It's worse than that. Two years of declining sales at Tesla.[1] Mostly for ordinary car manufacturer reasons. Tesla hasn't had a new model in years other than the Cybertruck, which was a dud. Prices are still too high.
Electric cars still cost more than gas cars in the US. This seems to be a US-only problem.
Electric cars are doing fine in the rest of the world. A majority of new cars in China are electric.
Here's the BYD Dolphin Surf. Costs US$11,000 in Europe.[2] It's apparently a fairly good car.
BYD has a whole range of cars, from super-cheap subcompact to supercar.
BYD sold over 4 million cars in 2024. Tesla was around 1.7 million and dropping.
It's 22k in Europe (20k euro). That story is about a new 11k variant released in China, it just mentions that a variant is available in Europe too.
It's a good car and good price but freely translating Chinese prices to EU prices exaggerates slightly.
EA-3167 · 10h ago
It's worth saying that the price gouging by BYD has reached the point where their own government is publicly scolding them and telling them to stop, so I'm not sure if BYD is a model of anything we want to be following.
I think you're also glossing over the impact of Musk's disastrous foray into politics, his Tweeting, and his Nazi salutes.
amanaplanacanal · 9h ago
I've never heard of pricing a product too low called "price gouging" before.
kikokikokiko · 9h ago
Well, it can be tought as self gauging. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
silverquiet · 9h ago
Dumping would be the economic term for flooding a market with underpriced goods in order to drive out domestic competitors. I don't know if that's what they're doing, but it does seem plausible, though it's hard to imagine that Tesla's prices would be competitive either way.
ralferoo · 8h ago
I'm not sure that applies in this case either, as dumping is selling abroad below cost but charging a fair price in your own domestic market. This case seems to be the opposite - trying to win the domestic market by selling at a loss, and hoping that they can make enough profit on the export market to survive. Presumably this strategy only works if all the domestic competition goes bust before you.
tobias3 · 9h ago
In Chinas case the term would be overcapacity since it applies to the whole sector not just BYD.
toomuchtodo · 9h ago
Hopefully, they'll work harder to export. Global light vehicle sales are ~90M units/year, there must be a market somewhere for these BEVs where they can at least break even, and as long as they can break even they can continue to ramp manufacturing capacity.
tobias3 · 8h ago
There are on-going EU-China talks about this topic, but currently looks like a wait-and-see approach till after the Trump 90 day deadline.
Other than that idk.
The solution would be to increase wages/less working hours/less financial repression in China so that they can buy the cars they produce...
toomuchtodo · 8h ago
Why? China should print as many EVs as they can for the world. Protectionism should be expected in countries with domestic auto industries, but most of the world does not produce light autos yet needs them. The solution is not more demand in China, but more supply to crowd combustion vehicles out of annual global vehicle sales.
tobias3 · 7h ago
Agreed, but the Chinese want something of somewhat equal value in return nontheless. And the Chinese appetite for Sri Lankan treasuries might be limited.
They also at least need to pay for inputs and if it is only crude oil.
linotype · 10h ago
Giving the middle finger to the people that helped build your brand probably isn’t a great way to inspire repeat customers, especially with so many compelling apolitical alternatives.
schiffern · 9h ago
>so many compelling alternatives
With the recent news BYD has been cooking their books, are there any alternatives left that aren't being sold at a huge loss?
If the alternatives depend on subsidies from gas car sales, it would seem the automotive industry has not actually solved the problems (both technical and economic) necessary to transition the world off fossil fuels.
Doesn't sound like much of an alternative (for the planet), really.
Legacy auto talks a big game about the entire industry electrifying, but their actions say they're flushing money on compliance cars and stalling until they can kill EV mandates or kill Tesla or (preferably) both.
roscas · 9h ago
Yes, the brand is Tesla. They receive money from other brands to buy fake "carbon" credits, they receive money from the state and from their shareholders.
So US pays for Tesla like China does for some brands. It's the same.
