The electric car manufacturer Tesla started a difficult car year 2024 with a significant decline in sales. For the first time in almost four years, deliveries fell – by 8.5 percent in the first quarter to just under 387,000 cars, according to data published on Tuesday.
Tesla is struggling with growing competition from industry newcomers such as smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi in China and the growing range of electric cars from traditional car manufacturers, including German ones. At the same time, demand for electric cars is weakening worldwide due to high interest rates. At the Tesla factory in Germany, an arson attack on the power supply and supply chain problems recently caused production losses. In addition to the preparations at the Fremont plant in California for the production of the new version of the Model 3, this was one of the reasons for the weaker sales, Tesla explained. Compared to the previous quarter, sales fell by 20 percent in the first quarter. Analysts had only expected a decline of around five percent compared to the final quarter of 2023. Production from January to March amounted to a good 433,000 vehicles.
After years of rapid sales growth, which made Tesla the most valuable car company in the world on the stock market, the electric car pioneer is also struggling with headwinds. The effect of price cuts and discounts is now dwindling as Americans are only slowly refreshing their aging model range and will only come up with important new products next year. Analysts warned that the residual value of cars, which falls with prices, could harm the brand.
Tesla boss Elon Musk promised significantly slower growth this year. Analysts previously expected sales to increase by a fifth to 2.2 million cars for the year as a whole, after a good third increase in 2023. But the competition is weakening. The Chinese car manufacturer BYD has to give up the position it gained in the final quarter of 2023 as the world’s largest electric car manufacturer to Tesla. BYD sold a good 300,000 electric cars in the first quarter.