Tesla lives on a roller coaster of emotions as he seeks his own direction. Elon Musk wants to turn the company into a technology and artificial intelligence company, investors seem to demand an affordable electric Tesla and global sales are approaching their first drop in the company’s history.
Meteoric growth… In 2016, Tesla put 76,900 cars on the market. Four years later, in 2020, Tesla was on the verge of selling half a million units worldwide. In 2024 it placed 1.8 million units. These are data collected by Statesman.
In between, not a single year has Tesla sold less than the previous year. In fact, their growth has been surprising, with special relevance in the jump from 2020 to 2021 when they almost doubled production. It was to be expected, therefore, that in 2024 the barrier of two million units would be broken. However, the data indicates that this will not be the case.
that now stops. A few weeks ago, Reuters claimed that Elon Musk was promising sales growth of 30% in 2025. A figure that they consider very difficult to meet, since for 2024 they predicted a new record in the annual sales figure, barely exceeding 1.8 million vehicles.
However, the new reports that are arriving seem to move this figure away. The company’s sales in China stood at 40,485 units last October, according to @TroyTeslike, a specialist in monitoring the company’s sales. According to its data, Tesla needs spectacular sales in the United States and China in the coming months and that does not seem like it will happen.
a symptom. Tesla sold almost 6,000 fewer units of vehicles in China in October than last July. The comparison does not make sense with August and September (in those months they placed 63,456 and 72,200 units respectively) because the first month of each quarter always tends to be very weak for the company.
However, it does give us an idea of where the shots are going. Tesla needs to put 514,925 sold on the market this quarter. It is quite a challenge since, although sales are not suffering at all in China, they are doing so noticeably in Europe and the United States.
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USA. Although sales in China seem to be where they are expected, in the United States they are falling. As the year has progressed, sales have gradually decreased. April, May and June were an especially bad quarter but they also failed to surpass 2023 sales in July. But the most problematic was September, when more deliveries are expected from the company and almost 6,000 units were lost compared to September of last year.
Analysts attribute this drop in sales in the United States to a drop in sales of the Tesla Model Y. The short-term future for the company is somewhat uncertain in the country. Elon Musk’s involvement in Donald Trump’s new government has scared away customers in California, its best market. And it remains to be seen how buyers react if aid for the purchase of electric cars is eliminated, as the future US president has promised.
In Bloomberg They are not clear how the elimination of this aid may affect the company. Elon Musk seems so convinced of his dominant position in the United States that he believes this decision could do a lot of damage to rivals and very little to his company. In the electric car market in the United States, Tesla’s strength has been so evident until now that its rivals have ended up offering the company charging standard because their customers want to be able to access the Tesla network, given the few plugs in the market. country.
Europa. Things aren’t looking too good in Europe either. Until September, the last full quarter and last month for which ACEA has data, Tesla has sold 249,337 electric cars, compared to 273,197 last year in the same period. It is a drop of 8.7%.
This drop is understood with the withdrawal of purchasing aid in Germany. Using data from this summer, the drop was 44.7% and, month after month, in some cases it exceeded 60%. Tesla is not the only one that falls sharply in the German country but the largest European market is key for the company to continue growing in Europe. Also in France, the second largest electric market in Europe, Tesla has lost sales of the Model Y, its best-selling car.
Because? The reasons why Tesla is missing out on sales in 2024 are multiple. In Europe it is evident that aid for the purchase of electric cars is key to continuing to keep sales alive. In China, competition is increasingly stronger and the public has long preferred local manufacturers with highly technological interiors to foreign models, which seems to be slowing down Tesla’s advance in the country.
In the United States, it remains to be seen to what extent Elon Musk’s political positioning can have an influence on the company’s sales. Also how the client will respond to a possible withdrawal of purchase aid. There are quite a few Tesla owners who make their rejection of Musk’s latest moves clear with stickers on the car.
But to all of the above we must add a highly anticipated renewal of the Tesla Model Y that has not yet arrived. The company’s best-selling model seems to be on the verge of a renewal that would go beyond aesthetics and that should boost sales next year. This could be holding back potential customers.
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What challenges does Tesla face? Tesla has great challenges ahead in the short term. As we say, in China there is little room for growth with such fierce competition. Growth is not expected in the United States either. Although the withdrawal of aid hurts rivals more than Tesla, its sales may suffer, although it is likely to a lesser extent than in markets such as Germany or France.
And in Europe the competition will be much tougher next year. The new emissions regulations that come into force in 2025 should lower the prices of electric cars. Manufacturers will have to sell more vehicles of this type or, in the worst case, auto-register them and gradually release a stock that will be sold at more competitive prices, so competition will be tougher.
What are your strengths? First of all, Tesla has the guarantee that it has an advantage in the electric car. If their rivals suffer in their income statements in the United States, it will be more difficult for them to catch up with Elon Musk’s company.
In Europe, in addition, the door is opening for the sale of emission bonds that will be key next year. Once again, Tesla is in a similar position: it will have more competition but it is likely that its own rivals will end up adding extra to its bank account, which helps alleviate the slowdown in sales.
And, furthermore, it will be necessary to see if his closeness to Elon Musk allows the United States Government to open its hand with autonomous cars. This is key to making more money with the software and, above all, moving forward with a robotaxi promised for 2026 and which due to US regulation itself has it very complicated.
Photo | Sandra Tan
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After years with the wind in its favor, Tesla faces a harsh reality in 2024: a course of “no growth”
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by Alberto de la Torre.
