President Trump’s $100 million publicity stunt for Tesla hasn’t helped the automaker’s struggling gross sales but, based mostly on a listing test and new order supply timelines within the US.
On Tuesday, President Trump held a press convention in entrance of the White Home that principally amounted to an infomercial for Tesla.
It got here a day after Tesla’s inventory, which constitutes many of the fortune held by Elon Musk, Trump’s prime political monetary backer, crashed by 15%.
A day after the advert, experiences acknowledged that Musk plans to present Trump one other $100 million political donation, elevating questions on a possible quid professional quo.
Contemplating it’s simply day 4 after the advert, it is likely to be too early to say if it helped Tesla, however we will get a good suggestion of the affect because of a listing test and new order ship timelines.
Not like most automakers, which use third-party franchise dealerships, Tesla owns its total service and distribution community. It takes new orders on-line and tries to match them with automobiles in stock, particularly on the finish of the quarter.
Tesla tries to finish each quarter with as low stock as doable to enhance the look of its monetary outcomes.
This was Tesla’s stock within the US on March eleventh, the day of Trump’s Tesla advert (by way of Troy Teslike):
- 1,136 Mannequin 3 listings
- 2,332 Mannequin Y listings
- 1,010 Cybertruck listings
Now, right here’s Tesla’s stock within the US as of immediately, March 14th:
- 1,435 Mannequin 3 listings
- 1,500 Mannequin Y listings
- 1,006 Cybertruck listings
As you possibly can see, Mannequin 3 stock went up a bit because it primarily remained secure all through the month. No actual affect right here.
Tesla’s difficult-to-move Cybertruck stock has nearly remained unchanged. Though, we suspect {that a} current containment maintain is likely to be accountable.
The one significant optimistic change was with the Mannequin Y stock, which went down by about 800 models.
Nevertheless, it’s laborious to attribute any of that to Trump as a result of Tesla’s present Mannequin Y stock within the US consists of the previous technology that Tesla has been closely discounting to do away with it because it transitions to the brand new technology.
As you possibly can see within the chart under, it has been happening quickly earlier than Trump’s Tesla advert (by way of Tesla Data):
It’s doable that Trump’s advert helped a bit, but it surely largely doubtless simply helped Tesla do away with some previous Mannequin Y, which Tesla is now promoting as little as $35,000.
The one actual hope for Tesla is that Trump helped increase new orders for the brand new Mannequin Y, however that’s additionally extraordinarily unlikely.
It’s harder to confirm, however the most effective metric is the supply timeline on new orders on Tesla’s configurator.
After a few checks with each California and Texas zip codes, Tesla says that it may well nonetheless ship new Mannequin Y Launch Editions by the tip of the month:
This may level to mushy demand for the brand new car. To be honest, Tesla continues to be solely taking orders for the dearer “Launch Version” of the brand new model of the Mannequin Y.
Electrek’s Take
It is likely to be too early to say, however I’m not impressed by the Trump bump proper now.
I suppose it takes greater than a fast infomercial for Trump to persuade his followers to purchase an electrical car after he pushed EV misinformation for them for years.
The reality is that most individuals, together with MAGA, can see by means of this and perceive that it’s transactional and never an actual endorsement of Trump, like most merchandise that he pushes.
I respect Musk placing $100 million towards Tesla promoting for a change, however like most of his strikes nowadays, it appears to be like prefer it’s not working.
