Again - maybe? It certainly seems like the automakers who are manufacturing more than 80% of the BEV’s being sold in Europe have a little something to do with it. It wasn’t only, or even primarily, Tesla that expanded the European BEV market from being niche. The market expanded from 0.35 million to 2 million between 2019 and now…but most of those units were not Teslas.
Which means the market decisions of the incumbent automakers matter. Consumer preferences for BEV’s vs. ICE’s (which have increased their absolute sales this year) matter. I mean, you can say that consumers are motivated to buy 1.7 million incumbent BEV’s with a 25% subsidy only because of the subsidy, but buy 0.4 million Tesla BEV’s with a 25% subsidy because they love the cars…but there’s not a ton of support for that. People bought cars other than Toyota Corollas not because Toyotas were supply constrained, even though the Corolla was the highest-selling car.
And I think we’re now at the point where we have to examine the possibility that Tesla is no longer selling all that they could produce. Oh, sure, they’re selling all the capacity from their existing auto plants. But at that simple level, every automaker sells all the cars they can make using existing facilities. The amount that they make is determined by how many facilities they develop.
Tesla’s not a cash-starved start-up struggling to increase output with their one discount-purchase Fremont facility any more. They have ample access to capital, global management, and a CEO who is one of the most famous entrepreneurs on the planet - from now on (and for at least the last two years) they can buy and/or start building as many factories as they want.
Yet…only Monterey is far enough in the pipeline to warrant an announcement to the public. And it’s not expected to come online until 2026. Tesla will go at least two and a half years choosing not to open a new car factory, and possibly up to four years, during a time when they are ostensibly willing to slash prices to maximize output as fast as they can. They’re in preliminary talks with India and other countries, but are taking their time picking a site - and it’s not clear whether it will be an auto plant or for Powerwall energy storage.
The reality may be more prosaic - that Tesla’s reached the point that every other carmaker is at (and indeed almost every manufacturer). They have built out a certain production capacity, and while they absolutely have the capital to expand it to have larger production capacity, their sales are constrained by marginal consumer demand and they’d have to lower prices to clear product. And at some point, they choose not to lower their prices for the sake of expansion.