California Tesla market disintegrating: the headline suggests Californians have quit buying Teslas because potential and current customers were upset that Tesla moved to Texas. In fact that was not the case and not reported in the article. Link here.
In California, where there are Teslas as far as the eye can see and rapid charging stations aplenty, new drivers are opting out of the $605 billion Elon Musk-led car universe.
Among the top three passenger cars sold in California in the first quarter this year, Elon Musk’s Tesla Model 3 dropped from first place to third, behind the Toyota Camry and the Honda Civic.
Toyota was the top brand in California this quarter, notching a 9.3% increase in registrations, followed by Honda, which marked an 18.6% rise so far this year.
Tesla registrations have dropped in California year-to-date, with a 7.8% drop in the first quarter, following a 9.8% drop in the last quarter of 2023.
California makes up 32.5% of registrations of battery electric vehicles in the U.S. and the sluggish popularity of Tesla among new car registrants comes at a particularly vulnerable time for Tesla as a company and for its CEO. Musk is facing significant pressure from investors who want to see him adopt the norms of a more traditional CEO, step back from his grandiose social-media presence, and to provide a more concrete timeline for producing an affordably priced Tesla. The company reported last week that revenues dropped 9%, which was its largest drop since 2012, while net income dropped a whopping 55% in the first quarter.
Three of its top executives, including well-known insider Drew Baglino, resigned in the space of two weeks, which further rattled investors.
“Californians’ love affair with electric vehicle giant Tesla may have peaked,” [a dealer association spokesman] said in a statement Monday.
To be sure, this is only an early indicator that Tesla’s popularity is on the decline. Tesla is still the top seller of electric vehicles in California with the Model Y, Model 3, and Model X ahead of the Chevy Bolt and the Volkswagen ID.4, but first quarter battery electric vehicle market share dropped 6.4%. Mercedes and BMW had the largest gains of sales among battery electric vehicles in the first quarter, with Mercedes rising 3%, and BMW 2.4%.
Bottom line: indications -- Americans simply are not sold on EVs. It's all about the number of cupholders vs the size of wheels.
Musk disbands supercharger team.
Tesla's supercharger network is quickly becoming the standard in the US, but now, Tesla, is disbanding the team. The supercharger network is not being shut down. Not sure what it means to disband this team.
For me, it suggests the supercharging infrastructure buildout will slow precipitously.
Is "someone" else going to fill the gap?
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