It may not be another “nail in the coffin” for EVs (electric vehicles)… but the proverbial hammer is at the ready.
Ready, that is, to deliver a severe pounding to the well-positioned nail.
We speak of the Tesla Cybertruck. The truck that few know about and even fewer want.
More below…
Nobody Knows It, Nobody Wants It
Tesla (TSLA) doesn’t officially reveal how many Cybertrucks it sells.
The only way to find out is by “unofficial” means. In this case, when the company announces a recall due to a fault.
In doing so, we assume a government regulation forces the company to reveal how many vehicles the recall affects.
That’s how we know the Cybertruck sales figures… And they aren’t good!
As Yahoo! Finance reports:
In a letter from NHTSA dated Monday, June 24, Tesla confirmed that it would be issuing a recall for a defective front wiper. The Cybertruck’s single large front wiper (the largest ever used for a passenger vehicle) can fail due to “excessive electrical current.” A separate concurrent recall was also issued for the trim panel in the truck’s bed.
Tesla also revealed the number of vehicles affected by the recall – 11,688 trucks – which would equate to the number of Cybertrucks sold since it includes vehicles in use and in transit to customers. Because Tesla does not officially break out Cybertruck sales in its quarterly delivery report, getting a read on early Cybertruck sales is noteworthy.
Since the launch last November, Tesla has sold a grand total of 11,688 trucks.
That works out as – crunching the numbers – a paltry 1,461 per month.
Oh dear!
For comparison, according to data compiled by goodcarbadcar.net, Ford (F) has sold around 409,000 F-Series trucks during the same timeframe.
But what may scare Tesla even more are the year-over-year figures for the first three months of 2024. This is the first time since 2021 that Tesla hasn’t beaten its monthly sales from the year prior.
In January this year, it sold 51,809 vehicles in the U.S. That compares to 55,922 for January 2023.
For February, it was 51,809 compared to 53,685 the previous February.
And for March, it was 53,881 compared to 60,395 in March 2023.
That’s significant.
In fact, you can almost disregard the drop in late 2020 and early 2021 as partly due to global and economic supply chain issues – although Tesla actually fared better than many other carmakers.
But the fact is that sales are falling now – and especially for EVs – when the overall market share for EVs is still only around 2%. As recently as 2022 it was just 1.2%.
To say that’s a flop is an understatement. This is when the technology and the take-up rate by consumers should be soaring as the mass market begins buying.
But it’s not happening.
And that’s even if you look at EV share of new sales. Recent figures from Statzon.com put the EV share at just 7.6% of new sales.
Disaster.
As we’ve mentioned before, short-selling Tesla has probably been one of the worst trades over the past 10 years. So we would be reluctant to recommend that now.
But with recent bankruptcies by EV carmakers – including Tesla competitor Fisker – it wouldn’t be unfair to say that the EV revolution has died before it has even truly begun.
Cheers,
 |
Kris Sayce
Editor, The Daily Cut
P.S. Shares of Rivian (RIVN) popped higher this morning after news of a deal with Germany’s Volkswagen AG (VOW). VW is sinking $5 billion into a venture with Rivian. We’ll bet our bottom dollar that VW writes off the value of that entire investment within the next two years.