You forgot to mention that China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia are all betting big on EV production. China is of course the main competition, but it's telling just how stiff the competition is getting across the board. BYD is currently making more cars than Tesla, with more advanced battery technology and comparable build quality, for a fraction of the price of any Tesla.
Meanwhile Elon is too busy rage-tweeting and K-holing to work on any of the things Tesla promised it would do this year, like release a model 2 or something with robots
The auto tariffs are a present for Elon. Teslas are the most American of American cars, and while they do still use foreign parts they use the least out of everyone.
On top of that, in the EV category, Tesla is pretty much the only one made in the US.
Why would they continue to decline? If all that information is already known, why isn't it priced in and why isn't the best estimate of Tesla's price in 6 months equal to today's price plus the return of Treasuries?
Tesla's current P/E ratio is 134. To be a rational Tesla investor, you'd have to think it has almost 600% profit growth potential to reach the long-term American blue-chip average P/E of ~20.
That kind of growth would be difficult for a new entrant, but for an incumbent that's been around a while and already seeing sales decline, it's a pipe dream. Of course, it's not all about cars for Tesla. They're betting big on humanoid robots and "full self-driving", although they've been stuck at Level-2 self-driving for years and the robots, well... Let's just say we don't hear much about them for a reason.
Of course, Tesla has never been a company for rational investors. I used to hold a lot of Tesla stock back in 2017-19 when they had plenty of doubters. I remember seeing how Tesla owners would organize themselves grass-roots-style to show off their cars and convince others to go electric. The company was getting a ton of free marketing and had a very devoted customer base. My, how things have changed. Now, they have to shut down showrooms across the country due to "terrorism".
So where is the upside? Well, protectionism could help them in the US market, but they're a global company with stagnant sales in the US, so it's hard to see tariffs helping more than they'd hurt. And that's pretty much it for upside AFAICT.
a) sales internationally are plummeting at such a rapid pace
b) consumer confidence is down with predictions of a looming recession
c) the brand continues to be tarnished by the association with Musk and Trump
d) auto tariffs will increase the costs of parts and the likelihood of reciprocity