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Panasonic finds itself in need of some Tesla-style boldness as it enters its next era
Tesla’s oldest battery partner, Panasonic, is finding itself at a crossroads once more. With Chief Executive Kazuhiro Tsuga poised to step down next June, the massive Japanese conglomerate is feeling some pressure to optimize and streamline itself. To accomplish this, Panasonic may need to channel one of its key battery partners, Tesla, and its CEO, Elon Musk, to make the bold decisions needed to thrive in a new era.
When Tsuga took Panasonic’s reins eight years ago, he stated that his first priority would be to return the massive conglomerate into a profitable “normal company.” He did not disappoint. Tsuga stemmed a record loss by pulling the company out of the plasma television market and repositioning the firm as an automotive-and-housing conglomerate. The veteran Japanese executive also did something unexpected: he initiated a $5 billion battery manufacturing tie-up with Tesla in 2014.
Tsuga’s strategy of partnering with Tesla, then an unproven electric car maker, and a CEO known for a Tony Stark-like persona, was considered a courageous move on the Japanese conglomerate’s part. The partnership of the experienced Japanese veteran and assertive US startup bore fruit, with Gigafactory Nevada becoming the world’s largest battery facility. Its operations with Tesla are even closing in on its first annual profit. But the journey to this point was not easy.
As noted in a Financial Times report, Panasonic and Tesla clashed over the years, and these tensions reportedly manifested themselves when the Japanese firm decided to not invest in Gigafactory Shanghai. This resulted in Tesla partnering with other suppliers like LG Chem and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL). Tesla has also announced plans to start producing its own 4680 tabless cells for its vehicles and energy storage products.
As the outgoing Panasonic CEO prepares to step down in June, his promise of running a “normal company” is leaving a bitter aftertaste to the company he will leave behind. Over the years, rivals such as Sony and Hitachi have gone on massive divestment initiatives to streamline their businesses. And while Panasonic has followed a similar path, executives continue to struggle to define what kind of company it is. Newly-appointed chief executive Yuki Kusumi, who is poised to succeed Tsuga, referenced this when he stated that Panasonic could achieve growth if it could optimize businesses that excelled in its portfolio, which currently stretches across a whopping 520 subsidiaries.
The outgoing Panasonic CEO, as a final departing measure, is hoping to change the company into a holding company structure, which is similar to a move that rival Sony will make around April. According to Panasonic, the shift, which is expected to be completed in 2022, could help accelerate decision-making across the conglomerate by running its units independently. Yet even this strategy poses challenges for Panasonic since unlike Sony, which has found its “core” in the games, films, animation, and the music segment, Panasonic’s “core” still seems unclear. This difference is evident when one looks at the two Japanese firms’ performance in the market. Sony has increased 78% since February while Panasonic has dropped 30%.
But things may be looking up for Panasonic. When he announced Panasonic’s shift to a holding company, Tsuga resurrected car batteries as a “core” by branding it as an “energy business.” Thanks in part to this, as well as the ongoing expansion of profitable projects like Gigafactory Nevada, Panasonic’s next CEO, Yuki Kusumi, would be taking control of a company that is in a much better financial position as the one handed over to his predecessor. As highlighted by the Financial Times, if Kusumi would like to usher in a revival or a breakthrough of sorts for Panasonic in the coming years, he would have to channel less of his predecessor’s “normal company” strategy and more of the boldness characteristic of partners like Tesla.
Markets like the battery industry are only just heating up, after all. While Tesla has stated that it intends to keep and grow its partnership with suppliers like Panasonic despite its own battery production plans, competitors like LG Chem and CATL are not sitting out the next few years. LG has even posted a bold challenge of sorts to the Japanese conglomerate recently, with the South Korean firm stating that it has every intention to become Tesla’s main battery supplier in the near future, effectively taking Panasonic’s place. With some Elon Musk-style boldness, however, perhaps Panasonic could still keep its lead in the battery sector, and perhaps even increase its reach in the growing EV segment.
Tesla has officially launched public Robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas, without a Safety Monitor in the vehicle, marking the first time the company has removed anyone from the vehicle other than the rider.
The Safety Monitor has been present in Tesla Robotaxis in Austin since its launch last June, maintaining safety for passengers and other vehicles, and was placed in the passenger’s seat.
Tesla planned to remove the Safety Monitor at the end of 2025, but it was not quite ready to do so. Now, in January, riders are officially reporting that they are able to hail a ride from a Model Y Robotaxi without anyone in the vehicle:
I am in a robotaxi without safety monitor pic.twitter.com/fzHu385oIb
— TSLA99T (@Tsla99T) January 22, 2026
Tesla started testing this internally late last year and had several employees show that they were riding in the vehicle without anyone else there to intervene in case of an emergency.
Tesla has now expanded that program to the public. It is not active in the entire fleet, but there are a “few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors,” Ashok Elluswamy said:
Robotaxi rides without any safety monitors are now publicly available in Austin.
Starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors, and the ratio will increase over time. https://t.co/ShMpZjefwB
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) January 22, 2026
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
The Robotaxi program also operates in the California Bay Area, where the fleet is much larger, but Safety Monitors are placed in the driver’s seat and utilize Full Self-Driving, so it is essentially the same as an Uber driver using a Tesla with FSD.
In Austin, the removal of Safety Monitors marks a substantial achievement for Tesla moving forward. Now that it has enough confidence to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis altogether, there are nearly unlimited options for the company in terms of expansion.
While it is hoping to launch the ride-hailing service in more cities across the U.S. this year, this is a much larger development than expansion, at least for now, as it is the first time it is performing driverless rides in Robotaxi anywhere in the world for the public to enjoy.
Tesla has scheduled its Earnings Call for Q4 and Full Year 2025 for next Wednesday, January 28, at 5:30 p.m. EST, and investors are already preparing to get some answers from executives regarding a wide variety of topics.
The company accepts several questions from retail investors through the platform Say, which then allows shareholders to vote on the best questions.
Tesla does not answer anything regarding future product releases, but they are willing to shed light on current timelines, progress of certain projects, and other plans.
There are five questions that range over a variety of topics, including SpaceX, Full Self-Driving, Robotaxi, and Optimus, which are currently in the lead to be asked and potentially answered by Elon Musk and other Tesla executives:
- You once said: Loyalty deserves loyalty. Will long-term Tesla shareholders still be prioritized if SpaceX does an IPO?
- Our Take – With a lot of speculation regarding an incoming SpaceX IPO, Tesla investors, especially long-term ones, should be able to benefit from an early opportunity to purchase shares. This has been discussed endlessly over the past year, and we must be getting close to it.
- When is FSD going to be 100% unsupervised?
- Our Take – Musk said today that this is essentially a solved problem, and it could be available in the U.S. by the end of this year.
- What is the current bottleneck to increase Robotaxi deployment & personal use unsupervised FSD? The safety/performance of the most recent models or people to monitor robots, robotaxis, in-car, or remotely? Or something else?
- Our Take – The bottleneck seems to be based on data, which Musk said Tesla needs 10 billion miles of data to achieve unsupervised FSD. Once that happens, regulatory issues will be what hold things up from moving forward.
- Regarding Optimus, could you share the current number of units deployed in Tesla factories and actively performing production tasks? What specific roles or operations are they handling, and how has their integration impacted factory efficiency or output?
- Our Take – Optimus is going to have a larger role in factories moving forward, and later this year, they will have larger responsibilities.
- Can you please tie purchased FSD to our owner accounts vs. locked to the car? This will help us enjoy it in any Tesla we drive/buy and reward us for hanging in so long, some of us since 2017.
- Our Take – This is a good one and should get us some additional information on the FSD transfer plans and Subscription-only model that Tesla will adopt soon.
Tesla will have its Earnings Call on Wednesday, January 28.
Elon Musk shared an incredible detail about Tesla Cybercab’s potential efficiency, as the company has hinted in the past that it could be one of the most affordable vehicles to operate from a per-mile basis.
ARK Invest released a report recently that shed some light on the potential incremental cost per mile of various Robotaxis that will be available on the market in the coming years.
The Cybercab, which is detailed for the year 2030, has an exceptionally low cost of operation, which is something Tesla revealed when it unveiled the vehicle a year and a half ago at the “We, Robot” event in Los Angeles.
Musk said on numerous occasions that Tesla plans to hit the $0.20 cents per mile mark with the Cybercab, describing a “clear path” to achieving that figure and emphasizing it is the “full considered” cost, which would include energy, maintenance, cleaning, depreciation, and insurance.
Probably true
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2026
ARK’s report showed that the Cybercab would be roughly half the cost of the Waymo 6th Gen Robotaxi in 2030, as that would come in at around $0.40 per mile all in. Cybercab, at scale, would be at $0.20.
Credit: ARK Invest
This would be a dramatic decrease in the cost of operation for Tesla, and the savings would then be passed on to customers who choose to utilize the ride-sharing service for their own transportation needs.
The U.S. average cost of new vehicle ownership is about $0.77 per mile, according to AAA. Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft rideshares often cost between $1 and $4 per mile, while Waymo can cost between $0.60 and $1 or more per mile, according to some estimates.
Tesla’s engineering has been the true driver of these cost efficiencies, and its focus on creating a vehicle that is as cost-effective to operate as possible is truly going to pay off as the vehicle begins to scale. Tesla wants to get the Cybercab to about 5.5-6 miles per kWh, which has been discussed with prototypes.
Additionally, fewer parts due to the umboxed manufacturing process, a lower initial cost, and eliminating the need to pay humans for their labor would also contribute to a cheaper operational cost overall. While aspirational, all of the ingredients for this to be a real goal are there.
It may take some time as Tesla needs to hammer the manufacturing processes, and Musk has said there will be growing pains early. This week, he said regarding the early production efforts:
“…initial production is always very slow and follows an S-curve. The speed of production ramp is inversely proportionate to how many new parts and steps there are. For Cybercab and Optimus, almost everything is new, so the early production rate will be agonizingly slow, but eventually end up being insanely fast.”
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla Earnings Call: Top 5 questions investors are asking
