HMM: Elon Musk’s late-night announcement to raise prices and reopen some stores. “Collapsing sales and more senior staff departures suggest a company in disarray.”
The reason for the volte-face was not spelled out, but it paints a potentially worrying picture of corporate governance at the electric car OEM. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that most of Tesla’s retail landlords had been given no notice as to the termination of leases, many of which had no cancellation clauses, thus exposing the company to a host of potential lawsuits.
What is clear is that Tesla sales in 2019 have been disastrous. InsideEVs, a publication close to Tesla, tracks US electric vehicle deliveries, and, according to its numbers, January and February deliveries were down by around 80 percent compared to the months leading up. Although Tesla said it would concentrate on making up volume in Europe and China, neither of those markets appear able to take up the US’ slack.
h/ SG