Connect with us

Investor's Corner

Tesla Model S Was World’s Best Selling EV in November

The Tesla Model S was the world’s best selling plug-in electric car in November. But worldwide, China’s BYD sold more electric vehicles than any other manufacturer. The electric car market is about to get very crowded and highly competitive in 2016 and beyond.

Published

on

Model S referral program

What better way to ring out the old year than to announce the Tesla Model S was the best selling plug-in electric car in the world in November? According to figures put together by InsideEVs, the Model S handily out performed its two closest rivals, the Kandi Panda EV and the BYD Tang. Sales of the Nissan LEAF have plummeted since the company announced it was introducing an extended range model in 2016 and an all new second generation car in 2017.

Tesla Model S world's best selling electric car in November

Based on what we know at this minute (Tesla’s fourth quarter sales will be announced on Monday, January 4) it appears the Model S is also the global sales leader for all of 2015. It sold about 600 more than the Nissan LEAF through the end of November and all reports are that December may be a record setting month for Tesla. Global Equities analyst Trip Chowdhry says the pace of activities at the Fremont factory is frantic as the company races to push as many cars out the door as possible before the end of the year.

Tesla Model S global sales

All this good news should be tempered with a firm grasp of reality. 2016 will see many more new competitors for Tesla. On January 4 at 8 pm PST, Faraday Future will take the wraps off its new car, which it promises will make us rethink everything we know about cars. That’s a bold claim and the world is waiting to see if Faraday can back it up.

Google has just announced a partnership with Ford to build autonomous driving cars. It is also investing $4.5 billion to bring 13 new plug-in or electric cars to market in the next few years. Audi is readying its new Q6 Quattro e-tron for market, a car that will compete directly with the Model X for SUV customers. BMW and Volkswagen are rushing plug-in cars to market.

One company that is little known in the United States but which is destined to be a top player in the electric vehicle market is China’s BYD. It is offering electric vehicles in every category, from intercity and long distance buses to airport and seaport service vehicles, heavy trucks, and construction equipment. It operates a fleet of electric taxis in Chicago and is about to begin a similar service in New York City.

BYD is considering building manufacturing facilities for batteries and vehicles in the US soon. It already has a Bus & Coach Factory in Lawrence, California that will produce 300 electric buses this coming year. When all the models of electric cars that BYD builds are combined, it sold more EVs worldwide than any other manufacturer through the end of November.

Advertisement
-

November global sales

Lerner-Lim, BYD’s director of eastern U.S. business told Electric Cars Report recently that fossil fuel vehicles will be steadily replaced by environmentally responsible solutions. “The time has come for electric vehicles, and BYD is ready to meet the growing demand,” he said. “It’s a very exciting opportunity to take technology that was developed in China—and leveraged and matured in large scale there—and adapt them to American standards, lifestyles and infrastructures.”

Tesla can claim to have jump started the electric car revolution, but it may have its hands full keeping ahead of the competition in the market it created.

Image Credit: InsideEVs

"I write about technology and the coming zero emissions revolution."

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet

Elon Musk hinted a Tesla-SpaceX merger could be coming, and Wall Street is taking notice.

Published

on

By

Elon Musk gave his clearest signal yet that Tesla and SpaceX could eventually combine, telling the All-In Summit in Los Angeles that the two companies’ deepening collaboration makes the question worth asking. Sawyer Merritt first surfaced the highlight on X Tuesday.

Asked directly why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate given how closely they already work together, Musk told hosts at the summit: “Great question there. With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration in so many areas.” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who joined Musk on stage, added that SpaceX personnel have already moved into xAI to fill leadership and engineering gaps, saying the businesses are integrating “faster than I thought,” though “not fully integrated yet,”

The comments landed on top of merger speculation that has been building on Wall Street for months. JPMorgan has called a tie-up “strategically coherent on paper,” pointing to overlapping ambitions in AI, robotics, energy, transportation and space. Jefferies went further, estimating Musk could retain roughly 55.3 percent voting control in a deal structured without a premium, a scenario that would still leave room for Tesla shareholders to come out ahead. On Kalshi, traders now put the odds of a merger before 2028 at 66 percent.

Tesla’s stake in SpaceX, still under one percent, traces back to its earlier investment in xAI, which converted to SpaceX equity after SpaceX absorbed the AI company. The two are also jointly building Terafab, a chip facility in Austin meant to serve both Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s satellite ambitions. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has stood by a 2027 merger timeline for months, and Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest recently floated a similar case, an idea Musk pushed back on directly at the time.

Another Tesla SpaceX merger prediction by ARK Invest has Elon Musk talking

Advertisement
-

The timing adds another layer. Tesla has scheduled an October 1 unveiling for its next generation Roadster at a venue near SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas test site, using the phrase “Go for launch” in its promotional material. Both stocks dipped roughly 2 percent Monday before recovering slightly in premarket trading Tuesday, with SpaceX shares up about 0.4 percent and Tesla essentially flat.

Musk stopped short of confirming anything is in motion. But unlike his past denials of a corporate restructuring, this response didn’t rule one out, and it came with Shotwell sitting next to him describing an integration that’s already underway.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash

An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.

Published

on

By

Photorealistic depiction of the Amazon Prime plane crash in Miami on Sep 3, 2026 near a fleet of Tesla Cybercab
Photorealistic depiction of the Amazon Prime plane crash in Miami on Sep 3, 2026 near a fleet of Tesla Cybercab

An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.

Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.

The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.


Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.

The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.

Advertisement
-

Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.

Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.

Continue Reading

Featured

Tesla Cybercab is coming to Asia this month as US service officially begins

Tesla Asia says Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai this month.

Published

on

By

Concept image of Tesla Cybercab in the streets of Hong Kong via Grok
Concept image of Tesla Cybercab in the streets of Hong Kong via Grok

Tesla’s Cybercab is heading to Asia. The official Tesla Asia account posted on X Thursday, inviting Cybercab fans to “Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai.” The post went up within hours of Tesla’s own Cybercab milestone in Texas, where the company said Thursday it had begun offering rides in across Austin.

Exact dates and venues for the Asia tour haven’t been released yet, though Tesla Hong Kong replied to the announcement with “Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong soon,” while Tesla Japan’s response pointed fans to a sign up page for updates. Neither post mentions test rides or a service area, and nothing so far suggests Tesla is launching Robotaxi operations in any of the four cities. Based on how Tesla has run past Cybercab tours, in Europe in late 2024 and at US shopping centers that same December, the Asia stops are almost certainly static displays at Tesla stores or public venues as a means to stimulate buzz for its future driverless ride-hailing service in the big cities.

The timing lines up with Tesla’s only prior Cybercab appearance in the region, a booth at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai last November, which Teslarati covered at the time. At that event, Tesla’s regional general manager for Shanghai framed the car as evidence of the company’s broader mission, a message Tesla has since formalized in its Master Plan Part IV, which states that “autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the affordability, availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution, particularly in our increasingly dense global cities.” The same document is where Tesla lays out its “sustainable abundance” framing for Cybercab and Optimus alike, describing the two as the hardware behind an AI driven push to cut the cost of transportation and labor at scale.

Whether Cybercab actually operates as a robotaxi anywhere in Asia remains an open question, considering China has already pushed an autonomous ride-hailing market that’s run on homegrown players like Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony AI. For now, the four city tour reads as a marketing push timed to Austin’s momentum.

Advertisement
-
Continue Reading