BYD took the global EV crown. Now Chinese rivals and local startups are taking over emerging markets.
- Tesla’s sales are dropping globally, with political headwinds and fierce EV rivals throwing up challenges.
- New frontiers beckon, but Tesla faces a showdown with savvy local and Chinese competitors vying for dominance.
- Pricing battles and rapid innovation are putting Tesla to the test, demanding a strategic jolt to regain its edge.
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“Political headwinds” is putting it mildly.
Poor Elon simply gave his heart and love to the world by raising his right arm at a 45° angle after tapping his left boob. He did nazi anything wrong with that.
The excuse his enablers give is absurd. Ask yourself what’s worse: give a Nazi salute on TV or doing a gesture the entire world knows as a Nazi salute on TV and not realizing it? They’re both bad enough that he shouldn’t be in charge of a lemonade stand.
Anyone arguing that Musk didn’t know exactly what he was doing is just another Nazi pissing in the wind and they all deserve every bit of blow back they get, pun intended.
The only thing Musk didn’t understand is that he was branding himself and everything he touches as nothing more than Nazi scum for the rest of his miserable life.
I firmly believe he was doing it for the lulz. It totally fits his MO, and it’ll be hard to convince me otherwise.
However, that doesn’t mean he gets a pass. We shouldn’t have childish people in positions of power, so his actions should disqualify him from any influence in the White House.
I think it’s exactly the opposite and there’s lots of information and multple interviews that strongly suggest that. IMO Musk is full-on Nazi scum and lives in a nearly impermeable bubble, so much so that he thinks he has toned it down to what will pass in society. It seems he read the room wrong either way.
Could you link some extra spicy interviews? I’m very much not a fan of Musk, and I’d like some firepower other than “he’s a man child that just wants to shock everyone.”
The problem with any excuse you make for Elon is that Elon is too stupid to keep his mouth shut and give the excuse any plausibility. After the nazi salute he went on Twitter to make nazi puns about it. It is certain beyond reasonable doubt that he knows exactly what the salute was. Even if you give him the insane benefit of the doubt that it was really “his heart going out” and accidentally looked like the salute, his having shown he knows what it looks like but never stating he does not actually believe in the ideology or want present himself as an ally to nazis is just as damning.
Tesla hasn’t lost it in 2025, but much earlier.
For example, when they stopped maintaining and improving their successful Model 3 and Model Y, because the ugly tinbox “needed” all research and development resources.
Excuse me. It’s the best looking dumpster on the road.
For sure.
A Model 3 from early 2024 really feels 5-10 years behind a 2026 Kia or Hyundai at this point.
They lost the plot big time somewhere around mid-2022 I think. Would be interesting to learn if Elon started some new designer drug or something around then.
Even the very conservatively designed Polestar at least has good build quality.
BYD is eating everyone’s lunch at the bottom not just Tesla.
Tesla could have prospered by sticking to the mid range but their build quality is appalling even for a lower mid car.
Couple that with some truly dumb design ideas from Elon (no lidar, no physical buttons, indicators as buttons, stupidly high repair bills due to design choices) and some even more stupid personal behaviors from him and he has just cut the legs out of his market.
EV buyers who are spending more money care about this kind of thing, budget buyers it is mostly about price.
Exactly. I’m a budget buyer and Tesla doesn’t make sense. My parents are luxury buyers and Tesla doesn’t make sense. My coworkers buy Tesla, so I guess there’s a market, but the reason they bought doesn’t hold up as well today.
We’ll see what Tesla does, but I think they need to kick out Musk to get there.
BYD is eating everyone’s lunch at the bottom not just Tesla.
It’s not just BYD. SAIC (whose main international brand is MG) isn’t far behind, Chery (whose main brands are Omoda and Jaecoo) are starting to get about too, and there are myriad smaller Chinese marques.
Chinese cars in general are really hitting the market hard.
What I’ve been seeing around here (England) is a major proliferation of Kias and Hyundais. Occasionally I’ll see an electric Mustang or Jaguar.
Yep. Feel like I see more Ioniqs than anything else, although things are gradually diversifying.
BYD was always going to pass Tesla, Elon’s actions just accelerated the timeline
Turns out people want cars they can afford. Crazy stuff
Because the CEO “sent his heart out to the world”. Ain’t no coming back from that public perception, tbh.
I heard the next model, the Tesla SS, with innovative features like doing Nazi salutes out the windows to indicate is going to be a huge hit.
Simulated fart sounds replaced with Sieg Heils.
If the owner of the company wasn’t trying to heil a cab on the national stage, people wouldn’t be doubting these EVs nearly as much.
Not that they’re particularly high quality anyway.
Some asshole bought the company when it had innovative tech and good quality, and hasn’t had the focus to address the inevitable quality issues that come with scaling up production.
Maybe more ketamine will help
Back in the day, Tesla was releasing some of its tech without patent licenses to help other EV makers catch up, to help the environment. Or at least that’s what I remember from the PR.
Back then they wanted to blow their lead so electric cars would do better in general.
.Back then they wanted to blow their lead so electric cars would do better in general.
First-mover advantage wasn’t going to be lost in the near-term due to patent-sharing.
Even if it weren’t for all the political stuff Tesla’s are just not very good cars, combined with a truly awful customer service experience.
I have no idea what BYD’s customer service experiences like but the fact that the cars seem to have actually gone through some kind of QA means that they can only be an improvement
“How Tesla blew its load”
Oh & OpenPilot/Comma-AI is an alternative to Tesla’s “auto-pilot”
