But is the American automaker as bad off as we’re being told?
A recent report from S&P Global Mobility indicates Tesla’s market share has declined since the fall of 2021. This has a lot of people talking since for the longest time the American automaker has been the 800-lb. gorilla in the EV niche. Some are pretending this report means Tesla is now on the ropes, but it’s more complicated than that.
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According to S&P Global Mobility, Tesla had 77.8% of the EV market in November 2021. We can’t think of another market niche one brand dominates with such a commanding lead. However, that lead has slipped to 57.1% in November 2022. Those numbers make it look like Tesla is in a freefall.
Looking at Tesla’s reported production figures, there’s a wrinkle in this narrative that the company is losing steam. For Q4 2021 Tesla produced over 305,000 vehicles and delivered over 308,000. Total deliveries for the year was 936,000 units. Compare that to Q4 2022 with 439,000-plus vehicles assembled, over 405,000 delivered, and annual deliveries of 1.31 million. This is hardly what one would expect from an automaker supposedly in freefall.
Thankfully, S&P does point out a big factor in why Tesla’s lead has diminished so rapidly: there are 51 EV models available at the moment, compared to just 32 a year ago. As more entrants jump into the EV niche market fragmentation is inevitable.
Tesla was famously the conquest-heavy brand because most buyers of its were first-time owners. That’s changed as Tesla becomes more established in the market. Also, not that long ago Teslas were about the only truly advanced EVs available to consumers. That’s no longer the case.
Now a person who’s a diehard Ford or GM fan no longer has to switch to a different automaker like Tesla. They can keep with the company they’ve always trusted for their personal transportation. Will they have a good experience with their freshly-minted EV? That remains to be seen in the coming years. But Tesla is dealing with more competition than ever before, a trend which looks to only be increasing for the next while.
S&P in its report assumes the US EV market will continue expanding as automakers launch even more all-electric models. That might be true to an extent, but projections made right now might prove to be a little overly optimistic. After all, in 2012 predictions for EV adoption in the next three to four years were wildly off the mark.
If you’ve noticed a deluge of negative Tesla news in the past several months or so, it’s not just you. While we’ve always liked to call the balls and strikes for Tesla and any automaker, it seems many other automotive and mainstream news outlets turn every story having to do with Tesla into an entirely negative thing. That’s not really helpful to consumers.
Read the S&P Global Mobility report for yourself here.
Images via Tesla
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