Tesla’s sales growth disappeared in half last year, but the company has mostly registered its highest quarterly delivery ever.
Tesla has delivered 497,099 vehicles in the past three months, the company announced Thursday. This is a massive 29% jump from the second quarter, up about 7% in the same period last year, a rise above the previous quarter’s offering.
Other US automakers have seen similar jumps before their credit expires. The temptation to take advantage of expired credits was so strong that Cox Automotive forecast EVS accounted for 10% of all vehicle sales in the quarter.
Sales boosts have come at a critical time for Tesla. Before the third quarter bump, Tesla was on track to see global delivery fall for the second year in a row. That decline is ingrained in the company’s industry-leading profit margins.
This is thanks to a combination of factors. The company has not released any truly new models other than CyberTruck for many years. This was so bust that it was missing from the GMC Hummer EV. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also traumatized the company’s image by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Donald Trump, and soon joined the new administration, leading accidental cuts to federal agencies and programs with government efficiency.
It is still possible for Tesla to deliver more cars this year than this year. But we need a fourth quarter of monsters that Tesla has yet to achieve. And even if that happens, it’s far from the 50% annual growth that the company once promoted.
Perhaps that’s not surprising given that masks seem tired of selling cars. The company is trying to focus public attention on technologies such as autonomy and humanoid robotics. Recently, I proposed a $1 trillion salary package for masks.
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It’s a mystery what will happen with Tesla sales moving forward. In addition to the expiration dates of tax credits, the Trump administration’s hatred of clean energy has bleaked the short-term outlook for US EVs, which has helped many major legacy automakers delay or cancel plans for new electric vehicles.
Tesla also develops a low-cost version of the Model Y SUV. Though it’s not a completely new nameplate, the EV is expected to cost in the low $30,000 range. The question is whether its price will be attractive enough to win buyers for the highly stripped version of Tesla.
Meanwhile, other major automakers have doubled their EV sales in the face of expired tax credits. Some people like Ford and General Motors say they will compensate for certain leases incentives in the future as they continue to compete with electric vehicles in the market without federal subsidies.
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