To be sure, it hasn’t been all wine and roses for Musk and Tesla over the past year. In fact, the company is under greater scrutiny from regulators and investors as it pushes new software that promises to turn its vehicles someday into robotaxis.
Tesla’s rollout this year of incomplete Full Self-Driving software, which requires drivers to constantly monitor and correct wayward vehicles, has been something of a fail for Tesla. Even though many thousands of owners have paid up to $10,000 for the feature, Tesla has only enabled it for small groups of them based on a computer-generated driving score.
In August, Musk himself called an early 9.2 beta version of the software “actually not great.” But in late October, he predicated its eventual value will be immense.
“The day FSD goes to wide release will be one of the biggest asset-value increases in history,” he wrote on Twitter.
In November, NHTSA said that Tesla was recalling Full Self-Driving software in nearly 12,000 vehicles because of a communication error that could cause a false forward-collision warning or trigger the automatic emergency braking system needlessly. Tesla owners complained of “phantom braking.”
Musk has also grown bolder in criticizing lawmakers over tax policy and regulators over perceived bias against Tesla — sometimes with insults. This month, he told the Wall Street Journal that the Biden administration should kill its Build Back Better Act that includes funding for EV charging and tax breaks for EV buyers.
Tesla also faces owner complaints regarding poor build quality, uneven customer service, abrupt price increases and long delays for popular vehicle trims. A common theme on social media among Tesla buyers is complaints about their vehicles or service, but with the caveat that there’s no real alternative in the market.
But that could be changing as automakers finally take Tesla seriously and offer their own EVs. New competitors are gunning for Tesla.
Edmunds predicts that EV market share in the U.S. will reach a record 4 percent, or 600,000 vehicles, next year. It also estimates Tesla’s EV market share will fall to 46 percent, from 65 percent this year.
“This is Tesla’s moment in the sun,” Caldwell said. “And it’s good that the company is capitalizing on it before other brands roll out compelling EVs, which will undoubtedly eat into its market share”
“At this point,” she said, “Tesla’s best way forward is growing the EV market base and having a larger number of customers to sell to.”
