As Peter Forman, aka Papafox, eloquently wrote in an article published on CleanTechnica early this morning, “The Billion-Dollar Tesla Hit Piece,” a recent New York Times article based in part on an interview with CEO Elon Musk was a masterpiece in framing — but not in a positive way.
In a totally unsurprising turn of events, a federal judge in San Francisco has determined that production targets were not the same as promises to investors. He has, thus, dismissed a lawsuit against Tesla.
I’ve been reporting monthly US electric car sales for years. My monthly report has often been one of the most popular stories of the month here on CleanTechnica. However, unless something changes, I’ve concluded it’s time to stop — or to take a break — from these US EV sales reports. There are 4 core reasons why.
The New York Times interview of Elon Musk released late in the night of August 16, 2018, clobbered Tesla’s stock price the next day, resulting in a fall of more than $30 a share by the end of Friday’s after-market trading and a single-day transfer of wealth of over a billion dollars from Tesla’s investors to the stock’s short sellers.
Jay Leno’s ride in a Tesla Roadster prototype brought tears of joy to his eyes as he screamed, “I’ll take it!”
The European passenger plug-in market slowed down a bit to enjoy the holiday season, registering some 27,000 registrations in July. That’s an increase of 30% compared to the same period last year. It pulled the year-to-date count to some 212,000 deliveries (+41% YoY), while the 2018 EV market share remained stable at 2.2%, which, incidentally, was the same market share registered in July.
The Chinese plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market is in summer-chill mode, with some 75,000 units being registered in July, up only 64%. Yes, this is a slowdown from the three-digit growth rates of previous months. It is explained by the fact that “New Energy” subsidies were slashed to vehicles with full-charge driving range lower to 150 km in June, so most small city EVs stopped seeing sales, draining a significant percentage of over PEV sales.
The 20 most popular CleanTechnica stories of the past week covered electric cars (13), battery storage (5), and renewable energy (2), and fossil fuels (2). Have a look.
Well funded fear-mongering PR machines are taking advantages of the vulnerabilities of the press and other media and Tesla and Elon Musk are at the intersection of their attacks.
Tesla has announced that it will be ending the lifetime free Supercharging benefit for buyers of new Model S, Model X, and Model 3 Performance vehicles using a qualified referral on September 17th, 2018.
