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A Tesla car is driven past a store of the electric vehicle (EV) maker in Beijing, China January 4, 2024. 

Florence Lo | Reuters

It was a brutal first quarter for Tesla investors.

Shares of the electric vehicle maker plunged 29% in the first three months of the year, the worst quarter for the stock since the end of 2022 and the third worst since Tesla went public in 2010. It was also the biggest loser in the S&P 500.

Chief among concerns on Wall Street is Tesla’s core business. The company is poised to report first-quarter vehicle production and deliveries in coming days, and even bulls are expecting sluggish results, despite price cuts and incentives for buyers dangled throughout the quarter.

As of Thursday, the last trading day of the quarter, analysts were expecting around 457,000 deliveries for the period, according to the average of 11 analyst estimates compiled by FactSet. That would mark an increase of 8% from 422,875 a year earlier. Estimates for the quarter ranged from 414,000 to 511,000 deliveries.

Analysts who updated their numbers in March were the most bearish, with their estimates ranging from 414,000 to 469,000. Independent autos industry researcher “Troy Teslike” expects the company’s deliveries to come in below even the lowest estimate captured by FactSet.

Deliveries are the closest approximation of sales reported by Tesla but are not precisely defined in the company’s shareholder communications.

Here are four major reasons for Tesla’s first-quarter slide.

Unrelenting competition in China

In China, there’s competition from an onslaught of fully electric vehicles, including new models that cost less than Tesla’s popular Model Y SUV and Model 3 sedan.

To end 2023, China’s BYD dethroned Tesla as the world’s top EV maker. In the first quarter of this year, BYD kept up the pressure, launching its Qin Plus EV at a starting price of around $15,200, followed by its BYD Seagull, a small all-electric hatchback with a starting price below $10,000.

The rapid rise of Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD

Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi is getting in the game with its first vehicle, a fully electric SUV that costs far less than Tesla’s entry-level Model 3 sedan. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said the standard version of the SU7 will sell for the equivalent of $30,408 in China, a price he acknowledged would mean the company is losing money on each sale. Tesla’s Model 3 is about $4,000 more than that. 

Tesla slashed prices in response, but sales were still sluggish.

According to data from the China Passenger Car Association, Tesla sold 71,447 of its China-made cars in January, including 39,881 sold domestically, representing a drop from December. The numbers slid again in February to 60,365 China-made Teslas, including exports.

As sales dipped, Tesla reduced production at its Shanghai factory, shifting staffers from working six and a half days to week to five days, Bloomberg first reported.

Tesla didn’t offer guidance for 2024 in its earnings call in January, but analysts see Tesla’s China struggles as a harbinger for a rough quarter, if not full year.

Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner lowered his price target on Tesla this week, citing weaker-than-expected China sales and the company’s recent plan to cut production in the region. Rosner is now expecting Tesla to report deliveries of 414,000 for the first three months of 2024, and is predicting just mid-single-digit growth for the year from Tesla.

Red Sea attacks, activist clashes in Europe

There was also drama in Europe.

Tesla and other manufacturers like Volvo suspended some production on the continent in January due to a shortage of components following attacks on shippers in the Red Sea. Iran-backed Houthi militia attacks have continued to disrupt one of the world’s busiest routes.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc., arrives at the Tesla plant in Gruenheide, Germany, on March 13, 2024.

Krisztian Bocsi | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Then in March came a dramatic protest by environmentalists in Germany. Objecting to Tesla’s plans to expand the footprint of its car and battery factory in Brandenburg, outside of Berlin, the protesters set fire to electrical infrastructure near the Tesla plant. While the fire didn’t spread to the factory, it left the facility without sufficient power for operations, forcing a temporary suspension in production.

CEO Elon Musk visited the German factory after the attack to reassure employees. He also called the protest “extremely dumb.” Tesla’s head of policy, Rohan Patel, wrote on X that Tesla’s mission is to “create zero emissions products” but to do that well, “we also focus on creating the most sustainable factories along with a culture to do the right thing in our community.”

