- cross-posted to:
- economy
- cross-posted to:
- economy
Summary
Tesla reported its first annual decline in deliveries, with 1.79 million vehicles delivered in 2024 compared to 1.81 million in 2023.
Fourth-quarter deliveries (495,570) fell short of analyst estimates, causing Tesla shares to drop 7%.
Challenges included rising competition in Europe and China, declining sales despite price cuts, and growing inventory of Cybertrucks.
Analysts cited CEO Elon Musk’s political involvement as a potential distraction.
While Tesla plans to release lower-cost autonomous vehicles in 2025, its lack of affordable EVs and intensified competition have strained its market dominance.
Anything can be fixed on your own if you have the aptitude. But i can imagine dropping a battery pack that weighs whag a regular economy sedan weighs will be tough for even the most competent diy people. Ive swapped a few engines and honestly i would rather not fix a tesla. Im good with a toyota hybrid.
People thinking were going to het rid of ice vehicles and transition to a market that is compromised of a majority lithium based batteries are smoking some good shit. Firstly i think the amount of electric vehicles sold in 2022 was about 10 million while the amount of cars sold in total was about 80 million. So 12.5% of the new car market. Meanwhile were already reaching a bottleneck of lithium supply which is not great for the environment and super exploitative to third world people and economies. So we need to increase the lithium battery production capacity by at least 1000% and this doesn’t even account for the cordless power tools industry and all the other consumer goods needing lithium batteries. Americans and our world leaders are selling us a pipe dream that is induced on a fever dream of hope and wishful thinking. But it isn’t even that good in practice because have you seen these lithium battery fires? Requiring tens of thousands of gallons of water to extinguish? Its a fucking mess and the only real viable option is to make a breakthrough in solar technology. Or maybe cold fusion? Hibestly im not an expert so i don’t know. But i do know lithium batteries aint fuckin’ it.
China is transitioning to electric just fine. You sound like the guy who predicted only 1 billion people can live on Earth without starving.
He’s not anti-ev, he’s anti-Li-Io-Battery and I fully agree. China is also only transitioning fine because they have incredibly huge incentives - but they still have a huge amount of ICE Cars being sold, developed and used and they will continue, because Battery EVs are not the “one fits all” solution. Norway has nearly 90% EV sales only. Still doesn’t matter as this does not work for everyone and everyplace.
FWIW, I still think we have to transition away from fossile fuels as soon as possible and Europe will do so, because due to CO2 Certificates and taxes, fossile fuels will be more expensive than synthetic, carbon neutral fuels that have been made with renewable energy from those places on earth, that have ridiculous abundance of those. Like Chile, Iceland (Geothermal), Ireland and others. We in Europe need the renewable energy for industry and home use, not to drive around with.
Im not anti ev or anti Lifepo batteries, i love my lithium iron phosphate batteries. They make my impact wrench hammer off tough fasteners without having to fuck my back up. Im just pro reality and the reality is there is a serious bottleneck of lithium production.
But anyone saying we will be able to increase the lithium mining supply 10 times what it is now is selling you a bridge over the straight of Gibraltar. And maybe that bridge will eventually come but were talking about building that bridge over and over and over and over. Society also needs to stop treating vehicles like they are a disposable consumer good and sending them to scrap yards after a decade or less of use. These are realities of the market. Tell me how we are going to increase lithium mining ten times what it is now in a safe and efficient way. There is currently only one lithium mine being built in nevada but there is heavy pushback from state legislature to open up any other lithium deposits in the US but even if we did i don’t see lithium mining producing enough cheap lithium to boost ev production past triple what it currently is.
I am not saying we don’t need to transition away from ICE. But also we could have had ice vehicles continue to operate in our society for another 5 centuries if big industries weren’t polluting the environment to maintain the production of mostly useless consumer goods that end up in landfills within 6 months of their purchase. All these plastic petro chemicals littering our oceans our coastlines and every where else. Society needs to prioritize what it deems valuable and instead of doing that weve allowed a few greedy sociopaths go prioritize continual growth, profit and shareholder value over the good of society itself.
But ill be here with popcorn watching and waiting for lifepo batteries to increase in production 1000% (and this doesn’t even count the needed increase for larger industrial power tools that currently struggle to run on anything but gasoline like railway and industrial impact wrenches that are sk large and heavy they need a crane to support their weight during operation.
Hence Synthetic Fuels made from renewable energy and “steering” the market. Making old cars still able to run, but just changing the fuel and making them at least carbon neutral and maybe even net negative in the long run? There is nothing better for the environment - heck, with all the pollution Lithium production does, one could argue we’re changing one evil for another evil, just on a different scale. It’s like switching the old NiMH battery for a LiFePo. (The scaling doesn’t work that well for the energy densities needed in bigger applications though…)
I would love to see consumer hybrid conversion kits or even hydrogen induction tech conversion kits that are fat better than the Jerry rigged ones some youtube content creators rig up with tubing and mason jars. But those in control of the means of production are throwing wrenches into the gears of innovation to maintain their continual growth at the expense of future generations.
Lifepo batteries are an awesome tech, 15 years ago no one would have imagined them powering impact wrenches that are stronger than traditional pneumatics but here we are. However people are improperly storing them and its leading to house fires not to mention all the cars space karen has produced that have combusted and locked people inside the vehicle while they roast to death unable to open the door manually because the door handles are made out of metal and burn you when you try to open them. Ans the fact thst lithium chemical fires need dozens of times more water to smother in the best of situations. There have been wreched teslas completely submerged in water tanks thst have reignited 2 or 3 times before being completely stifled and rendered safe to dispose of. Its a fucking mess. But they sure do accelerate very well.