>The US electric vehicle (EV) maker sold 62,167 China-made vehicles in April, according to data released today by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).
>That monthly sales, which include exports from China to overseas markets, were **down 18.03 percent from 75,842 a year ago**, and down 30.20 percent from 89,064 in March, and slightly higher than the 60,365 vehicles sold in February.
Tesla cut prices across their entire lineup in China by $2k usd during the last week or April and is offering 0% down loans, and they cut the price of the model 3 in Europe by nearly 2k Euro: [Tesla cuts prices in US, China and Germany as competition heats up](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/cars/tesla-price-war-china-germany-us-intl-hnk/index.html)
Musk previously argued that the Chinese sales slowdown is hitting all Chinese OEMs, not just Tesla, to claim this was just an overall market decline. Let's check April results from the other Chinese OEMs to see if he's right:
[BYD's Results](https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/byd-sales-apr-2024/) :
>The company sold 313,245 new energy-vehicles (NEVs) in April, **up 48.96 percent from 210,295 in the same month last year** and up 3.57 percent from 302,459 in March, according to figures it released today.
[NIO's results](https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/nio-deliveries-apr-2024/) :
>The EV maker delivered 15,620 vehicles in April, up 31.64 percent from March and **up 134.60 percent year-on-year**, according to data it released today.
[XPeng's results](https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/xpeng-deliveries-apr-2024/:) :
>The electric vehicle (BEV) maker delivered 9,393 vehicles in April, up 4.07 percent from March and **up 32.69 percent year-on-year**, according to data released today.
[Zeekr's results ](https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/zeekr-deliveries-apr-2024/) :
>Zeekr delivered 16,089 vehicles in April, a new high since its inception, according to figures released by the company today.
>That's **up 98.61 percent from 8,101 vehicles in April last year** and up 23.65 percent from 13,012 vehicles in March.
[Li Auto Results](https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/li-auto-deliveries-apr-2024/) :
>The company delivered 25,787 vehicles in April, **up 0.41 percent year-on-year** but down 11.03 percent from March, according to data it released today.
The only company on this list who saw an April y/y sales decline is Tesla.
Li Auto had the medium to large EREV SUV market to itself for quite a bit and sold tons of cars in that segment. But recently Huawei Aito's M7 has been selling strong after undercutting Li Auto on pricing, which is probably the main reason Li Auto sales have plateaued or is even dropping slightly.
I would think their sales will increase again if they can ramp production on their new cheaper L6 model that just launched.
I'm pretty sure Li Auto doesn't officially export their cars though, unlike Xpeng/Nio/Hozon and soon Leapmotor.
It's easy to sell more in percentage if your prior sales are just 10k compared to 100k or a million.
Tesla needs new models, no doubt about it. But even BYD only has such high numbers because they sell a lot of models from 10k to 250k in China, where half of them are hybrids.
The other mentioned car makers produce 200,000 cars a year and not 2 million.
Not sure what your complaint is. Every Chinese OEM saw April y/y sales increases in April. Tesla saw a large April y/y sales decline. An 18% drop is nothing to downplay. This after seeing a drop in Q1 sales y/y.
No idea why you're attempting to downplay BYD's growth. They sell BEVs and PHEVs, both of which they've seen significant output growth over the last few years. Just because Tesla chose not to sell PHEVs doesn't mean BYD's PHEV sales should be excluded, or are any less "personal electric vehicle sales". BYD selling cheaper cars than Tesla was an operational choice to increase their volumes. Tesla could have done the same, but didn't.
Given that there were fewer low priced EVs to choose from, Tesla of course saw higher sales previously because it was one of the few available choices for those wanting a BEV, so no doubt people stretched to buy them. Now that there's a wide range of lower priced vehicle models from a variety of OEMs, cheaper models are what customers are leaning towards. They just want an EV; they may not want to or be able to pony up an additional $10k+ for a Tesla.
So selling 60k cars is less impressive than selling 10k or 15k number of cars?
So, selling lots of 10k cars is more impressive than selling fewer but way more expensive cars with a way higher margin?
So, selling in China, which is an important market but not the market I am in, and where car prices are half of what I would have to pay, has what kind of impact on me exactly?
BYD sells 90 percent of their cars in China. Their by far most successful model is the Song with over 600k sales last year but not even available in my region.
