Elon Musk takes over Twitter

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/19/tes...sixth-time-this-year-ahead-of-q1-results.html

Tesla cuts US prices for sixth time this year ahead of Q1 results

It's wild watching how much Tesla stock has rallied as the Fed expanded its balance sheet like crazy to deal with the fallout from the regional bank failures and started blowing air back into the bubbles they have blown in the process.

But 6 price cuts so far this year does not paint a good picture about ongoing demand for the cars. ... which isn't surprising to me at least, because a major contributor in the first place to what was demand for very expensive status symbols was the artificially low interest rates and all the stock market millionaires who felt flush.

 

EVs are still only about 6 percent of new cars being sold. The only workable niche for them has been Tesla's -- and even those have been heavily subsidized at all of our expense (which is what makes him labeling media organizations government funded so ridiculous) -- because it's still not a car that makes sense for the vast majority of people who are sensitive to price. It only works if it is a status symbol for someone with money to spare. Which was the bubble environment that Tesla was selling into as it grew.

If you aren't someone with that money. ... you can still get an otherwise comparable gas-powered vehicle without the limitations of charging for quite a bit less money than an EV. Even the subsidization hasn't made it a good enough proposition, and the price of gas has never gotten anywhere near where it would have to to make people fall on the benefit side of the cost-benefit equation on an EV.

Competition certainly isn't going to help Tesla. But I don't think the vast majority of the EVs coming to the market are going to find much of a consumer audience. ... unless something dramatically changes. Even on the subsidies, the current administration (the gang that can't shoot straight) is now sending mixed messages. They are talking about the EPA unilaterally deciding (bypassing Congress) emissions standards that will drive up the price of gas vehicles so much that they think it will force people into EVs. But they idiocally aren't considering how many people can't afford new cars already with how much prices have run up, and with interest rates off the zero bound for the first time since the financial crisis, the average car payment is now more than double where it was at a few years ago. We are in the early days of an affordability crisis, and EVs are that much more unaffordable for most people. At the same time, they are trying to mix a nonsensical America First! edict into their nanny state policy. ... BMW, Nissan, Hyundai and Volvo all just lost their $7,500 tax credit subsidy to the consumer because of new rules saying that your batteries need to have been produced in 'merica to qualify.

I see a mess more than anything. In the case of Tesla, they have sold a lot of cars the last few years and they went from negative margins to having ridiculously high margins. Right now, though, the number of customers seems to have hit a wall (in China, their second biggest market, they are in a dogfight with competitors) and the price cuts can't be doing anything except bringing their margins back down.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/19/tesla-tsla-earnings-q1-2023.html
Price cuts cause Tesla 1Q income, profit margins to fall

No surprises.