Stepping inside the halls of the 2018 LA Auto Show, it is evident that the electric car revolution is gaining ground. Plug-in hybrids are abounding, and vehicles from upstart companies such as Rivian are present. Right at the entrance of the LA Convention Center’s South Hall, though, lies Tesla’s booth, showcasing the company’s electric cars and its energy products.
Just like its exhibits last year, Tesla brought over its three electric car offerings to the 2018 LA Auto Show — a white Model S, a red Model 3, and a midnight silver Model X. Amidst the new electric cars and plug-in hybrids from other manufacturers, Tesla’s electric car lineup carried an air of experience and authority, seemingly invoking the idea that while the company is but a neophyte in the automotive market, it is a veteran in the EV sphere.
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
The Tesla Model S, Model 3, and Model X grace the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
Apart from its lineup of electric vehicles, Tesla’s “House of the Future” also returned to the LA Auto Show. The section of Tesla’s booth showcased the company’s residential energy products such as solar panels and the Powerwall 2. The mock model home also serves as a backdrop for the Model S, 3, and X.
Also notable in Tesla’s booth is the presence of the Solar Roof tiles. During Elon Musk’s appearance at the Recode Decode podcast earlier this month, he noted that the shingles, which are currently being produced at the Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, NY, are now installed in about “a few hundred roofs” today, with production set to ramp soon. For its booth this year, Tesla opted to showcase the smooth and textured variants of the solar shingles.
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
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- Tesla exhibits its electric cars and energy products at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
Tesla’s energy products are showcased at the 2018 LA Auto Show. [Credit: Christian Prenzler/Teslarati]
The presence of Tesla’s entire lineup of consumer products in the LA Auto Show hints at the company’s upcoming production ramp for both its electric cars and energy solutions. Musk has noted, for one, that 2019 would likely see the unveiling of Tesla’s next vehicle, the Model Y, which he curiously referred to as a “midsize SUV” during the Recode Decode podcast. In the third quarter earnings call, Musk stated that the Solar Roof tiles would see a production ramp in 2019 as well.
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“We’ll also start going into volume production of the solar tile roof next year. That’s quite a long development cycle for — because anything that’s roof has got to last 30 years. So even if you do accelerate life testing as fast as possible, there’s still a minimum amount of time required to do that. And there’s a lot of engineering that goes into how do you put on the solar tile roof with a — and not be really labor-intensive in doing so. So there’s a lot of engineering not just in the tile but in the way it’s done,” Musk said.
Tesla’s booth at the 2018 LA Auto Show is located near the entrance to the LA Convention Center’s South Hall, beside the booths of Audi and Genesis. Tickets to the event could be accessed here.
See a preview of the 2018 LA Auto Show in the video below.
In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
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Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
SpaceX’s massive investment in AI will make it a big winner, Argus Research said after the company’s successful earnings call last week.
The firm also upgraded shares to a Buy from Hold and set a $160 price target.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is currently recovering from its heavy AI infrastructure investments, as it spent nearly $16 billion in Q2 alone. The company did this primarily by monetizing high-demand GPU compute capacity at a much faster pace than traditional data center economics would suggest.
Company CFO Bret Johnsen said that SpaceX would be able to pay back anything on new deployments within a year.
There are plenty of ways the company can do this:
Leasing excess compute capacity through contracts
SpaceX has already built Colossus and Colossus II, largely for its own model training. However, much of that capacity is already rented out to third parties. It already has major deals with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI. These partnerships are adding billions per month to SpaceX’s spreadsheet.
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High utilization driven by industry-wide scarcity
The demand for advanced AI training and inference capacity continues to exceed what is available for use. SpaceX can fill new racks quickly after they come online, so the capital deployed converts into revenue with minimal idle time.
Additionally, management and outside observers have described the new compute capital as behaving more like a cost-of-goods-sold than traditional multi-year capex, especially because of this rapid monetization pattern.
Capacity has already scaled from ~0.4 GW a year to 1.4 GW annually by the end of Q2. There are targets of more than 2 GW by year-end.
High incremental margins on the rental business once capacity is online
GPU cloud providers often operate at strong gross margins. SpaceX can monetize capacity that was already partially built or can be added efficiently. This means that incremental EBITDA margins on the rental revenue are usually high. This accelerates cash recovery relative to the gross capital outlay.
Parallel monetization of its own AI software and applications
Beyond pure infrastructure rental, SpaceX also generates revenue from Grok through subscriptions and usage, from X through ads, data, and other related services, enterprise APIs, and the planned integration of the Cursor coding tools acquisition.
These application layers ride on the same compute infrastructure and provide additional high-margin streams that could offset build-out costs. AI-segment revenue overall rose sharply to about $2.6 billion in Q2, according to Motley Fool. This was driven primarily by the infrastructure contracts, but the software side is also partially responsible.
Efficient, large-scale deployment and vertical integration advantages
SpaceX has emphasized the rapid construction of power and cooling infrastructure and favorable cost-per-megawatt economics relative to industry benchmarks in some disclosures.
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Combined with its ability to scale capacity aggressively and the fact that many contracts start generating revenue within months of capacity coming online, the effective payback compresses dramatically compared with more conventional multi-year data-center projects.
SpaceX’s dominant near-term recovery path will turn the AI clusters into a hyperscale-style compute rental business for other leading AI companies while still using a portion for internal models.
Tesla headlights have caused a recall of over 20,000 of the company’s two most popular vehicles, the Model 3 and Model Y, due to the low-beam bulb exceeding the maximum allowed intensity according to federal standards.
Tesla initiated the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) this morning, stating that the low-beam output “exceeds the maximum allowed intensity in the outer upper-right and outer upper-left areas of the 10U and 90U zone, as prescribed in FMVSS No. 108.”
Tesla sourced the impacted headlights from Marelli Automotive Lighting, a Mexico-based company. The recall impacts 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles and 2017-2023 Model 3 vehicles. It is estimated that every VIN in this recall is impacted by the defect.
🚨 Tesla is recalling 20,349 2020-23 Model Y vehicles and 2017-23 Model 3 vehicles due to an excessively bright headlamp low beam.
Currently, there is no remedy plan in place, as it is still being developed. pic.twitter.com/y34cIO2U0B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 11, 2026
Typically, Tesla would remedy recalls of this nature through an Over-the-Air software update, which has been a major focus of criticism by the company and its supporters because the NHTSA still refers to it as a “recall,” even though it requires no action by the vehicle owner. The fix is shipped over the internet and downloaded to the car.
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However, there appears to be a potentially different solution for this problem. Tesla has not developed a remedy for this issue, so it could potentially be on the way. The big issue appears to be the fact that these recalled lamps are out of production, and this is an old body style for both vehicles. The headlights and front-end designs are completely different.
Tesla switched to another supplier when the affected headlight design was discontinued. It plans to begin notifying owners of their remedy options by September 15.
Tesla filed a petition protesting the recall to fix the vehicles’ headlight issue, but the NHTSA denied it. Now, Tesla will come up with a solution to fix it.
Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors: Morgan Stanley
SpaceX AI investment gamble will make it a big winner, firm says
