is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.
Is Tesla still a car company? It’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves more frequently over the past year, especially as the company’s car business shrinks and Elon Musk continues to push the message that Tesla should be seen more as an AI and robotics leader and less so as a mere seller of four-wheeled conveyance.
Last night during Telsa’s quarterly earnings call, the question of whether Tesla still wants to sell cars was seemingly answered by Musk and his lieutenants. In one fell swoop, the company killed off its original flagship EVs, the Model S and Model X, to make room for the mass production of a humanoid robot that, as we’ve seen numerous times, struggles with basic tasks. A top Tesla executive said that the company should be viewed more as “transportation as a service” than as an automaker. And Musk repeated his assertion that Tesla didn’t need to make more mass-market vehicles because, in the future, all cars will be autonomous.
“The vast majority of miles traveled will be autonomous in the future,” Musk said. “You know, I would say probably less than—I’m just guessing—but probably less than 5 percent of miles driven will be where somebody’s actually driving the car themselves in the future, maybe as low as 1 percent.”
“The vast majority of miles traveled will be autonomous in the future.”
And a bit later, Musk doubled down. “So, you know, I think long-term… the only vehicles that we’ll make will be autonomous vehicles.”
To be sure, Tesla still makes and sells cars, but based on Musk’s comments and actions, it feels like Tesla is a car company in name only. In 2025, Tesla brought in $94.8 billion in revenue, $69.5 billion — or 73 percent — of which was from car sales. Its automotive revenues have been in free fall, down 10 percent year over year, while its other revenue streams — energy generation and storage; and services and other revenue — are on the upswing.
This year, Tesla lost its title as the global leader in EV sales to BYD. Its two main vehicle programs, the Model 3 and Model Y, are in decline, despite efforts to introduce more affordable versions of both vehicles. Globally, EV tax credits and other incentive programs that helped bring down costs and make these vehicles affordable to more people are going away — which Musk had a hand in, thanks to his donations and support for Donald Trump. And Musk’s political activities, and his divisive public persona, have turned the Tesla brand toxic for a broad swath of the company’s progressive customer base.
Like many tech companies before it, Tesla is pinning its hopes on a future driven by subscription revenue. For the first time, the company disclosed the number of active Full Self-Driving (Supervised) subscriptions — 1.1 million — which Musk claimed was a 38 percent increase over the fourth quarter 2024. Musk recently said that Tesla would stop selling its Full Self-Driving feature as a standalone package and shift to subscription only.
It feels like Tesla is a car company in name only
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