Liam Denning, Columnist

Tesla Is Swapping Its EV Crown For Even More Promises

January 6, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

Lots of cars but few buyers.
Photographer: Toru Hanai/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Two questions hang over Tesla Inc. as 2026 kicks off: Will the company deliver on its seemingly impossible to fulfill pledges and will Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk continue to successfully negate the concept of pledges?

Apart from its share price, Tesla doesn’t enter the year on a roll. Its latest electric-vehicle sales numbers confirmed that the third-quarter’s spike was an anomaly fueled by consumers rushing to buy EVs before the US removed generous tax credits, and that Tesla relinquished its long-term position as the world’s biggest battery EV seller to China’s BYD Co.