> Arguably, China is subsidizing everything with a low currency
Not really. "Subsidizing everything" is an oxymoron, if you subsidize some production it must be at the expense of other production that is providing the subsidies.
> It may cancel out (or maybe more than cancel out) those tariffs.
The opposite is true, tariffs reduce demand for Chinese products and thus for Chinese currency, which leads to lower yuan.
They subsidize manufacturing of certain specific industries, EV cars being one, at the cost of domestic consumption. Basically they steal Chinese people's savings and use it to give the rest of the world cheap cars.
> Basically they steal Chinese people's savings and use it to give the rest of the world cheap cars.
One of the fundamental equations of macroeconomics: savings == investment
The high speed of Chinese industrialization is made possible by the high level of savings which are fueled into investments, and that doesn't leave much room for subsidies.
Moreover, even if subsidies do exist, they can be structured in a way that maximizes the bang for the buck of investments and in that light, they assure max productivity - that's not "stealing people's savings" - that's utilizing them in the best way possible for their real purpose: investment.
I don't know why so many people without basic understanding of economics imagine themselves to be experts in it. Yes, mainstream economics is a mess but thinking that you'd fix it with a few shortcuts is hubris.
> One of the fundamental equations of macroeconomics: savings == investment
That's not a "fundamental equation", that's merely the hope savers have. Sometimes the hope turns out to be futile and you get bank runs or financial crises.
Chinese investments aren't investments as would be understood in a free system. They have private investors, but when the government subsidizes industries they're force feeding money to things private investors passed up (or they rig the market so private investors pile in even though it doesn't make sense to do so absent the manipulations).
Think about it like this: imagine the government stole your savings and then gave it all to Sam Altman to spend on OpenAI. You might object on several grounds:
1. It's morally wrong to steal people's money.
2. OpenAI probably isn't a viable business.
3. OpenAI will use those savings to give random strangers free chats.
4. If OpenAI implodes or becomes a zombie firm that makes losses forever, the government won't hold itself accountable.
5. In the likely event of negative RoI you won't have any ability to retire anymore.
It's obvious why this scheme is bad and why people who actually do understand economics want governments to stay well away from "investments" of any kind.
One interesting thing for me is NVIDIA coming out with its reasoning model for self driving.
If it works well, Tesla's strategy of keeping the car minimal/cheap to produce but with enough sensors and an upgradable hardware may become extremely useful as new techniques are coming to tackle the long tail of self-driving cases to handle.
I'm sure Tesla will soon copy Nvidia and put a reasoning model in its cars as well.
They peaked at a time where the competition‘s offering was still immature, partially even retrofitted combustion cars.
Now the landscape has changed and TSLA lacks innovation. Personally, i still enjoy fanboy talk from first-gen Tesla drivers while they try to dream of a come back once Elon‘s wonder weapons finally arrive to turn the war.
Seems they have self driving finally cracked, according to Karpathy. If they have finally managed it then they'll have a big advantage over the other manufacturers. Better late than never.
The thing is Tesla probably has a solid enough foundation of smart people and technology to out compete other EV manufacturers, but they're not going to because they're saddled with today's version of Elon Musk instead of the Elon Musk of 15 years ago. His politics have made the brand radioactive to a lot of potential buyers and even for customers for whom that's not a deal breaker, his idea of innovation at Tesla now is stuff like the Cybertruck.
That said, Tesla is still selling plenty of vehicles and anecdotally I see plenty of new ones driving around my American city, although more than a few have anti-Elon bumper stickers which is usually not a great sign for a brand. But I suspect a lot of that is momentum and the Elon problem is going to get worse and worse for the company as time goes on. His brain seems unlikely to get less melted over time and his politics and company direction seem unlikely to improve Tesla's prospects.
Last I checked, Tesla had over $30 billion in cash. Even in the worst case scenario, Tesla could shrink to be a large-ish and niche manufacturer. Until the cash is depleted and production falls to where factory utilization is low enough that fixed costs start to dominate unit margin, it's a business that can continue.
There's plenty to puzzle over: Why not spend part of the cash pile to make robots or semi's or a new model or... less vaporous? I don't suppose we'll know until the stock price prompts Elon or his board to ask that question.
They're declining worldwide and since Musk got the climate change denier elected who did away with CAFE credits at the end of Q3, Tesla is now also no longer a profitable company.
For the last few quarters, Tesla was only profitable due to their selling CAFE credits. With those gone and their sales declining, it's all but certain that Tesla will post a loss for Q4, unless they resort to some very creative accounting tricks.
Electric cars in general don’t really make much sense in Germany.
