Elon Musk Strikes Unusually Cautious Tone on Tesla Call

Tesla’s earnings calls are usually freewheeling affairs, with pulsating electronic music and wildly optimistic projections from CEO Elon Musk, who often likes to crack crude jokes and giggle. Today was different. Instead of the typical sci-fi rhapsodies about self-driving vehicles taking over the world and robots solving poverty, Musk spent much of the call talking about constraints on his vision for Tesla. 

For example, when asked when production would start on Tesla’s Optimus robot, he said he needed to “inject some reality into the situation” and gave a lengthy answer about why setting up a production line is hard and takes time. Asked when Tesla will offer fully unsupervised self-driving software or a Tesla robotaxi service in Europe, Musk said he could not provide a timeline because he doesn't know what regulators will decide. (That hasn’t stopped Tesla in the past.)