Tesla is mired in a world of suffering. Sales in California, its main market in the United States., They collapsed 31 % in January compared to the previous year. European figures are still worse, with a 43 % drop in the first two months of the year. And in China, with a difference its most important market for profitability, Tesla sales collapsed 29 % until February. Their actions have collapsed, with a 34 % drop this year. The reaction against the part -time executive Elon Musk has increased – who also directs five other companies – with protests in Tesla stores and vehicle fires in his clumsy attempt to cut public spending and employees, such as Trump’s head in Doge.
But things are about to get worse.
The fall of sales indicates that the company’s financial health is staggering due to the rise of its competitors, particularly its Rival byd. The Chinese manufacturer of electric vehicles and batteries exceeded Tesla for the first time in revenue in 2024 and is on its way to exceeding it as the world leader in electric vehicle sales this year. The Tesla brand is becoming toxic in California, where it has supported it since the arrival of the Roadster in 2008. It is even failing in the technological field, with byd by surpassing it with a system of ultra -graped load batteries and Waymo dominating the autonomous vehicle market, for which Mush has opted.
“Many have surpassed Tesla in software, autonomy and intelligent driving, and are making Tesla look like the lag.”
You, but Auto Insights
However, the worst, by far, is what is happening to Tesla in China, where he opened his Shanghai plant in 2019. That plant, the first in China in full owned of a foreign car manufacturer, marked a turning point for Tesla, promoting a huge increase in sales and keeping it in positive numbers thanks to labor, spare parts and low -cost Chinese logistics. However, a decline in that market, where Tesla has experienced constant growth until this year, threatens to reduce its already decorned profit margins. An important reason for the slowdown of sales: Chinese companies of electric vehicles are beginning to overcome Tesla in, well, everything.
“China had a plan when it allowed Tesla to have his own factory. They wanted technology, knowledge and experience. This entailed the risk of China to take advantage of that technology and manufacture better products,” said shareholder Ross Gerber, executive director of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management. “That is exactly what they are doing. Now they have really competitive vehicles, really competitive technology and vehicles are cheaper.”
Tesla did not respond to a request for comments.
The Model and remained the best -selling electric vehicle in China last year, but Byd, the country’s largest car manufacturer, sold many more electric vehicles, with a variety of models ranging from its Hatchback Seagull of $ 10,000 to its compact SUV Yuan Plus, with prices from $ 16,000. These prices are less than half than those of a Tesla, which is positioned as a premium brand: the base price of the model and part of $ 34,500, and Model 3 is sold for approximately $ 32,000 or more. Byd’s low prices are also helping him to increase their global sales in Latin America, Australia and Europe (high tariffs have so far prevented him from exporting to the US. UU.).
Byd also has just presented a new five -minute battery charge system, four times faster than Tesla supercargers. Catl, the world’s largest battery manufacturer and Tesla supplier, now dismisses Musk’s ambitions in battery matters, including a new lithium cell designed for heavier vehicles. The executive director and founder, Robin Zeng, said in an interview con Reuters At the end of last year that he had told Rodeos to the billionaire that Tesla’s new battery cell “will fail and will never succeed.”
Led by the co -founder billionaire and CEO Wang Chuanfu, whose fortune, according to Forbes amounts to 28 billion dollars, Byd is also launched after the complete autonomous driving system of Tesla (which, despite the name, still requires human supervision). The Chinese company is incorporating its autonomous driving system “Eye of God” as a standard feature in its new vehicles, directly competing with the Tesla system for hands -free driving. Tesla allows Chinese clients to test the full autonomous driving system (FSD), although it charges $ 8,000 for the function in the USA. UU. And it is expected to follow their example in China.
The byd system will be available in three versions: the basic system offers capabilities that rivate with the FSD and a high -end version with laser lidar, something that Tesla does not offer. It will also connect to the Deepseek platform, the emerging Chinese company in artificial intelligence, which defies OpenAi’s initial leadership in that field, to continually improve its performance. The system seems to be “more advanced than Tesla today, and perhaps it is in the future,” wrote a user on the automotive news website The Drive.
