Investor's Corner
Tesla Model S, X softer sales in Europe are NOT due to the Audi e-tron and Jaguar I-PACE
In a note to clients on Wednesday, Bernstein senior technology analyst Toni Sacconaghi concluded that increased competition from vehicles such as the Audi e-tron and the Jaguar I-PACE is responsible for the recent weakness in Tesla’s sales volume in Europe. The analyst further warned that the arrival of other premium electric vehicles like the Mercedes-Benz EQC and the Porsche Taycan could worsen Tesla’s problem.
Explaining further, the Bernstein analyst added that the total market for Europe’s premium electric cars has only grown modestly in 2018 and 2019, and over this time, Tesla’s sales volume has decreased. “Our analysis suggests that the deteriorating sales trajectory of the Model S and X may be primarily due to competition, particularly in Europe, from Jaguar and Audi. In other words, the market isn’t growing much, and Tesla is losing share,” Sacconaghi wrote.
According to TSLA investor @Incentives101, an economist with a background in macro research, Bernstein’s conclusions are inaccurate. In a message to Teslarati, the economist provided a deep dive into the likely causes of the Model S and X’s sales decline in Europe, as well as the reasons why vehicles such as the Jaguar I-PACE and the Audi e-tron are in no way responsible for the reduced market share of Tesla’s flagship sedan and SUV.
Model S and X sales decline
It should be noted that Europe is a region, which means that it is comprised of multiple countries, each with a population of consumers that usually have different preferences in vehicle purchases. Looking at past vehicle sales data, the economist noted that from January-June 2018, Tesla sold 13,426 Model S and X in Europe, while in the first six months of 2019, the figure was 8,037.
“In those months of 2018, Norway and the Netherlands accounted for 52% of sales, while in 2019 it was just 28%. This means that 87% of the drop in sales of Model S and X in Europe is explained by the Norwegian and Dutch market. Furthermore, the Netherlands had Model S and X sales for the first six months of 2018 of 2,833 units and 167 for 2019. This means that the Netherlands by itself explains 50% of the drop in sales for Tesla’s flagship vehicles,” the investor wrote.
The Netherlands and Norway
If one were to look at the sales of the Audi e-tron and the Jaguar I-PACE in the Netherlands for the first half of 2019, one would find that the two vehicles only sold 362 and 111 units, respectively. This means that in the Netherlands, which was behind 50% of the drop in Tesla’s European sales, the e-tron and I-PACE couldn’t have been responsible since their combined sales are only 16% of the Model S and X’s 2018 sales for the same period. With this in mind, some headwinds were met by the Model S and X in the Netherlands, particularly in the form of a change in BIK incentives at the end of 2018, as well as the arrival of the more affordable Model 3, which has reached sales of over 6,000 units in the country.
As explained by the economist, Norway is a key market for Tesla in the European region, and it is responsible for 37% of the drop in Model S and X sales. For the first six months of 2019, Model S and X sales were 2,079 units, while the Audi e-tron sold 2,273 units and the Jaguar I-PACE sold 2,101. Bernstein’s note claimed that the market for premium electric vehicles didn’t increase, and thus, Tesla’s share of the European market just fell. This, according to the investor, is not correct. “If you take the previous Netherlands sales out of the equation — because it becomes incomparable — you’ll see that the market actually increased in Europe,” he wrote.
The actual reasons
The economist noted that there are a couple of factors that likely played a notable part in the decline of the Model S and X’s sales in Norway. First off, Tesla discontinued the 75 kWh (Standard Range) Model S and X, a variant that accounted for more than 80% of the sales in the country. More importantly, Tesla has entered the Norwegian market with the Model 3, a smaller, more affordable vehicle that boasts the best technologies that the electric car maker has to offer. “Norwegians have proven preferences for smaller and cheaper vehicles. Historically, the share of luxury vehicles in Norway is relatively low. It is then by no surprise that the Model 3 is currently selling at levels not seen in any other market, holding 14% of market share for total vehicles,” the economist explained.
In Norway’s case, at least, Tesla appears to have made a notable trade-off. It entered the market with the Model 3, which allowed the company to command 14% of the country’s total vehicle market. This came at a price in the form of a 50% decline in Model S and X sales. Of course, the removal of the Model S and X’s 75 kWh variant, as well as buyer expectations of an impending refresh of the two flagship vehicles, likely played a notable part in Norway’s sales decline as well.
Debunking Bernstein’s thesis
With these factors in mind, it appears that Bernstein’s findings are, for lack of a better term, inaccurate. The economist summed up his thesis as follows. “Two countries explain the drop in sales for the Model S and X almost entirely, and it’s absolutely clear that competition wasn’t the factor. Regulation and consumer preferences are. It is also important to mention that 28% of sales of the Audi e-tron were in Germany as well, a country where the Model S and X have never been strong, even at their peak.
“Consumers in the aggregate always behave rationally. There hasn’t been one example in history where a product(s) that is inferior in every way dominates the market or segment in which they compete. The Audi e-tron, the Jaguar I-PACE, and the Mercedes-Benz EQC are not even in the Model S and X segment specs-wise. Rather, they are closer in specs to the Model 3 and Model Y, both of which undercut them in price. The only reason people mistakenly put them against the Model S and X is their cost,” the investor explained.