And an electric car is not an alternative for gas cars. A zero km electric car has already tons and tons of CO2 on it's back because mostly of the battery.
It's not being "green". It's just make polution to be produced in another location.
baggachipz · 8h ago
>And an electric car is not an alternative for gas cars. A zero km electric car has already tons and tons of CO2 on it's back because mostly of the battery.
>It's not being "green". It's just make polution to be produced in another location.
I get very tired of hearing/reading this fallacy. Yes, producing EVs creates carbon emissions, just like ICE cars. The difference, though, is that EVs offset those CO2 emissions after a few years of use. And some would say that the most "environmentally friendly" car choice is a used car, that is the case on a net-zero basis. Over time, that used car's emissions will surpass the cost to produce and operate an EV.
Usually, the fallacy described above is bundled with "but an EV uses electricity, mostly created by coal. So your car burns coal!" Even if this were the case (it's not [1]), energy production on a large scale is so much more efficient than using a small gasoline engine that it would still be much better from a carbon emissions standpoint.
[1] Coal is only 15% of the energy mix, I asked ChatGPT and burned lots of energy in the process.
toomuchtodo · 9h ago
> And an electric car is not an alternative for gas cars. A zero km electric car has already tons and tons of CO2 on it's back because mostly of the battery.
> As electric vehicles become a bigger part of the global car fleet, a contrarian take seems to surface every few months: are electric vehicles really that clean?
> When it comes to lifecycle emissions, the answer is a resounding yes. According to a new report by BloombergNEF, in all analyzed cases, EVs have lower lifecycle emissions than gas cars. Just how much lower depends on how far they are driven, and the cleanliness of the grid where they charge.
schiffern · 9h ago
Wow, "long tailpipe" myth is a blast from the past...
>receive money from other brands to buy fake "carbon" credits
Also smog credits, and kids' developing lungs can assure you urban smog is very real.
This kinda proves my point. If other automakers don't want to buy smog/
carbon credits from Tesla then make zero emission vehicles. Companies that can't make the vehicles of the future cease to exist, part of "creative destruction" which is an explicit goal in such market-based pollution policies.
We decided those are the rules of the game (because pollution sucks). Can't get offended at the players just because the rules of the game did exactly what we intended.
>they receive money from the state and from their shareholders
Equally (or more) true for the other majors, so that doesn't explain how Tesla makes money on EVs and others can't.
saturn_vk · 7h ago
> It's just make polution to be produced in another location.
So you prefer to have locally sourced pollution then?
padjo · 10h ago
And still trading at a p/e of 180+. Anyone able to offer an explanation?
baggachipz · 10h ago
It's just a meme stock at this point. The price never reflects the fundamentals or future value. It's basically bitcoin at this point.
surgical_fire · 10h ago
The stock market is glorified gambling, and only happens to be related to company fundamentals sometimes.
kentm · 10h ago
As far as I can tell, people are expecting a pivot into AI/robotics being major revenue drivers.
Animats · 9h ago
Musk keeps saying that.[1]
Tesla is not doing all that well with self-driving cars.
They're behind Waymo, Zoox, and Baidu in Level 4 systems. (Level 4: good enough for a taxi service). All the major manufacturers have a Level 2 system now. A few have a Level 3 system where the driver can sit back and watch, but has to be ready to take over, which is where Tesla is now.
There are at least 18 humanoid robots far enough along to have YouTube videos, none of which are commercially successful. There's no reason Tesla will dominate that industry, if and when it gets going.
When those industries get going, there's no reason to expect they will have high margins. Humanoid robots compete with low-wage workers. Self driving cars compete with Uber drivers.
Isn't Tesla at level 2 (eyes on road, hands on wheel)?
Animats · 8h ago
Here are the levels.[1]
The big problem is disconnects, where the autonomous system gives up and demands that the human take over.
