Elon Musk covered a lot of territory in his third quarter call Wednesday evening. The highlights:
Tesla is slowing down plans to build a new factory in Mexico because of uncertainty about the North American EV market’s pace of growth.
The long-awaited Cybertruck will officially come to market Nov. 30, Musk said. But ramping up production will take 12 to 18 months, and involve “enormous challenges,” Musk said. Tesla has 1 million orders for the wedge-shaped, stainless steel EV. It could be four or five years before the holder of order number 1,000,000 gets delivery.
The world’s richest man said he is very worried about the impact of rising interest rates on consumers living paycheck-to-paycheck. At times during his investor call, Musk sounded like he had borrowed a speech from UAW President Shawn Fain:
“It’s sometimes difficult for people who have high income, and when I say high, it’d be like someone who’s earning over $200,000 a year, to understand what life is like for someone who is earning $50,000 or $60,000 or $70,000 a year, which is most people.”
Tesla has cut prices for its high-volume Model 3 and Y but is raising the price of its high-performance Model S Plaid by 5.6% to $94,990.
Wall Street did not like any of this. Tesla shares fell by nearly 10% on Thursday, losing $70 billion in market value.
Musk’s dour take on the economy created another challenge, on top of the cost of the UAW strikes, for Ford and General Motors when those companies report Q3 results and update their full-year forecasts next week.