Meanwhile, in Nordic countries, Tesla service technicians and other workers have been on strike in support of the Swedish labor union IF Metall. The labor group has been pressuring Tesla, since October 2023 to negotiate and sign a collective bargaining agreement with its workers.

IF Metall’s website says that nine out of 10 workers are union members in Sweden, yet Tesla has resisted unions, as it consistently does in the U.S., and rebuffed IF Metall’s efforts to negotiate.

Aging lineup, early days for Cybertruck

While EV sales are still gaining popularity worldwide, the growth rate has slowed. And with Tesla no longer the dominant player, every new product becomes more crucial. There’s not a lot in the hopper.

The Cybertruck is still in its very early days and has a niche audience. The company began delivering the angular, unpainted steel model of the truck in December at a promotional event in Austin, Texas.

Musk previously stated on an earnings call that Tesla “dug its own grave,” with the sci-fi inspired Cybertruck. In an interview with Tesla fan and auto critic Sandy Munro in late 2023, Musk cautioned that the “Cybertruck is not something that will be material to Tesla’s financials” in 2024, and “will probably be material in 2025.”

A Tesla Cybertruck at a Tesla store in San Jose, California, on Nov. 28, 2023.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tesla has been gearing up production of its refreshed Model 3, known as the Highland, in Fremont, California. Forbes’ Larry Magid wrote, “Visually, the changes on the outside are subtle.” He also disliked Tesla’s controversial design decision to omit “stalks” from sides of the steering wheel. Highland drivers use buttons and on-screen controls to shift between drive, reverse and park or to signal a turn or lane change.

Tesla does have a totally new platform in the works, a more affordable EV that fans refer to as the “Model 2.” But it won’t be delivered to customers for years.

Musk control and controversy

Musk has continued to bet that Tesla customers and shareholders will stick with the company regardless of his increasingly incendiary rhetoric on X and beyond.

Earlier this month, Musk met with former President Donald Trump in Florida. He’s called for a “red wave” in upcoming U.S. elections, and he’s shared, liked or otherwise promoted far-right accounts and content on X, where he now has 178.8 million listed followers. He has repeatedly disparaged undocumented immigrants, ranted against corporate diversity initiatives and made absurd claims that migrants from Haiti are cannibals.

Musk’s political ideology stands at odds with groups of people most likely to buy his products. Proponents of electric vehicles tend to be left-leaning ideologically, according to research from Pew Research and Gallup last year.

Musk has also wagered that Tesla shareholders and its board of directors will follow his lead. In February, Musk said he would move for a shareholder vote to transfer Tesla’s site of incorporation to Texas from Delaware, after a judge in Delaware voided the $56 billion pay package that he was granted in 2019 on grounds that the board failed to prove “the compensation plan was fair.”

Before the ruling, Musk had begun pressuring shareholders and the Tesla board to give him more control of the EV maker.

“I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control,” Musk wrote in a post in January.

Investor Ross Gerber, a longtime Tesla bull, called the demand tantamount to “blackmail” in an interview with CNBC.

Bears cleaning up

It all adds up to over $230 billion in lost market cap for Tesla and its shareholders since the calendar turned to 2024. That made for a very lucrative quarter for short sellers, who’ve been expecting such a downturn.

According to data from S3 Partners, Tesla shorts are up more than $5.77 billion in 2024, making it the most profitable name in the U.S. Short interest at the end of trading on Thursday was about 3.76% of float, representing $18.71 billion in notional value.

Altimeter Capital’s Brad Gerstner is buying the dip. Gerstner told CNBC this week that the company is now making “massive progress at an accelerating rate” on its self-driving technology efforts.

Musk has been making such pronouncements for years. In 2015, he told shareholders that by 2018 Tesla’s cars would achieve “full autonomy,” and be able to drive themselves. In 2016, he said Tesla would able to send one of its cars on a cross-country drive without requiring any human intervention by the end of the following year.

