"Pure electric vehicles will only account for 30% of the global market share. Due to infrastructure reasons, about 1 billion people in the world cannot use electric vehicles. It is impossible for it to be accepted by everyone." When Toyota Motor's former president and current chairman Akio Toyoda made this statement two years ago, almost everyone disagreed and believed that this was Toyota's excuse for its slow electrification.

But when Tesla, the world's largest pure electric vehicle manufacturer, experienced its first sales decline in a decade in 2024; the growth rate of electric vehicles in the Chinese market was only 30%, while the growth rate of hybrid vehicles nearly doubled, looking back at these remarks, they have a different flavor.

November 25, 2024, a Tesla car store in a shopping mall in Tianhe District, Guangzhou.

Recently, Tesla announced that its global deliveries in 2024 will be 1.7892 million vehicles, a slight decrease of 1.07% year-on-year. This is the first decline in Tesla's global deliveries in ten years. At the same time, Tesla's market share has also been compressed, falling to 5.4%, a decline of 2.4 percentage points from 2023.

Among them, Tesla's performance in the Chinese market leads other markets. In December 2024, Tesla's sales in China reached 83,000 vehicles, a month-on-month increase of 12.8%. The annual sales exceeded 657,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 8.8%, both of which set historical records.

Currently, among Tesla's several major super factories around the world, only the super factory in Shanghai, China has achieved its planned production capacity. The planned production capacity is 1 million vehicles. The actual deliveries in 2024 reached 916,000 vehicles, accounting for 40% of Tesla's global total production capacity and exceeding 50% of the global total deliveries.

However, Tesla cannot match the growth rates of Chinese local brands such as BYD, Ideal and Hongmeng Zhixing.

Even compared with itself, Tesla's sales in China in 2023 will be 603,700 vehicles, an increase of 37.3% compared with 2022. In other words, Tesla's year-on-year growth rate in 2024 will drop by 28.5 percentage points compared with 2023.

Tesla's main competitor, Chinese automaker BYD, grew rapidly in 2024, with sales reaching 4.25 million vehicles, including 1.76 million pure electric vehicles.

Although Tesla holds the title of global pure electric vehicle sales champion, the gap between the two companies in this market segment has narrowed to 30,000 vehicles.

In fact, Tesla's price discounts have been increased since the second half of 2024. In July 2024, Tesla launched a 5-year 0% interest benefit policy for the first time, with a discount period of one month, but it has been extended several times since then and is still valid in January 2025; on December 24, Tesla China announced that if you buy a Model Y, you can directly reduce the balance by 10,000 yuan, which can be used in combination with national subsidies.

For a long time, Tesla has relied on the Model Y and Model 3 to increase sales, and these two models have become the target of public criticism. In 2024, new forces set off a wave of attacks on Tesla. In the second half of 2024 alone, Zeekr 7X, Ledao L60, Avita 07, etc. all regarded Model Y as a competitor.

On one hand, there is the Model 3/Y, which has not undergone major changes in many years, and on the other hand, there are Chinese companies that update their models on a monthly basis. The competition Tesla is facing is becoming increasingly fierce.

In the United States, the world's second largest automobile market, Ford and General Motors announced in 2024 that they would postpone the launch of electric vehicles and focus on hybrid models; Toyota, which has inherent advantages in the hybrid field, continued to grow sales in North America and Europe.

In 2024, car companies such as Xpeng, Zeekr, Zhiji, and GAC Aion announced that they would join the extended-range route. As the hybrid trend intensifies, will Tesla continue to stick to the pure electric route? Or will it launch a more cost-effective product, such as the Model 2?