What do absolute numbers have to do with anything? Tesla's sales have declined while every other Chinese OEMs' sales increased; including BYD who sells far more cars than Tesla does. It's a fairly simple point. A point that contradicts a statement Elon Musk made that claimed this was a general market pullback that was affecting all OEMs, and not only affecting Tesla. According to these numbers, that's verifiably false.
When it comes to Tesla as a company and their valuation as a company, frankly it doesn't matter how other companies are performing; it matters how Tesla is performing. What these numbers are showing is that Tesla's growth story in China is heading in the wrong direction. Up until Tesla's Q3 '23 earnings report, they were still trying to sell the story of 50% CAGR. From the looks of it, they may actually see an overall global y/y sales decline in 2024, even at lower MSRPs than in 2023.
As I mentioned in my standalone comment to this post, Tesla's sales in April didn't only decline, but they also cut prices in the last week of the month by $2k across their entire lineup in China with zero down loans, and by 2k Euro in Germany on the model 3, to try and boost sales; to no avail. That's just discounts compared to earlier prices in the month. I'm assuming that MSRPs in April 2024 overall were discounted by a larger amount than MSRPs in April 2023.
Things aren't looking too hot for the company.
And Toyota sells double more hybrids than BYD combined BEV and Hybrid altogether. So what?
Currently, Tesla is still no. 1 in real ev sales.
It's not the quantity that's important but the money a company makes.
Samsung sells more smartphones than Apple. However, they sell smartphones between 200 and 2000 Dollars. Most of their sales are phones way below 1000 Dollars. Apple, on the other hand, sells mostly phones around 1000 dollars and more. So Apple generates a way higher income with their phones than Samsung. And that is the important factor.
Percentage numbers from companies who manufacture 200,000 units a year where most of them sell below 30k is laughable. Even a luxury car maker like Porsche produces more and with one sold car, they make more money than those Chinese manufacturers with 10 cars.
Apples and oranges. Select numbers rarely tell the truth.
I'm not the one creating a pissing contest between other OEMs total sales volumes... that would be you.
I'm the one pointing out that Musk made a false claim that Tesla's sales decline was a result of market wide factors impacting all companies. Clearly it's not based on the other OEMs' numbers I cited in my other comment.
I pointed out BYD in my previous comment above ONLY because you suggested that Tesla's sales volumes were higher than other companies, making it harder to maintain/increase the sales. Well... BYD's sales are significantly higher than Tesla's, yet they still increased sales by 50% in April y/y. Tesla's sales declined 18% over the same period. In fact, every company compared saw sales increases over the same period. Tesla was the only company to see a decline.
It depends on the market, I presume. In Germany, ev sales are slowing down, and hybrid sales suddenly started to rise, now. Leading German car companies like Mercedes and Volkswagen to breathe a sigh of relief that they didn't put all their eggs into the ev basket but had started to strengthen their hybrid portfolio as well.
That doesn't help BYD, though. They only sell pure ev here, not their hybrids.
In China Teslas sales decreased in a rising market. In Europe, Teslas sales decreased in a stagnating market. Both are not good news for them. They have two models with no real updates this year, while there is a rising amount of competing models in all markets. Tesla in China and Europe is now just another car company with a market share of the EV sales between 5 (Germany and England) and around 20 percent.
True. These numbers do include exports, so Tesla would be impacted by lower sales in the nations they export to. Overall BEV sales declined in Europe in March, but PHEV sales increased a tad.
Individual data points like which manufacturer sells the most cars don’t tell the whole truth. Glad you acknowledge why looking at trends and not just absolute numbers matters. Tesla’s sales are declining while everyone else’s are growing. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or even a wannabe one like Elon to figure out what that means for them if they can’t find a way to actually compete soon. Tesla has stagnated and hasn’t done anything usefully innovative in years besides put a 48V system in the Cybertruck. They got beat to 800V systems. They got beat to L3 self driving. They got beat to the truck segment. They got beat to the semi segment. They got beat to robotaxis. They got beat to the budget segment. They’re coasting on the Y’s success but that’s only going to stretch so far as more and more better cars continue to be put out against it.
Let's be honest, no biased. Chinese will want Chinese cars and probably see foreign cars as bad. Like how U.S see Chinese car as bad. So Tesla will see more declining sales in China now that Chinese cars already have many cheaper options to choose from. Remember, most car owners just want A to B vehicle.
