tesla in china case study

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Tesla Reaches Deals in China on Self-Driving Cars

Elon Musk met with the country’s premier, a longtime Tesla ally, and secured regulatory nods and a necessary partnership with a Chinese tech company.

By Keith Bradsher and Jack Ewing

Keith Bradsher reported from Beijing, and Jack Ewing from New York.

Tesla has concluded a series of arrangements with regulators and a Chinese artificial intelligence company during a quick trip to Beijing on Sunday and Monday by Elon Musk, the carmaker’s chief executive, potentially clearing the way for the company to offer its most advanced self-driving software on cars in China.

Tesla had faced a couple of hurdles to offering the latest level of autonomous driving, which it calls supervised Full Self-Driving. It has needed approval from Chinese regulators, who questioned whether the company took adequate precautions to protect data. And it has needed access to extremely high-resolution maps across the country.

The timing of Mr. Musk’s trip was significant. He arrived in China days after he identified self-driving technology and artificial intelligence as critical to Tesla’s future. Tesla is not just a car company, Mr. Musk told investors last week, saying, “We should be thought of as an A.I. robotics company.”

Approval of the technology in China would give Mr. Musk a much-needed win after regulators in the United States issued a harsh assessment of the system’s safety and performance in a report released on Friday.

Mr. Musk flew on his private jet to Beijing on Sunday morning and met almost immediately with Premier Li Qiang, China’s No. 2 official after Xi Jinping. Mr. Li is a longtime ally of Mr. Musk who, when he served as Communist Party secretary in Shanghai, helped clear the way for Tesla’s construction there of what is now the company’s largest car assembly plant.

The government-linked China Association of Automobile Manufacturers later announced that Tesla and five Chinese automakers had obtained approval from authorities and the association for their data security precautions on dozens of car models. The rules bar automakers in China from using software that would identify the face of anyone outside his or her vehicle, and include many other restrictions. Self-driving systems use cameras to guide vehicles.

The cars included Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y. The five Chinese manufacturers included BYD , which is China’s dominant electric vehicle company and Tesla’s primary global rival, and Nio , a longtime player in China’s auto sector.

Tesla has run a data center in Shanghai for the past three years that handles the extensive information accumulated by the cars it has sold in China as they navigate the country’s roads. China has tightened its data security regulations in recent years to severely limit information leaving the country.

Tesla has separately concluded a deal with one of China’s largest tech companies, Baidu, to obtain high-resolution maps of road lanes, according to a person familiar with the deal who was not authorized to speak about it publicly. Tesla cars in China have used Baidu maps for four years for basic navigation, directing drivers where to turn, but have not previously had access to the higher-resolution maps.

Baidu is one of about 20 Chinese companies with the necessary credentials from the Chinese government to obtain access to high-resolution mapping data. Automakers are required to team up with one of these companies or be forced to rely heavily on cameras on their vehicles to create their own maps, as Tesla has done until now.

No details were immediately available on Monday on what Tesla has agreed to do in exchange for the approvals. China has a long history of urging multinationals to share considerable technology in exchange for access to its market. But the Chinese government insists that it does not force foreign companies to surrender their commercial secrets, and promised the Trump administration it would not do so.

Tesla’s stock jumped Monday on the news of the approvals in China. The company last week reported that its profit plunged 55 percent in the first three months of the year, while its revenue fell 9 percent. Days earlier, Tesla announced that it would lay off 10 percent of its worldwide work force, or about 14,000 employees .

As Chinese automakers introduce large numbers of their own electric car models this year, Tesla is doubling down on self-driving capabilities, putting the features into cars ahead of other automakers, despite concerns by regulators and safety experts about the capability of the company’s technology.

Tesla already offers what it calls “supervised Full Self Driving” in the United States. The company charges $99 a month to upgrade Tesla cars from its Autopilot or Enhanced Autopilot driver-assistance systems to the new level.

The main traffic safety regulator in the United States said on Friday that it was investigating Tesla’s recall of its Autopilot driver-assistance system because of concerns that the company had not done enough to ensure that drivers remained attentive while using the technology.

The regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said there had been at least 29 fatal accidents involving Autopilot and Full Self-Driving from January 2018 to August 2023. The analysis did not assess whether the number of deaths was more or fewer than if humans had been driving without those systems in use. Technology used by other carmakers does a better job of making sure that drivers are paying attention, the highway safety agency said.

