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Tesla sales crash continues in Europe, with Germany down 70%
- sudofail 2y agoPretty obvious outcome given the PR nightmare
- whatever1 2y agoWait for the tariffs to kick in a month.
- jimnotgym 2y agoWhat effect do you think that will have on European sales?
- whatever1 2y agoLots of the Tesla suppliers are in the US. So even if we assume that the EU will keep supporting Tesla manufacturing in Europe (not clear at this point at all), their production costs and hence eu prices will go up. Also with the tariffs the anti-Americanism front will only grow stronger, essentially boycotting anything made in USA. Most likely tesla has a target on its back, and will be the first American company to die as a result of the trade war.
- surgical_fire 2y ago> essentially boycotting anything made in USA. I wish this would extend to social media and tech as a whole. Maybe in due time.
- jimnotgym 2y agoAre you anticipating that the EU is going to put tarrifs on US goods?
- rsynnott 2y ago… I mean, yeah, if the US increases tariffs on the EU, the EU will increase tariffs on the US. That is how trade wars _work_.
- surgical_fire 2y agoSince the US president already spelled out that he will tariff EU, it's only logical that the EU will retaliate. They would be very retarded to not do so. The interesting part is that since the US is being hostile to many countries at once, it is logical that those countries will start to trade more among themselves. In a sense it is like the US is sanctioning itself. Not something I ever really expected. Interesting times ahead.
- czhu12 2y agoMarkets still seem to be pricing Tesla as a company that has large growth potential. Anyone have a reasonable case to make here for this being true?
- nextworddev 2y agoHumanoid robots and self driving car deals. At least that’s why people are thinking
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- timeon 2y agoLot of stocks are not profit based at this point.
- bgnn 2y agoCEO controls the US government (corruption)
- gonzo41 2y agoFor retail players its sunk cost fallacy. For everyone else they are trying to manage their exit.
- legitster 2y agoAnyone who has tried taking a short position on Tesla in the past got squeezed terribly. So the number of short positions on the stock is inordinately small.
- jimnotgym 2y agoNo, and it is one of a number of high profile companies that could never sustain their growth. I think there are at least two reasons for the absurd valuation. 1) The growth in Western inequality has pushed more money into fewer hands. They are desperately short of assets to buy, so they crowd into certain assets, pushing the prices too high. 2) The Emperors new clothes effect. Nobody who has invested wants to pull out first
- cglace 2y agoThe market is currently valuing the stock based primarily on their robotaxi initiative and humanoid robots.
- mullingitover 2y agoThe market is currently valuing it on what it thinks other investors in the market will value it at. It's a class in the Greater Fool Theory of investing, writ large.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoWhat do you think it would take to create a cascading loss of confidence in the security?
- jimnotgym 2y agoTime
- throwaway48476 2y agoTime and bad results. That said the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
- jimnotgym 2y agoI think you are right. A minor shock in share price from a bad profit announcement will cause certain traders to have to sell to stop the loss getting worse, probably by an automated stop-loss order. This will start a chain reaction.
- tobias3 2y agoThose are two startups attached to a destroyed brand and an auto company. Idk why anyone would invest.
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- jimnotgym 2y agoTo all of the people who were claiming that the US can do whatever it wants... ...I wonder if Musk and his shareholders don't care about money from us liberal, woke, left wing Europeans? I suppose that is noble, being willing to destroy your brand for your ideals, no matter how half-baked. For someone like Musk, who mostly acts like money is the one true god, this is a bit of a mixed up philosophy. Perhaps he is not quite as smart as he thinks he is. I wonder how long before Trump throws him under a bus.
- jimnotgym 2y agoReplying to myself. I see two scenarios. 1) When Trump needs a fall guy for skyrocketing inflation, or widespread protests about failing public services 2) There might be some Republican lawmakers who feel that they will need a career post Trump and will pick a time to demand Musk goes 3) Party funders will get sick of losing so much money in the turmoil and will demand a scapegoat
- actionfromafar 2y agoIn the end, does it matter what happens to Musk? He's just a general doing cavalry charges. The money strings behind all of this go way deeper, and Vance is firmly tied to them via Thiel and friends.
- omnimus 2y agoIt very likely goverment itself will prop up tesla with contracts directly. Same with Palantir and Anduril replacing the old guard Boeing and Lockhead.
- rsynnott 2y agoI mean, even that only lasts for, at most, four years (assuming that Musk stays in minihands’ favour for the whole term, which is rather doubtful).
