Elon Musk Lords Over Rivals as ‘Tesla Killers’ Lose Wheels
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is a happy man after record delivery numbers in Q2 2019. | Source: Mark RALSTON / AFP)
By CCN.com: Tesla stock has been in turnaround mode since the beginning of June as Elon Musk seems to be walking the talk about hitting record deliveries this year, and now there’s one more reason for bulls to rejoice.
A Bloomberg report says that Tesla is beating established luxury car makers Audi and Jaguar in the electric vehicle game. Tesla stock jumped over 3% yesterday after the Bloomberg article, which is not surprising as Audi and Jaguar’s new cars are failing to keep pace with Elon Musk’s older models.
Another tailwind for Tesla stock
Bloomberg reports that sales of Jaguar’s I-Pace SUV have averaged around 190 units a month since it went on sale around 10 months ago. It has emerged that I-Pace dealers are sitting on six months’ worth of invetory, forcing the British carmaker to offer juicy discounts to move more units.
The Audi e-tron has fared much better than the Jaguar, with monthly sales averaging 745 units as per InsideEVs estimates. Tesla’s success can be judged from the fact that it was moving 550 units of the Model X every month back in 2015. But the bottom line is that the Elon Musk-led company lords over Audi and Jaguar when it comes to sales.
Why Elon Musk can keep winning despite its rivals’ desperate measures
Jaguar is trying to steal Elon Musk’s thunder by offering a $3,000 incentive to Tesla customers who buy the I-Pace, but that might not help in the long run.
After all, Tesla’s expensive cars – the Model X and the Model S – can go more than 300 miles on a single charge, while the I-Pace is capable of covering only 234 miles but costs $69,500. The Audi e-tron has a range of 204 miles and is priced at $74,800. The Tesla Model 3, meanwhile, starts at $38,990.
Another reason why the likes of Audi and Jaguar will fail to catch Elon Musk is because of the latter’s wide-ranging supercharger network. Tesla has more than 1,600 supercharger stations in the US that contain more than 14,000 superchargers and it plans to open more soon.
Jaguar, on the other hand, is dependent on third-parties to provide charging points and doesn’t plan to build one of its own. Audi’s charging infrastructure doesn’t appear to be as promising as Tesla’s either.
Given all the advantages that Tesla enjoys, it is not surprising to see why Elon Musk has a leg up over established rivals. More importantly, there’s a chance that he can push the advantage further by lowering prices on the back of production efficiencies so that rivals end up eating Tesla’s dust.
