// Tesla
The North American electric vehicle manufacturer will abandon two of the models that brought it success. Elon Musk’s company is betting everything on building its Optimus humanoid robots and developing xIA’s Grok chatbot.
Tesla’s CEO, Elon Muskannounced this Wednesday that vehicles Model S e X, the luxury models that transformed the startup into an automotive powerhouse, will receive a “honorable discharge“.
The production of these models, part of the iconic S3XY line of Tesla, should end somewhere not next quartersaid Musk. The company will use part of its factory space to build its humanoid robots.
The news, shared during Tesla’s fourth quarter earnings presentation, comes at a time when the company is expanding production of its Optimus robots, vehicles with fully autonomous driving, and robotaxis.
In fact, Tesla used its quarterly earnings report to Present as a “physical AI company”. The document contains many of the reasons that explain these decisions, note a.
A Tesla’s total revenue fell 3% year-on-year, from US$25.7 billion to US$24.9 billion, while automotive sector revenues fell 11% year-on-year, from US$19.8 billion to US$17.7 billion.
In the fourth quarter, the Production of Model S and X vehicles fell 48% in homologous terms, while the deliveries fell 51% in homologous terms.
Nor did they provide much help to the political opinions Elon Musk’s polarizing unstable relationship with President Donald Trump, and the recent elimination of tax credits of $7500 for electric vehicles last fall.
Despite everything, Musk took advantage of the conference with investors to make a last appeal to customers: “If you are interested in buying a Model S or X, now would be the time to order“.
The two models represented less than 3% of deliveries in the last quarter, the majority of which corresponded to Model 3 and Y vehicles.
What’s next for Tesla? The company is completely focused on Artificial Intelligence. At the beginning of this month, it invested around 2 billion dollars in xAILLM Grok, other of the great bets of Musk.
The North American company plans to announce the Gen 3 version of Optimus this quarter, which it claims will be the first designed to be mass producedand plans to start production of the humanoid robot by the end of this year. The announced objective is to produce one million robots annually.
Tesla also continues to promote its fully autonomous driving mode and robot axisalthough in most places where they are in circulation they still require the presence of a “safety supervisor”.
The change in strategy does not appear to have shaken investors. Tesla shares rose just over 2% in pre-opening negotiations this Thursday.
