Tesla disappoints but Musk hails autonomy as the future

investmentnews.com:

Tesla Inc. reported another quarter of disappointing profit and postponed a highly anticipated unveiling of autonomous taxis, sending the carmaker’s volatile stock plunging in early trading.

Adjusted earnings fell to 52 cents per share in the three months ended in June, missing estimates for the fourth consecutive quarter. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk confirmed the company will push back an event showcasing robotaxi prototypes by about two months, to October, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report.

Tesla shares traded down 7% as of 4:50 a.m. Wednesday in New York. The stock had surged since the company last reported earnings, fully recovering from a more than 40% decline for the year.

Sentiment had improved for Tesla following a tumultuous start to the year. The company missed expectations for vehicle sales by the biggest margin ever in the first quarter, spurring mass firings. Musk responded by talking up the work Tesla has been doing for years on autonomous driving and artificial intelligence, and the shares roared back.

“The value of Tesla overwhelmingly is autonomy. These other things are in the noise relative to autonomy,” Musk said Tuesday, again urging anyone who disagrees to sell the stock.

Tesla will now unveil robotaxis on Oct. 10, and the cars shown will only be prototypes. More affordable models that could juice sales won’t go into production until the first half of next year, at the earliest. A planned factory in Mexico is on pause until after the US presidential election in November, and a humanoid robot that Musk predicts will send Tesla’s valuation soaring won’t start selling until sometime in 2026.

That combination of timelines leaves investors in something a holding pattern as Tesla’s car