Tesla

The company spent slightly more than $1 billion in the first three months of this year to cover the cost of manufacturing its cars, salaries for its sales staff, equipment and other business expenses. That spree left Tesla with $2.7 billion in cash at the end of March. … [Read more...] about As Tesla Fights to Make Profit, Wall Street Has Concerns

While 1Q18 results were broadly in line with consensus expectations (and slightly above our forecasts), we are making material reductions to our earnings estimates to reflect lingering manufacturing issues with the Model 3 – most recently at Fremont final assembly. It is our view that the challenges in ramping up Model 3 production reflect fundamental issues of vehicle design, manufacturing process, and automation levels that can weigh against the profitability of the vehicle. … [Read more...] about Major Morgan Stanley Analyst Turns Bearish on Tesla

Electric car-maker Tesla says the autopilot system in a Model X vehicle engaged at the time the vehicle was involved in a deadly crash. The sedan hit a concrete divider and collided with two other cars on a road south-east of San Francisco, California on March 23. The car became engulfed in flames after the battery caught fire. The 38-year-old Tesla driver later died in hospital. The company said logs showed the driver had ignored earlier warnings to put his hands on the steering wheel, but it did not explain whether the system had detected the traffic barrier. "The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver's hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision," a statement on the Tesla website said. "The driver had about five seconds and 150 metres of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken. "Safety is at the … [Read more...] about Federal investigators are looking into Tesla’s latest autopilot crash in Utah

It is unclear if Tesla can return to its production ramp-up schedule before losing significant numbers of reservations and deposit cash. Tesla has indicated the Model 3 reservations have fallen to about 400,000, but has emphasized the company had been purging so-called duplicate customer orders from the sales system. … [Read more...] about Musk: Tesla Selling $35K Model 3 Would ‘Lose Money and Die’

Federal investigators did not provide a probable cause of the crash, and the inquiry is ongoing. But the NTSB said Huang was relying on Autopilot's advanced driver assistance features at the time of the crash: "traffic-aware cruise control," which is meant to keep the vehicle a safe distance from other cars, and "autosteer lane-keeping assistance," which is meant to help guide the car safely down the highway. … [Read more...] about Tesla on ‘Autopilot’ sped up, didn’t brake before crash, federal investigators say