- martythemaniak 2y agoTesla posts delivery numbers the day after quarter end and several weeks before earnings, so that's the one to really watch out for. If they don't post anything on April 1 or 2, you know something real is up. In general, I think Musk really failed the marshmallow test - keeping on the sidelines and working through the existing system (for autonomy, spaceflight, etc) would have been more painful, but would have delivered greater returns long-term. Instead he decided to take a shortcut by buying a president and torching the regulatory system, and he'll succeed, but will that actually pay off? Self-driving Teslas will be allowed without any questions nation-wide, but will people get into them after what he's done? Will people let Teslabots into their house? I don't think the destroyed trust will make up for the lack of regulations. Even finances aside, being the #1 oligarch doesn't always end well - just ask Jack Ma or Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He would have been safer under the old rule-of-law American system.
- Reubend 2y ago> Instead he decided to take a shortcut by buying a president and torching the regulatory system, and he'll succeed, but will that actually pay off? Self-driving Teslas will be allowed without any questions nation-wide, but will people get into them after what he's done? I don't think he cares too much about self driving regulation compared to other factors. Trump's tariff's against Mexico greatly benefit Tesla by making the supply chains used by other American carmakers more costly. He can easily push for SpaceX contracts from the top down. And he can advocate for favorable policy towards X.ai, Twitter, etc. With regards to self driving, Tesla has always been in the grey area where their marketing clashes with their legal stance (i.e. that the human must remain in control at all times and therefore must keep liability). They've haven't bothered so far with the legal legwork to do real autonomous driving the way that competitors like Waymo did. And it will be make years before they need to do that, since their current tech is far from real autonomous driving.
- techpineapple 2y agoIt feels to me that it can’t be lost on anyone or a coincidence that given Musk’s tangential (official) relationship to the government, he’s a really good scapegoat if something goes south with Doge.
- legitster 2y agoHow is there not a massive shareholder lawsuit against Elon Musk right now. Clearly he and his fiduciary duty could not be more separate.
- mrcode007 2y agofirst, folks need to exit/reduce their positions stealthily without disrupting the market. this takes time; for big positions it is not unusual to be exiting it for more than 6 months
- jimnotgym 2y agoThe fun part will be if everyone is trying to do it at the same time, as they probably are. They will be trapped and have nothing left to do but sue
- TheAlchemist 2y agoThis is true, Tesla as a car company would have been much better if Musk quit it at least 2 years ago. Tesla as a stock, which is the primary product of the company, would crater immediately, by something like 90%. All of it's "future value" is derived from fantasies closely tied to Elon Musk "genius". If one value Tesla as a car company, it's worth something like 10$/share. PS. Tesla head of board of directors, Robyn Denholm, sold almost 120M$ worth of shares in the last 3 months, something like >60% of her holdings.
- tim333 2y agoI'm not sure suing ceos for bad choices is a thing. Has it ever been done successfully?
- jimnotgym 2y agoOne important facet that our American chums might not know, is that many people in Europe already felt that Teslas were ugly, hateful cars. They were the ultimate gadget for people on a company car scheme (big tax advantages used to exist for EVs). I think there a lot of people who would tolerate being treated as a pompous arse because of their car, but wouldn't tolerate being made fun of. In the UK being a source of ridicule to your peers is the worst insult. Musk, and by extension his cars, are a laughing stock.
- surgical_fire 2y ago> One important facet that our American chums might not know, is that many people in Europe already felt that Teslas were ugly, hateful cars That's correct. And that was true even before Elon became a more politically controversial figure.
- wendyshu 2y agoNot sure why people would think Teslas (excluding Cyber Truck) are ugly or pompous
- pornel 2y agoFor a long time Tesla had barely any presence in Europe, and Model S and X were expensive rare cars, from a weird foreign brand. Driving that was a delicate balance between coolness and showing off, and then Musk changed the image from cool to extremely divorced midlife crisis. Now that EVs are more mainstream, there is already competition from new VW, Kia, Hyundai, Renault, Volvo, BMW, which makes Model 3 kinda bland, and the more popular Model Y looks like Model 3's CAD design stretched vertically by 20%. Supercharger network doesn't have a significant advantage in Europe, all new cars use the same connector already, so buying a Tesla is a choice. People question why do you buy a car that isn't pretty, isn't cheap, isn't from a "real" car brand, and is associated with Musk's antics.
- jimnotgym 2y agoDid you know that car companies often have different models for the US and Europe? Some of it is the practicality of our smaller roads. Much of it is taste.
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- spankalee 2y agoWhy in the world did this get flagged? Seems incredible relevant to the HN crowd.
- sundaeofshock 2y agoBecause there is a large pro-Musk crowd on HN that will flag anything that portrays him in a way they feel is negative.
- spankalee 2y agoIt'd be cool if we could tag dang somehow and show that this is unfairly flagged. People who flag plain, factual, content like this should have their flagging ability demoted.
- tim333 2y agoThere have been a lot of Tesla sales crash stories.
- zihotki 2y agoAnd by a lot - around 18 stories about Tesla sales plunging for the last 30 days with the articles looking mostly the same without any new information. That's a bit too much.