Tesla No Longer Leading EV Manufacturer As Issues Pile Up
Tesla has been leading the way for electric vehicles for some time, but after a few difficult times recently, with employee lawsuits and FSD bugs, it looks as though they have lost the top spot.
For the second quarter of the year, Tesla sales dropped to its lowest level which was 18% lower than the quarter is this year. Tesla are putting this down to the supply chain issues and temporary closure of the Shanghai Gigafactory. This also can’t be helped by the recent news of the two-week closure of the Berlin Gigafactory.
Tesla has now been overtaken as the worlds top-selling electric vehicle brand by BYD which is backed by Warren Buffett. Just to compare, Tesla has sold 564,000 new vehicles in the first six months of 2022, where BYD have sold 641,000 in China. The only thing to note is that BYD produce hybrids as well as full EVs so they are not all fully electric, however, China do class hybrid vehicles as ‘zero emission’.
Tesla previously stated that they would increase sales in 2022 by over 50%. They sold 936,000 vehicles in 2021 and with only selling 564,000 so far this year, they still have over 800,000 to deliver.
When quizzed in an interview about the ongoing issues with Tesla at the moment, CEO Elon Musk said:
“[Getting the Berlin and Austin plants functional] are overwhelmingly our concerns. Everything else is a very small thing.”
It has become a popular opinion that Musk has put more of his focus into purchasing Twitter than into his main business. It will be interesting to see if Tesla can take the crown back and make up the order pledge by the end of the year, but with how things are currently, this looks to be a long shot.
