Tesla News

BYD’s local distributor EVDirect says it has notched up 40,000 sales less than three years after the brand arrived in Australia and is projecting a further 40,000 sales this year alone.Although the figures are yet to be officially verified in March’s national vehicle sales data, set to be released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries later this week, the announcement indicates that BYD has flown past Tesla to achieve the feat.Tesla is understood to have recorded 40,000 total sales in the second half of 2022, nearly eight years after the brand officially opened its first showrooms Down Under with the Model S sedan and later the Model X. Both models have now been discontinued for Australia.Sales for Tesla in Australia didn’t take off until 2019 when it debuted its popular Model 3, followed by the Model Y in 2022, the latter remaining Australia’s most popular EV.Last year, Tesla sales dipped to 38,347 cars following a record 46,116 in 2023. As of February this year it has sold 2331 cars, a 65.6 per cent decline on the previous year.Since arriving locally in 2022 with the electric Atto 3 SUV, BYD expanded its model range more aggressively than Tesla, now including plug-in hybrids in its line-up. It's a strategy EVDirect CEO David Smitherman said is responsible for BYD’s swift rise.“What we’re providing Australian customers is a choice they haven’t previously been able to enjoy. With the Shark 6, Sealion 7, and soon the Essentials range, we’re introducing new vehicles in segments and at price points never seen before,” said Smitherman.The Essentials range, which includes new entry-level grades for the Dolphin and Atto 3, are stripped-back versions of their respective models, with less standard features but a considerably lower entry price.For example, the Dolphin Essential is the first EV in Australia to be offered at less than $30,000, before on-road costs.Sales are only expected to climb for BYD as it continues its product assault on Australia with its Denza sub-brand later this year, which includes the B9, a plug-in hybrid Toyota Prado-rivalling SUV.The future is a little less clear for Tesla, with its polarising CEO Elon Musk turning many prospective buyers in Australia, the US and Europe off the brand with his controversial role as an advisor to the Trump administration.In the US, Tesla shares have lost 50 per cent of their value since they peaked at US$479 a share on the Nasdaq last December, while this month, BYD announced it officially exceeded Tesla in revenue last year at $170 billion, approximately $15.5 billion more than Tesla.The updated Model Y, which is set to arrive in Australian showrooms by May, could add some life to the embattled brand, with Tesla Australia confirming the Launch Edition allocation for Australia has already been exhausted. Exactly how many units that entails, though, remains unclear.BYD has been nipping at the heels of Tesla on the global market since the end of 2023, when it briefly usurped it as the world’s best-selling EV brand before Tesla reclaimed the title in the first quarter of 2024.2025 could officially be the year that Tesla loses its EV crown, with the brand going all out on alternative markets as it finds itself locked out of the US due to a blanket 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese cars.

Tesla has been forced into an embarrassing backdown over a trial of its Full Self-Driving tech in China, with owners of Tesla vehicles reportedly accruing fines for disregarding certain road rules, before the much-hyped – but misleadingly titled – technology was rebranded as Intelligent Assisted Driving.

Why tough new emissions laws face a reckoning the world over.

Tesla has announced pricing and features for its post-launch mainstream variants of the updated Model Y.

Tesla has secured its first permits required to make its future Cybercab autonomous hailing service real.According to Reuters, Tesla received a transportation charter party carrier permit from the California Public Utilities commission, which allows the brand to operate an app-based rideshare fleet service for pre-arranged trips.This is important, as it is the first step in the brand moving toward offering an autonomous rival to the likes of Uber, with Cybercab rides theoretically ordered via the Tesla app, with Tesla owning and operating the fleet.However, it is noted by multiple outlets that this permit doesn’t authorise the company to operate autonomous rides, and the version given to the brand only allows it to provide rides to employees and not the general public.The company will need to apply for multiple different permits which will allow it to run a public ride-hailing service like Uber, but also one to allow it to run autonomous vehicles like Waymo, which already operates several geofenced robotaxi services in multiple American cities.Controversial Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in January the company planned to have self-driving cars on the road in Texas as early as June of 2025, telling Tesla investors that 2025 will be “the most important year in Tesla’s history.”According to a separate Reuters report, there is nothing in Texas law that would stop Tesla from operating a robotaxi service in the state, so long as the vehicles are registered and insured.The Cybercab was revealed in October of 2024 at a Tesla event titled 'We Robot' with Musk saying the driverless vehicle would enter production “before 2027” alleging that the price will be lower than AU$45,000 for private buyers.Musk pitched the Cybercab as a form of “individualised mass transit” which he claimed would be more affordable per mile than a bus to run. He said buyers would be able to rent their vehicle out when they weren’t using it. Strangely, Musk also added that the powerful computers the Cybercab will need for its autonomous driving functions could also be used by the company to be a part of a cloud computing service while the vehicle is not in use.Strangely for a purpose-built rideshare vehicle, the Cybercab takes the form of a two-door two-seat coupe, the version shown even having supercar-like scissor doors.At the time, the brand also showed a Robovan mini bus which could “carry up to 20 people.”Musk also claimed the current Model 3 and Model Y will eventually be able to support robotic taxi functions via over-the-air updates “wherever regulators will approve it” but has since admitted the 'Hardware 3' computer in current vehicles is not capable of supporting the ‘Full Self Driving’ (FSD) software despite the brand continuing to sell it as a $10,100 option on Australian-delivered vehicles.Tesla sales are down a whopping 71.9 per cent compared to this time last year, a drop likely due to several factors, including a general retraction of the EV market in Australia as well as many buyers waiting for delivery of the updated version of its best-selling Model Y SUV. However, the brand’s chances of recovery to the point where it continues to dominate the EV market are questionable, as Musk’s political activities abroad have polarised potential buyers.In the meantime, the brand has also taken the previously-unprecedented step of releasing an even more basic version of the Model 3 in Mexico (swapping the leather seat trim for cloth, as well as removing the rear screen and heated seats). A recent report suggested Chinese-built Model Ys will undergo a similar de-specification as the brand chases further price-competitiveness with an increasing field of Chinese rivals.

