Tesla Still Owns the EV Future

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 24, 10:00AM EST

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Tesla Still Owns the EV Future — © AdrianHancu / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

Upcoming Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) earnings may show that margins have dropped, most likely because of discounting. Revenue growth may have slowed due to a decline in the rate of electric vehicle (EV) adoption. However, Tesla has no real competition in the United States and Europe. Huge legacy car companies in both markets have tried and failed to become market share leaders.

For Tesla, China is another matter. BYD dominates the EV market there, becoming the largest EV company in the world due to that. However, it will be very difficult for BYD to move into the United States and Europe. That is because nations have started to erect barriers to China’s EV battery use by other manufacturers.

The U.S. market is instructive. The two companies with the best odds to challenge Tesla are the long-time “big two” American auto companies: Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM). Both have spent billions of dollars on EV development and planned to spend billions more. Each has retreated recently because of poor demand. An unanswered question is whether this is a lack of demand for Ford and GM EVs or for EVs in general.

Tesla’s model line is old. That should be solved by a new, less expensive car in the offing and the new Cybertruck. Pickups remain the top-selling vehicle in America. Tesla now has a product in that huge niche. (Here are five reasons to avoid Tesla’s Cybertruck no matter what.)

Tesla has turned to discounting to keep its market share. Some investors frown on that. However, the move may not be because sales are slowing. It may simply be because Tesla wants its market share to be high, as other companies drop out of the running due to failures of their expensive plans.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.