Despite recording a sales decline so far this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk says a cooling in global electric-car sales is mainly due to a lack of “compelling” models from other vehicle brands.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has attributed a “hangover” in the growth of electric-vehicle sales to other car makers unable to “make compelling EVs”, despite the company’s own deliveries being down year-on-year.
It is widely accepted the growth in electric-car sales internationally has cooled – still in positive territory, but not matching the doubling or tripling in sales seen in prior year – amid economic pressures.
Tesla has not been exempt from the decline, its global deliveries down 6.6 per cent in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period the prior year.
The brand is also down 9.6 per cent in Australia, despite aggressive price cuts which have seen $9500 wiped off the RRP of the most affordable Tesla Model Y SUV in six months.
Other car makers have also reported declines in demand for their electric vehicles, and begun winding back aggressive EV sales targets as they instead see a boost in interest in hybrid vehicles.
Musk has blamed the global easing in electric-car sales on other car makers – despite the US giant’s sales also being down – and admitted rival brands also cutting their prices has influenced the US giant.
“We saw at launch an adoption acceleration of EVs, and then a bit of a hangover as others struggle to make compelling EVs,” the outspoken CEO told investors and media this week.
“There have been quite a few competing electric vehicles that have entered the market, and mostly they have not done well, but they have discounted their EVs very substantially, which has made it a bit more difficult for Tesla.
“We don’t see this as a long-term issue but fairly short-term.”
Given Tesla only builds electric vehicles, it has reaffirmed its belief in battery-electric technology – as rival car makers embrace a mix of hybrid and electric cars in the medium term.
“We still firmly believe that EVs are best for customers, and the world is headed for fully electrified transport – not just cars, but aircraft and boats,” Musk said.
Musk hailed Tesla as the “most efficient electric vehicle producer in the world”, and reaffirmed the company’s belief in autonomous driving technology as a key source of future revenue – and demand.
“Once people use it they tend to continue using [Full Self-Driving software], so it’s very compelling, and this I think will be a massive demand driver,” he said.
Full Self-Driving is currently a ‘supervised’ semi-autonomous system – requiring the driver’s eyes on the road – but the CEO said it could transition to a fully autonomous ‘unsupervised’ mode by the end of this year.
“My predictions on this have been overly optimistic in the past,” Musk admitted.
“Based on the current trend, it seems as though we should get miles between [human] interventions high enough that it should be far enough in excess of humans that you could do unsupervised [autonomous] driving possibly by the end of this year.
“I would be shocked if we cannot do it next year.”
Tesla chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja told investors and media today two-thirds of the company’s deliveries in the US between April and June were from new customers.
“We’ve spent money on advertising, and other awareness programs … We know that we have not exhausted all our options, and therefore plan to keep adjusting in the latter half of this year as well.”
The post Tesla blames slowdown in electric-car growth on other automakers appeared first on Drive.
