It Was Another Rough Quarter for Tesla

The fallout from Elon Musk's plunge into politics a year ago is still hammering his Tesla business as both sales and profits dropped sharply again in the latest quarter. The electric vehicle, battery, and robotics company, which has faced boycotts for months, said Wednesday that revenue dropped 12% and profits slumped 16% in the three months through June as buyers continued to stay away, the AP reports.

• Quarterly profits fell to $1.17 billion, or 33 cents a share, from $1.4 billion, or 40 cents a share. That was the third quarter in a row that profit dropped. Revenue fell from $25.5 billion to $22.5 billion in the April through June period, slightly above Wall Street's forecast.
• The company sold 384,122 vehicles in the second quarter, down from 443,956 in the same period a year earlier, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Musk, who helped elect President Trump with a massive campaign donation and then headed his DOGE cost-cutting program, has been pinning the future of the company less on car sales and more on robotaxis, automated driving software, and robotics. But those businesses are yet to take off, and the gap between promise and profits was apparent in the second quarter.
• A big challenge is that potential buyers not just in the US but Europe are still balking at buying Teslas. Musk alienated many in the market for cars in Great Britain, France, Germany and elsewhere by embracing far-right candidates for office on the continent. And rival electric vehicle makers such as China's BYD and Germany's Volkswagen have pounced on the weakness, grabbing market share.
• During a call with investors and analysts Wednesday, Musk focused on the company's robotaxi business, which launched in downtown Austin last month, the Journal reports. He said the company plans to "greatly expand" in Austin and launch in more cities, eventually becoming available to half the country's population if approvals are granted. "Autonomy is the story," he said.