Tesla will attempt to arrest or reverse sliding sales in Australia and across the globe by unveiling a new and cheaper Tesla Model Y that will bring Elon Musk's best selling vehicle closer to its Chinese competitors than ever before, according to new reports.

The debate around Australia's tough new emissions laws heats up, as manufacturers pick sides on the issue.

Australia’s electric car sales are catching up with Europe and the US, but not in a good way. After sales of EVs grew 4.6 per cent in 2024 and a whopping 161 per cent in 2023, registrations of the zero-emissions vehicles have dropped through the first two months of this year. This follows a decline in the US and Europe last year.

There are some surprising changes to Tesla's Model Y which reverse some controversial choices made on the Model 3.

It’s a chilly overcast day on the outskirts of Hangzhou and there’s a hum in the air. The ominous tone is generated by no less than 40 fast electric car chargers, which sprout from an otherwise empty field on the side of a freeway.This is the Shaoxing Service Area, a ‘Rest Stop’ on the freeway between two major Chinese east coast cities. It features three rows of fast chargers where in Australia you’d be lucky to find one, a two-storey shopping centre to keep you entertained, and one of Nio’s even more futuristic battery swapping stations hidden away at the back.If you wanted a look into the year 2030, when we’re all meant to be driving zero emissions vehicles, this is it. China is already living in what many consider to be an unattainable existence, where everyone has a free bay to charge and there’s plenty of things to do while you wait, whether it's an hour or just 15 minutes.To give you an idea of the scale of the problem Australia faces though, China already has over 1.8 million public DC chargers, whereas Australia only just cracked the 1000 mark by June of 2024. At one point last year, China built more AC and DC public charging than has ever been built in the USA in just a 73 day period.A better way to look at it is the ratio of chargers to the amount of electric vehicles currently on the road. Even with its astronomical EV sales compared to the rest of the world, China has kept pace with its infrastructure. It has roughly seven electric cars per public charging location.In Australia it is closer to 150 cars per charger, according to the EV Council's data.So if you’re an EV owner wondering why it’s so hard to find a station, or you’re a combustion car buyer wondering where all the chargers are, your answer is there’s nowhere near enough of them yet.The Shaoxing Rest Area, with its 40 plus chargers, isn’t even one of the biggest ones in China. The Xiawuji Battery Charging station on the outskirts of Beijing features no less than 70 fast charging bays offering similar facilities.Shell has opened what appears to be the largest fast charging facility in the world in Shenzhen, sporting an absurd 258 public DC fast chargers all in one location.Shell said the facility services over 3300 EVs a day and has rooftop solar capable of generating up to 300,000kWh of electricity a year to help at least subsidise what can only be an eye-watering energy cost.On the topic of facilities, the Shaoxing location I saw has a two storey shopping mall, mainly occupied by a range of dining outlets, whether it’s a local hotpot shop or a Starbucks. It also had enormous toilet facilities, complete with showers. There’s plenty of indoor and outdoor seating. Interestingly the site still offered a Sinopec refuelling facility for non-EVS, but it consisted of a handful of bowsers taking up about a third of the space of the EV charging bays.It’s the utopia many EV owners are currently looking for, particularly on the great heavily-travelled expanses on Australia’s east coast, yet this little sample of the 2030 future doesn’t come without its own warnings of building up too quickly.According to multiple sources, the use rate of some of these larger sites are surprisingly low, showing what some are calling a “high seasonality” with strong demand in summer travel periods followed by steep declines in demand for charging in winter. It’s reflected at the Shaoxing site. I was there in December on a chilly winter's day and only a handful of the 40 sites were in use. Reuters has reported on a heavily fractured charging market, with the five biggest charging vendors making up only 65.2 per cent market share as of 2023. It reported estimates from Rystad energy, which indicate the pylons of even the largest player are earning less than US$10 a day.Australian charge providers who are yet to develop such large sites can learn from China before they fall into the same traps.For example, Australia’s EV charging networks started out with rapid fragmentation between brands, meaning a similar frustrating experience requiring an array of phone apps to activate and pay for them. Established networks have now become more dominant, with most public DC sites run by either Chargefox or Evie Networks, and most AC slow chargers now being able to be paid for via a single Exploren app.How far are we away from Chinese-style ‘Rest Stops’ as a harbinger for the 2030 future? Certainly a way off yet, but our first glimpse of it might come via Ampol’s redevelopment of the M1 Northbound site in Wyong, NSW, which has been approved by the NSW government for funding for ten DC charging bays. It won’t be the largest site in Australia, with that title already held by the Tesla charging station in Albury. It is hidden away in a public multi-story carpark featuring 16 pylons, but it most resembles a ‘rest-stop’ style location by the side of a highly-trafficked intercity route.While it comes with its own set of warnings to heed then, spots like the Shaoxing rest stop should come as proof that a 2030 future where the majority of us are driving electric cars is not only possible, it’s nothing to be afraid of after all.