Is Tesla on the Road to Irrelevance?
Elon Musk’s electric carmaker has been key to mainstreaming EVs, especially in the US. But when it comes to global adoption, how much does Tesla still matter?
A Tesla Model 3 charges at a Tesla Supercharger location in Scotts Valley, California.
Photographer: Philip Pacheco/BloombergOver the past 18 months, Tesla has missed its sales goals and seen its share price fall, as Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk makes dramatic decisions about the company’s future. Musk cut the price of Tesla cars, fired much of the team behind its Supercharger network, and hinted that Tesla will pursue a robotaxi to position itself as more of an AI company than an automaker.
All of those decisions seem to reflect Tesla moving away from its original mission of making affordable mass-market EVs. The carmaker “needs a growth story,” Bloomberg Opinion columnist Liam Denning says on this week’s episode of the Zero podcast. “And that growth story has just become less and less credible.”