Tesla is probably the only EV maker with declining sales for the last two years. Quite a feat in a booming market, and remarkable considering that the stock already has a few orders of magnitude of growth priced in.
I really, really doubt FSD is the limiter of European sales. It's pricing and competition. The US car market is laughably uncompetitive, with most manufacturers opting to make luxury landboats. It's easy to compete when all your competitors refuse to introduce an EV under, like, 50 grand.
Absolutely. I know a couple of their early adopters in the EU and they were ashamed to drive their cars once that mess started. They've all since sold them (at massive losses).
EVs are in the Cambrian Explosion state in China right now. There are dozens of companies fiercely competing on price and features.
The two most popular EVs in China are the Wuling Mini and the Geely Xingyuan. The first one costs $4500 for the base model, and the second one is $9800. And you can get a very decent EV for $15k with plenty of options.
In 2-3 years, these $5k and $10k cars will only get better, and they'll just slaughter all the competition in markets outside the US and Europe. Especially once used cars start appearing at a fraction of the cost.
Traditional auto manufacturers are dead. Full stop. They just haven't realized it yet. Tesla had a chance to compete in this market with Model 2 but Musk decided to blow their lead on a completely stillborn and gimmick-filled robotaxi.
> Traditional auto manufacturers are dead. Full stop. They just haven't realized it yet. Tesla had a chance to compete in this market with Model 2 but Musk decided to blow their lead on a completely stillborn and gimmick-filled robotaxi.
Not sure whether you know, but Geely entered the automotive business in 1997 (founded in 1986).
The company has subsidiaries / joint ventures with automakers like Volvo, Polestar, Proton, Smart, Lotus, Renault, etc.
Lin Shufu, Geely’s founder and chairman bought just shy of 10% of Mercedes Benz in 2018, making him the second biggest individual shareholder in the German carmaker. The #1 spot is occupied by The Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. (BAIC), via its state-owned parent.
The declining sales is a concern. Was curious though so I looked it up and Tesla is currently selling more than Volkswagen, Ford, Rivian, Mercedes, and Toyota combined. Interesting.
The big dog is BYD though. Twice as many as 2nd place Tesla.
> Was curious though so I looked it up and Tesla is currently selling more than Volkswagen, Ford, Rivian, Mercedes, and Toyota combined. Interesting.
Indeed. Global 2024 data shows Tesla selling about 1.8M.
EV's only by that group of automakers comes to around 1.5M. Toyota and Ford are hybrid-first, not EV. VW is the only legacy automaker that comes near Tesla's EV scale. Mercedes prioritizes margin over volume. Rivian is capacity-limited.
Ah, but you missed the pivot, Tesla is no longer an EV maker, it's now a robotics company.
This fully explains the market valuation, of course! Never mind a swarm of retail investors driven by a news media that covered Musk as if he were Tony Stark for years, this market cap is fully based on solid fundamental analysis of expected future revenue.
The pivot to robotics came exactly when it became clear Tesla is a failed car company. The valuation is not based on solid fundamental analysis of expected future revenue in robotics, because the company is lead by someone who fundamentally does not understand robotics (as evidenced by his continued failure to deliver FSD and robo taxis, his wrongheaded and stubborn insistence on vision-only sensing, and his completely backwards belief that sensor fusion makes belief estimates worse). Tesla's track record on autonomy and robotics is they are responsible for the first autonomous robot death, they invented something they dub "mecha-hitler" due to how vile it is, and they promised a product capable of driving across the US 8 years ago but still can't deliver it today. So no, the valuation is not solid, it's vapor.
