And once again, we return to our favorite section Tesla vs BYD electric cars, and discuss the new report on Tesla’s car sales, which in the next round won a confident victory over BYD after the first knockdown in the last quarter of 2023. But there’s a caveat: for the first time in the history of Elon Musk’s company, sales have fallen at least slightly.
This time, even Troy Teslike, known for his extremely accurate estimates of Tesla’s sales, seriously miscalculated. On the other hand, his forecast turned out to be the most accurate among others.
In January-March, Tesla shipped a total of 386,810 electric vehicles — 8.5% less than in the same quarter of 2023 (422,875).
| Cars | Number of cars produced, units | Number of cars delivered to customers, units | Share of cars purchased on lease, % |
| Model 3/Y | 412 376 | 369 783 | 2% |
| Other (S/X/Cybertruck) | 20 995 | 17,027 | 1% |
| Together | 433 371 | 386 810 | 2% |
Compared to the 4th quarter of 2023, the results are even more disappointing — a 20% drop (484 597 cars). Production also dropped slightly by — to 433,371 pcs (440,808 a year ago and 494,989 in Q4 2023).
It is worth mentioning that Tesla sales of Chinese origin in March increased by 0.2% compared to March last year and reached 89,064. At the same time, sales of China’s Model 3 and Model Y jumped 47.5% compared to February. This is not enough to confidently talk about a return to growth, given message about significant Model Y inventories in the US and a decline in demand for Model 3 in Europe. At the same time, Tesla’s March sales in China give rise to cautious optimism about a recovery in demand.
In the report, Tesla listed several factors that contributed to such disappointing results. The company explains the decline in production and sales by the initial phase of production ramp-up updated Model 3 at the main plant in Fremont, plant shutdown and logistical difficulties due to Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea and the recent the arson attack on the Gigafactory in Berlin.
Tesla will publish a full financial report with all the details on April 23, and then we’ll see how much the key financial indicators will deteriorate — it may be recalled that Tesla has already begun to feel the effects price war. In fact, Elon Musk’s company has exhaustedthe potential for further price reductions in China, і profitability continues to fall.
Increased competition and a seasonal decline in demand in the Chinese market (Chinese New Year) were expected to affect manufacturers of battery packs and plug-in hybrids PHEV — BYD, funded by Warren Buffett, shipped 300 114 all-electric electric vehicles (BEVs). This is 42% less than in the fourth quarter of 2023.
According to the estimates of EV-VolumesIn 2023, about 14.2 million electric cars (10 million BEVs + 4.2 million PHEVs/EREVs) were sold worldwide, — 16% of total sales. At the same time, the growth rate slowed to 35% from 55% in 2022. And by the end of 2023, there were about 40 million electric cars in active use in the world (of which 70% were BEVs and the remaining 30% were PHEVs). In 2024, global sales of electric vehicles are expected to reach 17.8 million units (+25% compared to 2023), and their share will increase to 25%. At the same time, BEV sales will increase to 12.8 million.