Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-sales-fall-second-year-ev-elon-musk-2026-1

by jrpelkonen • 7 months ago

53 41 7 months ago

businessinsider.com

sidibe• 7 months ago

No problem, Tesla is robot company now.

jaggs• 7 months ago

A trillion dollar one, I believe

hijackd_rc2• 7 months ago

Did they move to Texas and spend $300m getting Trump elected?

Did they pander disrespectfully and partisanly?

Is that selling electric cars to Republicans?

Did they build a "cyber" puss-APC product for the wider market and then piss it away on the largest steel stamping machine in Texas, nay the world (which is a single point of failure for production and maintenance)?

Someone should explain to them that there are less hazardous batteries than Lithium Ion.

It's like there's a freeloading pandering narcissist who's assumed Elon's identity (because they were such a risk to other operations where there is not such accountability to a board and to the people).

hijackd_rc2• 7 months ago

What sort of a bonus does that deserve?

collingreen• 7 months ago

If line goes up, nothing else matters.

taylodl• 7 months ago

Given that Robotaxis are currently crashing at a much higher rate than human-driven vehicles, it seems risky to put a large majority of your company's future earnings and growth in that basket.

On the Optimus front, I spent years in manufacturing. This industry is conservative and deeply relationship driven. Plants prioritize uptime and proven reliability, and they're slow to adopt newcomers. ABB is the 800-pound gorilla here - just as they have been in the PLC space for decades. ABB's long-standing relationships and deep integration support make it incredibly hard for newcomers to gain traction. I should know - I worked for one of their competitors!

Bottom line: Tesla's strategy hinges on two moonshots in industries where incumbents are entrenched and adoption cycles are slow. If these bets don't pay off, Tesla needs a fallback - energy storage, grid solutions, or advanced EV platforms - before the narrative collapses. They'd be wise to leverage their EV business to launch these initiatives, but waning consumer confidence and declining sales make that increasingly difficult.

peacebeard2• 7 months ago

Given that Robotaxis are currently crashing at a much higher rate than human-driven vehicles

Citation needed

sjsdaiuasgdia3• 7 months ago

https://electrek.co/2025/12/15/tesla-reports-another-robotax...

Last month, Tesla confirmed the fleet had traveled roughly 250,000 miles. With 7 reported crashes at the time, Tesla’s Robotaxi was crashing roughly once every 40,000 miles (extrapolating from the previously disclosed Robotaxi mileage).
For comparison, the average human driver in the US crashes about once every 500,000 miles.

JumpCrisscross7• 7 months ago

Given that Robotaxis are currently crashing at a much higher rate than human-driven vehicles

Robotaxis/cybercabs or whatever are not currently self driving. They’re Level 3, given the requirement for human monitors. To my knowledge, they’re doing fine safetywise as Level 3 systems.

stackghost2• 7 months ago

If these bets don't pay off, Tesla needs a fallback

Good news! No matter what Tesla does, Musk's orbiters will tell you that Tesla isn't a <thing they currently do> company, it's actually a bet on <future, tangentially-related thing>.

valianteffort• 7 months ago

Well it kind of is. Tesla are not coy about their plans of moving away from selling consumers personal vehicles. If you think cybercab can eat any significant percentage of Uber/Lyfts lunch there is value.

It takes a lot of hubris to throw away ostensibly worldwide EV dominance. And selling Americans on giving up car/independence culture when compared with Europe or Asia will be tough.

They will undoubtedly crush in the robot and energy space though.

Zigurd5• 7 months ago

Does anyone pay for Grok? Despite claims of profitability, SpaceX still needs huge investments despite having spent all the lunar lander money without producing anything more than a render. Tesla is valued at more than the rest of the car industry put together, even after two years of stagnation and collapsing margins. Though it overlaps the AI bubble, Elon accounts for more of a general tech bubble than anyone else. Oracle might crash and burn first, but the Elonverse is the really big bubble.

JumpCrisscross7• 7 months ago

Despite claims of profitability, SpaceX still needs huge investments

This is false. SpaceX is cash flow positive.

Zigurd5• 7 months ago

SpaceX is in fact not profitable. Depending on how you price internal transactions for manufacturing and launching Starlink satellites you can fudge the hell out of the term "cash flow positive." In fact, SpaceX continued to take outside investments in 2025.

belter• 7 months ago

"Musk’s aerospace and defense company, SpaceX, reportedly purchased tens of millions of dollars worth of Cybertrucks in 2025."

- https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/02/tesla-tsla-q4-2025-vehicle-d...

Bullish :-)

mocana4• 7 months ago

Elon built up Tesla, to his great credit. He also has gone out of his way to undermine the car business. He enthusiastically endorsed getting rid of the EV car credit, publicly stating that it would help Tesla. And his DOGE antics have turned the Tesla brand toxic in the eyes of so many people in the US and around the world. (I own a Tesla and had many people advice me to sell it or to put a sticker on it to avoid vandalism). There is no doubt that an important part of Elon's businesses has been setting big bold and exciting goals that attract great talent. Is there any indication that Elon has messed up talent recruitment like he messed up the Tesla brand for consumers?

TylerLives• 7 months ago

Who is vandalizing the cars? Why doesn't police arrest them?

mocana4• 7 months ago

They have arrested some. Have heard of Teslas getting keyed too. My sense is that Elon being less in the spotlight recently has allowed some of the anger he provoked to cool off. But the brand damage, I am afraid, is permanent. https://www.wcvb.com/article/tesla-vandalism-incidents-conti...

https://youtu.be/NpFpfOemGR0?si=eMK0rMeRrv-gIKCT

iwontberude• 7 months ago

The police are underfunded and understaffed since Covid here in Silicon Valley. They won’t pursue your vandalism cases if they are just the value of a car.

mrwrong• 7 months ago

because that's not their job?

moogly• 7 months ago

Lots of high-profile execs have left Tesla of late, fwiw.

mocana4• 7 months ago

And how much worse would Tesla sales be without tariffs and protectionism in the U.S. and Europe? It is sad to see how Musk has pissed away Tesla's technological leadership. Those BVD and Huawei cars make the Tesla product look outdated at this point.

JumpCrisscross7• 7 months ago

Tesla is a one-way bet on cameras-only autonomy.

If Waymo or BYD (or Mercedes or GM, lol) get to Level 5 before 2030, and Tesla is still struggling with Level 4, the door shuts. Cameras-only autonomy starts getting banned. (We may see it sooner in e.g. China, India, the EU, and New York and California as a result of Trump-Musk politics.)

That said, it’s a Musk company, so downside is capped. If it fell below $100 to 500bn, xAI or SpaceX will buy it.

epolanski• 7 months ago

Doesn't matter, it's a cult.

Will probably +3% tomorrow.

Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

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