Tesla is having a horrible year.
The Elon Musk-led company’s future is uncertain as ever, CNN reports. As we approach the end of Q1, Tesla has remained the worst-performing stock on the S&P 500 for over a month now.
The company is down almost 32 percent since January, hitting a ten-month low — and the forecast for the rest of the year isn’t looking much better. According to a scathing new report by Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langan, Tesla is a “growth company with no growth.”
Per Langan, Tesla’s growth is expected to remain flat this year and start to decline in 2025. That’s due to a number of factors, including a surge of competitors, particularly from China, eating up larger shares of the global EV market and undercutting the company’s offerings.
Tesla is also struggling to keep up with orders, while resale values are dropping considerably.
Some of the company’s woes also feel decidedly self-inflicted. The company’s vehicles, for example, are among some of the worst depreciating vehicles on the market right now, making them a terrible investment — the polar opposite of what Musk predicted back in 2019, when he claimed the value of the company’s cars would actually increase as their self-driving capabilities matured.
In short, it’s a perfect storm of headwinds — and Musk looks ill-prepared for the fight ahead.
The EV maker has been cutting prices to keep up with the rest of the world and brace for significantly slowing demand — and that could prove disastrous in the long run. Prices are dropping so much, Fortune reported last month, EV makers are sending cheques to leasing companies to reassure them that manufacturers will buy back vehicles.
Even with its precipitously dropping share price, Langan believes Tesla’s stock is still priced too high considering its earnings and profits.
Meanwhile, Musk has been accused by shareholders of abandoning the company and has spent a lot of his time on X-formerly-Twitter spreading disinformation and furthering racist tropes.
He has also been accused of “blackmailing” investors, threatening in January to spin off artificial intelligence projects away from the EV maker unless he’s able to claw back a 25 percent stake.
Tesla’s efforts to realize its vision of “Full Self-Driving” has also hit roadblock after roadblock, becoming embroiled in several government investigations. Meanwhile, driver assistance software of the company’s competitors has had plenty of time to catch up — and race ahead, according to many.
Of course, the company’s leadership isn’t blind to the existential challenges ahead. In a news release following its Q4 earnings call in January, the company admitted that “our vehicle volume growth rate may be notably lower than the growth rate achieved in 2023.”
“I’m often optimistic regarding time,” Musk told investors during the call, offering a brief glimpse of lucidity. “But our current schedule shows that we will start production towards the end of 2025, sometime in the second half.”
But whether investors will stick around for that long remains to be seen.
More on Tesla: Teslas Can Be Stolen by Hijacking WiFi at Charging Stations, Researchers Find
Share This Article