Tesla’s use of the term autopilot “may lead drivers to believe that the automation has greater capabilities than it does and invite drivers to overly trust the automation,” the agency said.

The agency is also investigating two fatal crashes involving Ford Motors’ BlueCruise system, which allows drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel on many U.S. highways.

China has also had deaths from mistakes made by self-driving cars, which are now offered by numerous Chinese companies as well as Tesla. But crashes involving errors by human drivers are the frequent subject of viral videos in China, feeding a popular perception that self-driving cars may be safer.

Joy Dong contributed research.

Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic. More about Keith Bradsher

Jack Ewing writes about the auto industry with an emphasis on electric vehicles. More about Jack Ewing

The World of Elon Musk

The billionaire’s portfolio includes the world’s most valuable automaker, an innovative rocket company and plenty of drama..

X: An Australian court extended an injunction ordering the social media platform X to remove videos depicting the recent stabbing of a bishop , setting the country’s judicial system up for a clash with Elon Musk, who has denounced the court’s order as censorship.

A $47 Billion Pay Deal: Despite   facing criticism that Tesla is overly beholden to Elon Musk , its board of directors said that the company would essentially give him everything he wanted, including the biggest pay package in corporate history.

Tesla: Tesla reported that it made significantly less money  in the first three months of the year because of its tepid car sales, reinforcing concern among investors that the company led by Elon Musk is losing ground  in the market for electric vehicles.

SpaceX: President Biden wants companies that use American airspace for rocket launches to start paying taxes into a federal fund  that finances the work of air traffic controllers.

Business With China : Tesla and China built a symbiotic relationship that made Elon Musk ultrarich. Now, his reliance on the country may give Beijing leverage .  

The Musk Foundation: After making billions in tax-deductible donations to his charity, Musk has failed recently to donate the minimum required to justify a tax break  — and what he did give often supported his interests.

Digitala Vetenskapliga Arkivet

• CSV all metadata
• CSV all metadata version 2
• modern-language-association-8th-edition
• Other style
• Other locale

Chen, Zikang

Bai, changhao, abstract [en].

Background: In the past two years, the outbreak of the coronavirus has had a major impact on the world economy, and has a considerable negative impact on the performance and sales of the automobile manufacturing industry. Enterprises need to sum up their experience. Tesla's successful case can be used as a reference for analysis. .

Purpose: In response to the substantial increase in sales performance of Tesla's Chinese market during the epidemic, relevant market strategy analysis was made, and the researchers tried to summarize relevant experience to provide reference for the automotive industry.

Method: The researchers used a relatively flexible and exploratory qualitative approach, conducting semi-structured interviews with seven current Tesla employees and using secondary sources to aid in proving the veracity and viability of the information.

Conclusion: The results show that most of the targeted strategies implemented by Tesla during the epidemic are effective, and the application of various strategies is related to changes in sales performance. The researchers collected raw data through interviews, analyzed why Tesla used these strategies, and evaluated the application effects of the main strategies. At the same time, the researchers also put forward our own views and opinions.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages

National category, identifiers, subject / course, supervisors, wilde björling, max michael, ramirez-pasillas, marcela, open access in diva, file information, by organisation, on the subject, search outside of diva, altmetric score.

Proceedings of the 2021 3rd International Conference on Economic Management and Cultural Industry (ICEMCI 2021)

Analysis of Tesla’s Marketing Strategy in China

[email protected]

These authors contributed equally.

Tesla, an automobile company which started its pure electric vehicle business at an early time, has made a lot of efforts since it officially entered China market in 2014. In this paper we investigated the strategy of Tesla’s development and marketing based on case study. Through the study of Tesla’s development strategy and marketing strategy, we found that Tesla has widened the product line to make it appropriate with the characteristics of the China market and adopted development-oriented strategy to upgrade from the supply side. In order to get more market share, it also developed different products to achieve the need of consumers in different classes. Tesla uses differentiation strategy on products, makes the unique performance and design become the core competitiveness that cannot be easily followed by competitors. Supplemented by a series of marketing strategies such as celebrity effect and hunger marketing, it occupied certain shares of market in a short time. We did a comparative study between BYD and Tesla to find the advantages and shortages of the two companies and what they could learn from each other. Through SWOT analysis, we believe that Tesla should continue to develop its advantages in R & D and supply chain, seize the good opportunity of China’s economic recovery after passing the most serious time with COVID-19 to consolidate its market position and occupy more share of market in China. Overall, these results shed light on Tesla’s marketing strategy in China at the company level, as well as its current strengths and weaknesses and the direction of efforts it needs to take in the future.

