Tesla posted its first annual drop in sales since the first year of the pandemic, as increased electric vehicle competition from Chinese and Western automakers ate into demand.
CEO Elon Musk’s electric car company reported it built 433,000 vehicles but delivered only 387,000. That’s down from the 484,507 cars it delivered in the final three months of 2023, and it’s also down from the 422,875 vehicle sales in the first quarter of last year.
Tesla has responded to increased competition by cutting prices. Although Tesla is more profitable than traditional automakers, the price cuts have been squeezing the profit margins that helped boost the stock. Investors’ expectations that the company would grow sales in the future had also been supporting Tesla’s lofty stock price, which made it the world’s most valuable automaker.
Exactly. I have a Model 3. It’s a good car, all things considered. But I would not buy one now due to the damage Musk has done to the brand. And there are now so many good alternatives from less controversial companies.
This is exactly my perspective as well. My 2018 Model 3 has been great. The damage to the brand from Musk’s public statements and actions with things like Twitter in the last few years has been catastrophic. The brand was built to very heavily rely on Musk’s public persona, and it’s suffering the consequences of that decision now.
I’m in exactly the same boat. I’ll never buy a Tesla again as long as Musk is CEO there. I don’t support fascists.
It was a good car before they removed the parking sensors, and even worse now that they removed the stalks… I know someone will say they can use the car without them but they make the car safer, and what’s wrong with wanting a safer car?
I’ve tried the “computer vision” parking system on the newer models it’s surprisingly not bad. That stalkless steering wheel though, uuugh no.
Same. My Model Y is likely the only Tesla I’ll ever buy, and I certainly won’t be recommending them to anybody else. The only way the company will change my mind is to get rid of Musk and start making much better design decisions.
The free month of Full Self Driving I just unexpectedly received is a non-starter for me. The automatic wipers, auto high beams, etc. that all rely on the cameras in the car are all terrible. My wipers regularly go off in the bright sun. The auto high beams (required for FSD at night) flash oncoming cars randomly. If the car can’t handle those much simpler tasks with near 100% accuracy there is no way I’ll trust FSD.
… the wipers relay on the camera???
Musk likes to pretend he knows things. He claimed a vision system can do everything a human does with their eyes. So he figured they could save a few bucks per car by not using a dedicated rain sensor like virtually every other car that has automatic wipers. So the vision system attempts to detect rain. And gets confused by dirt, bright sun, insect splatter, etc.
Now that the charging network is opening up. Tesla is losing what made them truly special. While I respect what Elon has done for EV cars, he needs to shut up.
He opened the door for other car makers to manufacture EVs. And then he opened his mouth and started spewing his filth everywhere as well as focusing more on screwing up Twitter so now Tesla is going to plummet as well. I would be lying if I said I’m not gonna enjoy watching him go down in flames.
I would like to see him decouple himself from either twitter or Tesla. I love he created the EV market with a great car. Can’t thank him enough for that. He then ruined it by buying twitter and being a prick all day.