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Tesla rival Audi hits the pause button on e-tron production

Audi promotes the e-tron in front of a Tesla store in Stuttgart, Germany. (Photo: Provotroll1/Twitter)

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The Audi factory in Belgium paused the production of the e-tron SUV citing production issues such as a battery supply bottleneck. The production of Audi Brussels was shut down Thursday last week and is expected to last until Tuesday.

According to Audi insiders, aside from battery supply issues, there are also shortages of other parts such as rear lights for the e-tron and even sun visors, reported Belgian publication L’Echo.

The spokesperson for Audi’s plant in Brussels clarified that the production issues are not because of the coronavirus outbreak in China where global car manufacturers’ factories for car parts are located.

The factory in Brussels produces the Audi e-tron and the e-tron Sportback, the first two electric vehicles of the German carmaker under the umbrella of Volkswagen. Audi sold about 26,400 e-trons in 2019 but the company declined to give an estimate on deliveries this year, according to Bloomberg.

The current halt in production shows how traditional carmakers struggle to keep up with the pace of Tesla, the undoubted leader in the electric vehicle industry today. Unlike traditional car manufacturers, a recent teardown of the Model 3 by Nikkei Business Publications revealed that Tesla does not depend on multiple other suppliers for its parts, allowing it to push itself to the limits in terms of technologies it wants to use for its vehicles.

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In January, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Deiss emphasized during a global board meeting with the company’s senior managers that they need to act fast to avoid having a similar fate as Finnish phone maker Nokia that wasn’t able to keep up with the technology. This announcement came just a couple months after Audi announced that it plans to cut 9,500 jobs through 2025, which will save it 6 billion euros and help fund its push to make electric cars.

Audi Brussels’ halt in e-tron production paints a picture of how labeled “Tesla Killers” simply don’t match the current technologies and capabilities of the electric car maker, despite having the resources for the production of petrol-powered cars. Putting car parts together to make a vehicle is one thing but they still need to catch up in other aspects such as connectivity and driver-assist systems, among other things.

Oh, of course, the killer blow can also be seen when you look at the details, too. The image of an Audi e-tron’s cockpit reminding its owner to change oil is just difficult to look at just like this one below shared by Twitter user  Georg Konjovic.

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A curious soul who keeps wondering how Elon Musk, Tesla, electric cars, and clean energy technologies will shape the future, or do we really need to escape to Mars.

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Tesla launches its coolest gift idea ever just a few weeks after it was announced

“Gift one month of Full Self-Driving (Supervised), which allows the vehicle to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal intervention.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has launched its coolest gift idea ever, just a few weeks after it was announced.

Tesla is now giving owners the opportunity to gift Full Self-Driving for one month to friends or family through a new gifting program that was suggested to the company last month.

The program will enable people to send a fellow Tesla owner one month of the company’s semi-autonomous driving software, helping them to experience the Full Self-Driving suite and potentially help Tesla gain them as a subscriber of the program, or even an outright purchase.

Tesla has officially launched the program on its Shop. Sending one month of Full Self-Driving costs $112:

“Gift one month of Full Self-Driving (Supervised), which allows the vehicle to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal intervention. All sales are final. Can only be purchased and redeemed in the U.S. This gift card is valued at $112.00 and is intended to cover the price of one month of FSD (Supervised), including up to 13% sales tax. It is not guaranteed to cover the full monthly price if pricing or tax rates change. This gift card can be stored in Tesla Wallet and redeemed toward FSD (Supervised) or any other Tesla product or service that accepts gift card payments.”

Tesla has done a great job of expanding Full Self-Driving access over the past few years, especially by offering things like the Subscription program, free trials through referrals, and now this gift card program.

Gifting Full Self-Driving is another iteration of Tesla’s “butts in seats” strategy, which is its belief that it can flip consumers to its vehicles and products by simply letting people experience them.

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There is also a reason behind pushing Full Self-Driving so hard, and it has to do with CEO Elon Musk’s compensation package. One tranche requires Musk to achieve a certain number of active paid Full Self-Driving subscriptions.

More people who try the suite are likely to pay for it over the long term.

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Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale

Tesla said recently it plans to launch Robotaxi in Miami, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Dallas.

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Credit: Grok

Tesla has expanded Robotaxi app access once again, but this time, it’s on a much broader scale as the company is offering the opportunity for those outside of North America to download the app.

