1st Gear: Tesla is really dropping the ball on the whole selling cars thing...

Tesla is still, ostensibly, a car company. Sure, a car company with a market cap that vastly outstrips its actual underlying financials, but a car company nonetheless. Elon Musk seems to no longer care about this, though, because his mind is stuck on robots and AI -- exploits that help the company's share prices, but not its sales. From Reuters:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has spent much of this year focused on the carmaker's robotics pursuits and winning shareholder approval for his freshly minted $1 trillion pay package. In the meantime, the outlook for Tesla's main business - selling cars - is darkening.

Tesla faces sales pressure in the world's three biggest car markets: Europe, China and the United States. The electric-vehicle maker's sales fell 48.5% across Europe in October versus the same month last year, according to data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association on Tuesday. For the year, its sales are down about 30% in the region, while industrywide EV sales jumped 26%.

Tesla's global vehicle deliveries are expected to decline 7% this year, according to Visible Alpha, after a 1% drop in 2024. That is despite record third-quarter deliveries, which were juiced by American car buyers racing to beat the September 30 expiration of an EV tax credit.

Turns out, car buyers aren't huge on buying dated, cheaply built cars sold to them by someone with wildly right-wing beliefs. Who knew!