The Tesla paradox: record sales but a bad buzz

Solid world number one in electric cars, Tesla is preparing to beat its production record once again. Apart from France, where registrations over the first ten months of the year are down 10%, according to AAA Data, while the electric vehicle market there is growing by 28.7%, the results are flattering with sales which exceed 1.2 million units worldwide, compared to less than 800,000 in 2021 at the same time, according to the firm Inovev.

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Yet rises around the American brand a little discordant music. The most outstanding car manufacturer of the last ten years accumulates commercial successes, but also collects annoyances. Starting with the stock market, which has plunged. Tesla shares have lost more than half of their value since the start of the year, falling from 399 dollars (386 euros) to around 185 dollars in recent days. A slide that sanctions a series of “bad buzz” with which the brand must deal.

Tesla, which seemed to pass between the drops of the semiconductor crisis, could not escape the rigors of the zero Covid policy imposed by the Chinese authorities, which has long constrained its Shanghai mega-factory, producer of the Model 3, to idle. These same authorities imposed, on November 25, the recall of 80,000 Tesla for problems related to battery management and the operation of seat belts. One more episode in the stream of criticism that fell on the manufacturing quality of the cars produced by the manufacturer.

Messy reminders

Since January, Tesla has had to carry out nineteen recalls on its vehicles. In question, various and varied malfunctions, relating to the power steering or the rear lights, the latter problem having imposed a modification on 321,000 vehicles. In most cases, it was enough to perform a remote software update, but the recurrence of recalls is starting to get messy even if the procedure is commonplace in the automotive world and most manufacturers are not left out. . These reliability concerns no longer benefit, it seems, from the same leniency. According to the American consumer association Consumer Reports, “Build quality continues to be an issue at Tesla”.

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Added to this are the recurring controversies linked to the “autopilot” system, regularly accused of causing accidents – the last one took place in mid-November in China and killed two people. Contested, the technological choices of the manufacturer in terms of autonomous driving earned him to be at the heart of multiple investigations by the American administration, including the Department of Justice.

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