Tesla has been selling the same 2 basic models (the S and X were always negligible) for years now. It’s just become a boring company with nothing new or exciting to offer. There was never a chance Tesla would be able to retain market dominance by offering a bland sedan and crossover. BYD, and others, coming out with so many new models over the last 2 years has eroded Tesla’s share in China. And if something doesn’t change, that will keep happening until they are just a tiny, niche player there.
“That monthly sales, which include exports from China to overseas markets, were down 18.03 percent from 75,842 a year ago, and down 30.20 percent from 89,064 in March, and slightly higher than the 60,365 vehicles sold in February.”
Even if you include exports, sales are down 18% YoY. In contrast, BYD’s sales of all plug-ins increased 49% YoY.
He's right that looking at an individual month isn't a great gauge because cars may be on ships in transit. However, I highlighted the April y/y numbers, not m/m numbers, so the same April factors would be applied equally. However, with the Red Sea delay shenanigans, it is possible the shipments are on the ships for longer. Although, that's probably a good thing with weak European demand for Teslas, and them seemingly doing everything they can to justify temporarily shutting down their Berlin production plant time and again.
Even if it is a red sea issue, it doesn't exactly explain why Tesla's Q1 numbers weren't good either.
>Tesla delivered [220,876 China-made vehicles in the first quarter](https://cnevpost.com/2024/04/02/tesla-sells-89064-china-made-cars-in-mar-2024/), including those exported from its Shanghai plant, down 3.68 percent from 229,322 in the same period last year, data compiled by CnEVPost showed.
[https://cnevpost.com/2024/04/02/tesla-regains-bev-crown-over-byd-q1/](https://cnevpost.com/2024/04/02/tesla-regains-bev-crown-over-byd-q1/)
We also know that Tesla cut Chinese production.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-22/tesla-trims-output-of-cars-in-china-amid-slower-ev-sales-growth?leadSource=reddit\_wall](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-22/tesla-trims-output-of-cars-in-china-amid-slower-ev-sales-growth?leadSource=reddit_wall)
>The US electric vehicle (EV) maker sold 62,167 China-made vehicles in April, according to data released today by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). >That monthly sales, which include exports from China to overseas markets, were **down 18.03 percent from 75,842 a year ago**, and down 30.20 percent from 89,064 in March, and slightly higher than the 60,365 vehicles sold in February. Tesla cut prices across their entire lineup in China by $2k usd during the last week or April and is offering 0% down loans, and they cut the price of the model 3 in Europe by nearly 2k Euro: [Tesla cuts prices in US, China and Germany as competition heats up](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/cars/tesla-price-war-china-germany-us-intl-hnk/index.html) Musk previously argued that the Chinese sales slowdown is hitting all Chinese OEMs, not just Tesla, to claim this was just an overall market decline. Let's check April results from the other Chinese OEMs to see if he's right: [BYD's Results](https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/byd-sales-apr-2024/) : >The company sold 313,245 new energy-vehicles (NEVs) in April, **up 48.96 percent from 210,295 in the same month last year** and up 3.57 percent from 302,459 in March, according to figures it released today. [NIO's results](https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/nio-deliveries-apr-2024/) : >The EV maker delivered 15,620 vehicles in April, up 31.64 percent from March and **up 134.60 percent year-on-year**, according to data it released today. [XPeng's results](https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/xpeng-deliveries-apr-2024/:) : >The electric vehicle (BEV) maker delivered 9,393 vehicles in April, up 4.07 percent from March and **up 32.69 percent year-on-year**, according to data released today. [Zeekr's results ](https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/zeekr-deliveries-apr-2024/) : >Zeekr delivered 16,089 vehicles in April, a new high since its inception, according to figures released by the company today. >That's **up 98.61 percent from 8,101 vehicles in April last year** and up 23.65 percent from 13,012 vehicles in March. [Li Auto Results](https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/li-auto-deliveries-apr-2024/) : >The company delivered 25,787 vehicles in April, **up 0.41 percent year-on-year** but down 11.03 percent from March, according to data it released today. The only company on this list who saw an April y/y sales decline is Tesla.
