Tesla announced that it has reached the highest first-quarter order backlog of the last two years despite the removal of tax incentives in the US. The company stated that there has been a revival in global demand and it recorded a slight growth in the US market.
Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja stated that this increase was partly due to the rising gasoline prices following the tension between Iran and the US. While traffic restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz affected the global energy market, the vulnerability of gasoline vehicles increased the interest in electric vehicles.
Investment Plans and Hardware Updates
The company plans to make a capital expenditure exceeding $25 billion this year, and this figure is well above last year’s $8.5 billion expenditure. Elon Musk announced that a significant part of this massive investment will be transferred to the Terafab chip factory, which will be established in Texas in collaboration with Tesla and SpaceX at a cost of $3 billion.
Musk also admitted for the first time that Tesla vehicles with the current Hardware 3 computer will not be able to achieve unsupervised full self-driving capability. Stating that discounted trade-in and computer upgrade options will be offered for these vehicle owners, the company aims to establish micro-factories in major cities for this process. Hardware 3 having a much lower memory bandwidth compared to Hardware 4 is cited as the main reason for this decision. What do you think about these ambitious goals and high expenditure plans of Tesla?