Download article (PDF)

Cite this article

• S&P Dow Jones Indices
• S&P Global Market Intelligence
• S&P Global Mobility
• S&P Global Commodity Insights
• S&P Global Ratings
• S&P Global Sustainable1
• Investor Relations Overview
• Investor Presentations
• Investor Fact Book
• News Releases
• Quarterly Earnings
• SEC Filings & Reports
• Executive Committee
• Corporate Governance
• Merger Information
• Stock & Dividends
• Shareholder Services
• Contact Investor Relations
• Email Subscription Center
• Media Center

Tesla faces growing competition in China after smooth ride in 2020

A Sports League Maximizes Revenue from Media Rights

Japan M&A By the Numbers: Q4 2023

Essential IR Insights Newsletter Fall - 2023

A Corporation Clearly Pinpoints Activist Investor Activity

• 1 Feb, 2021
• Author Soon Chen Kang
• Theme Retail & Consumer Products

Tesla Inc. enjoyed a breakout 2020 in China on the back of record sales and the rollout of locally produced electric vehicles, but the company faces a stiffer challenge in the country in 2021 from rivals including Volkswagen AG.

The California-based electric-car maker delivered 499,550 vehicles worldwide in 2020, slightly behind its target of 500,000 units. It does not break out sales by market but data from the China Passenger Car Association shows that it accounted for about 11.6% of the new energy vehicle, or NEV, market, with sales reaching 135,404 in 2020. The association expects Tesla's China sales to reach 280,000 in 2021, while Tesla has said it expects to achieve 50% average annual growth in deliveries "over a multiyear horizon."

China will be a key growth market for the automotive industry in the coming years. Sales of new energy vehicles, a category that includes battery, plug-in hybrid and fuel-cell models, are expected to rise from 1.4 million units in 2020 to 1.8 million vehicles 2021, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

"We are currently the leader in the Chinese EV market. So I think we must be doing something right," Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during a Jan. 27 earnings call.

However, Tesla will have to navigate a range of challenges in 2021 if it is to maintain this position, chief of which will be the ambitious plans of Volkswagen.

On Jan. 18, Tesla slashed the cost of its Model Y crossovers in China by 30% to a starting price of 339,900 yuan for its long range model, making it about 10% cheaper than locally manufactured gasoline SUV models from Daimler AG and VW-owned Audi.

In the following days, Volkswagen priced its ID.4 Crozz electric SUV at 199,900 yuan after subsidies and CEO Herbert Diess on Twitter stated his intention to take market share from Tesla. The ID.4 SUV, which was built by its local joint venture with FAW Jiefang Group Co. Ltd., will have a driving range of up to 550km and allows over-the-air software updates, a popular feature in Tesla vehicles.

Volkswagen's lower price points and entrenched dealership network across the hinterland cities make it better placed to win the NEV game in the long run, said Jochen Siebert, managing director of JSC Automotive. The German carmaker is planning to launch eight ID. electric models in China by 2023. Siebert predicts that VW will overtake Tesla as the top electric car brand in the country, as it did in Europe in 2020.

"In China, it might take a little longer. Instead of three months, it might take nine to 10 months. Until then, Tesla will feel the heavy impact because VW is going to use all its marketing power. That is going to be tough," said Siebert.

Gaining share in the smaller cities where Volkswagen has a long-established presence will be important for Tesla. About 60% to 70% of Tesla vehicles sold in China are done so in first-tier cities such as Shanghai and Beijing that employ license plate quotas to tackle vehicle congestion , noted Yan Zhang, powertrain market analyst from LMC Automotive. A license plate bought at auction in Shanghai, for instance, can cost more than the vehicle.

Sales of NEVs in Shanghai spiked in November 2020 after the local government restricted cars with out-of-city plates from its highway during peak hours. Tesla sold the most NEVs in Shanghai during November at 6,846 units, over 200% more than the previous month, according to auto insurance data cited by Huatai Securities.

"Once its demand reaches a saturation in these cities with license plate quotas, how [Tesla] can grow in other cities is an issue. The subsidies are also being cut back this year," said Zhang.

Tesla has opened showrooms in lower-tier cities such as Weifang and Linyi in the northeastern Shandong province, but its current price range may be beyond reach for many in these areas . The company is reportedly planning to develop a lower-cost model for China that could be priced at as little as $25,000.