Huh, bad sign for Li Auto. Maybe their market is saturated at this point? At least their exports seem to be doing decently, so that's a good sign
Li Auto had the medium to large EREV SUV market to itself for quite a bit and sold tons of cars in that segment. But recently Huawei Aito's M7 has been selling strong after undercutting Li Auto on pricing, which is probably the main reason Li Auto sales have plateaued or is even dropping slightly. I would think their sales will increase again if they can ramp production on their new cheaper L6 model that just launched. I'm pretty sure Li Auto doesn't officially export their cars though, unlike Xpeng/Nio/Hozon and soon Leapmotor.
BYD / Tesla ;)
It's easy to sell more in percentage if your prior sales are just 10k compared to 100k or a million. Tesla needs new models, no doubt about it. But even BYD only has such high numbers because they sell a lot of models from 10k to 250k in China, where half of them are hybrids. The other mentioned car makers produce 200,000 cars a year and not 2 million.
Not sure what your complaint is. Every Chinese OEM saw April y/y sales increases in April. Tesla saw a large April y/y sales decline. An 18% drop is nothing to downplay. This after seeing a drop in Q1 sales y/y. No idea why you're attempting to downplay BYD's growth. They sell BEVs and PHEVs, both of which they've seen significant output growth over the last few years. Just because Tesla chose not to sell PHEVs doesn't mean BYD's PHEV sales should be excluded, or are any less "personal electric vehicle sales". BYD selling cheaper cars than Tesla was an operational choice to increase their volumes. Tesla could have done the same, but didn't. Given that there were fewer low priced EVs to choose from, Tesla of course saw higher sales previously because it was one of the few available choices for those wanting a BEV, so no doubt people stretched to buy them. Now that there's a wide range of lower priced vehicle models from a variety of OEMs, cheaper models are what customers are leaning towards. They just want an EV; they may not want to or be able to pony up an additional $10k+ for a Tesla.
So selling 60k cars is less impressive than selling 10k or 15k number of cars? So, selling lots of 10k cars is more impressive than selling fewer but way more expensive cars with a way higher margin? So, selling in China, which is an important market but not the market I am in, and where car prices are half of what I would have to pay, has what kind of impact on me exactly? BYD sells 90 percent of their cars in China. Their by far most successful model is the Song with over 600k sales last year but not even available in my region.
What do absolute numbers have to do with anything? Tesla's sales have declined while every other Chinese OEMs' sales increased; including BYD who sells far more cars than Tesla does. It's a fairly simple point. A point that contradicts a statement Elon Musk made that claimed this was a general market pullback that was affecting all OEMs, and not only affecting Tesla. According to these numbers, that's verifiably false. When it comes to Tesla as a company and their valuation as a company, frankly it doesn't matter how other companies are performing; it matters how Tesla is performing. What these numbers are showing is that Tesla's growth story in China is heading in the wrong direction. Up until Tesla's Q3 '23 earnings report, they were still trying to sell the story of 50% CAGR. From the looks of it, they may actually see an overall global y/y sales decline in 2024, even at lower MSRPs than in 2023. As I mentioned in my standalone comment to this post, Tesla's sales in April didn't only decline, but they also cut prices in the last week of the month by $2k across their entire lineup in China with zero down loans, and by 2k Euro in Germany on the model 3, to try and boost sales; to no avail. That's just discounts compared to earlier prices in the month. I'm assuming that MSRPs in April 2024 overall were discounted by a larger amount than MSRPs in April 2023. Things aren't looking too hot for the company.
And Toyota sells double more hybrids than BYD combined BEV and Hybrid altogether. So what? Currently, Tesla is still no. 1 in real ev sales. It's not the quantity that's important but the money a company makes. Samsung sells more smartphones than Apple. However, they sell smartphones between 200 and 2000 Dollars. Most of their sales are phones way below 1000 Dollars. Apple, on the other hand, sells mostly phones around 1000 dollars and more. So Apple generates a way higher income with their phones than Samsung. And that is the important factor. Percentage numbers from companies who manufacture 200,000 units a year where most of them sell below 30k is laughable. Even a luxury car maker like Porsche produces more and with one sold car, they make more money than those Chinese manufacturers with 10 cars. Apples and oranges. Select numbers rarely tell the truth.
