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Top questions Tesla investors want answered at the Q4 2022 earnings call

Credit: CNBC/YouTube

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Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) fourth-quarter and full-year 2022 earnings call is a couple of days away, and investors of the company are already posting their questions for the event’s Q&A session.

Similar to past earnings calls, Tesla is gathering inquiries from investor communications platform Say. As of writing, Say’s webpage for the Tesla Q4 and FY 2022 earnings call focuses on inquiries from retail investors. And based on the questions that have gained the most number of votes so far, it appears that investors are particularly interested in the upcoming Cybertruck, which is expected to start deliveries this year. 

Following are ten of the most voted questions Tesla investors wish to ask this coming Q4 2022 earnings call. 

  1. After recent price cuts, analysts released expectations that Tesla automotive gross margin, excluding leases and reg credits, will drop below 20% and average selling price around $47k across all models. Where do you see average selling price and gross margins after the price cuts?
  2. The Solar Roof product continues to struggle to gain traction. What has Tesla learned from this, and what changes do you foresee in future Solar Roof versions to increase scale? 
  3. Please provide a detailed explanation of where you are on the 4680 ramp. What are the current roadblocks? When do you (expect) to scale to 10,000 vehicles a week? 
  4. Is Cybertruck production still on track for mid-year? 
  5. What kind of margins do you expect for the stationary energy storage business in 2023 and then 2024 and beyond? Separately, will you consider reporting energy volumes in the P&D report? 
  6. What is the US the current production and future 2-year forecast of Tesla energy: Powerwall, Megapack, (and) Tesla virtual power? 
  7. When will Tesla announce production Cybertruck specs and pricing? 
  8. Since Elon started political influencing, polls from Morning Consult & YouGov show Tesla brand favorability declining in 2022 and division along partisan lines. Such brand damage can impact demand. Does Tesla track favorability, and how will any brand damage be mitigated? 
  9. Elon has said previously that FSD Hardware 4 will most likely come first in Cybertruck. Is that still the current plan? Do you expect there to be an upgrade path for Hardware 3 cars to Hardware 4? 
  10. Zach, when do you think Tesla Insurance will become a big enough revenue source to warrant providing more details on the financials of that business so investors can compare it to other insurance companies?

Elon Musk has commented in the past that he is actually fond of Tesla’s retail investors because they have a good grasp of the company’s plans and execution. In the past, Musk has openly stated that Tesla retail investors actually understand Tesla better than Wall Street. And over the years, Say has become the de facto tool for TSLA investors to ask their own questions at the company’s quarterly earnings calls. 

“I do think that a lot of the retail investors actually have deeper and more accurate insights than many of the big institutional investors, and certainly they have better insights than many of the analysts,” Musk said. 

Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2022 earnings call is expected to begin at 4:30 p.m. Central Time/5:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, January 25, 2023. Similar to Tesla’s other quarterly earnings calls, the event will be available for viewing online.  

Disclosure: I own TSLA shares.

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, contact me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101.

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult

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Credit: Grok Imagine

Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.

Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.

BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor

Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.

However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.

He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:

Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”

This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.

However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.

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Tesla gives its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent

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Credit: BLKMDL3 | X

Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.

Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”

Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.

This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.

Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.

This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.

Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.

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Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches

Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.

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SpaceX Starship V3 gets launch date update from Elon Musk

The first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.

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Credit: SpaceX/X

Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX’s next Starship launch, Flight 12, is expected in about six weeks. This suggests that the first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.

In a post on X, Elon Musk stated that the next Starship launch is in six weeks. He accompanied his announcement with a photo that seemed to have been taken when Starship’s upper stage was just about to separate from the Super Heavy Booster. Musk did not state whether SpaceX will attempt to catch the Super Heavy Booster during the upcoming flight.

The upcoming flight will mark the debut of Starship V3. The upgraded design includes the new Raptor V3 engine, which is expected to have nearly twice the thrust of the original Raptor 1, at a fraction of the cost and with significantly reduced weight. The Starship V3 platform is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability. 

The Starship V3 Flight 12 launch timeline comes as SpaceX pursues an aggressive development cadence for the fully reusable launch system. Previous iterations of Starship have racked up a mixed but notable string of test flights, including multiple integrated flight tests in 2025.

Interestingly enough, SpaceX has teased an aggressive timeframe for Starship V3’s first flight. Way back in late November, SpaceX noted on X that it will be aiming to launch Starship V3’s maiden flight in the first quarter of 2026. This was despite setbacks like a structural anomaly on the first V3 booster during ground testing.

“Starship’s twelfth flight test remains targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” the company wrote in its post on X. 

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