Welcome again to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for information and insights on the way forward for transportation. To get this in your inbox, join right here without cost — simply click on TechCrunch Mobility!
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has spent months — years? — making an attempt to place his firm as one thing greater than only a maker of electrical automobiles. When Tesla acquired Photo voltaic Metropolis in 2016, he (and his comms group) pitched it as a sustainable vitality firm. Over the previous yr, he has pushed the thought of Tesla as an AI and robotics firm.
Musk’s aspirational branding has slammed proper up in opposition to monetary actuality: The majority of its income comes from promoting EVs. Its newest earnings help this.
The corporate generated $94.8 billion in income in 2025. Of that, $69.5 billion got here from promoting and leasing EVs in addition to associated regulatory credit. The remaining $25 billion is cut up almost down the center between its vitality technology (photo voltaic) and storage enterprise and “providers and different,” which embrace income from its Superchargers, components gross sales, and Full Self-Driving subscriptions. That reliance on deliveries signifies that as EV gross sales have dipped, so has Tesla’s whole steadiness sheet. Its earnings in 2025 have been 46% decrease year-over-year.
Tesla has tried to develop its non-EV companies to compensate for the decline in gross sales, and its This fall and full-year earnings report (and its accompanying name) signaled a shift past the persistent AI-robotics discuss and towards motion. For now, that motion includes spending cash, not making it. Musk repeatedly confused that 2026 can be an enormous CapEx yr, greater than doubling spending to $20 billion, which might put them in negative-cash-flow territory.
As an example, Musk introduced that Tesla is ending manufacturing of the Mannequin S and Mannequin X, which is extra symbolic than materials. These two fashions signify about 2% of Tesla’s gross sales quantity, some extent that Barclays analyst Dan Levy additionally makes in his most up-to-date be aware. Nonetheless, it’s a notable end-of-an-era second for Tesla and the broader automotive business, which was perpetually modified when the Mannequin S went on sale in 2012.
The extra materials transfer is what Tesla plans to do now.
Techcrunch occasion
Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026
Tesla plans to fill the manufacturing void left by the Mannequin S and X with its Optimus humanoid robots, which might be made at its Fremont, California, manufacturing facility. Musk additionally intends to scale Tesla’s robotaxi operations to extra cities in 2026 and even floated the necessity for Tesla to construct a TerraFab manufacturing facility to shore up chip provide.
However the merchandise that basically stood out to me — and a real Elon Inc round financial system deal — was Tesla’s plan to take a position $2 billion into one other Musk firm, xAI, and signaled plans to extra intently align these two corporations. In the meantime, different retailers are reporting talks are underway to probably merge (in some mixture) three of Musk’s corporations: SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI.
However let’s come again all the way down to earth for a second and evaluation Tesla’s present enterprise. Its gross sales are down year-over-year, whereas its smaller vitality storage enterprise made optimistic positive factors.
Slightly fowl
We’re not fairly able to share the complete particulars, however we’ve heard from one little fowl that there’s some exercise on the fundraising entrance for Waymo. You most likely noticed reporting final month about Waymo elevating as much as a $15 billion spherical led by its dad or mum firm Alphabet. Primarily based on my conversations, it’s nonetheless in “the realm” of $15 billion and huge portion is coming from Alphabet, and there may be excessive curiosity from exterior buyers to affix. One little fowl advised me one of many different buyers could also be an OEM (unique tools producer.
Keep tuned for extra on this.
Acquired a tip for us? Electronic mail Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Sign at kkorosec.07, or e mail Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.
Offers!
Waabi will get my “deal of the week” badge — and never simply due to the greenback figures hooked up. The autonomous automobile startup has raised $750 million in a Sequence C spherical co-led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Enterprise Companions, plus one other $250 million in milestone capital from Uber to help the deployment of 25,000 or extra Waabi Driver-powered robotaxis completely on its platform.
Uber is already a Waabi backer, taking part in one in every of its earliest raises in 2021. However that is about greater than cash. When Waabi first launched, it targeted on making use of its autonomous automobile tech to self-driving vans. The take care of Uber is a declaration that it intends to scale its tech throughout a number of self-driving verticals with a single expertise stack.
Can Waabi do it? Others have tried and retreated. Waymo shuttered its self-driving vans program to concentrate on robotaxis; Aurora, which can be an investor in Waabi, was engaged on each vans and robotaxis, too, earlier than deciding to focus simply on huge rigs.
Different offers that bought my consideration …
Gatik AI, a startup growing autonomous vans targeted on the “center mile,” has signed a take care of a significant (unnamed) consumer-goods firm. Right here’s why it issues: The contract will ship $600 million in revenue over 5 years. And these are for driverless transport, which means no security driver is behind the wheel. These Gatik vans, which run 24 hours a day shifting ambient, refrigerated, and frozen items between distribution facilities and shops, have been working driverlessly since mid-2025. In accordance with the corporate, it has accomplished 60,000 absolutely driverless orders with out incident.
Luminar’s lidar enterprise has been bought for $33 million to Redmond, Washington-based MicroVision. The corporate, which is growing its personal sensors, beat out Quantum Computing in an public sale for the belongings. TC’s Sean O’Kane interviewed MicroVision CEO Glen DeVos about his plans for Luminar. The gross sales course of did have a little bit of last-minute intrigue when a thriller bidder, with a far bigger supply, made a play for Luminar’s lidar enterprise.
Rad Energy Bikes, which began the chapter course of a few month in the past, reached a deal to promote itself to Life Electrical Autos Holdings (or Life EV) for round $13.2 million. When accounting for Rad Energy’s liabilities, the whole worth of the bid is $14.9 million. Historical past lesson: Rad Energy has raised $329.2 million since its founding and as soon as had a valuation of $1.65 billion.
Redwood Supplies raised $425 million in a Sequence E spherical that features Google as a brand new investor. The spherical was led by enterprise agency Eclipse and features a strategic funding by Nvidia’s enterprise capital arm, NVentures, in addition to current buyers Capricorn and Goldman Sachs. Learn the complete story to study what Redwood plans to do with the capital.
Notable reads and different tidbits
Obi, an organization that aggregates real-time pricing and pickup instances throughout a number of ride-hailing providers, shared new information on ride-hailing and robotaxis within the San Francisco Bay Space. There are a couple of takeaways — so please go learn the complete story — together with that the value hole between Waymo and rides supplied by Uber and Lyft is narrowing.
Uber launched a brand new division known as Uber AV Labs, that’s not — as senior reporter Sean O’Kane factors out — a ploy to start out growing its personal robotaxis once more. It is a data-sharing play; sensor-equipped Uber automobiles will accumulate after which share information with companions like Lucid, Waymo, and Waabi. Vital be aware: No contracts are signed but.
Waymo is now allowed to function a robotaxi service to and from the San Francisco Worldwide Airport (SFO). The corporate will start providing entry to SFO to a choose variety of riders earlier than providing it to all prospects within the coming months. That win comes with a little bit of tarnish, nonetheless. Waymo is below investigation by the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration and Nationwide Transportation Security Board after the corporate reported one in every of its robotaxis struck a baby close to an elementary college in Santa Monica on January 23.
The San Francisco Police Divisionis investigating an incident involving a Zoox autonomous automobile that crashed into the motive force’s-side door of a parked automotive.
Another factor …
It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve had a ballot and here’s a enjoyable one: What is going to the title or ticker of Musk’s mixed supercompany be?
Enroll right here to take get the e-newsletter in your inbox and take part in our polls!
