When Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas hosted a bull/bear lunch in New York recently to discuss Tesla investors wanted to talk about “anything but cars.” “After establishing that consensus is expecting a 15%-type 4Q gross auto margin … and 10% to 15% volume growth in 2025, there was extremely little discussion about the Tesla core auto business,” wrote Jonas in a report Thursday. Tesla posted a third-quarter automotive gross profit margin of about 17%, excluding any regulatory credit sales.