Tesla Robotaxi is the company’s early-stage ride-hailing platform that is active in Texas, California, and Arizona, with more expansion within the United States planned for the near future.

Tesla said recently it plans to launch Robotaxi in Miami, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Dallas.

The platform has massive potential, and Tesla is leaning on it to be a major contributor to even more disruption in the passenger transportation industry. So far, it has driven over 550,000 miles in total, with the vast majority of this coming from the Bay Area and Austin.

First Look at Tesla’s Robotaxi App: features, design, and more

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However, Tesla is focusing primarily on rapid expansion, but most of this is reliant on the company’s ability to gain regulatory permission to operate the platform in various regions. The expansion plans go well outside of the U.S., as the company expanded the ability to download the app to more regions this past weekend.

So far, these are the areas it is available to download in:

  • Japan
  • Thailand
  • Hong Kong
  • South Korea
  • Australia
  • Taiwan
  • Macau
  • New Zealand
  • Mexico
  • U.S.
  • Canada

Right now, while Tesla is focusing primarily on expansion, it is also working on other goals that have to do with making it more widely available to customers who want to grab a ride from a driverless vehicle.

One of the biggest goals it has is to eliminate safety monitors from its vehicles, which it currently utilizes in Austin in the passenger’s seat and in the driver’s seat in the Bay Area.

A few weeks ago, Tesla started implementing a new in-cabin data-sharing system, which will help support teams assist riders without anyone in the front of the car.

Tesla takes a step towards removal of Robotaxi service’s safety drivers

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As Robotaxi expands into more regions, Tesla stands to gain tremendously through the deployment of the Full Self-Driving suite for personal cars, as well as driverless Robotaxis for those who are just hailing rides.

Things have gone well for Tesla in the early stages of the Robotaxi program, but expansion will truly be the test of how things operate going forward. Navigating local traffic laws and gaining approval from a regulatory standpoint will be the biggest hurdle to jump.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla gets price target boost, but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows

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Credit: Tesla Europe & Middle East/X

Tesla received a price target boost from Morgan Stanley, according to a new note on Monday morning, but there is some considerable caution also being communicated over the next year or so.

Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco took over Tesla coverage for the firm from longtime bull Adam Jonas, who appears to be focusing on embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.

Percoco took over and immediately adjusted the price target for Tesla from $410 to $425, and changed its rating on shares from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’

Percoco said he believes Tesla is the leading company in terms of electric vehicles, manufacturing, renewable energy, and real-world AI, so it deserves a premium valuation. However, he admits the high expectations for the company could provide for a “choppy trading environment” for the next year.

He wrote:

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“However, high expectations on the latter have brought the stock closer to fair valuation. While it is well understood that Tesla is more than an auto manufacturer, we expect a choppy trading environment for the TSLA shares over the next 12 months, as we see downside to estimates, while the catalysts for its non-auto businesses appear priced at current levels.”

Percoco also added that if market cap hurdles are achieved, Morgan Stanley would reduce its price target by 7 percent.

Perhaps the biggest change with Percoco taking over the analysis for Jonas is how he will determine the value of each individual project. For example, he believes Optimus is worth about $60 per share of equity value.

He went on to describe the potential value of Full Self-Driving, highlighting its importance to the Tesla valuation:

“Full Self Driving (FSD) is the crown jewel of Tesla’s auto business; we believe that its leading-edge personal autonomous driving offering is a real game changer, and will remain a significant competitive advantage over its EV and non-EV peers. As Tesla continues to improve its platform with increased levels of autonomy (i.e., hands-off, eyes-off), it will revolutionize the personal driving experience. It remains to be seen if others will be able to keep pace.”

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Additionally, Percoco outlined both bear and bull cases for the stock. He believes $860 per share, “which could be in play in the next 12 months if Tesla manages through the EV-downturn,” while also scaling Robotaxi, executing on unsupervised FSD, and scaling Optimus, is in play for the bull case.

Will Tesla thrive without the EV tax credit? Five reasons why they might

Meanwhile, the bear case is placed at $145 per share, and “assumes greater competition and margin pressure across all business lines, embedding zero value for humanoids, slowing the growth curve for Tesla’s robotaxi fleet to reflect regulatory challenges in scaling a vision-only perception stack, and lowering market share and margin profile for the autos and energy businesses.”

Currently, Tesla shares are trading at around $441.

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