Tesla slashed its prices in the US because BYD’s sales have surpassed its own?

On January 8, Tesla lowered the prices of some models in the U.S. market. The basic and long-range versions of Model 3 dropped by $1,250, and the high-performance version of Model Y dropped by $2,000.

91che believes that Tesla is likely to launch a global price war again, just like before, and directly lead to a "price reduction wave" among other car companies.

Over the past year, Tesla has been actively lowering prices in an effort to gain a higher market share, especially in the United States and China, the two most important markets in the world, where it has been stirring like a catfish.

Under Tesla's price-cutting offensive, U.S. electric car startups Lucid and Rivian, as well as established automakers such as General Motors and Ford, have lowered their prices one after another; and in the Chinese market, the big price cut in March last year was initiated by Tesla.

Afterwards, Tesla, which led everyone to "collectively dive", was quiet for a while, until 2024, when a car company's electric vehicle sales surpassed them.

In January 2024, BYD announced that its electric vehicle sales reached 526,409 units in Q4 last year, while Tesla's sales in the fourth quarter of 2023 were 484,507 units. This means that BYD has surpassed Tesla and become the new champion in the global electric vehicle sales rankings. Although Tesla's sales in the fourth quarter set a new record, the fact that it was surpassed by BYD may make it difficult for the company to be happy.

After the news was released, the capital market responded immediately. At the close of January 3, Tesla's stock price fell by more than 4% to $238.45. Overnight, the company's market value evaporated by $32.4 billion.

Later, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, said: "Tesla is an artificial intelligence/robotics company, but in the eyes of many people, we are a car company." Musk seemed to want to prove that he did not care about being surpassed, because Tesla's goal has never been to sell.

But for Tesla, the pressure from BYD is becoming more and more real.

Prior to this, BYD had only been focusing on domestic production and could not pose a challenge to Tesla in overseas markets.

However, not long ago, BYD announced that it would build an automobile production plant in Hungary, which would be the first large-scale automobile plant established by a Chinese brand in Europe. BYD said it hopes to obtain one-tenth of the sales of pure electric vehicles in Europe by the end of 2030 and establish a complete and mature automobile market base in the local area.

At this time, Musk's Tesla factory in Germany had not yet been completed, but it had to start competing for consumers with BYD, which had entered the hinterland.

Does Musk really not care about being surpassed? The answer is obviously not.

Just a few days after BYD replaced Tesla as the global sales champion, Tesla announced a price cut in the United States. 91che speculates that this round of price cuts is likely to spread quickly to China, and then a number of domestic auto brands may face two choices: 1. Follow Tesla to cut prices and highlight their advantages; 2. Withstand the pressure and improve product configuration to attract consumers. Of course, a greater possibility is that domestic brands will both cut prices and increase configurations, and then the market will begin to expect another round of price cuts from Tesla.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.