{"id":2779,"date":"2025-09-15T10:35:40","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T10:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=2779"},"modified":"2025-09-15T10:35:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T10:35:55","slug":"tesla-makes-money-selling-electric-vehicles-but-86-of-its-earnings-could-soon-come-from-this-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=2779","title":{"rendered":"Tesla Makes Money Selling Electric Vehicles, but 86% of Its Earnings Could Soon Come From This Instead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/>Cathie Wood&#8217;s Ark Investment Management is forecasting a major shift in Tesla&#8217;s business.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>                <strong>Tesla<\/strong> <span class=\"font-bold whitespace-nowrap\" data-id=\"224257\">(<a class=\"ticker-symbol\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/quote\/nasdaq\/tsla\/\">TSLA<\/a><span class=\"text-green-900 ticker-change\"> 7.21%<\/span>)<\/span> is one of the world&#8217;s largest manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs), but rising competition is slowly chipping away at its market share. EV sales are still the main driver of Tesla&#8217;s financial results, but CEO Elon Musk is trying to future-proof the company by steering its resources into new products like autonomous vehicles and robotics.<\/p>\n<p>Ark Investment Management, which was founded by seasoned tech investor Cathie Wood, predicts autonomous vehicles will transform Tesla&#8217;s economics. In fact, Ark thinks a whopping 86% of the company&#8217;s earnings will come from self-driving robotaxis by 2029, paving the way for a stock price of $2,600. That would be a 615% increase from where Tesla stock trades today.<\/p>\n<p>How realistic is Ark&#8217;s forecast? Let&#8217;s dive in.<\/p>\n<div class=\"image\">\n<p class=\"caption\">Image source: Tesla.\n<\/div>\n<h2>Tesla&#8217;s EV business is sputtering<\/h2>\n<p>To meet Ark&#8217;s bullish 2029 forecast, Tesla will have to transition from selling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/stock-market\/market-sectors\/consumer-discretionary\/automotive-stocks\/electric-vehicle-battery-stocks\/\">passenger EVs<\/a> to selling self-driving robotaxis, and it will also have to build new services like an autonomous ride-hailing network.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, Tesla is currently operating from a position of weakness, which is forcing this shift earlier than the company perhaps would have liked. After all, government regulators haven&#8217;t approved Tesla&#8217;s full self-driving (FSD) software for unsupervised use <em>anywhere<\/em> in the U.S. yet, which is a huge barrier to the success of its upcoming Cybercab robotaxi.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla delivered 1.79 million passenger EVs during 2024, which was down 1% from the prior year, marking the first annual decline since the company launched its flagship Model S in 2011. The situation is much worse in 2025, with deliveries shrinking by a whopping 13% in the first half of the year. This led to a 14% decline in Tesla&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/r\/revenue\/\">revenue<\/a> and a 31% collapse in its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/e\/earnings-per-share\/\">earnings per share<\/a> (EPS) during the same period, which is alarming to say the least. <\/p>\n<p>A rapid increase in competition is a key reason for Tesla&#8217;s woes. Low-cost EV producers like China-based <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/how-to-invest\/stocks\/how-to-invest-in-byd-stock\/\"><strong>BYD<\/strong><\/a> are making serious inroads into some of Tesla&#8217;s biggest markets. Tesla&#8217;s sales sank by 40% across Europe in July, despite EV registrations <em>climbing<\/em> by 33% overall. BYD, on the other hand, saw a whopping 225% increase in sales in the region. <\/p>\n<p>Simply put, Tesla is quickly losing market share in the passenger EV space. The company is launching a low-cost EV of its own in order to compete, but production just started so it probably won&#8217;t be a factor until next year at the earliest.<\/p>\n<h2>86% of Tesla&#8217;s earnings could soon come from autonomous robotaxis<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/how-to-invest\/famous-investors\/elon-musk-investments\/\">Elon Musk<\/a> is making a big bet on autonomous ride-hailing. The Cybercab, which will enter mass production in 2026, will run entirely on Tesla&#8217;s FSD software, so it&#8217;s designed to operate without any human intervention. In theory, that means it can haul passengers and even small commercial loads at all hours of the day, creating a lucrative new revenue stream for the company.<\/p>\n<p>Scaling this business will come with challenges. I mentioned FSD isn&#8217;t approved for unsupervised use in the U.S. just yet, but Tesla will also have to compete with established ride-hailing giants like <strong>Uber Technologies<\/strong>, which has already partnered with 20 other companies in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/stock-market\/market-sectors\/consumer-discretionary\/automotive-stocks\/self-driving-car-stocks\/\">autonomous driving<\/a> space. Around 180 million people already use Uber every single month, so it&#8217;s in a much better position to dominate the autonomous ride-hailing industry compared to Tesla, which has to build an entire network from scratch. <\/p>\n<p>However, Ark thinks Tesla will eventually make it work. Its forecasts suggest the company will generate $1.2 trillion in annual revenue by 2029, with 63% ($756 billion) coming from its robotaxi platform alone. Ark says that could translate to $440 million in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/e\/ebitda\/\">EBITDA<\/a>), with 86% attributable to the robotaxi because of its high profit margins &#8212; human drivers are the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/2025\/08\/11\/1-growth-stock-beat-tesla-10-trillion-opportunity\/\">largest cost<\/a> in existing ride-hailing networks, but the robotaxi won&#8217;t need them. <\/p>\n<h2>Don&#8217;t rush to buy Tesla stock just yet<\/h2>\n<p>In my opinion, Ark&#8217;s predictions are too ambitious. Wall Street thinks Tesla will generate around $93 billion in revenue during 2025 (according to Yahoo! Finance), so that figure will have to grow by almost 1,200% over the next four years to meet Ark&#8217;s forecast of $1.2 trillion &#8212; driven by a brand-new robotaxi product that hasn&#8217;t even hit the road yet. <\/p>\n<p>Tesla&#8217;s valuation is another issue. Its stock is trading at an eye-popping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/p\/pe-ratio\/\">price-to-earnings (P\/E) ratio<\/a> of 209, making it almost seven times as expensive than the <strong>Nasdaq-100 <\/strong>technology index &#8212; which trades at a P\/E ratio of 31.6. Remember, Tesla&#8217;s earnings are currently <em>shrinking<\/em>, which makes its premium valuation even harder to justify.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, I&#8217;m hesitant to buy into the idea that Tesla stock could surge by another 615% over the next four years to reach Ark&#8217;s price target of $2,600. It might be possible if the company&#8217;s robotaxi platform becomes as successful as Ark predicts, but I think that&#8217;s unlikely in such a short period of time. After all, Elon Musk has promised unsupervised self-driving cars for the last 10 years, and Tesla <em>still<\/em> hasn&#8217;t delivered.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/2025\/09\/14\/tesla-money-electric-vehicles-86-earnings-instead\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cathie Wood&#8217;s Ark Investment Management is forecasting a major shift in Tesla&#8217;s business. Tesla (TSLA 7.21%) is one of the world&#8217;s largest manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs), but rising competition is slowly chipping away at its market share. EV sales are still the main driver of Tesla&#8217;s financial results, but CEO Elon Musk is trying &#8230; <a title=\"Tesla Makes Money Selling Electric Vehicles, but 86% of Its Earnings Could Soon Come From This Instead\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=2779\" aria-label=\"Read more about Tesla Makes Money Selling Electric Vehicles, but 86% of Its Earnings Could Soon Come From This Instead\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Tesla-Makes-Money-Selling-Electric-Vehicles-but-86-of-Its.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2781,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions\/2781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}