NEW YORK (AP) — Europeans still aren’t buying Teslas with figures out Wednesday showing sales plunged for a fifth month in a row in May, a blow to investors who had hoped anger toward Elon Musk would have faded by now.
Tesla sales fell 28% last month in 30 European countries even as the overall market for electric vehicles expanded sharply, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. The poor showing comes after Tesla’s billionaire CEO had promised a “major rebound” was coming last month, adding to a recent buying frenzy among investors.
First-mover advantage has historically led to complacency. Sure, Tesla was first to scale in the U.S., but then Musk started focusing on the Quixotic quest toward self-driving – which should show up just before fusion power – and forgot the expectation car buyers have of annual incremental updates, with a general overhaul every five years. Honda isn’t selling the same Civic as a decade ago.
IBM fell into this trap with PCs ahead of the clone wars. Intel is now finding out, having learned nothing from AMD’s resurgence that forced it to start competing and the rise of ARM. Tesla feels rudderless, and Musk going batshit as the public face of the company isn’t helping. Better to keep his shares and step down so competent leadership can be brought in.
Plenty more rockets he can be blowing up instead of myopically focusing on shit like the Cybertruck while running a far-right circlejerk.