In this Slate article published January 9, 2023, Patrick George a writer from Verge who has covered Tesla for decades gives his take on what’s happened to Tesla in 2022 and what he believes Tesla should be doing in 2023.
In Patrick’s view, Tesla’s main problems are
- Demand in China
- Uncertain economy
- Tesla ability to compete
The auto market in China is the largest in the world and what happens in China matters to Tesla.
Interest rate has risen and affecting cost of vehicles. Economy is weakening and consumers are less like to buy big ticket items.
Twitter stability will take two years but Patrick believe majority of car buyers just want an EV with a great charging network and is not a major problem.
To compete in this new environment where legacy auto is now investing in bringing lots of compelling EVs to marketplace with high software content and large screens, Patrick believes Tesla needs to refresh their lineup and bring in more products.
He finished the interview with a comparison of Tesla and Apple. Apple now owns about 50% of the phone market worldwide with the rest being Android from various manufacturers. Some investors may have believed Tesla might own 50% of the auto market. Patrick think auto is not the same a phone business and does not believe this is likely to happen.
In this article Patrick only focused on Tesla auto but Tesla has other businesses. Tesla utility battery storage Megapacks is smaller than auto but it is growing. See Tesla profile.
https://slate.com/technology/2023/01/elon-musk-tesla-stock-twitter-china.html