Typical Electrek… Yawn…
The Captain
Something is behind the decline in sales.
Better competition?
BYD has suffered a sales decline in China but has rising oversea sales at higher pricing to help offset the China decline.
IMO China EV market space has reached saturation level. I know BYD has cut production in China factories. Other Chinese EV makers will follow. There is a overcapacity of EV production for the China market space.
BYD has introduced 2 new models in EU-Dolphin $25L euros & Atto3 $30K euros.
At those prices all EV makers in the EU will suffer.
I would not use CNN as my investment advisor. 
Investing is about looking into the future, not the past. The past, IN CONTEXT, can be a good guide but CNN has no idea about context, just parroting numbers.
I would not use CNN as my investment advisor.
The Captain
OK I will use history.
Henry revolutionize the US auto industry with his practical model T and the assembly line.
Henry Ford was or dominated the US auto industry for 15 to 20 years. But better products arose. Ford initially resisted developing a new model to replace his beloved Model T, but pressure from his son Edsel and dropping sales figures eventually led him to give in.
Yes Ford is still in business but no longer is a dominant player. Tesla and BYD are now reaching that cross road. It is possible that they remain big players. It depends how they meet the rising competition. Musk seem to be like Henry-polishing an existing product. BYD is responding by creating many new products. In the China market space; Chinese consumers like new techno gizmos. So new products seem to me to be a better approach.
Elon Musk has revolutionized the auto & rocket industries. And may do so with self driving autos [that nut has proven to be a tough nut to crack; and I doubt it will be done in my lifetime] and Mars colonization. He is a big idea and creative genius. But details and day to day operation bore him. He is always looking for new simulations. X, robots, then politics, and God only know what will peak his interest. IMO Musk’s interest in the Tesla EV is waning. I believe in his mind he puts Tesla EV in the the done and did category. Time to move on to more interesting simulations.
That’s a fair analysis but I disagree with some of the conclusions.
I wish you a long and fun lifetime! I think you underestimate the progress of FSD but I’m not going to belabor that point.
What you describe is an example of The Innovator’s Dilemma, falling in love with your innovation and not wanting to go with the new innovations. Again a fair argument if it were an ordinary mortal, not Elon Musk, the Serial Innovator. Examples:
- Elon set up the Fremont factory with a lot of robots. It didn’t work out well. He got rid of the excess robots.
- Elon had his team develop DOJO to have the compute power necessary for FSD. Once Nvidia developed superb AI chips Elon discontinued developing DOJO.
- Sandy Munro tried to sell the idea of Giga castings to the auto industry during 15 years to no avail. Elon got it, make big cars like you make toy cars, cast them.
- Elon’s makeover of Twitter.
- After developing the 4680 battery cell, Elon is working on an aluminum based battery cell.
- At SpaceX, crash the rockets to learn faster what’s wrong with them. The Hare vs. the traditional NASA Tortoise. Aesop backwards?
Another fair point but his Tesla interest(s) are in plain view, Robotaxis and Optimus robots in addition to the Semi plant coming online soon.
The Captain