Tesla still has yet to deliver a robotaxi, autonomous vehicle or technology that can make its cars into “level 3” automated vehicles. However, Tesla offers advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), including a standard Autopilot option, or premium Full Self-Driving “FSD” option, the latter of which costs $199 a month for subscribers in the U.S. or $12,000 up front.

In a push for end-of-quarter sales, Musk recently mandated that all sales and service staff install and demo FSD for customers before they hand over their cars. He wrote in an e-mail to employees, “Almost no one actually realizes how well (supervised) FSD actually works. I know this will slow down the delivery process, but it is nonetheless a hard requirement.”

Despite its name, Tesla’s premium option requires a human driver at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at any moment.

WATCH: Tesla is going through a ‘code red situation’

Tesla is going through a 'code red situation' right now, says Wedbush's Dan Ives

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SpaceX loses bid to control beach access near launch facility in Texas

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SpaceX loses bid to control beach access near launch facility in Texas

SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship booster returns to the launch pad during a test flight from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025.

Eric Gay | AP

As SpaceX awaits the results of a critical election that would turn the location of its Starbase launch site into an incorporated Texas city, lawmakers have declined to give Elon Musk’s aerospace company greater control over a main highway and public beach.

Starbase, where the Musk-led company builds and launches its rockets, is located in Boca Chica, Texas, on the Gulf Coast. Residents of the area are voting on whether to turn the small community into a city, with the election scheduled to conclude on Saturday.

On Monday, the Texas House State Affairs Committee voted against a bill that would have given SpaceX greater control over a highway and public beach access in the likely event the company is victorious in its effort to make Starbase into Texas’ newest city. Around 500 people live in the community today, including SpaceX employees and about 120 children, according to the Texas Tribune.

SpaceX has historically needed to close roads and beaches around Starbase in order to conduct test flights and launches, including for its massive Starship rockets, which Musk sees as a prelude to an eventual Mars mission. Closing off access to beaches in the area has required SpaceX to inform and attain permission from authorities in Cameron County, the southernmost county in Texas.

The frequent closures have contributed to legal complaints against SpaceX, and have drawn protests from local residents and activists, including the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, the South Texas Environmental Justice Network and Border Workers United.

Activists in the Rio Grande Valley area, where Starbase is located, protested and formally lobbied against the bills for weeks. Related proposals could be introduced before the legislature meets again next month.

As CNBC has previously reported, SpaceX has conducted test flights or launches that have resulted in fires and harm to sensitive habitat essential to some endangered species in the area.

In one example, SpaceX was fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for polluting waters in Texas in violation of the Clean Water Act. After those fines, Musk threatened to sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach” but never filed a complaint.

Following a front-page New York Times story in July about the damages to local wildlife, including bird habitat, caused by SpaceX, Musk wrote in a post on his social media site X, “To make up for this heinous crime, I will refrain from having omelette for a week.”

That was a week before Musk formally endorsed Donald Trump for president after an assassination attempt on the then-presumptive Republican nominee at a rally in Pennsylvania. Musk then went on to spend nearly $300 million to propel Trump back the White House, and now serves as an advisor to the president with influence over spaceflight and environmental regulations.

In leading the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has helped gut the ranks of both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration. Under Trump’s EPA, the U.S. has promised to “reconsider” or target dozens of rules for elimination that currently limit air pollution and wastewater from energy, autos and manufacturing sectors.

Tim Hughes, SpaceX’s head of government affairs, didn’t respond to a request for comment, nor did the offices of Republican State Representatives Gina Hinojosa and Janie Lopez, who introduced the bills to give SpaceX local beach control.

WATCH: SpaceX launches third test flight of massive Starship rocket

SpaceX launches third test flight of massive Starship rocket

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Amazon considers displaying tariff surcharge on low-cost Haul products

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Amazon considers displaying tariff surcharge on low-cost Haul products

Packages with the logo of Amazon are transported at a packing station of a redistribution center of Amazon in Horn-Bad Meinberg, western Germany, on Dec. 9, 2024.