A big question with Tesla is whether "Full Self Driving (supervised)" is really a Level 3 system. It's currently "full self driving until it screws up, then it's your fault". Not "full self driving and if there's a situation it can't handle, it pulls over and parks". This is a big problem.[2]
Which is weird since he is keeping his AI company private and separate.
supportengineer · 10h ago
I'm ready to buy a second one, to replace an older vehicle, but I will get a used one this time.
baggachipz · 10h ago
Have you considered alternate brands? My wife's Hyundai Ioniq 5 is pretty nice.
verdverm · 9h ago
Ioniq 6 is also very nice, better build quality than the model 3
Many Hyundai are already on the 800V architecture and charge faster
roscas · 10h ago
I just wonder why would anyone buy something from a company that has a ceo like that one. Care to tell your experience with that first one?
supportengineer · 8h ago
It has been an outstanding ownership experience.
Have there been some quality problems? Yes, some things were fixed under warranty.
But in my opinion after years of research, the overall experience (especially when you consider the Supercharger network) they are years ahead of any other manufacturer.
daveguy · 8h ago
Did any of your research include owning any other brand of EV?
ed · 9h ago
I own a model 3 but would be hesitant to buy another Tesla given there’s a genuine risk the company won’t be around in a few years.
roscas · 9h ago
With fair competition, Tesla is out of business in weeks. And stop the "green credits" crap, because others are givin Tesla money for absolute nothing because all electric cars are not green. If you really want an electric and that is not because you want a green car, buy it from BYD or any other China brand, Toyota or Merc or BMW.
josefritzishere · 8h ago
At a normal corporation the board would have removed teh CEO by now. All politics aside, the sales and stock performance is a firable offense.
tonyedgecombe · 8h ago
Without Musk the stock price would crash, with him sales are crashing.
Almost all new model-year EVs* now include a NACS port, so you can use Superchargers too. EA and Chargepoint tend to be hot garbage. Rivian ones are supposedly nice but there aren't any near me yet.
edit: *in the US
surgical_fire · 10h ago
The funny thing is that people had to come to the absolute conclusion that Elon is a piece of shit to finally stop buying his shitty cars.
Both things have been obvious for a very long time. Better late than never.
mrcwinn · 10h ago
Model Y Juniper owner here. Best car I’ve ever owned. Tons of storage. I can keep it cool at the softball field for my dog for hours. Drives great. Reliable. Don’t miss the gas station one bit. Well built with no panel gap issues.
Totally respect your opinion, but you’re positioning your opinion a bit too much like objective fact.
chung8123 · 8h ago
A car that is a few months/years old is tough to judge for reliability I think
surgical_fire · 10h ago
I think that car is ugly as fuck.
Enough subjectivity for you?
ProfessorZoom · 10h ago
if the average person thought like this for the stuff they buy, nobody would own anything
guywithahat · 10h ago
What is wrong with Elon? All I've seen are hit pieces peddling misinformation.
If we were to look at this critically, I think Tesla just misplayed the market after covid. Their cars are too expensive and too premium, which is what people wanted during covid but as the market becomes more competitive people are looking for more affordable options
surgical_fire · 10h ago
> What is wrong with Elon?
If in the Year of our Lord 2025 you have to ask this question, I don't think any of the mutiple things I could link here would convince you otherwise.
guywithahat · 9h ago
If you think this is obvious I worry you're deep into conspiracies. I would respond more in depth but I'm not sure what conspiracies you're personally devoted to
JumpCrisscross · 8h ago
I genuinely admire Elon and hope he will get the help he needs. But DOGE, the needless and stupid foray into partisan politics, the drug abuse, the breaking of contracts until he had to be sued at Twitter, the fraternising with white nationalists, the Nazi salute (and lack of an apology)…these are not things people want to associate themselves with.
The top-selling car colours are white, black and grey. Most people, including those with sports cars, don’t want to drive an opinionated car day to day. Even if you agree with Elon’s politics, you may not want everyone in town to know that.
