Latest news with #OmeadAfshar
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Top Execs Fleeing Tesla as Dark Clouds Grow
Another top executive has quit Tesla as the automaker continues a dicey and high-stakes spiral. The Wall Street Journal reports that Troy Jones, Tesla's vice president of sales, service and delivery in North America — its largest market — suddenly packed his bags after 15 years at the company. It's unclear at this point if the decision was his; at Tesla, heads can roll depending on the whims of CEO Elon Musk. Jones' exit comes during a particularly tumultuous time for the EV brand, which is suffering faltering sales and a plunging stock price as Musk continues to be a deeply polarizing figure with extreme politics. Hinting at turmoil behind the scenes, it's also less than a month after Musk fired one of his closest confidantes, Omead Afshar, who was serving as vice president of manufacturing and operations before getting the axe in June. Afshar, who joined Tesla in 2017 as an engineer, was promoted to the position last October to oversee sales and manufacturing in North America and Europe, two markets where the backlash against Musk's role in the Trump administration has been the most intense. Mere weeks before Afshar's departure, Milan Kovac, who was in charge of Tesla's humanoid robot division Optimus, also left the company. Musk thanked Kovac for his time at Tesla, a courtesy he hasn't extended to others who have recently departed. Jenna Ferrua, a human resources director for North America, also left Tesla around the time of Afshar's departure. There are signs of upheaval at Musk's other ventures, too. Last week, Linda Yaccarino suddenly departed her post as CEO of X, Musk's social media platform. Her decision followed almost immediately after the site's integrated chatbot, Grok, went on racist tirades railing against Black and Jewish people, praising Nazis, and calling itself "MechaHitler." Whatever their reasons for leaving, the ex-Tesla execs bailed a ship that, if it's not outright sinking, is taking on alarming amounts of water. Off the back of its first-ever annual decline in revenue last year, Tesla sales have plunged for five straight months in Europe and in the US plummeted by nine percent in the first three months of 2025. This has been reflected in its stock position, with its shares down by over 15 percent this year. The automaker has been caught in the blast radius of Musk's reputational meltdown, facing mass protests and targeted acts of vandalism in response to his eager gutting of the federal government while working with the Trump administration. But to ascribe Tesla's plight to a mere image problem wouldn't do justice to its heap of other issues. Critics have pointed to its aging vehicle lineup for one reason why sales have dried up, with its recently refreshed Model Y failing to inspire customers — illustrated by the desperate financing deals that Tesla is offering, on top of slashing the vehicle's price. The recent launch of a small-scale robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, meanwhile, hasn't made a convincing case that Musk's vision of boldly staking Tesla's future on offering autonomous cab rides will rake in the trillions of dollars of money that he promised any time soon. And all the while, it's facing steeper competition than ever from Chinese competitors like BYD, which has overtaken Tesla as the largest EV company in the world. More on Tesla: A Clear Sign Just Emerged That Tesla Is Panicking
Mint
06-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
Musk's woes: Tesla hit refresh on its EVs but it hasn't worked
Forget Tesla for a moment. Just imagine an anonymous company with the following characteristics. Sales of its main product suddenly stopped growing over a year ago and are down 13% so far this year. Its last big product launch bombed. It reiterated plans for new lower-cost versions of its product as recently as three months ago, and they then didn't materialize. The chief executive dove head-first into divisive political activities that alienated customers and then picked a fight with the US president and his party. Having promised a revolutionary new automated product for a decade, missing repeated deadlines, the company finally launched a limited, somewhat automated pilot that looks years behind the competition. Would you pay 140 times earnings to own a sliver of that? Also Read: Tesla's China skid: Blame market forces, not politics Tesla Inc is in trouble. It just reported another dreadful set of electric vehicle (EV) sales numbers, once again missing a much-reduced consensus forecast. Tesla has now reported two sub-400,000 quarters in a row. The excuse given for the prior quarter's collapse, a temporary shutdown of production lines to refresh the Model Y, was never all that convincing and these second-quarter figures discredit it utterly. The recent sudden departure of Omead Afshar, longtime deputy to chief executive Elon Musk, plus news that Musk will assume oversight of sales in Europe and the US signal an acute problem. As it was, Tesla was forecast to rack up a second year of falling EV sales and this latest miss likely means further cuts to 2025 estimates. The wrinkle is that Musk himself represents the largest part of that problem. For example, the robotaxi rollout in Austin, for all its limitations, would represent a milestone for Tesla had Musk not spent years egregiously overselling it. The Cybertruck, an utter flop that distracted Tesla from designing cheaper EVs for the mass market, is Musk's brainchild. Also Read: Electric debacle: Tesla's troubles started before Musk wore the MAGA cap Above all, Musk's political exploits have damaged Tesla's brand in key markets and installed an administration openly hostile to EVs and the subsidies propping up what's left of Tesla's latest sales figures confirm structural weakness across Tesla's markets. The