The disaster in US automotive is that the manufacturers thought they could increase prices, and discovered that, instead, unsold cars are piling up. Tesla's oversupply can be seen from space.[2] Stellantis overdid price increases so much that the CEO was canned.
The US currently has 3 million unsold new cars.[3] One wonders how many will still start.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/teslas-china-sales-fall-a...
[2] https://jalopnik.com/so-many-unsold-teslas-are-piling-up-tha...
The mass market is 1/3 right wing, 1/3 left wing, 1/3 centrist roughly.
The 1/3 right wing are the pickup truck buyers. Like a rock ... Strong as I can be.
The 1/3 left wing is now pretty much a no.
The 1/3 centrist is probably price driven. Tesla is still too expensive for them, and if they want a Tesla, I would say they are buying a used one.
Tesla has two cars: a sedan, a crossover, in small and medium. They don't have real pickups, work trucks, station wagons, sports cars, roadsters, delivery vans, real SUVs, city cars/kei cars, or minivans. The cybertruck is a sideshow, the robotaxi is years away given Tesla's roadmap with mundane manufacturing scaling, to say nothing of the AI advance it requires and the alien nature of it to the larger buying public.
Tesla failed to utilize its name brand in ebikes, motorcycles, scooters, or even other battery/motor devices like hand tools, lawn tools, snowblowers, riding mowers. Obviously no heavy equipment aside from some pilot Semis. No RVs.
The Solar business is meh. The grid business likely will be outcompeted by sodium ion/lfp/other schemes. Home storage is slow uptake, and again they'll probably be outcompeted in price.
Tesla has no more tech advantage. Their EV drivetrain may be a percent or two more efficient, but likely not enough to matter. NMC cylindrical cells are about to be economically noncompetitive with 150 wh/kg sodium ion and 200-225 wh/kg LFP, and denser stuff is on the 3 year roadmap. The battery day 4680 tech is basically undelivered or won't scale.
I just don't see the growth path for this company anymore barring miraculous AI combined with miraculous execution combined with miraculous domestic battery supply. About the only thing I can see floating the company it terms of real sales figures would be the Semi, but it sure looks like a soft launch to me that is still a year away, and something that will need either sulfur chemistries, solid state, or dirt cheap high density LFP/Sodium Ion to be economically viable.
Self driving is in fact the growth plan. You’re not paying attention if you’re calling it miraculous, which is fine, more money for investors.
Scania has already delivered plenty of heavy goods EVs here in Norway. Delivery companies like the Post office, DHL, ASKO are investing heavily in large EVs but most of that is going to either Swedish Scania. Chinese SAIC is also selling well for urban delivery vehicles.
Scania sell electric articulated lorries with gross trailer weight up to 75 tonne. The range at 64 tonne is 375 km. https://www.scania.com/no/no/home/products/trucks/battery-el...
Their problem is that their valuation had the market predicting that they would generate a MAJORITY of all profit in US automotive manufacturing - they were worth more than every other player combined. This was grossly unrealistic. So expect a down round. Whether they survive that drop to... What... 5-10% of their former value? Depends on what sort of explicit and implicit dental they have accrued to scale.
Tesla said they'd have amazing new 4680 batteries but that didn't really succeed, a reason why the ct has lower range than planned is the new higher density batteries didn't arrive.
Tesla has one advantage left, they can make their cars at mass quantities and make a profit. Most of the western auto companies can't do that, unless they charge very high prices.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-08-22/tesla-reputat...
The Internet says 50% of US buyers are identified democrats, YMMV for internet stats. That number doesn't seem stupid -- EVs are progressive, environmentalist, anti-establishment.
Tesla's stock is a huge bubble. It's worth the next 10 car companies combined! Yes there's a ton of AI speculation in there, but fundamentally the company's stock is about geometric growth in sales.
The most important customer to a car company is their current ones, since those have a very high chance of being loyal to the brand when they buy again.
Tesla is a company that does almost no advertising. Maybe that's because the press gives them enough hype, but I suspect there is a huge degree of passionate advocacy. I should know, I ... was ... a strong advocate for Tesla. I still am for EVs, but they were one and the same with Tesla for 20 years.
A subtle thing happened with the Tesla owners I know. They went from advocating for their car, to rationalizing it, within the span of six months. I don't think it is a stretch to say that Tesla owners were passionate advocates for their vehicles. All progressive, environmentalist people I know are now hell-nos.
Point is, Tesla is stock bubble. Their sales are already down this year, and I'm picking up the popcorn to see what happens in Q3/Q4. The trade war will probably make Tesla a noncompetitive product in China. So US sales are going to get MORE important, not less.
People are actively selling their Teslas. Sure, it's on the used market, what does that matter? I don't have stats, but how many sales of new Teslas will a robust used market (which also has Hertz dumping cars onto the market) cannibalize? I'd say each used Tesla is half of a new one.
Point is, I don't see Tesla as a stock that can rationalize bad sales. They don't have a brand-spanking new car for a new mass market: the Cybertruck is explicitly a miss from the pickup truck market. The Semi still can't seem to scale production. The robotaxi is, face it, two years away and a fundamental leap in AI from working.
Trump is going to be on television reminding every democrat who helped him vocally, publicly, monetarily, possibly illegally get him in office, and will join an agency that will target progressive government systematically and with high visibility.
All it takes is, what, 1/3 of the 50% democrats of their potential customer base to say "hell no" and that's ... 16% drop in sales. Ever seen a company lose 16% of sales?
Good luck with that stock, folks.
Superchargers are not just a bullet point, having them or not is a dividing line between "it just works" and "life is miserable" for EV owners. And only a small subset of them are open to non-Teslas for who knows how long.
I would put money on the opposite, and on people moving to other brands.
Prices will be higher for non Teslas and will require inconvenient steps and even membership plans to get a slight price break. And there will be fewer features. When the chargers are even ready. A few are, but don’t be fooled to think that means bad times are in the past for non-Tesla EVs.
As to other chargers being built, sure, but scale and ubiquity is what matters. Not having one fast charger at the odd Four Seasons resort. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Do you have a source for that? Tesla is not even in the top 10 largest auto manufacturers, but the larger ones have way more models so I suppose it is possible Model Y is the best selling car (though it certainly isnt in the US).
They produced 1.5 million. Their sales are down, they have no new models releasing, they have competition on all fronts, they likely will lose the Chinese market in the trade war. They need to sell 20 million vehicles to justify their stock.
If Tesla has a kuckass sub 10000$ sodium ion city car (aka the car for 1-3 billion people)... But they have luxury vehicles and that's it.
Fully auto drive is a convergent evolution of infrastructure problem. It is ten years away. Army of Indians won't cut it.