TechCrunch Mobility: Tesla’s big redesign

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has it been months – years? – trying to position his company as something more than just making electric cars. When Tesla acquired Solar City in 2016, he (and his comms team) positioned it as a sustainable energy company. For the past year, he has pushed the idea of ​​Tesla as an AI and robotics company.

Musk’s aggressive marketing has been at odds with economics: Most of his income comes from selling EVs. His latest findings support this.

The company plans to generate $94.8 billion in revenue by 2025. Of this, $69.5 billion will come from selling and leasing EVs and managing loans. The remaining $25 billion is split roughly down the middle between its energy production (solar) and storage business and “services and other,” which includes revenue from Superchargers, sales segments, and Full Self-Driving subscriptions. The reliance on transmission means that as EV sales have declined, so has the rest of Tesla’s portfolio. His profit in 2025 was 46% down year after year.

Tesla has tried to expand its non-EV businesses to compensate for declining sales, and its Q4 report and full-year financial report (and its earnings call) signaled a shift beyond the constant AI-robotics talk and action. Currently, doing so involves spending money, not making it. Musk has repeatedly emphasized that 2026 will be a big year for CapEx, more than doubling revenue up to $20 billionwhich would put them in the non-cash category.

For example, Musk announced that Tesla is the end of the Model S and Model Xwhich is more symbolic than material. These two models represent about 2% of Tesla’s total sales, a fact that Barclays analyst Dan Levy also notes in his latest note. However, this is a well-known period of time for Tesla and the car industry in general, which was constantly updated when the Model S went on sale in 2012.

Mass movement is what Tesla wants to do now.

Tesla plans to fill the void left by the Model S and X with its Optimus humanoid robots, which will be manufactured at its Fremont, California factory. Musk also wants to expand Tesla’s robotaxi services to more cities by 2026 and has floated the need for Tesla to build a TerraFab factory to produce the chip.

But the thing that really interested me – and the real deal for Elon Inc – was Tesla’s plan investing $2 billion in Musk’s other company, xAI, and signed plans to merge the two companies. Currently, some stores are to announce Negotiations are underway to merge (jointly) Musk’s three companies: SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI.

But let’s get back down to earth for a moment and review Tesla’s latest business. His sales are down year after year, when his small business energy storage he benefited well.

A little bird

We’re not ready to share any details, but we heard from one little birdie that there’s a fundraising event for Waymo. You probably saw it to announce last month about Waymo raising up to $15 billion in a round led by its parent Alphabet. Based on my discussions, it is still “in the area” of $15 billion and a large portion is from Alphabet, and there is great interest from investors to join. One little bird told me that one of the investors might be an OEM (original equipment manufacturer.

Stay tuned for more information on this.

Do you have a warning for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

Sales!

Guar earns my “work of the week” badge – not just because of the dollar figures involved. Setting up an autonomous vehicle is earned $750 million in the Series C round led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partnersplus an additional $250 million in initial funding Uber supporting the deployment of 25,000 or more Waabi Driver-powered robotaxis only on its platform.

Uber is already a supporter of Waabi, taking part in one of the raises in 2021. But this is more than money. When Waabi was first founded, it focused on applying its autonomous vehicle technology to self-driving cars. The partnership with Uber is an announcement that it intends to expand its technology for multiple self-driving vehicles with a single technology stack.

Can Waabi do it? Some have tried and come back. That’s it shut down its self-driving car program to focus on robotaxis; Aurorawho is also Investor in guaranteehe was working on both cars and robotaxis, too, before he decided to focus on the big machines.

Some products that impressed me…

Because AIan autonomous vehicle startup focused on “middle miles,” has signed a deal with a major (undisclosed) logistics company. This is why it is important: The agreement will provide $600 million in cash five years. And this is for driverless vehicles, meaning there is no safety driver behind the wheel. These Gatik trucks, which travel 24 hours a day for transportation, refrigeration, and frozen goods between retail locations and stores, have been operating without a driver since mid-2025. According to the company, it has completed 60,000 orders without a driver without a problem.

Luminar is lidar business sold for $33 million to Redmond, Washington-based Image of MicroVision. The company, which develops its own sensors, beat out Quantum Computing for the sale of the product. TC’s Sean O’Kane he was asked MicroVision CEO Glen DeVos about his plans for Luminar. The sales process had a bit of a final feel when a advertising secretwith a bigger chance, he played Luminar’s lidar business.

Rad Power Bikeswhich filed for bankruptcy about a month ago, he got a deal selling itself to Life Electric Vehicles Holdings (or Life EV) for about $13.2 million. Counting Rad Power’s debts, the total value of the business is $14.9 million. History lesson: Rad Power has raised $329.2 million since its inception and once had a net worth of $1.65 billion.

Redwood Tools raised $425 million in a Series E round that included Google as a new investor. The round was led by Eclipse and included investment from Nvidia, NVentures, as well as existing shareholders Capricorn and Goldman Sachs. Read the full article to learn what Redwood wants to do with the capital.

Popular reading and more

Obia company that combines real-time pricing and pickup times for multiple ride-hailing services, shared an update on ride-hailing and robotics in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are several options – so please go and read the whole article – including that the price gap between Waymo and rides provided by Uber and Lyft is shrinking.

Uber he started a new division called Uber AV Labsyes no – as senior reporter Sean O’Kane reports – a plot to re-engineer his robotaxis. This is a data sharing game; Uber’s sensor-equipped cars will collect and share data with partners like Lucid, Waymo, and Waabi. Important note: No contracts have been signed yet.

That’s it now they are allowed to operate robotaxi to and from San Francisco International Airport (SFO). The company will begin offering SFO access to select passengers before rolling it out to all customers in the coming months. That success comes with a few spoilers, however. Waymo is being investigated by a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Transportation Safety Board after the company announced one of its robotaxis they killed a child near Santa Monica Elementary School on January 23rd.

The San Francisco Police Departmentand search an event involving a Zoox an autonomous vehicle crashed into the driver’s side door of a parked vehicle.

One thing…

It’s been a few weeks since we did a poll and this is an interesting one: What will the name or ticker of Musk’s merger supercompany be?

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