collapse in the premium segment, which comprises only about 5% of unit sales but perhaps 10-15% of automotive revenue, is particularly striking. It is all the more striking because that line-up expanded from two to three models with the release of the Cybertruck only about a year-and-a-half ago. Rather than boosting the segment, however, the Cybertruck's own sales peaked early, compounding a marked slump in the Models S and X, both launched at least a decade ago. Tesla's premium segment presence outside the US has shrivelled to almost nothing. The bulk of the business comprises the cheaper Models 3 and Y, with the latter alone accounting for perhaps 70% of EV sales. This core of Tesla's core business is also struggling, with the two together registering a 13.5% decline in the second quarter. Tesla built about 23,000 more of them than it sold, its fifth quarter of excess production out of the past eight—signalling a demand problem and adding a working capital headwind to cash flow. Also Read: Mint Quick Edit | BYD versus Tesla: Let merit decide pole position Refreshes of both models over the past two years have not addressed a basic truth. As with the S and X, these are old models in a fast-evolving market. Nowhere is that more evident than in China, where few care about Musk's relationship with MAGA, but drivers do want the latest technology at an affordable price. Tesla's sales slide there stems largely from its ageing lineup being overtaken by a range of competitors offering equal or better vehicles at lower prices. The recent release of Xiaomi Corp's YU7 SUV epitomizes the challenge. Tesla's stock, characteristically, went higher on the morning of 2 July on the back of unambiguously bad numbers. The justification for such exuberance is collapsing, though. Tesla is clearly no longer primed for dominance in EVs, losing share in China, Europe and its domestic market, with Morgan Stanley estimating an 8.8% drop in Tesla's US sales in June against a 1.7% increase for battery-run EVs overall. And this is before the impact of EV tax credits being removed by the Republican majority Musk helped elect. In terms of automation, Chinese competitors are already offering as standard the kind of advanced driver assistance features that Tesla upsells for thousands of dollars. That leaves the US robotaxi dream—and even there, the Austin pilot isn't so much proof of concept as a demonstration that Tesla has much to prove, relative to Musk's rhetoric at least. Tesla's buoyant stock owes everything to a persistent US-centric perception of technology leadership that cannot be found in the actual numbers. ©Bloomberg The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tesla faces second straight year of falling sales after another bad quarter
Tesla delivered 384,122 vehicles in the second quarter of this year, wrapping up another weak quarter for the company as it struggles to bring the pace of sales back up to 2023 levels. That represents a 13.5% drop from the number of cars Tesla delivered in the second quarter of 2022, and it means Tesla runs a real chance of underperforming its total sales figure from 2024. If that happens, it would mean Tesla's sales will have fallen two years in a row — despite the company once promoting the ability to grow deliveries at 50% annually. This quarter's sales were only slightly better than in Q1, which was the company's worst quarter for deliveries in more than two years. This was also the first full quarter of sales since CEO Elon Musk started working inside the Trump administration, which kicked off nationwide 'Tesla Takedown' protests. Musk repeatedly explained that Tesla's poor first-quarter sales were due in part to the company shutting down production lines at all of its factories to prepare for the launch of the upgraded Model Y. The company did not have any similarly planned production changeovers in the second quarter, although Business Insider reported that some staff working Model Y and Cybertruck lines were told to stay home for a few days in late May. Tesla will reveal the financial impact of the tough quarter on July 23, when it releases its official earnings report. Just last week, Musk reportedly fired his longtime confidant Omead Afshar, who oversaw both manufacturing and sales for the U.S. and Europe in his role as vice president. With the CEO reducing his time in the Trump administration, he has pledged to dedicate more time to Tesla and his other businesses. Since then, Tesla has launched a limited version of its long-promised Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, and Bloomberg News reported Musk is taking over Afshar's sales perch. Other automakers have struggled to move EVs lately, with Ford announcing this week that sales of its electric vehicles fell 31% year-over-year in the U.S. (Tesla's figures were for global sales.) Even Hyundai and Kia, which had found early success with their EVs in the States, saw sales drops in the second quarter, too. General Motors bucked the trend, growing U.S. EV sales year-over-year thanks to a slate of new and improved models. Tesla has tapped just about every lever it has to juice sales over the last two years. It dramatically lowered prices in the U.S. and abroad. It has run multiple low-interest rate promotions. And it has made some minor upgrades to all of its models, with the Model Y SUV getting one of the most noticeable facelifts. The company has spent the last few quarters teasing that it is working on 'more affordable' models that are reported to be something like super-stripped-down Model Ys and Model 3 sedans. It promised those were on track to start production in the first half of this year, but the company has not said whether or not that happened. Musk previously abandoned a plan to build a $25,000 car on the same next-generation platform that powers Tesla's dedicated robotaxi vehicle, the Cybercab, which is still in the prototype phase.
