Tesla is dominating the electric vehicle sales leaderboard in the United Kingdom through 2021 so far as the company’s Model 3 continues to dominate the highly-concentrated EV market on the continent.
Tesla has been experiencing exponential growth through the past several years thanks to growing demand, improving vehicle quality, world-class EV tech, and its efforts to expand production into other markets across the world. For over a year, Tesla has established international production efforts with its first foreign manufacturing facility in China. The company continues to expand this footprint both domestically and internationally, with plans to open new production facilities in Germany and Austin, Texas, later this year.
In Europe, Tesla currently does not have an operational manufacturing plant as Giga Berlin is still under construction and could begin production in the coming months. However, demand in Europe has been supplemented by the Giga Shanghai plant in China, where Tesla has been exporting Model 3s to Europe since January. As a result of these efforts, Tesla has established itself as the manufacturer with the best-selling EV.
New data from EU-EVs shows that the Model 3 is the European Union’s most popular electric car, and it’s not necessarily a very close race. This year, Tesla has sold 27,186 Model 3 units this year, with the closest competitor being the French-built Renault Zoe, with 17,452 sales so far this year.
Volkswagen holds the 3rd, 4th, and 5th place spots with the ID.3, ID.4, and UP! EV, respectively.
?? European BEV Registrations Year-To-Date 2021
Source: available Information from 11 countries, eu.evsdotcom pic.twitter.com/cAK2zDtmSU
— Alex (@alex_avoigt) June 14, 2021
Because of Volkswagen’s strong performance in the top 5 with its three currently-offered EVs, the German automaker has established itself as the top brand in the EU, accounting for 47,878 sales so far this year. This takes up 18.1% of the total EU market share for electric vehicles, an impressive statistic. Tesla has 27,377 total registrations in the EU as a company, making it the second-most-popular EV manufacturer in the region. This means that Tesla has sold 191 additional non-Model 3 units in the EU due to the sale of Model S and Model X vehicles, most likely.
The Model Y is not currently available in Europe, as Tesla is awaiting the completion of the Giga Berlin production facility. However, there is some speculation that Tesla could begin exporting Model Y units from Shanghai to Europe in Q3 if Giga Berlin isn’t ready for production. However, these rumors have not been confirmed by Tesla directly.
NEWS: @TroyTeslike shared some info on his Patreon from his sources:
1: Tesla will start exporting Model Y from China to Europe in early Q3 2021. The reason that was mentioned was that there is a big MY order backlog in Europe and there are some delays with Giga Berlin
1/5
— Sawyer Merritt ?? (@SawyerMerritt) June 14, 2021
Europe remains a battleground for EV manufacturers as it is one of the most heavily concentrated areas for electric vehicles in the world. However, Tesla has continued to establish itself as the worldwide leader in EVs, with little to no room for competitors to make errors. Tesla seems to improve upon its product on a regular basis, increasing range or performance through its vehicle lineup, giving other companies little room to challenge Elon Musk’s company.
Investor's Corner
Tesla stock closes at all-time high on heels of Robotaxi progress
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.