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.
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.
Cybercab will be on display in Asia this month!
Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai. pic.twitter.com/wGmmEastfX— Tesla Asia (@Tesla_Asia) September 4, 2026
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.
Elon Musk
OpenAI cites distrust of SpaceX in decision to drop Cursor partnership
OpenAI will cut SpaceX-owned Cursor’s model access in November, citing Musk’s history of broken contracts.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced late Friday that it is ending its partnership with Cursor, cutting off the coding tool’s access to its models on November 12. The move comes two weeks after SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor’s parent company, Anysphere, folding the popular AI coding assistant into Elon Musk’s growing SpaceXAI division.
In a post on its website, OpenAI said the decision came down to trust, not technology. “We cannot be confident that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service, based on our experience with Elon Musk’s companies violating contracts,” the company wrote. OpenAI pointed to two specific incidents: X, now part of SpaceX, allegedly breaking the terms of an existing OpenAI contract after Musk bought Twitter.
That lawsuit is the backdrop for all of this. Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015, left the board in 2018, and sued Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, arguing they abandoned the company’s nonprofit mission for profit. A federal jury sided with OpenAI in May, finding Musk waited too long to sue rather than ruling on the merits of his claims. Musk said at the time he would appeal to the Ninth Circuit, calling the outcome a “calendar technicality” rather than a real judgment.
SpaceX’s interest in Cursor predates that verdict by weeks. The company first struck a deal with Cursor in April, securing an option to acquire it for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for joint development work instead. As Teslarati reported at the time, the logic was straightforward: Cursor was paying retail prices to Anthropic and OpenAI, two of its most direct competitors, every time a developer used its product, while SpaceX had idle capacity on its Colossus supercomputer, roughly the equivalent of a million Nvidia H100 GPUs, that Cursor could use to train its own models instead. SpaceX exercised the option in June, days after its own IPO, and the deal closed in mid-August.
Once it closed, Musk moved fast. On an all-hands call with more than 1,000 Cursor employees, he reportedly told staff that SpaceXAI’s Grok was playing catchup in the AI race, unlike Tesla and SpaceX in their own markets, and singled out Anthropic as the company to catch. Cursor CEO Michael Truell now reports directly to Musk inside SpaceXAI.
Losing OpenAI’s models leaves Cursor leaning harder on Anthropic’s Claude, which has its own compute agreement with SpaceX, and on Cursor’s in-house Composer model, the one SpaceX’s compute was supposed to accelerate in the first place. OpenAI framed the November deadline as maximum notice under its contract, and said it wants to “go above and beyond” to help developers through the transition. Whether Anthropic makes the same call is now the open question in AI coding.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Robotaxi gets a massive upgrade in Nevada
Nevada regulators just approved a massive expansion of Tesla’s robotaxi fleet across the entire county.
Tesla’s robotaxi footprint in Nevada just grew by roughly 500 times in a single regulatory vote.
The Nevada Transportation Authority approved Tesla’s full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit on Thursday, clearing the way for the company to deploy up to 5,000 driverless vehicles across Clark County over the next 12 months. The decision came during a four hour general session meeting that Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt watched live and reported on X, noting the vote replaces the interim order that had limited Tesla to just 10 robotaxis on a narrow stretch of the Las Vegas Strip.
EXCLUSIVE: Tesla has just officially received approval for its full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit in Nevada, clearing the way for Tesla to launch a paid public Robotaxi service in Las Vegas.
This officially allows @Tesla to deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis over the next… pic.twitter.com/DPs5UtUlrE
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 20, 2026
That earlier cap, covered here after it surfaced on August 13, came with restrictions that looked stricter than what Tesla runs in Austin: a 45 mph speed ceiling, no airport pickups, and a geofence confined to the Strip corridor. The new approval extends Tesla’s operating authority to all of Clark County, with room to request an even wider geofence across the state.
Tesla representatives at the meeting said they have no intention of putting 5,000 cars on the road right away. Commercial rides are expected to start within 30 days, pending vehicle inspections, insurance filings, and fare approval, the standard steps every robotaxi operator in Nevada has had to clear.
Tesla’s own Robotaxi account replied to the news with a short line, The golden future is upon us.
The timing lines up with Tesla’s broader robotaxi push this month. The company is preparing to open Cybercab rides to the public in Austin as soon as this month, and it opened a sweepstakes for riders to win a seat at the launch event. Tesla filed its original application for a 5,000 vehicle Nevada fleet back in June, a request regulators trimmed to 10 vehicles when they issued the interim order in July. Thursday’s vote effectively grants the number Tesla asked for from the start.
Zoox, the Amazon owned robotaxi operator, has run in Nevada since 2025 and was capped at 100 vehicles before Thursday’s decision. Tesla’s new ceiling puts it well ahead of that comparison on paper, though the company has said its actual fleet size will depend on how quickly FSD v15 rolls out, the software update executives have called the gateway to scaling unsupervised robotaxi operations nationwide.
Tesla crosses major Unsupervised Self-Driving milestone
Tesla Robotaxi will be a 24/7 service: here’s when