Most people live in apartments without access to personal chargers, combined with high electricity cost you end up not even saving money for the inconvenience.
30% of households living in single family homes is not insignificant. In the villages outside the large cities there's plenty of space to charge your car at home and an increasing amount of solar on the roof.
Germany has high gasoline cost. If what Google tells me is correct about current costs per kWh to charge at Tesla Superchargers there (0.40-0.70 Euro) and current gas prices there (1.70 Euro/liter) an EV charged at Superchargers would have about the same energy costs as an ICE car that gets 16 km/l if you charge at the more expensive Supercharges and an ICE car that gets 28 km/l if you charge at the less expensive Superchargers.
> Superchargers would have about the same energy costs as an ICE car that gets 16 km/l if you charge at the more expensive Supercharges and an ICE car that gets 28 km/l if you charge at the less expensive Superchargers.
And this is main problem. The thing is that most of people does not drive some big gas guzzling trucks like in USA, but hatchbacks like VW Golf which can run from 5l~8l/100km (20km/l ~ 12,5km/l) so it is very competitive with superchargers + it is much faster and more convenient than electric charger. There is nothing better than figuring out why my car does not want to talk to this charger when there is -5 deg C outside and I am losing touch in my fingerprints.
Offpeak Supercharger use has even been reduced to around 25c in some places. I don’t think there’s one that costs 70c for members (I.e. Tesla owners or people paying 10€ per month).
- Solar power is already starting to make so much surplus during the days, and it needs battery power to store. Cars are an ideal object to use surplus energy. Cost will continue to sink.
- Creating additional charging infrastructure costs very little, because power lines are available everywhere. Fuel stations might be currently broader available, but even maintenance on fuel stations is likely more expensive than building new charging infrastructure. If more electric cars are available, more charging infrastructure will be built.
- Europe has very little oil / fuel reserves and is heavily dependent on other countries. As we have seen in recent years this is a major long term problem.
It doesn’t make sense to base your car purchase on hypotheticals like this. As it stands right now, costs plus infrastructure make electric cars less desirable to own, and that’s why if you drive around Germany, you’ll notice the vast majority of cars are diesel hatchbacks.
EV sales in Germany were up by more than 40% in 2025. Evidently those problems aren't a showstopper. For what is supposedly a leading EV manufacturer to have a sharp decline in sales while that market is booming is unambiguously a major disaster for them.
The cars now look generic and driving them will brand you as either the type of person who gets all their news from alt right social media or someone who just can’t afford buying from a more established car maker.
At least in Denmark where I live, since Tesla started competing on cost a few years ago, and then the DOGE fiasco. It’s the car you get if you’re already a Tesla owner and hardcore believer, or just see a car as a means of transportation and buy purely on specs. The days when Teslas were status symbols are long gone. We can buy so many other interesting EVs here, for example I just had a friend who was an EV hater six months ago come by showing off his brand new Renault R5 today. That car has 10x more character than a TM3 and costs less even if he got it fully loaded. VAG has a very strong lineup of TMY competitors that combined are vastly outselling it, and so has Kia/Hyundai and Renault. Those with more money will go for BMW, Mercedes, Audi, or even Porsche. And then there are all the Chinese brands starting to make inroads. Most here see buying Chinese as less problematic than buying Musk.
I visited a friend in EU and we had a lot of problems charging a Renault. It takes forever and it was a pain. One of the network chargers didn't work. Problems of the car detecting the charge. And once we found a working charger we had to leave it for a long time and we lost an appointment.
Tesla has a decent supercharger network. And now Chinese manufacturers are building theirs. AFAIK none of the European brands has anything even remotely like that. I heard people buy hybrids due to this problem.
In Northern Europe we have lots of fast chargers now, and apart from Tesla, which is open to anyone with their app, none are tied to a particular car brand. I’ve never encountered problems fast-charging my BMWs. Most cars you can buy today have the option to pre-heat the battery, but it is possible that not all owners know how to activate that. The newer Renaults run on Google software, which is said to be very user friendly and good at route planning.
Apparently the secondhand market is so bad (perhaps due to the whole thing where Tesla doesn’t permit wholly independent resale) that in some markets they’re some of the cheapest to be had that are qualified for ride share drivers. There’s a silly percentage of older teslas being used for that purpose in some cities.
Keep your pathetic critique about 'generic' cars and 'alt-right media.' It’s nothing but the flimsy rhetoric used by your far-left terrorists to justify setting cars and factories on fire.
I wonder if it’s still too soon for a company CEO to throw up a Nazi salute or two during an internationally televised event. <checks sales data> yep, still too soon.
Hopefully it always will be.
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