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Electric vehicle giant Tesla, Inc claims that its cars have enabled drivers to save more than $2 billion in fuel costs in 2022. Tesla shared the data on Twitter earlier this week as part of an upgrade to its application which will now let users see how much electricity they have consumed for driving their cars, see the dollar costs and also compare them with the gasoline that the vehicle would have consumed if it had used an internal combustion engine instead of a powertrain for driving. Tesla has been in the news lately as it extended its price cuts in China to the U.S. and globally as part of a bid to gain market share after rival firms started to scale up their production.
Tesla Shares Gas Savings For Users As Stock Price Drops & Narrative Builds In Favor Of Rivals
The big news for 2022 when it comes to electric vehicle sales was China, which is one of the largest electric vehicle markets in the world. Chinese conglomerate BYD has outpaced Tesla's Model Y as the country's best selling electric car company with the midsize sports utility vehicle (SUV) the BYD Song. According to data from CleanTechnica, Tesla stood at number six in November 2022 when it came to the top selling cars in China. Between January and November 2022, BYD represented close to one third of the market as it held a 30.7% share and it was followed by SAIC in second place with Tesla coming in at third.
A higher price point was at the heart of Tesla's troubles in the Asian giant, as the top three electric vehicles in China all had a lower price point than the Model Y. The HongGuang Mini is one of the cheapest electric vehicles in the world, with a simple $5,000 price tag, and the BYD Song Plus, China's most popular electric vehicle, retails for around $26,000.
Now, data shared by the company yesterday points out that Tesla users were able to save more than $2 billion in gasoline costs. Tesla shared the data on its Twitter page, in a set of images that showed the amount that a user had spent charging their vehicle, and what the corresponding amount would have been had they relied on gasoline.
As it struggles to compete with affordable electric vehicles globally, Tesla has started to reduce its car prices. The decision follows the company's deliveries for 2022, which while marking a 40% annual growth to sit at 1.2 million vehicles, missed its chief Elon Musk's target of 50% annual growth. At the same time, Tesla's deliveries for the fourth quarter of 2022 saw the firm ship 405,278 vehicles, below the 431,117 vehicles that analysts had expected. The miss was another shock to the firm whose share price lost a painful 65% of its value in 2022, after a global inflationary wave and aggressive fiscal tightening by the Federal Reserve sapped investor confidence in stock markets.
Musk had also cautioned that price reductions would come soon, after admitting that Tesla prices had become "embarrassingly high." Crucially, the fourth quarter also marked a rare occasion when Tesla shipped less vehicles than it had produced, with the firm also suffering from logistics and transportation problems. The price cuts in the U.S. will serve the firm the added advantage of making the Model Y long range qualify for a tax credit.
