Tesla May Not Hit Its Lofty Sales Goals
Happy Wednesday! It’s December 27, 2023, and this is The Morning Shift — your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, all in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
The Hype Behind Tesla Stock Success In 2023
1st Gear: Tesla Sales Are Good, But Likely Will Fall Short Of Musk’s 2 Million Goal
Tesla has been moving from peak to peak, it seems, and this year is no exception — the company expects to post record sales once again. Yet, despite seeing new heights, the company isn’t expected to do as well as its CEO hoped. From Reuters:
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 27 (Reuters) – Tesla (TSLA.O) is expected to post another record quarter for electric vehicle (EV) deliveries, likely shy of an ambitious 2 million annual internal target that CEO Elon Musk touted at the beginning of the year.
Faced with slowing sales, Tesla leveraged its industry-leading margins and slashed prices of its four car models globally in 2023, with a focus on China, where the company has lost market share to locals including BYD (002594.SZ).
The price war and slowing EV demand, however, have prompted automakers including Ford Motor (F.N) to pull back on their electrification plans, leaving Tesla as the undisputed leader in the United States and helping its stock more than double this year.
“The fourth quarter is typically the strongest of the year in terms of deliveries for Tesla, we’re expecting that to be the case again this year,” said Garrett Nelson, senior analyst at CFRA Research.
Tesla likely delivered 1.82 million vehicles globally in 2023, up 37% from 2022, with about 473,000 units in the fourth quarter, according to 14 analysts polled by LSEG. The EV maker is expected to report quarterly deliveries and production as early as Tuesday.
For some time now — possibly for most of the company’s history — Tesla has been a collection of talented engineers guided towards stupid ends by a man who seemingly cares only for how history will remember him personally. Well, that, and how blonde his current partner is.
2nd Gear: EV Demand Is Tapering Off In The U.S.
EV demand in the United States is in an interesting place. Much like any new tech, electric cars are having trouble crossing the chasm of adoption — moving from buyers who are cutting-edge enthusiasts to buyers who are regular old commuters. New data shows that growth in the sector is still continuing, but it’s slowing to a concerning degree. From the Wall Street Journal:
Electric-vehicle sales growth hit a speed bump in the U.S. this year, and the impact is being felt throughout the industry.
Carmakers around the world have invested billions of dollars in EV technology, spurred on by tailpipe emissions regulations designed to boost sales of battery-powered models. But as customers in the U.S. hesitate to make the switch from traditional gas-engine vehicles, some auto companies are delaying plans on electric-vehicle spending.
Sales of electric models rose rapidly in the first 11 months of the year, faster than the car market as a whole but at a slower pace than in previous years.
Car executives say they are confident that sales will accelerate as additional lower-priced models come out and the availability of public chargers improves.
With the entire global regulatory apparatus behind EVs, they’re unlikely to fail — I’m sorry to say, your V8 won’t last forever. Just how long the EV transition will take, though, remains unknown.
3rd Gear: Britain Is Trying To Legislate Autonomous Vehicle Liability
There are not, currently, self-driving cars that can outperform a human driver. We may get there eventually, but driving simply has too many edge cases to consider, and it’ll be tough for any computer to learn them all. That’s not stopping Britain, though, from allowing the tech onto its roads. From Reuters:
LONDON, Dec 27 (Reuters) – Self-driving cars could be on some British roads by 2026, the country’s transport minister Mark Harper said on Wednesday.
Cars with full self-driving technology are not currently permitted on Britain’s roads but the government’s Automated Vehicles (AV) legislation is going through parliament, meaning that a legal framework for them should be in place by the end of 2024, said Harper.
“Probably by as early as 2026 people will start seeing some elements of these cars that have full self-driving capabilities being rolled out,” Harper told BBC Radio.
I guess this is the Brits’ solution to being left out of those European transit plans. That’s what you get for leaving the EU, I’m sorry to say. I didn’t spend my college career wondering why I was left out of Canadian drinking-age laws, did I?
4th Gear: Over Three Quarters Of Vehicle Launches In 2023 Were Delayed
Any time you build something new, you’re going to find oddities in the design. There will be things to modify and processes to perfect, and you’re going to get some things wrong at first. When an entire industry starts building new things, you’d hope for better results, but new data shows you won’t get them. From Automotive News:
Delayed model launches are on the rise in the auto industry, and EVs are a big contributor, according to consulting firm PwC.
The delays have come in part from challenges surrounding the electric vehicle transition — namely, that EVs have less established designs and suppliers are having a hard time keeping up.
EV “designs are not as mature as the old traditional components; that leads to significant late changes and that contributes to the launch issues,” said Akshay Singh, an automotive partner at PwC Strategy&. “EV designs are evolving, and that is going to cause even more issues going forward.”
In 2023, 34 percent of all vehicle launches experienced production delays, compared with 5 percent in 2018, PwC said.
The irony, of course, is that EVs are — in terms of moving parts — less complicated than ICE vehicles. They’re more solid-state in their design, but carmakers aren’t used to accommodating for that design. We’ll get to a point where new EVs can roll off the production line reliably, but for now it might be worth waiting until the second model year of production before you buy in.
Reverse: Oh Hey, That Building Next To The Office
Neutral: New Keyboard Goofing
Photo: Steve DaSilva / Jalopnik
This is the first post I’ve typed out on my latest keyboard, a handwired split Alice-style setup built by a friend of mine. Once I get used to it, it’ll replace the Prime_E that used to be my daily driver. Or, perhaps, that one will just move to the office. Anyway, what’s your keyboard setup right now?
On The Radio: Matt N – “A Cruel Barbie’s Thesis”
A Cruel Barbie’s Thesis (Full) – Matt N
Did you know there was a full version of this song, that mixes “Barbie Girl” with “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis”? Now you do.