"The point of having a $25,000 vehicle would be to get more Teslas on the road. There would be more data and opportunities to sell services," said Tu Le, managing director at Sino Auto Insights.

Tesla also faces a growing threat from domestic EV makers such as NIO Ltd., XPeng Inc. and Li Auto Inc., all of which are U.S.-listed and enjoyed massive share price increases in 2020. However, while these startups have been able to secure sizable investment by pitching bold expansion plans, their growth is likely to lag the overall EV market due to production constraints, Le said.

"I would have preferred to see the Chinese EV companies focus more on the domestic market and strengthen their market share rather than quickly go abroad. But because of their market valuation and share prices, I think there's going to be pressure from investors to see expansion abroad. That's likely to divide management's attention," said Le.

Until then, Tesla is still likely to hold on to its position, but competition is certainly heating up. BYD Co. Ltd., the largest Chinese EV maker backed by Warren Buffett, raised $3.9 billion in an upsized share sale on Jan. 20 to bolster its balance sheet and fund research and development.

"Within a few years, Tesla will not be the only one in town. There will be many, it will be so competitive," said Siebert.

As of Jan. 29, US$1 was equivalent to 6.43 Chinese yuan.

• Soon Chen Kang
• Retail & Consumer Products

Tesla's self-driving bid for China faces rivals racing ahead

• Medium Text

• Chinese tech giants juice up smart car competition
• In China, even cheaper cars have self-driving features
• Tesla autonomous EVs may spur 'catfish effect'
• China data transfer key to Tesla getting ahead

'CATFISH EFFECT'

'innovative and disruptive'.

Sign up here.

Reporting by Zhang Yan in Shanghai and Kevin Krolicki in Beijing; Editing by Brian Thevenot and Sonali Paul

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. New Tab , opens new tab

Business Chevron

GSK raises full-year profit forecast

GSK raised its full-year profit forecast on Wednesday, betting on strong demand for its common respiratory virus and shingles vaccines.

Tesla will store Chinese car data locally, following government fears about spying

The datacenter will store and process data locally.

By James Vincent , a senior reporter who has covered AI, robotics, and more for eight years at The Verge.

Share this story

Tesla says it’s established a data center in China to store and process information produced by its vehicles locally. The announcement, made on Weibo , comes as the US carmaker faces pressure from Chinese authorities over fears its cars could be used for spying.

“Car data security is very important,” said Tesla (via Google Translate). “All data generated from the sales of vehicles in the Chinese mainland market will be stored in China.”

Telsa cars are reportedly banned from Chinese military sites

Reports from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg said Tesla’s cars have been banned from Chinese military sites, and that “military staff and employees of key state-owned companies” are prohibited from owning the vehicles. Chinese authorities were reportedly concerned that the exterior cameras on the cars could be used to collect sensitive data and send it back to the US.

Elon Musk responded by saying if this was true it would be the end of the company in China. “There’s a very strong incentive for us to be very confidential with any information,” said Musk in March . “If Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, we will get shut down.”

Tesla certainly needs to keep China happy to ensure the company’s future growth. China is the world’s largest market for electric vehicles — around three to four times the size of the the US. Tesla sold 147,445 cars in China last year, according to Reuters , accounting for 30 percent of global sales.

Last month, the Chinese government published draft rules outlining its concerns with data-collection by smart vehicles. The rules state that data about roads, buildings, and terrain should not leave the country, and that customers should have to consent to data collection. Tesla expressed support for the rules through social media accounts in China.

Elon Musk goes ‘absolutely hard core’ in another round of Tesla layoffs

Razer made a million dollars selling a mask with rgb, and the ftc is not pleased, binance founder’s sentencing hearing, automatic emergency braking at speeds up to 90mph required under new rule, fcc fines at&t, sprint, t-mobile, and verizon nearly $200 million for illegally sharing location data.

More from Tech

Wyze cameras let owners see into a stranger’s home — again

Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now

OpenAI can’t register ‘GPT’ as a trademark — yet

Sony’s portable PlayStation Portal is back in stock

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Lessons from Tesla’s Approach to Innovation

• Nathan Furr

There is a method to the madness.

