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Tesla's stock plummeted at the beginning of this year. Tesla's share price has fallen more than 12% in the past two weeks. Tesla shares closed at $218.89, down 3.67%, with a market capitalization of $695.83 billion, with a loss of more than $94 billion.

In fact, since January 3, Tesla released production and sales data for the fourth quarter and the whole year of 2023, Tesla's share price has declined. According to the data released by Tesla, Tesla's cumulative delivery volume in 2023 was 1.8086 million vehicles, an increase of 38% over the same period last year, reaching Tesla's earlier performance target of annual sales of 1.8 million vehicles. Although the annual sales target has been achieved, the sales performance is lower than the 2 million vehicles expected by Tesla CEO Musk, and also lower than the market expectation.

It is worth noting that in 2023, Tesla made many big price cuts to increase sales, which directly led to the decline of Tesla's gross profit margin. Data show that Tesla's gross profit margin fell to 17.9% in the third quarter of last year, down 7.2% from 25.1% in the same period last year. Operating profit in the third quarter was $1.764 billion, down 52 per cent from $3.688 billion a year earlier. Operating margin in the third quarter was 7.6%, down 9.6% from 17.2% in the same period last year. Sales growth is slow, and operating profit margins, gross profit margins have declined, naturally will also affect the price of Tesla's secondary market.

In addition, on the first day of 2024, Tesla opened a price reduction model, offering an insurance subsidy of 6000 yuan for his Model 3 rear-drive models. On January 12, Tesla again announced a price cut of 15500 yuan to 245900 yuan for his new Model 3 model, and 11500 yuan for the new version of Model 3 long-lasting aviation, with the latest price at 299900 yuan. The price of Tesla Model Y rear wheel drive version was reduced by 7500 yuan to 258900 yuan, while the price of Tesla Model Y long-range flight version was reduced by 6500 to 299900 yuan.

Of course, Tesla's share price decline has something to do with sales and gross profit margins, as well as the sale of 20, 000 electric cars by car rental giant Hertz and the suspension of production in super factories in southeastern Berlin. Tesla co-rental giant Hertz announced on Jan. 11 that it would use the proceeds from the sale of 20, 000 electric vehicles, most of them Tesla cars, to buy fuel cars because of weak demand for electric vehicles. As can be seen from Hertz's official website, the number of Tesla used cars sold on the website has exceeded 600.

Earlier, Hertz announced that it would purchase 100000 electric vehicles from Tesla by the end of 2022. But relevant data show that as of October 2023, Hertz had purchased only 35000 Tesla cars. At this stage, car rental giant Hertz announced the sale of 20, 000 electric vehicles, which may also mean that there is a lot of uncertainty in the purchase of 100000 electric vehicles with Tesla. Just after Hertz announced the news, the shares of Tesla and Hertz both fell on the day. Tesla shares closed down 2.87 per cent at $227.22 on January 11th.

Out of the frying pan into the fire. Tesla said on January 12 that Tesla's Berlin factory would suspend car production from January 29 to February 11 due to a change in transportation routes and a shortage of parts due to armed clashes in the Red Sea. The shutdown at Tesla's Berlin plant could reduce Tesla's delivery by 10 to 14000 vehicles in the first quarter, according to a report released by investment bank Baird on Thursday. It points out that the source of the data is mainly based on the production capacity of Tesla's German car assembly plant of 5000 to 7000 electric vehicles per week.

For Tesla to start the price reduction model at the beginning of the year, some relevant institutions pointed out that although the extent of the price reduction is not very sharp, the impact of the price reduction is to reduce the gross profit margin, resulting in capital holding a negative attitude towards Tesla. In addition, car rental giant Hertz sells a large number of electric cars, which also has a certain impact on Tesla's stock price. In addition, industry insiders pointed out that the decline in Tesla's share price has something to do with investors'"tax avoidance strategy". After all, some investors doubled their holdings of Tesla shares in 2023, so they began to sell stocks in the new year in order to delay paying taxes.

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