OPINION: Elon Musk seems stuck between producing the type of margins that Tesla’s valuation will require or offering electric cars at a price that will lead to mass adoption, writes columnist tpoletti. But he can't have both.
Even as Telsa Inc. “Technoking” Elon Musk said the electric-vehicle maker’s current prices are at “embarrassing levels,” the company on Wednesday still reported its lowest automotive gross margins in more than a year amid decades-high inflation, putting Musk in a difficult situation.
“We’ve raised our prices quite a few times,” Musk said on a conference call Wednesday afternoon. “They’re frankly at embarrassing levels. But we’ve also had a lot of supply-chain and production shocks and we’ve got crazy inflation. So I am hopeful — this is not a promise or anything, but I’m hopeful that at some point we can reduce the prices a little bit.”
Musk also said that issues in Shanghai were the main reasons Tesla sold the bulk of its bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.77% holdings in the second quarter, even though it seemed to take a loss on the trade. Musk said he was concerned about the liquidity of the company, given the factory shutdowns. “I do want to emphasize this is obviously subject to force majeure, things outside of our control,” Musk said. “The past two years have been quite a few force majeures, and it’s been kind of supply-chain hell for several years.”
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