Tesla has shifted the auto industry toward electric vehicles, achieved consistently growing revenues, and at the start of 2020 was the highest-performing automaker in terms of total return, sales growth, and long-term shareholder value. As a technology and innovation scholar, the author has studied how innovators commercialize new technologies and found that Tesla’s strategy offers enduring lessons for any innovator, especially in terms of how to win support for an idea and how to bring new technologies to market. To understand Tesla’s strategy, one must separate its two primary pillars: headline-grabbing moves like launching the Cybertruck or the Roadster 2.0 and the big bets it is making on its core vehicles, the models S, X, 3, and Y.

Few companies have attracted as much scorn and adoration as Tesla. When Tesla launches a product like the Cybertruck, the reception tends to be divisive: Critics see it as further evidence that founder Elon Musk is out of touch and doomed to fail, while supporters buy in — within a month Tesla received 200,000 preorders for the new vehicle. Compare that with the Ford-150, the world’s best-selling car in 2018, which sold just over 1 million vehicles that year.

• Nathan Furr is a Professor of Strategy at INSEAD and a coauthor of five best-selling books, including The Upside of Uncertainty, The Innovator’s Method, Leading Transformation, Innovation Cap i tal , and Nail It then Scale It .
• Jeff Dyer is the Horace Beesley Professor of Strategy at BYU’s Marriott School of Management. He is the lead author of the best-selling book, The Innovator’s DNA , and coauthor of The Innovator’s Method .

Partner Center

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• Personal Finance
• AP Investigations
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Shopping
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election Results
• Delegate Tracker
• AP & Elections
• Auto Racing
• 2024 Paris Olympic Games
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Personal finance
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

Tesla’s stock leaps on reports of Chinese approval for the company’s driving software

FILE - A Model X sports-utility vehicle sits outside a Tesla store in Littleton, Colo., June 18, 2023. Shares of Tesla stock rallied Monday, April 29, 2024, after the electric vehicle maker’s CEO, Elon Musk, paid a surprise visit to Beijing over the weekend and reportedly won tentative approval for its driving software. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

FILE - Elon Musk arrives at an event in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. Shares of Tesla stock rallied Monday, April 29, 2024, after Musk, the electric vehicle maker’s CEO, paid a surprise visit to Beijing over the weekend and reportedly won tentative approval for its driving software. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

• Copy Link copied

NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Tesla stock rallied Monday after the electric vehicle maker’s CEO, Elon Musk, paid a surprise visit to Beijing over the weekend and reportedly won tentative approval for its driving software.

Musk met with a senior government official in the Chinese capital Sunday, just as the nation’s carmakers are showing off their latest electric vehicle models at the Beijing auto show.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter, Chinese officials told Tesla that Beijing has tentatively approved the automaker’s plan to launch its “Full Self-Driving,” or FSD, software feature in the country.

Although it’s called FSD, the software still requires human supervision. On Friday the U.S. government’s auto safety agency said it is investigating whether last year’s recall of Tesla’s Autopilot driving system did enough to make sure drivers pay attention to the road. Tesla has reported 20 more crashes involving Autopilot since the recall, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In afternoon trading, shares in Tesla Inc., which is based in Austin, Texas, surged to end Monday up more than 15% — its biggest one-day jump since February 2020. For the year to date, shares are still down 22%.

Tesla has been contending with its stock slide and slowing production. Last week, the company said its first-quarter net income plunged by more than half, but it touted a newer, cheaper car and a fully autonomous robotaxi as catalysts for future growth.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives called the news about the Chinese approval a “home run” for Tesla and maintained his “Outperform” rating on the stock.

“We note Tesla has stored all data collected by its Chinese fleet in Shanghai since 2021 as required by regulators in Beijing,” Ives wrote in a note to investors. “If Musk is able to obtain approval from Beijing to transfer data collected in China abroad this would be pivotal around the acceleration of training its algorithms for its autonomous technology globally.”

We've detected unusual activity from your computer network

To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a robot.

Why did this happen?

Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy .

For inquiries related to this message please contact our support team and provide the reference ID below.

Lawsuits test Tesla claim that drivers are solely responsible for crashes

Multiple civil cases — and a federal investigation — contend that tesla’s technology invites ‘drivers to overly trust the automation’.

SAN FRANCISCO — As CEO Elon Musk stakes the future of Tesla on autonomous driving, lawyers from California to Florida are picking apart the company’s most common driver assistance technology in painstaking detail, arguing that Autopilot is not safe for widespread use by the public.

