We can probably get a couple of tough quarters, said the controversial major owner and CEO Elon Musk in connection with the presentation of an interim report on Wednesday.
When the stock market closed in New York, the Tesla share had fallen 8.2 percent. Thus, the share is 24.4 percent down since the turn of the year.
Tesla is challenged globally by cheaper Chinese alternatives and an increased demand for hybrid cars in many countries. The company is simultaneously on its way to being affected by abolished tax subsidies for electric car purchases in the USA, which can hit demand there.
At the same time, sales are plummeting in Europe, with the exception of the electric car country Norway. Fresh June figures from the industry organization ACEA show that new registrations of Tesla in the EU plummeted by 39.5 percent to 20,349 cars in June.
In the report for the second quarter, Tesla's revenues fell by 12 percent to 22.5 billion dollars – the biggest setback in at least ten years. Both the sales volume and the average price of the company's cars fell.
The year so far has also been marked by the sharp turns in the relationship between Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump – from Musk leading Trump's special unit for public cuts in the White House to a brutal war of words in social media that took off when Trump's budget with reduced electric car subsidies was passed in Congress.
