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When it comes to making promises, if Musk says he’s second, I guess no one in the automotive industry dares to say they’re first.

In the second quarter earnings call, Musk released two pieces of news:Tesla FSD is expected to enter China and Europe by the end of this year; Robotaxi will be released on October 10.

At first glance, these two measures are about to become an important engine to drive Tesla's growth in the second half of the year. But in fact, they are just "placebos" thrown by Musk to investors in the face of sluggish car sales growth.

The automotive business is not ideal

Tesla achieved revenue of US$25.5 billion (approximately RMB 185.51 billion) in the second quarter, a year-on-year increase of nearly 2.3%.

Judging from the performance of the two major businesses (automotive and energy), the core factor driving the second quarter's revenue growth lies in the energy business - energy storage shipments increased by nearly 160% year-on-year, and revenue in the second quarter reached $3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 100%. However, the most critical automotive business is still trapped in a growth bottleneck.

The automotive business revenue was US$19.9 billion this quarter, down 6.5% year-on-year, but this was a revenue performance supported by regulatory points (automakers that produce zero-emission vehicles will obtain a certain number of regulatory points based on factors such as the vehicle's range, and can obtain a certain income through sales). After excluding regulatory points, the automotive business revenue was only 18.5 billion, lower than market expectations.

It is worth noting that carbon credit income is pure profit. Tesla's automotive gross profit margin excluding regulatory credits has dropped to 14.6%, which is not only lower than the market expectation of 16.2%, but also a significant decline compared to 18.14% in the same period last year.

The poor performance of both revenue and profit margins is enough to reflect the problems in Tesla's automotive business.

Throughout the second quarter, Tesla delivered 444,000 new vehicles, a significant increase compared to the sluggish performance in the first quarter, but compared with 466,000 vehicles in the same period last year, Tesla's automotive business is still difficult to return to its growth track.

The growth in deliveries in the second quarter is inseparable from the stimulation of a series of preferential measures taken by Tesla. In April this year, Tesla China launched a new round of price cuts (the reduction was basically between 2% and 5%); in May, Tesla began to subsidize car buyers in the United States with a 0.99% interest rate. Starting in June, Tesla started to subsidize car buyers in Germany. Model Y A subsidy of 6,000 euros is provided, among other things.

“Obviously, Model Y and Model 3“The promotions drove decent volume growth, but as we’ve seen with other big markdowns and discounting, demand was pulled forward and new demand must be created in the (third quarter) and beyond, which has proven difficult over the past 18 months,” said Ronald Jewsikow, an analyst at Guggenheim.

In fact, Tesla's sales in various regions have declined to varying degrees. According to Motor1 data, Tesla's sales in Europe fell from 185,200 in the first half of 2023 to 161,300 in the same period of 2024, and its market share has dropped from 19.8% to 17.2%, while electric vehicle registrations in Europe were rising during this period, up 1.7%.

As a result, the capital market has correspondingly lowered Tesla's sales forecast to 1.8 million vehicles. After experiencing year-on-year declines in the first and second quarters, what else can Tesla tell about its business story in the second half of the year?

During the earnings call, Musk gave directional answers, namely the advancement of autonomous driving technology (including the upcoming Robotaxi and the FSD that will soon be introduced in China) and the launch of a new generation of products.

However, neither of these two pies will generate benefits in the short term.

New cars are difficult to produce and competitors are besieging them

It is an obvious fact that Tesla's two main models, Model 3 and Model Y, have fallen into a state of sluggish growth. These two old models (Model 3 was released in 2016 and renewed in 2023; Model Y was released in 2019) have found it increasingly difficult to survive in the competitive automobile market.

Especially in the Chinese market,Xiaomi SU7、Zeekr 001/ 007、SmartS7、Ideal L6 Tesla's performance in China is not as good as before, due to the crazy offensive of models such as the SUV and the SUV. According to MarkLines data, Tesla's sales in China fell by 17% from April to June.

In the same price range, domestic automakers continue to launch new products to compete with Tesla's core models, including the upcoming Ledao L60, Zhijie R7,Avita Models such as 07 are all aimed at grabbing the Model Y market.

The market competition situation is constantly escalating. Tesla is not without countermeasures, but its frequently changing product planning makes it difficult for it to quickly launch new models.

It is understood that Tesla had planned to develop a new low-priced model, code-named NV91, but later cut the project internally. In April this year, Tesla announced a strategic shift in the development of new models, deciding to use existing car platforms and production lines to launch "new models" in early 2025, which is basically consistent with the progress Musk mentioned in the first and second quarter earnings conference calls.