At least eight lawsuits headed to trial in the coming year — including two that haven’t been previously reported — involve fatal or otherwise serious crashes that occurred while the driver was allegedly relying on Autopilot. The complaints argue that Tesla exaggerated the capabilities of the feature, which controls steering, speed and other actions typically left to the driver. As a result, the lawsuits claim, the company created a false sense of complacency that led the drivers to tragedy.

Evidence emerging in the cases — including dash-cam video obtained by The Washington Post — offers sometimes-shocking details: In Phoenix, a woman allegedly relying on Autopilot plows into a disabled car and is then struck and killed by another vehicle after exiting her Tesla. In Tennessee, an intoxicated man allegedly using Autopilot drives down the wrong side of the road for several minutes before barreling into an oncoming car, killing the 20-year-old inside.

Tesla maintains that it is not liable for the crashes because the driver is ultimately in control of the vehicle. But that contention is coming under increasing pressure, including from federal regulators. Late Thursday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched a new review of Autopilot, signaling concern that a December recall failed to significantly improve misuse of the technology and that drivers are misled into thinking the “automation has greater capabilities than it does.”

Meanwhile, in a twist, Tesla this month settled a high-profile case in Northern California that claimed Autopilot played a role in the fatal crash of an Apple engineer, Walter Huang. The company’s decision to settle with Huang’s family — along with a ruling from a Florida judge concluding that Tesla had “knowledge” that its technology was “flawed” under certain conditions — is giving fresh momentum to cases once seen as long shots, legal experts said.

“A reckoning is coming as more and more of these cases are going to see the light of a jury trial,” said Brett Schreiber, a lawyer with Singleton Schreiber who is representing the family of Jovani Maldonado, 15, who was killed in Northern California when a Tesla in Autopilot rear-ended his family’s pickup truck in 2019.

Tesla did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the lawsuits.

The outcomes of the cases could be critical for the company. Tesla’s stock has lost more than a third of its value since the beginning of the year. Last week, the company reported a steeper-than-expected 55 percent plunge in first-quarter profit as it struggles with falling sales of electric vehicles and stiff competition from China. To allay investors’ concerns, Musk has made lofty promises about launching a fully autonomous “robotaxi” in August. Soon, he said during Tuesday’s earnings call, driving a car will be like riding an elevator: You get on and get out at your destination.

“We should be thought of as an AI or robotics company,” Musk told investors. “If somebody doesn’t believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company. But we will.”

Meanwhile, the company has defended itself in court documents by arguing that its user manuals and on-screen warnings make “extremely clear” that drivers must be fully in control while using Autopilot. Many of the upcoming court cases involve driver distraction or impairment.

Autopilot “is not a self-driving technology and does not replace the driver,” Tesla said in response to a 2020 case filed in Florida. “The driver can and must still brake, accelerate and steer just as if the system is not engaged.”

But the Huang case also potentially involved a distracted driver: Huang was allegedly playing a video game when his Tesla plowed into a highway barrier in 2018. Tesla has not said why it decided to settle the lawsuit, and details of the settlement have not been disclosed in court documents.

More fatal crash details emerge

Meanwhile, federal regulators appear increasingly sympathetic to claims that Tesla oversells its technology and misleads drivers. Even the decision to call the software Autopilot “elicits the idea of drivers not being in control” and invites “drivers to overly trust the automation,” NHTSA said Thursday, revealing that a two-year investigation into Autopilot had identified 467 crashes linked to the technology, 13 of them fatal.

NHTSA did not offer specific information about those crashes. But two fatal crashes from 2022 are detailed in lawsuits that have not been previously reported.

In Phoenix, Iwanda Mitchell, 49, was driving a Tesla in May 2022 when she struck a Toyota Camry that had stalled on the highway, according to court documents and dash-cam footage obtained by The Post. According to the Mitchell family’s lawyer, Jonathan Michaels with MLG Attorneys at Law, Autopilot and the car’s other features — including forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking — failed to result in Mitchell’s Tesla taking evasive action and prevent the vehicle from barreling into the stalled sedan.

Mitchell was then struck and killed by an oncoming vehicle when she got out of her car.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment regarding this case. In response to the complaint in January 2024, Tesla said it denies the allegation and “has not yet had an opportunity to inspect” Mitchell’s vehicle.

About a month later in Sumner County, Tenn., Jose Roman Jaramillo Cortez drank two beers and three tequila shots after his shift at a local restaurant, and then hopped into his Tesla Model 3, court documents say. He plugged his address into the Tesla’s GPS and flicked on Autopilot, it said.

