the United States and Baidu's Apollo in China.

Tesla stated in its quarterly report that the second quarter marked its "transition from a leader in the electric vehicle and renewable energy industry to a leader in the AI, robotics, and related services sectors." The company did not provide new guidance for revenue growth or profit levels for the next year.

The Business Insider reported on Friday that Tesla told its employees that its autonomous taxi service could launch in the San Francisco Bay Area as early as this weekend.

However, CNBC confirmed that Tesla has not yet applied for the necessary licenses to operate driverless taxi services in California. The company first needs approval from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

The CPUC told CNBC on Friday that, according to existing licenses, Tesla can only operate driver-operated taxi services and cannot operate autonomous taxi passenger services.

Musk and other Tesla executives claimed during the earnings call that Tesla is seeking regulatory approval to launch autonomous taxi services in Nevada, Arizona, Florida, and other markets outside of San Francisco, but did not reveal what specific requirements needed to be met.

In Austin, Tesla said its autonomous taxi service has driven 7,000 miles (about 11,000 kilometers) and has been limited to roads with a speed limit of 40 miles per hour (about 64 kilometers per hour). The pilot in Austin used a small fleet of about 10 to 20 Model Y vehicles equipped with the latest autonomous system.

Tesla's autonomous taxi service relies on remote supervision by customer service center staff, and a human safety supervisor is also seated in the front passenger seat, ready to take over the vehicle when necessary.

Compared to Waymo, Tesla's autonomous taxi service has a long way to go. On the day Tesla released its second-quarter earnings report, Alphabet also released its earnings report.

"The Waymo Driver has now achieved over 100 million miles of autonomous driving on public roads, and the team is testing in more than 10 cities, including New York and Philadelphia, this year," said Alphabet in its earnings report.

Meanwhile, Waymo's business scale has already been large enough that Alphabet specifically mentioned it in the "Other Bets" revenue section of its latest quarterly report. "The revenue from other innovative businesses mainly comes from autonomous transportation services, healthcare-related services, and internet services." However, the scale of other innovative businesses remains relatively small, with revenue of $373 million in this quarter.

Continue to draw big promises

No matter how much investors doubt, Musk is more optimistic than ever.

On Friday, the world's richest person posted on his social platform X that he believes Tesla's market value will reach $20 trillion one day. He also stated during the earnings call earlier this week that, in terms of AI capabilities in cars and robots, "Tesla is actually far superior to Google," and "far better than any other company in real-world AI applications."

As of the time of this article, Tesla has not responded to requests for comment. (Author: Xiao Yu)

This article is sourced from Afeng Technology News

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