Elon Musk Says His Biggest Tesla Competition Will Be A Chinese Automaker: ‘They Do The Smartest’ Elon Musk Temporarily Salutes His Electric Car Giant With His “Mr. Tweet”. There is a call to identify the biggest challenge India faces this Wednesday: competition from China.
With Tesla coming off its worst year in the markets, Musk, who has been the company’s CEO since 2008, had to answer some tough questions during an investor call covering the company’s performance through the fourth quarter of 2022.
Last year, after a meteoric rise in 2020 and 2021, fell to a two-year low in November of last year. Investors in the electric vehicle company have raised concerns about Musk after he acquired Twitter last year, while his appearance in court this week for allegedly misleading Tesla investors with his “funding secured” tweet in 2018 Certainly hasn’t helped matters.
Tesla investors were relieved when the company reported record revenue on Wednesday. Musk said during the call that the first few weeks of January saw the company “the strongest orders we’ve ever seen in our history”, suggesting that a series of price cuts around the world helped boost demand.
But when pressed on the state of the electric vehicle industry in China, where Tesla has lost ground over the past year, Musk acknowledged that Chinese companies are the most likely to challenge Tesla’s dominance.
Elon Musk said, “We have a lot of respect for the car companies in China. They are the most competitive in the world in our experience, and the Chinese market is the most competitive.” “They work the hardest and they work the smartest, and we have a lot of respect for the Chinese companies we’re competing against.”
If I had to guess, it’s probably a company from China that is likely to be second only to Tesla, he said. Electric vehicles are big business in China, with the market accounting for two-thirds of EV demand last year, and Tesla, which began producing cars at its Shanghai Gigafactory in 2019, is far from the only game in town.
The demand for EVs in China is huge; A record 6 million electric cars were sold in China last year, accounting for more than a quarter of new vehicle sales, and Chinese electric car companies are rising to meet the demand. Chinese carmaker BYD, which is backed by Warren Buffett, overtook Tesla in electric car sales in China last year.
In 2021, nearly 300 EV-manufacturing companies will operate in China, benefiting from more than a decade of investment and generous subsidies by the Chinese government to develop the industry, which now includes nearly 4 million charging stations spread across the country’s provinces.
EV subsidies were initially intended for electric cars to reach price parity with combustion engine vehicles, and the field has matured and diversified in the decade since they were first implemented. The box-shaped mini EV developed by Chinese company Wuling cost just over $5,000 last year, and has been ranked as the best-selling electric car in China for 2021.
Subsidies for consumers were to be reduced in 2021 and expire on January 1 this year, but some tax exemptions remain, while industry analysts predict the industry will become more policy-driven in the coming years.
Musk has praised Chinese automakers in the past, calling them “the most competitive in the world” in 2021, adding that Chinese electric car makers boast advanced software designs that “could shape the future of the automobile industry”.
They also represent a major threat to Tesla’s declining power as demand for its vehicles dwindles in China, which currently accounts for 40% of the company’s sales. BYD, Tesla’s main competitor in China, and other Chinese manufacturers posted huge sales growth late last year, while Tesla’s numbers plunged more than 40% in December.
Tesla cut car prices twice in China in the past few months after the Chinese government removed its EV subsidies to boost sales amid slowing demand. The company has since cut the prices in the US and other markets as well. Elon Musk suggested during the earnings call that price cuts were needed given Tesla’s record profits last quarter, and said the outlook for demand in the coming year was optimistic, despite concerns about the overall automotive There was contraction in the market.
BloombergNEF analysis projects 40% growth in Tesla sales in 2023, while its sought-after Model Y car could become the best-selling EV in the world and among the top three cars of any type globally Is. But while Tesla is still underperforming in some places, it is growing more than China’s domestic automakers.
Original Content @Yahoo News