Tesla earnings came and went, and much of it fell into the 'we expected this' category. Investors seemed surprised by the $1.4 billion in free cash flow, which gave shares a brief bump, and revenue met or slightly exceeded expectations, depending on which batch of analysts you reviewed. The earnings call, however, did deliver one eyebrow-raising moment that prompted readers (including some ex-Tesla engineers and other founders in the industry) to reach out to me with some schadenfreude-tinted prose. CEO Elon Musk admitted that millions of Tesla owners will need hardware upgrades to run a future, more capable version of its Full Self-Driving software that doesn't require human supervision. There are financial and legal implications for Tesla. As senior reporter Sean O'Kane wrote, Tesla owners with Hardware 3 cars have spent years bugging the company and Musk for a straight answer about whether they would be able to run this advanced version of Full Self-Driving ' which, it should be...
learn more