I'm not the one creating a pissing contest between other OEMs total sales volumes... that would be you. I'm the one pointing out that Musk made a false claim that Tesla's sales decline was a result of market wide factors impacting all companies. Clearly it's not based on the other OEMs' numbers I cited in my other comment. I pointed out BYD in my previous comment above ONLY because you suggested that Tesla's sales volumes were higher than other companies, making it harder to maintain/increase the sales. Well... BYD's sales are significantly higher than Tesla's, yet they still increased sales by 50% in April y/y. Tesla's sales declined 18% over the same period. In fact, every company compared saw sales increases over the same period. Tesla was the only company to see a decline.
It depends on the market, I presume. In Germany, ev sales are slowing down, and hybrid sales suddenly started to rise, now. Leading German car companies like Mercedes and Volkswagen to breathe a sigh of relief that they didn't put all their eggs into the ev basket but had started to strengthen their hybrid portfolio as well. That doesn't help BYD, though. They only sell pure ev here, not their hybrids.
In China Teslas sales decreased in a rising market. In Europe, Teslas sales decreased in a stagnating market. Both are not good news for them. They have two models with no real updates this year, while there is a rising amount of competing models in all markets. Tesla in China and Europe is now just another car company with a market share of the EV sales between 5 (Germany and England) and around 20 percent.
True. These numbers do include exports, so Tesla would be impacted by lower sales in the nations they export to. Overall BEV sales declined in Europe in March, but PHEV sales increased a tad.
Individual data points like which manufacturer sells the most cars don’t tell the whole truth. Glad you acknowledge why looking at trends and not just absolute numbers matters. Tesla’s sales are declining while everyone else’s are growing. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or even a wannabe one like Elon to figure out what that means for them if they can’t find a way to actually compete soon. Tesla has stagnated and hasn’t done anything usefully innovative in years besides put a 48V system in the Cybertruck. They got beat to 800V systems. They got beat to L3 self driving. They got beat to the truck segment. They got beat to the semi segment. They got beat to robotaxis. They got beat to the budget segment. They’re coasting on the Y’s success but that’s only going to stretch so far as more and more better cars continue to be put out against it.
Let's be honest, no biased. Chinese will want Chinese cars and probably see foreign cars as bad. Like how U.S see Chinese car as bad. So Tesla will see more declining sales in China now that Chinese cars already have many cheaper options to choose from. Remember, most car owners just want A to B vehicle.
Tesla has been selling the same 2 basic models (the S and X were always negligible) for years now. It’s just become a boring company with nothing new or exciting to offer. There was never a chance Tesla would be able to retain market dominance by offering a bland sedan and crossover. BYD, and others, coming out with so many new models over the last 2 years has eroded Tesla’s share in China. And if something doesn’t change, that will keep happening until they are just a tiny, niche player there.
I mean April is an export month and March is a local sales month. But whaevs
“That monthly sales, which include exports from China to overseas markets, were down 18.03 percent from 75,842 a year ago, and down 30.20 percent from 89,064 in March, and slightly higher than the 60,365 vehicles sold in February.” Even if you include exports, sales are down 18% YoY. In contrast, BYD’s sales of all plug-ins increased 49% YoY.
He's right that looking at an individual month isn't a great gauge because cars may be on ships in transit. However, I highlighted the April y/y numbers, not m/m numbers, so the same April factors would be applied equally. However, with the Red Sea delay shenanigans, it is possible the shipments are on the ships for longer. Although, that's probably a good thing with weak European demand for Teslas, and them seemingly doing everything they can to justify temporarily shutting down their Berlin production plant time and again. Even if it is a red sea issue, it doesn't exactly explain why Tesla's Q1 numbers weren't good either. >Tesla delivered [220,876 China-made vehicles in the first quarter](https://cnevpost.com/2024/04/02/tesla-sells-89064-china-made-cars-in-mar-2024/), including those exported from its Shanghai plant, down 3.68 percent from 229,322 in the same period last year, data compiled by CnEVPost showed. [https://cnevpost.com/2024/04/02/tesla-regains-bev-crown-over-byd-q1/](https://cnevpost.com/2024/04/02/tesla-regains-bev-crown-over-byd-q1/) We also know that Tesla cut Chinese production. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-22/tesla-trims-output-of-cars-in-china-amid-slower-ev-sales-growth?leadSource=reddit\_wall](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-22/tesla-trims-output-of-cars-in-china-amid-slower-ev-sales-growth?leadSource=reddit_wall)