Tesla scored a win in China just as its biggest rival stumbled

***From Business Insider's Tom Carter:*** Things are finally looking up for Tesla in China. The US automaker's sales rose 9.9% in November compared to the same month last year, according to data released by China's Passenger Car Association on Tuesday. That's a rare win for Tesla, which has had a difficult year in almost all of its biggest markets. The company has faced a sales collapse in Europe, been squeezed by intense competition in EV-friendly China, and is on track to see its overall sales decline for the second consecutive year. One bright spot for Tesla: it's not the only one with problems. The Elon Musk-run automaker's biggest Chinese rival, BYD, has hit some speed bumps in recent months. The Shenzhen-based EV giant, which has become one of China's largest carmakers thanks to a range of affordable and high-tech electric models, has had three straight months of sales declines. BYD said it sold just over 480,000 EVs and hybrids in November, its highest total this year, but still around 5.3% less than the same period in 2024. The Chinese automaker, which was once backed by Warren Buffett, has struggled in the face of a renewed price war in China's ultra-competitive EV market and a government crackdown on aggressive discounting. Despite these headwinds, BYD is still on course to take Tesla's crown as the world's largest seller of battery EVs this year, and the company is rapidly taking market share from Musk and co. outside China. BYD's overseas sales hit a record 131,935 in November. The Chinese auto giant is taking advantage of Tesla's woes in Europe, with BYD outselling its US rival by more than two to one in October. [Read more about Tesla's business in China here.](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-china-sales-rise-byd-rival-stumbled-2025-12?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=insider-realtesla-sub-comment)

Sales are higher but no revenue. Like the third quarter earnings report. Probably because they’re selling them at such steep price cuts. They’re no making any money from these sales.

The article is misleading, without giving the sales figures of each company: Tesla sales in November in China rose 9.9% YoY to 86,700 units BYD sales in November in China fell 5.25% YoY to 480,186 units (of which 237,540 are BEV). Alternate headline: BYD sells 6 times more cars than Tesla in November in China.

A small, very small, increase in China sales. Globally still down for the year. YoY global numbers will be bad and getting worse into 2026. Also, can’t imagine how bad the margins are getting on these cars. Anyhow none of this matters /s because Tesla is committed to spending more on the non autonomous driving robotaxi and hoping one day it actually scales to something actually resembling a paid autonomous service like Waymo. (Lots of “if and buts”). I suspect their spending on taxi service and Optimus into 2026 is going to get worse and may eventually cause Tesla to report negative earnings. Let’s see how much more forgiving investors are going to be as year plays out.

Op is business insider. They want the engagement from the spin.

It looks like they hit a 3 year sales low in October too right after they got a bump up from the Model Y L for end of Q3. Their R&D budget is growing but still pretty small compared to even most other automakers. Their last year spend of $4B is inline with that of Nissan or Hyundai.

Comparing their current spend to car makers may not matter. If they don’t spend money building up taxis and robots then they are definitely not going to achieve any of their purported sales goals ever. They need to spend a ton of money now and hope it translates to high sales later. If they show low spending then don’t expect any progress on their new products. This is their huge challenge. This stock can’t float a company with low sales numbers, and huge spending or not enough spending . Either way looks bad for them long term.

Also Tesla is still down YoY for almost every month this year. November is an outlier here, there is no way they will catch up to 2024 sales.

Nissan doesn't have a 1.4T market cap and a 200+ forward PE ratio to support. They're also not exactly known for blowing everyone's head back with world changing AI driven tech solutions. They do manage to sell twice as many cars as Tesla though. Point was merely Tesla spends very little on R&D and much closer to traditional car manufacturers than any other tech company. Amazon is priced at less than 2X the market cap of Tesla but spends over 20X on R&D.

We agree. I predict Tesla spending will rise and if it doesn’t it’s going to be met with huge skepticism. Flip side is overspending and sales not materializing. Either way bad. They will continue to over promise and under deliver on their outlandish goals while the rest of the world moves forward.

I trust you aren’t one of those who cut slack to every other EV maker on the planet. None of them make a profit.

Tesla stock holders are blind comedians. fuck Tesla and short the fucking stock