Tesla’s problems are really starting to pile up — literally.
Pile Up
Tesla’s “nightmare” year is fully underway — and investors are wary of what’s still to come, with CEO Elon Musk admitting that a new, next-generation platform and a cheaper passenger vehicle won’t arrive until at least next year.
With sales slumping, production is outpacing demand considerably. And Tesla has seemingly struggled to ramp down production in time, with unsold stock piling up so much that it can literally be spotted from space, as Sherwood reports.
Satellite imagery, courtesy of observation marketplace SkyFi, reveals that lots at the company’s sales centers across the country and its factory in Fremont, California are really starting to fill up — a striking visualization of Tesla’s ongoing financial woes.
Unsold on Tesla
There are likely a number of factors at play. For one, EV makers have long noticed a slowdown in demand for fully electric vehicles. Then there’s an influx of cheaper alternatives, particularly from competitors in China that have caught up with Tesla’s offerings.
Of course, the carmaker’s mercurial CEO has also had plenty to do with it by scaring away potential buyers with his repugnant behavior and being distracted by his many other companies.
As such, unsold inventory is really starting to pile up. Last month, footage making the rounds online showed hundreds of unsold Teslas amassing at a dying mall outside of Chesterfield, Missouri.
It’s a turbulent time for Tesla, with shareholders set to vote on Musk’s $56 billion pay package this week, which if a recent letter by Tesla’s chair Robyn Denholm is anything to go by, could determine Musk’s future with the company.
Meanwhile, Musk claimed over the weekend that the “public sentiment is unequivocally supportive,” without saying where he’s getting that information.
But if the company’s disastrous Q1 earnings are any indication, Tesla has its work cut out as we race towards the end of Q2. With unsold inventory collecting dust in random parking lots, the carmaker is in for a rough stretch — with or without its alienating CEO at the wheel.
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