Byd is not the only actor that Musk, and all other global car manufacturers must worry. There are also Xpeng, Xiaomi, Nio, Geely, Zeekr and the Giant of the Catl batteries.
“They have intellectual property that the rest of the world has not developed.”
Jim Farley, Ford
“People in the West are beginning to pay attention to Byd, but there is a whole group of other electric vehicle manufacturers (Chinese) of those who have no idea,” he said a Forbes You, general director of the consultant but Auto Insights.
“Many have surpassed Tesla in software, autonomy and intelligent driving, and they are making Tesla look like the lagging,” he said. “It is in serious danger of becoming a manufacturer of electric vehicles that manufactures in the three largest markets of passenger vehicles, while, at the same time, each market is slowly escapes from the hands due, in part, to its own errors and a fierce competition.”
China’s electric vehicle manufacturers are not only matching Musk, but they are overcoming it, and the rest of the world automotive industry.
“They have intellectual property that the rest of the world has not developed,” said Jim Farley, executive director of Ford, in October in a podcast, noting that he had been driving a Xiaomi Su7 for six months and did not want to get rid of him. “It’s not as before, when someone copied Western technology. It’s quite the opposite.”
Tesla also crosses difficulties in her country. While total sales of electric vehicles in the US. This is due to the strong fall in California, which represents a third or more of its sales in the US. These figures are also prior to the criticisms that Musk faces for their responsibilities in Doge and the great protests that have occurred in the Tesla stores in California, in every US. UU. And in Europe.
The new figures will not be available until April, but they will not be positive. “Tesla’s sales will be affected in the first quarter,” said Ed Kim, president and leader of Autopacific, a consultant of the Long Beach -based sector, California.
The anger with Musk and the brand has led Variable rentalists to drastically cut the company’s sales objectives, anticipating a second consecutive year -on -year fall. “It is hard for us to imagine something similar in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly,” said Ryan Brinkman by JP Morgan in a recent research note. He cut its annual deliveries prognosis for 1,775 million vehicles this year, compared to 1,789 million last year.
Total electric sales in the US should increase 12 % this year, despite the fact that interest in the Tesla brand by car buyers is decreasing, according to Cox Automotive. It has dropped 7 % compared to last year, the greatest fall between premium brands, according to the sector analyst.
The most important company in the world for the climate and the environment is now being treated as a couple because of Elon. It is crazy.
Ross Gerber, inverter
The lack of new attractive products is also a problem. The most recent incorporation of Tesla, the Cybertruck of Musk, of defined lines and that has become the favorite white of Anti-Elon vandals, has been a failure, with about 40,000 units sold last year, a fifth of the annual volume planned by Musk. The vehicle has a surprisingly bad quality history, with eight withdrawals from the market, including one this month to repair stainless body steel panels that ran the risk of detaching.
Perhaps recognizing Tesla’s problems, Musk has promoted during the last two years his plans to become an AI and Robotics company. Instead of simply selling batteries and electric vehicles, which represent almost 90% of Tesla’s current revenues, it is committed to AI, robotaxis and humanoid robots will add billions of dollars to Tesla’s results. The investments made in these areas “will bear immense fruits in the future. On a scale so large that it is difficult to understand, ”he said in a presentation of results in January.
In this aspect, Tesla also faces disadvantages. Waymo, from Alphabet, is a light years of Tesla in the robotaxis business, and it is unlikely that Tesla’s access to massive amounts of data collected by the cameras of millions of his vehicles in circulation grants him an advantage in artificial intelligence. Optimus, the humanoid robot that is regularly presented in Tesla’s events, has not yet demonstrated comparable capabilities to those of robots created years ago, such as the acrobatic creations of Boston Dynamics or the Asimous of Infant Size of Honda, which climbed stairs, played football and opened bottles to serve drinks. (Honda withdrew Asimo in 2018).
It is clear that the damage Musk has inflicted on the company just begins.
“The irony is that the most important company in the world for climate and the environment is now being treated as a outcast because of Elon. It is crazy,” said Gerber, based in Santa Monica, California. “The worst thing is that in China they do not care about politics. In China, they are in decline due to real competition.”
This article was originally published by Forbes Us.
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