AP News

Tesla loses title as world's biggest electric vehicle mak...

Tesla lost its crown as the world’s bestselling electric vehicle maker on Friday as a customer revolt over Elon Musk’s right-wing politics, expiring U.S. tax breaks to buyers and stiff overseas compet

And industry leadership in EVs requires constant technical innovation (e.g. SS batteries), along with having at least one line producing simple bare bones sedans affordable to Millennials in the middle class. Fancy sporty cars are fun, help reduce testicular shrinkage in midlife males, and help establish brand visibility, but you can't depend on them or on dumpster-trucks, or on theatrical drug induced looniness from a CEO, to maintain your market share.

When I heard that BYD was selling a subcompact for around 9K (USD) in China, I sorta knew Tesla's days as the reigning EV monarch were ending.

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

AP News

Tesla loses title as world's biggest electric vehicle mak...

Tesla lost its crown as the world’s bestselling electric vehicle maker on Friday as a customer revolt over Elon Musk’s right-wing politics, expiring U.S. tax breaks to buyers and stiff overseas compet

And industry leadership in EVs requires constant technical innovation (e.g. SS batteries), along with having at least one line producing simple bare bones sedans affordable to Millennials in the middle class. Fancy sporty cars are fun, help reduce testicular shrinkage in midlife males, and help establish brand visibility, but you can't depend on them or on dumpster-trucks, or on theatrical drug induced looniness from a CEO, to maintain your market share.

When I heard that BYD was selling a subcompact for around 9K (USD) in China, I sorta knew Tesla's days as the reigning EV monarch were ending.

Interesting though that the stock price went up, slightly, nonetheless. From the article it appears investors are willing to buy Muskie's bet on robotaxis, which seems to be where he is now focused, finding the swasticars themselves too boring.

Personally I think he's gone nuts now and will blow up, as so many entrepreneurs do when they believe too much of their own bullshit, in his case becoming distracted by neofascist political meddling in Europe. But then I'm not a stock market investor.

Tesla makes a bundle selling carbon credits, but as their sales fall and other manufacturers grow, that profit stream will shrink.

Bubbles eventually burst.

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Personally I think he's gone nuts now and will blow up, as so many entrepreneurs do when they believe too much of their own bullshit, in his case becoming distracted by neofascist political meddling in Europe. But then I'm not a stock market investor.

I am not sure if he has changed much- he just got into unfathomable and unchecked amount of power. I think it does show how the stock market can be based on faith more than on facts, depending on the shareholders. It is, after all, just a representation of the collective believes of stock buyers. Some will be rational, others not so much. And some will likely bank on the lack of rationality of some of those buyers.

Musk strategies has for some time to bank on the magic of software, specifically machine learning, focusing on data, rather than engineering or programming. The only way it plays off for robotaxis, if the software gets so good that it can rival the technical capabilities of e.g. Waymo. Then, the Teslas already on the street could, in theory be switched to a giant robotaxi fleet. Fundamentally, the clever part of the business model is that Tesla is able to use customers as prototype testers and collect their data for training. It matters little that Teslas currently still cannot really self-drive and that other car companies have made improvements over them.

That being said, a lot of folks are banking on Musk's promise, that his machine learning to the max method will find its way everywhere, including the Tesla robot and other products. None of his promises regarding price and timelines are true, of course but there are still enough folks who for some reason, trust that somehow it will all pan out in the end without needing any evidence to support that.

In fact, Tesla was always sold as a pie in the sky company, its evaluation makes zero sense, if you think about it as a car company. They represent less 5% of all cars in the market, but its market cap (an insane 1.37 trillion) is more than 8 or so biggest companies such as Toyota, BYD, GM and Mercedes combined).

I.e. it is a company that fundamentally sells hype and promises of a magic future, and none of the quantitative indicators (e.g., decline in sales and profits) are really part of the equation.

Also, a one final thought- there was some justified outrage of Musk's Nazi sympathy. However, if we really want to dive in the depth of depravity, I would point to the fact that he was instrumental in dismantling USAID.

This performative theater with a chain saw resulted in the loss of ca. 500,000 to 1 million lives (as of 2025) with models prediction up to 14 million deaths by 2030.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext

On 1/2/2026 at 4:28 PM, CharonY said:

I think it does show how the stock market can be based on faith more than on facts, depending on the shareholders. It is, after all, just a representation of the collective believes of stock buyers. Some will be rational, others not so much. And some will likely bank on the lack of rationality of some of those buyers.

I think that this can lead to rapid drops in stock price; as some lose faith and sell it compels others (more rational people) to get out and take their profit, but that erodes the faith, and the whole thing can cascade.

There’s a saying that in the short term, stocks are a voting machine but in the long term it’s a weighing machine. Actual monetary value eventually wins out over emotion snd irrationality, but bubbles can take a while to pop.

35 minutes ago, swansont said:

There’s a saying that in the short term, stocks are a voting machine but in the long term it’s a weighing machine. Actual monetary value eventually wins out over emotion snd irrationality, but bubbles can take a while to pop.

Generally I would believe it to be true, but I think it is a bit hard to tell as personal cults and a general dismissal of facts seems to have taken hold. I have little doubt that traditional stakeholders will still look at value, but I suspect at least some will also consider fanatical devotion of non-traditional stock buyers. I guess we will see. Some reports suggest that this year price corrections are expected.

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

Generally I would believe it to be true, but I think it is a bit hard to tell as personal cults and a general dismissal of facts seems to have taken hold. I have little doubt that traditional stakeholders will still look at value, but I suspect at least some will also consider fanatical devotion of non-traditional stock buyers. I guess we will see. Some reports suggest that this year price corrections are expected.

The Financial Times is in no doubt that we are in the midst of a stock market bubble, largely based around AI and crapto. I gather 35% of US stock value is now in AI tech companies - with no profitability in sight. It's a question of when, not whether, it bursts and what happens then. Nobody thinks it would usher in a new Great Depression, but a lot of people will get burnt.

It's like those cartoons in which you run off a cliff and are fine until you look down. Some people are trying hard not to look down ,but soon one of them will.

Edited January 6Jan 6 by exchemist