The News
Tesla achieved record sales in China at the end of 2024 despite fierce local competition, but its larger ambitions in the country face political headwinds, while a price war over electric vehicles has hurt earnings.
The company’s overall revenue for the fourth quarter missed analysts’ estimates, while profits declined year-on-year, with a Bloomberg opinion piece describing the numbers as “awful.”
On an earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said the US electric vehicle giant was “in a bind” over its self-driving system in China.
Beijing doesn’t allow Tesla to transfer training videos of the cars’ autonomous driving outside of the country, he said, while the US restricts AI training in China — a dilemma that underscores the geopolitical sensitivities around high-tech development.
Tesla is still expanding self-driving tech, with unsupervised models hitting the streets in Austin, Texas, and several other US cities by the end of 2025.