As many EV sellers continue to struggle with various issues, Elon Musk’s Tesla continues to shoot past the competition.
On July 2, the carmaker announced it had sold nearly 470,000 cars worldwide in the second quarter which, according to NBC News, outpaced Wall Street estimates.
Outlets such as NBC News and CNN Business attribute this success to recent price cuts and EV tax credits, both of which Musk’s company appears to be taking full advantage of.
“Price cuts implemented early in 2023 have paid major dividends for Musk & Co. as demand appears to remain very strong and production efficiencies have allowed for the massive deliveries beat this quarter,” analyst Dan Ives told CNN Business.
Back in mid-April, Musk addressed the price cuts directly on Twitter.
Tom, we’re not “starting a price war”, we’re just lowering prices to enable affordability at scale
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2023
“..we’re not ‘starting a price war’, we’re just lowering prices to enable affordability at scale,” Musk wrote.
Amidst Tesla’s success, many of its competitors appear to be struggling with a number of sales and production problems.
Volkswagen, for example, recently laid off 300 employees and announced it would be greatly reducing its own production numbers, according to The U.S. Sun.
“The Volkswagen brand, like other car manufacturers, is currently seeing softening demand for electric cars,” one representative said.
“Reasons for this include reduced subsidies, higher inflation and recent longer delivery times due to the shortage of parts.”
Ford’s EV division is facing its own issues in recent weeks as well.
A March projection for investors revealed the subsidiary is expected to lose roughly $3 billion by end-of-year.
This is likely thanks to, in part, a recent spate of F-150 Lightning purchase cancellations which, according to one Ford dealership sales manager, is the fault of recent price increases.
“Ford advertised a $40,000 electric vehicle, and that attracted a lot of people. Now we’ve seen price increases, and those people are like, ‘I’m out,’” the manager told The Verge.
“Customers tell me that they were looking to get in at that $40,000 truck, but now that’s $60,000, and you can’t even get that truck since they’re sold out of them. Now you’ll have to pay $65,000 minimum; that’s just a whole different level.”
According to InsideEVs, market research indicates a steady, year-0ver-year industry drop in EV sales may be the result of cost misunderstandings related to driving range, battery life and other EV features.
Despite this, Tesla continues to exceed expectations.
Success for the Musk-owned car maker is nothing new. In all of 2022 and 2023’s first quarter, Tesla sold the largest share of all-electric cars among automotive dealers, as reported by InsideEvs.
Thanks to the Musk-owned company’s recent move to lower prices, that sales lead may soon grow to new heights.
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