However, it should be pointed out that this low-priced model is no longer a new model originally planned to be developed, but a smaller version of Model 3 developed based on the Model 3 platform.

This low-priced model will not be launched until at least one and a half years later. During this period, how Tesla will cope with the increasingly fierce market competition will become its next major challenge.

One speculation is that Tesla will still rely on pricing strategies to stimulate consumer purchasing demand, but this approach will affect Tesla's car gross profit margin, and thus affect revenue and profit levels.

However, Tesla is always good at leaving itself a trick. While new models are being delayed, Tesla's previous layout on batteries has yielded initial results.

Tesla said it plans to launch a dry electrode process in the fourth quarter to reduce the cost of large-scale battery production, which means that there is still room for Tesla's car costs to be squeezed.

Can the story of autonomous driving still attract investors?

For Musk, selling cars is only a temporary business, and the real engine of business growth lies in autonomous driving. Musk himself is also very good at stirring the nerves of the capital market through stories about autonomous driving.

In the earnings call, Musk announced that "FSD will be submitted for regulatory approval after the release of v12.6 and will enter China, Europe and other countries." This means that the pool of FSD revenue will expand to the global market after the pipeline is connected.

On the surface, this growth engine will help Tesla enter a new stage of growth, but is this really the case?

The answer may be found in the deployment of FSD in the U.S. CITIC Securities once estimated that in North America, the penetration rate of Tesla FSD on Model 3 is only 5%-7%, and the penetration rate on Model Y is 12% to 13%.

Even more exaggerated is that after YipitData, a market research company in New York, accessed the credit card data of about 3,500 Tesla owners who participated in the FSD trial, it was found that only 50 people purchased or subscribed to FSD after the trial, that is, less than 2% of Tesla users decided to buy after trying FSD. Of course, Musk refuted this conclusion.

Compared with the rights packages offered by domestic car companies, Tesla FSD's 64,000 yuan buyout price is more than 40% higher than most domestic manufacturers.Xiaopeng XPILOT 3.0 is priced at RMB 36,000.NIO The NIO Pilot fully equipped package is priced at 39,000 yuan.

It is not difficult to see that even if FSD can successfully enter China and Europe this year, the growth benefits it can bring in the short term will be very limited.

Musk's blueprint for autonomous driving also includes the upcoming launch of Robotaxi, and Musk is also very confident about this.

The latest development is that the Robotaxi, which was originally scheduled to be released on August 8, has been postponed to October 10. Musk revealed that a Tesla network will be built. Users only need to open the Tesla application to summon a car, and a car will pick them up. The vehicle can operate 24/7.

"We're going to be at 7 million vehicles in our fleet very soon, over 10 million in the United States, and then 20 million," Musk said.

Musk plans to form a fleet network by "building his own fleet (similar to Uber) + Tesla users". "Users can choose to add their own cars to the fleet to earn income and support the retrieval and use at any time. Each Tesla vehicle will be restricted by the terms of the agreement and can only be used in the Tesla network and cannot be used for third-party autonomous driving services." Musk said.

Of course, this is just an idealized blueprint built by Musk. Regarding potential regulatory challenges, Musk is very optimistic that "once it is proven that unsupervised fully autonomous driving is significantly safer than humans, regulators should support deployment. Therefore, we do not think that regulatory approval will be a limiting factor."

But even in the United States, where policies are relatively relaxed, the implementation of self-driving vehicles is not completely liberalized. Take Waymo as an example. After years of planning, it has only carried out commercial services in Austin, Los Angeles, Texas, and the San Francisco Peninsula in the United States.

Waymo is still a leading manufacturer. Self-driving companies including Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, are facing difficulties in technology and regulation. The implementation of Tesla Robotaxi also requires the approval of regulatory authorities.

UBS believes that it is still too early to achieve meaningful robotaxi operations in the United States and may not happen within this decade.

Musk has always been keen on describing the great vision of autonomous driving as an engine to drive profit growth in addition to the car sales business and expand the imagination space for commercial monetization.

Whether it is the previous statement that "it is possible to sell cars at 0 profit and generate revenue by selling autonomous driving software", or the Robotaxi plan mentioned one after another this year, as well as the information such as opening up FSD authorization and releasing FSD to more countries, it can be seen that Musk can't wait to extend the tentacles of FSD to various areas that can bring potential for business growth.

To some extent, this is Tesla's way of making a living as its automotive business growth slows down. However, judging from the short-term results, the market's willingness to pay is not optimistic, and FSD is still difficult to boost Tesla's business revenue.

At the same time, Musk's pie-in-the-sky storytelling routine has become increasingly difficult to win the trust of the capital market. On the day the financial report was released, Tesla's stock price fell 7.76% after the market.