According to the lawsuit filed in June 2023 and dash-cam footage obtained by The Post, the car then pulled onto the wrong side of the road. After driving south in a northbound lane for several minutes, the Tesla rammed into a car driven by Christian Malone, 20, who died from the impact. In its response to the complaint, Tesla said “the crash was caused by the negligence and/or recklessness of the driver.”

Trial dates for both cases will be set later next year, Michaels said.

In another case — set for trial in November in Key Largo, Fla. — a Tesla in Autopilot allegedly failed to detect an approaching T-intersection while its driver searched for a dropped phone. The Tesla barreled through flashing lights and a physical barricade before crashing into a vehicle parked on the side of the road, killing a woman and seriously injuring a man.

In court documents, Tesla has argued that the driver was ultimately responsible for the trajectory of the car. Tesla also states in user manuals that Autopilot may not operate as intended “when unable to accurately determine lane markings” or when “bright light is interfering with the camera’s view.”

When these cases head to trial, juries may be asked to consider whether Tesla’s many driver warnings are sufficient to spare the company from liability. Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, said the last thing the company needs is a highly publicized courtroom battle that focuses attention on such questions.

At a trial, “the defense would dig into the weeds … and it would become very clear that the perception of the Autopilot software was very different from the reality,” Gerber said. “Every day would be a headline, and it would be embarrassing.”

So far, Tesla has faced a jury only once over the role Autopilot may have played in a fatal crash. In Riverside, Calif., last year, a jury heard the case of Micah Lee, 37, who was allegedly using Autopilot when his Tesla Model 3 suddenly veered off the highway at 65 mph, crashed into a palm tree and burst into flames. Lee died of his injuries, while his fiancée and her son were severely injured.

Because of the extensive damage to the car, Tesla said it could not be proved that Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash. During the trial, Michael Carey, the attorney for Tesla, argued the technology was not at fault, and that the crash “is classic human error.” According to a toxicology report taken after the crash, Lee had alcohol in his system but it was within the legal limit in California.

“This case is not about Autopilot. Autopilot didn’t cause the crash,” Carey said during opening statements. “This is a bad crash with bad injuries and may have resulted from bad mistakes — but you can’t blame the car company when that happens. This is a good car with a good design.”

Ultimately, Tesla’s arguments prevailed, and a jury found the company not liable.

But the company appears to face headwinds in some other cases. Last year, Florida Circuit Judge Reid Scott upheld a plaintiff’s request to seek punitive damages in a case concerning a fatal crash in Delray Beach, Fla., in 2019 when Jeremy Banner and his Tesla in Autopilot failed to register a semi truck crossing its path. The car plowed under the truck at full speed, killing Banner on impact.

In the ruling, Scott said the family’s lawyers “sufficiently” presented evidence to reasonably seek punitive damages at trial, which could run millions of dollars.

The plaintiffs’ evidence included that Tesla “knew the vehicle at issue had a defective Autopilot system,” according to the order. Citing other fatal crashes involving Autopilot, Scott wrote that there is a “genuine” dispute over whether Tesla “created a foreseeable zone of risk that posed a general threat of harm to others.”

Tesla’s appeal of the ruling is pending.

Change in defense strategy?

As the spate of lawsuits churns forward, Tesla has shown a fresh willingness to settle such cases — despite Musk’s vow on Twitter in 2022 to never settle “an unjust case against us even if we will probably lose.”

In addition to settling the Huang case, Tesla “indicated” that it was open to discussing a potential settlement in the Riverside case as it was being presented to a jury last fall, said Michaels, the MLG lawyer who represented Lee’s family.

The month-long trial featured testimony from an accident reconstructionist, a top engineer at Tesla and a paramedic who responded to the crash and said it was among the most horrific accidents he had ever seen. Michaels said he declined to engage in settlement talks because he wanted to continue to “make this a really public issue.” He said he also “did not have confidence in our ability to come to an agreeable amount.”

Tesla and its lawyer in the case, Carey, did not respond to a request for comment.

After four days of deliberations, the jury decided the case in Tesla’s favor.

Though he lost, Michaels said the trial attracted media attention and gave other lawyers with cases against Tesla insight into the company’s defense strategy. Plus, he said, his law firm’s phone has since been blowing up with potential clients.

“We walked away from guaranteed money,” Michaels said, “but that wasn’t what it was about.”