> Tesla just misplayed the market after covid. Their cars are too expensive and too premium, which is what people wanted during covid
People have wanted cheaper cars since Tesla was founded. It’s why Musk won credibility by promising a $25,000 EV.
Then he built the Cybertruck. And instead of recognising that as a failure, Musk doubled down on nonsense, first with a self-driving car with a regulatory cross-section the size of a planet, and then with a semi-focussed robotics push.
Tesla misplayed the market and continues misplaying the market. Musk’s politics now guarantee that it is a hated brand on the right and the left, which creates issues for his plans that require government support.
surgical_fire · 9h ago
> conspiracies
You keep repeating that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
But by all means, entertain me. What "conspiracies" do people "devote" themselves against Elon?
daveguy · 7h ago
Seems more like you are deep into a twitter propaganda feed.
We all saw Musk's Nazi salutes, and incompetent fuckups in government. Also, he has been lying about the proximity of actual FSD for at least a decade. At least he stopped even trying to lie about a $25k car.
Electric cars still cost more than gas cars in the US. This seems to be a US-only problem. Electric cars are doing fine in the rest of the world. A majority of new cars in China are electric.
Here's the BYD Dolphin Surf. Costs US$11,000 in Europe.[2] It's apparently a fairly good car. BYD has a whole range of cars, from super-cheap subcompact to supercar. BYD sold over 4 million cars in 2024. Tesla was around 1.7 million and dropping.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/02/tesla-faces-second-straigh...
[2] https://electrek.co/2025/06/30/byd-adds-range-to-most-afford...
Here’s Model Y’s charging curve - https://evkx.net/models/tesla/model_y/model_y_long_range/cha... at 30% you’re below 150 kw
Meanwhile here’s a competitor - Kia EV6 https://evkx.net/models/kia/ev6/ev6_long_range_awd/chargingc... keeping above 150 kw at around 70%
You got the Audi Q6 with more range, more comfort - massaging seats, screens everywhere, fancy lights.
7 years with barely any progress.
Then there’s the design - Model X has never head a meaningful exterior design refresh.
Model S hasn’t had one in years since the nose design refresh.
2018 is the first year Musk’s drug abuse is documented to [1].
[1] https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e...
It's a good car and good price but freely translating Chinese prices to EU prices exaggerates slightly.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas...
I think you're also glossing over the impact of Musk's disastrous foray into politics, his Tweeting, and his Nazi salutes.
Other than that idk.
The solution would be to increase wages/less working hours/less financial repression in China so that they can buy the cars they produce...
They also at least need to pay for inputs and if it is only crude oil.
If the alternatives depend on subsidies from gas car sales, it would seem the automotive industry has not actually solved the problems (both technical and economic) necessary to transition the world off fossil fuels.
Doesn't sound like much of an alternative (for the planet), really.
Legacy auto talks a big game about the entire industry electrifying, but their actions say they're flushing money on compliance cars and stalling until they can kill EV mandates or kill Tesla or (preferably) both.
So US pays for Tesla like China does for some brands. It's the same.
And an electric car is not an alternative for gas cars. A zero km electric car has already tons and tons of CO2 on it's back because mostly of the battery.
It's not being "green". It's just make polution to be produced in another location.
I get very tired of hearing/reading this fallacy. Yes, producing EVs creates carbon emissions, just like ICE cars. The difference, though, is that EVs offset those CO2 emissions after a few years of use. And some would say that the most "environmentally friendly" car choice is a used car, that is the case on a net-zero basis. Over time, that used car's emissions will surpass the cost to produce and operate an EV.
Usually, the fallacy described above is bundled with "but an EV uses electricity, mostly created by coal. So your car burns coal!" Even if this were the case (it's not [1]), energy production on a large scale is so much more efficient than using a small gasoline engine that it would still be much better from a carbon emissions standpoint.
[1] Coal is only 15% of the energy mix, I asked ChatGPT and burned lots of energy in the process.
This is factually inaccurate.
https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-transport/no-doubt-abo...