TechCrunch
02-07-2025
- Automotive
- TechCrunch
Tesla faces second straight year of falling sales after another bad quarter
Tesla delivered 384,122 vehicles in the second quarter of this year, wrapping up another weak quarter for the company as it struggles to bring the pace of sales back up to the level it was at in 2023. That represents a 13.5% drop from the number of cars Tesla delivered in the second quarter of 2022, and it means Tesla runs a real chance of underperforming its total sales figure from 2024. If that happens, it would mean Tesla's sales will have fallen two years in a row — despite the company once promoting the ability to grow deliveries at 50% annually. This quarter's sales were only slightly better than in Q1, which was the company's worst quarter for deliveries in more than two years. This was also the first full quarter of sales since CEO Elon Musk started working inside the Trump administration, which kicked off nationwide 'Tesla Takedown' protests. Musk repeatedly explained that Tesla's poor first quarter sales were due in part to the company shutting down production lines at all of its factories to prepare for the launch of the upgraded Model Y. The company did not have any similarly-planned production changeovers in the second quarter, although Business Insider reported that some staff working Model Y and Cybertruck lines were told to stay home for a few days in late May. Tesla will reveal the financial impact of the tough quarter on July 23, when it releases its official earnings report. Just last week, Musk reportedly fired his longtime confidant Omead Afshar, who oversaw both manufacturing and sales for the U.S. and Europe in his role of vice president. With the CEO reducing his time in the Trump administration, he has pledged to dedicate more time to Tesla and his other businesses. Since then, Tesla has launched a limited version of its long-promised Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, and Bloomberg News reported Musk is taking over Afshar's sales perch.
Forbes
02-07-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
Tesla Q2 Vehicle Deliveries Shrank 13% As Elon Musk's Troubles Mount
Tesla investors received more suboptimal news when Elon Musk's automaker reported sales data below Wall Street's already muted expectations, as Tesla's headaches swell in wake of Musk's cozying up to – and split from – President Donald Trump. The declining vehicle deliveries came as Elon Musk fell out of favor with Donald Trump. AFP via Getty Images Tesla said Wednesday morning it delivered 384,122 vehicles to customers during the second quarter, coming in below consensus analyst forecasts of 387,000, according to FactSet data. That's a 13% decline compared to Q2 2024, when Tesla delivered 444,000 cars. That narrowly surpasses 2025's first quarter as Tesla's largest year-over-year decline in vehicle deliveries on record. The quarterly vehicle delivery numbers, one of the key barometers of the company's success, come the same week as Musk's staredown intensified with Trump, a one-time close ally. Musk, who spent more than $200 million last year to help elect Trump, loudly disagreed with Trump's spending bill which passed the Senate on Tuesday. Trump said he'd 'look' at deporting the naturalized U.S. citizen Musk and would reevaluate government subsidies awarded to Musk's companies, namely Tesla and aerospace firm SpaceX. Shares of Tesla slipped 5% on Tuesday to their lowest level in more than three weeks, extending their 2025 decline to more than 20%. Surprising Fact Musk fired Tesla's head of North America and Europe operations Omead Afshar, Forbes first reported last week. In a potential sign of the seriousness of the declining sales, Musk will directly oversee sales in the U.S. and Europe following Afshar's exit, according to Bloomberg. Tesla has wobbled as Musk, the richest man in the world, grew increasingly unpopular in the public eye, with sales slipping as Musk leaned into right-wing politics. Tesla new car registrations declined through each of 2025's first five months in Europe, while sales in the key markets of China and California also tumbled. The company's core vehicle business is slumping, but it has made progress in artificial intelligence, as it rolled out a limited launch of its long-awaited robotaxi driverless vehicle service in Austin, Texas, last month. Further Reading Forbes Elon Is Asking For It: What Musk's Latest Trump Spat Means As Tesla Sales Sink By Alan Ohnsman Forbes Elon Musk Has Fired One Of His Top Tesla Lieutenants By Alan Ohnsman