Ina Fassbender | Afp | Getty Images

Amazon is considering showing a tariff surcharge on items sold via its site for ultra-low-price items, called Haul, the company confirmed to CNBC.

“The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store has considered listing import charges on certain products,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties.”

Punchbowl News reported earlier on Tuesday that Amazon would “soon” begin displaying the cost of tariffs alongside the price of each product, citing a source familiar with the company’s plans.

The report drew the ire of the White House, which called Amazon’s reported plans a “hostile and political act.”

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

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Alibaba launches new Qwen LLMs in China’s latest open-source AI breakthrough

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Alibaba launches new Qwen LLMs in China’s latest open-source AI breakthrough

Qwen3 is Alibaba’s debut into so-called “hybrid reasoning models,” which it says combines traditional LLM capabilities with “advanced, dynamic reasoning.”

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Alibaba released the next generation of its open-sourced large language models, Qwen3, on Tuesday — and experts are calling it yet another breakthrough in China’s booming open-source artificial intelligence space.

In a blog post, the Chinese tech giant said Qwen3 promises improvements in reasoning, instruction following, tool usage and multilingual tasks, rivaling other top-tier models such as DeepSeek’s R1 in several industry benchmarks. 

The LLM series includes eight variations that span a range of architectures and sizes, offering developers flexibility when using Qwen to build AI applications for edge devices like mobile phones.

Qwen3 is also Alibaba’s debut into so-called “hybrid reasoning models,” which it says combines traditional LLM capabilities with “advanced, dynamic reasoning.”

According to Alibaba, such models can seamlessly transition between a “thinking mode” for complex tasks such as coding and a “non-thinking mode” for faster, general-purpose responses. 

“Notably, the Qwen3-235B-A22B MoE model significantly lowers deployment costs compared to other state-of-the-art models, reinforcing Alibaba’s commitment to accessible, high-performance AI,” Alibaba said. 

The new models are already freely available for individual users on platforms like Hugging Face and GitHub, as well as Alibaba Cloud’s web interface. Qwen3 is also being used to power Alibaba’s AI assistant, Quark.

China’s AI advancement

AI analysts told CNBC that the Qwen3 represents a serious challenge to Alibaba’s counterparts in China, as well as industry leaders in the U.S.  

In a statement to CNBC, Wei Sun, principal analyst of artificial intelligence at Counterpoint Research, said the Qwen3 series is a “significant breakthrough—not just for its best-in-class performance” but also for several features that point to the “application potential of the models.” 

Those features include Qwen3’s hybrid thinking mode, its multilingual support covering 119 languages and dialects and its open-source availability, Sun added.

Open-source software generally refers to software in which the source code is made freely available on the web for possible modification and redistribution. At the start of this year, DeepSeek’s open-sourced R1 model rocked the AI world and quickly became a catalyst for China’s AI space and open-source model adoption.  

“Alibaba’s release of the Qwen 3 series further underscores the strong capabilities of Chinese labs to develop highly competitive, innovative, and open-source models, despite mounting pressure from tightened U.S. export controls,” said Ray Wang, a Washington-based analyst focusing on U.S.-China economic and technology competition.

According to Alibaba, Qwen has already become one of the world’s most widely adopted open-source AI model series, attracting over 300 million downloads worldwide and more than 100,000 derivative models on Hugging Face. 

Wang said that this adoption could continue with Qwen3, adding that its performance claims may make it the best open-source model globally — though still behind the world’s most cutting-edge models like OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini.  

Chinese competitors like Baidu have also rushed to release new AI models after the emergence of DeepSeek, including making plans to shift toward a more open-source business model. 

Meanwhile, Reuters reported in February that DeepSeek is accelerating the launch of its successor to its R1, citing anonymous sources.

“In the broader context of the U.S.-China AI race, the gap between American and Chinese labs has narrowed—likely to a few months, and some might argue, even to just weeks,” Wang said. 

“With the latest release of Qwen 3 and the upcoming launch of DeepSeek’s R2, this gap is unlikely to widen—and may even continue to shrink.”

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