> As electric vehicles become a bigger part of the global car fleet, a contrarian take seems to surface every few months: are electric vehicles really that clean?
> When it comes to lifecycle emissions, the answer is a resounding yes. According to a new report by BloombergNEF, in all analyzed cases, EVs have lower lifecycle emissions than gas cars. Just how much lower depends on how far they are driven, and the cleanliness of the grid where they charge.
This kinda proves my point. If other automakers don't want to buy smog/ carbon credits from Tesla then make zero emission vehicles. Companies that can't make the vehicles of the future cease to exist, part of "creative destruction" which is an explicit goal in such market-based pollution policies.
We decided those are the rules of the game (because pollution sucks). Can't get offended at the players just because the rules of the game did exactly what we intended.
Equally (or more) true for the other majors, so that doesn't explain how Tesla makes money on EVs and others can't.So you prefer to have locally sourced pollution then?
Tesla is not doing all that well with self-driving cars. They're behind Waymo, Zoox, and Baidu in Level 4 systems. (Level 4: good enough for a taxi service). All the major manufacturers have a Level 2 system now. A few have a Level 3 system where the driver can sit back and watch, but has to be ready to take over, which is where Tesla is now.
There are at least 18 humanoid robots far enough along to have YouTube videos, none of which are commercially successful. There's no reason Tesla will dominate that industry, if and when it gets going.
When those industries get going, there's no reason to expect they will have high margins. Humanoid robots compete with low-wage workers. Self driving cars compete with Uber drivers.
[1] https://hgbr.org/elon-musk-unveils-teslas-ambitious-2025-vis...
The big problem is disconnects, where the autonomous system gives up and demands that the human take over. A big question with Tesla is whether "Full Self Driving (supervised)" is really a Level 3 system. It's currently "full self driving until it screws up, then it's your fault". Not "full self driving and if there's a situation it can't handle, it pulls over and parks". This is a big problem.[2]
[1] https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update
[2] https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/level-3-autonomy-what-car-buy...
Many Hyundai are already on the 800V architecture and charge faster
Have there been some quality problems? Yes, some things were fixed under warranty.
But in my opinion after years of research, the overall experience (especially when you consider the Supercharger network) they are years ahead of any other manufacturer.
EVs (as well as PHEVs) surging in 2025 Q1 numbers.
I own an EV car, but one thing i hate is non-Tesla EV charging. Electrifiy America charging points are so tribal and time sink!
https://www.ionna.com/
edit: *in the US
Both things have been obvious for a very long time. Better late than never.
Totally respect your opinion, but you’re positioning your opinion a bit too much like objective fact.
Enough subjectivity for you?
If we were to look at this critically, I think Tesla just misplayed the market after covid. Their cars are too expensive and too premium, which is what people wanted during covid but as the market becomes more competitive people are looking for more affordable options
If in the Year of our Lord 2025 you have to ask this question, I don't think any of the mutiple things I could link here would convince you otherwise.
The top-selling car colours are white, black and grey. Most people, including those with sports cars, don’t want to drive an opinionated car day to day. Even if you agree with Elon’s politics, you may not want everyone in town to know that.
> Tesla just misplayed the market after covid. Their cars are too expensive and too premium, which is what people wanted during covid
People have wanted cheaper cars since Tesla was founded. It’s why Musk won credibility by promising a $25,000 EV.
Then he built the Cybertruck. And instead of recognising that as a failure, Musk doubled down on nonsense, first with a self-driving car with a regulatory cross-section the size of a planet, and then with a semi-focussed robotics push.
Tesla misplayed the market and continues misplaying the market. Musk’s politics now guarantee that it is a hated brand on the right and the left, which creates issues for his plans that require government support.
You keep repeating that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
But by all means, entertain me. What "conspiracies" do people "devote" themselves against Elon?
We all saw Musk's Nazi salutes, and incompetent fuckups in government. Also, he has been lying about the proximity of actual FSD for at least a decade. At least he stopped even trying to lie about a $25k car.