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Oh Elon, trying to wreck Tesla? Consumer boycotts work, see Bud Light. Don’t mess with American consumers!
Tesla sales got crushed in Q2 in California, while non-Tesla EV sales surged. Have Californians finally had it with Musk’s barrage of bullshit about California and San Francisco, causing Tesla to pay a price in sales?
New vehicle sales in Q2 as measured by registrations, released by the California auto dealer association CNCDA today:
Teslas -24% year-over-year, to 52,211 vehicles.
Non-Tesla EVs: +45% year-over-year, to 49,232 vehicles.
Many Californians used to think Musk walked on water, and they were in love with him and proud of him because he was cool and a genius, and a billionaire because he was part of the PayPal mafia, and then because he’d started a company that manufactured lots of cool EVs in California, and they went out and bought his EVs in huge numbers, and made the Model Y the #1 bestseller in California and the #2 bestseller in the US, while no other major automaker was even manufacturing cars in California.
But over the past few years, the bullshit about California and San Francisco started flying left and right, and maybe people finally have had it? People as in potential Tesla buyers?
The Tesla Model Y was still by far the #1 bestseller in California, ahead of the Toyota RAV4. But sales plunged 15% year-over-year to 36,343 vehicles in Q2.
Sales of the Tesla Model 3 collapsed by 59% year-over-year, to just 9,888 vehicles in Q2. Some versions of the Model 3 don’t qualify for the federal rebates due the China-sourced batteries.
Cybertruck sales in Q1 and Q2 combined were 3,048, behind the Rivian R1S (4,837) but ahead of Ford’s F-150 Lightning (2,999).
The auto market in California:
Total EV sales: -1.3% in Q2 YoY — “only” despite the plunge in Tesla sales, thanks to the surge in non-Tesla EV sales.
Total ICE vehicle sales: -2.1% in Q2 YoY.
EV market share in Q2 inched up to a share of 21.9%.
California sales matter for Tesla.
Tesla’s registrations in California in Q2 2023 accounted for 14.8% of Tesla’s global deliveries as reported by Tesla. California sales matter to Tesla. That was before he turned potential buyers off.
In Q2 2024, Tesla’s global deliveries fell by 4.8% year-over-year, including the 24% plunge in California. Without California, Tesla’s global deliveries would have dipped by 1.4% YoY.
Musk’s bullshit was funny until it whacked Tesla sales.
Musk’s bullshit and lies are infamous and funny. Some cost Musk huge amounts of money, such as when he said that he wanted to buy Twitter and half-jokingly made a deal and signed something, and when he said, oh, I was just kidding, Twitter dragged him to court, and he lost and was forced to buy Twitter for a ridiculous $44 billion.
Another funny one came in 2018, when Musk tweeted, “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.” Which was hilarious because there was no funding secured and no deal; and because 420 is slang for marijuana, which Musk smoked that year during a video interview; and because the SEC then sued him for securities fraud, which Musk in 2018 settled for a $20 million fine and a requirement to have some of his tweets preapproved by a Tesla lawyer. He then appealed the pre-approval requirement but lost in court, and lost on appeal, and then in April 2024, the Supreme Court refused to hear his case, which has never kept him from tweeting whatever, on what is now his own platform.
Our all-time favorite was when he tweeted in October 2021: “Am thinking of starting new university: Texas Institute of Technology & Science.” We get it: TITS. Another funny one, and deadly one, and ongoing one is Full Self Driving (FSD) that people paid for via subscription but isn’t full self-driving, triggering a number of prosecutors to probe if Tesla has committed securities fraud and wire fraud by misleading investors and consumers. These are just a few examples of Musk’s bullshit.
And in his free time, starting a few years ago, Musk spread lots of similar bullshit about California and San Francisco. Obviously, he can say whatever he wants to, no matter how ridiculous, as we have seen, but consumers are not deaf, and they can boycott a product.
There are lots of beer brands on the market, you don’t have to buy Bud Light, as AB InBev found out, which owns the brand, after consumers began boycotting Bud Light in April 2023 following the Dylan Mulvaney ad, which caused Bud Light market share to plunge from #1 with a share of over 10% at the start of 2023 to #3 now, with its share hitting a new low of 6.5% of total beer dollar-sales in US stores for the four weeks ended July 6, according to the WSJ.
Don’t mess with American consumers! That’s the Bud Light lesson here.
There are now lots of EVs on the market, by legacy automakers, and by startups. The Cybertruck is facing competition from the electric pickups by Ford, Rivian, and Chevrolet. Among the major automakers, only FCA (Stellantis) doesn’t have any EVs on the market. Even Toyota belatedly has come out with them.
And Californians have started to buy these non-Tesla EVs, and their sales have surged, and they’re about to overtake Tesla, while Tesla sales have plunged. It was a tough job turning so many Californians off from their love affair with Tesla, but Musk has finally succeeded, it seems.
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The post Non-Tesla EV Sales +45% in Q2 YoY in California, Tesla -24%: People Have Had it with Musk’s Bullshit about California and San Francisco? appeared first on Energy News Beat.
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