Also Read: Mint Quick Edit | BYD versus Tesla: Let merit decide pole position While Tesla’s share of China’s battery EV sales is down to about 10% so far this year, that drops to 5.8% when you include other so-called ‘new energy vehicles’ (NEVs) such as plug-in hybrids, according to figures compiled by Goldman Sachs. Competitors including BYD, which holds about 27% of China’s NEV market, are now delivering the sort of excitement that Tesla used to in terms of looks, range and driver assistance features—and at lower prices. Xiaomi, the smartphone maker, is in the process of launching the YU7, a high-tech, fast-charging electric SUV that resembles a Porsche or Ferrari but is perhaps best pictured as a Model Y-seeking missile. In an alternate dimension, China would serve as a hothouse laboratory for Tesla to hone world beating, profitable EVs that might even be exported to its home market. In the dimension we’ve got, Musk has seemingly lost his ambition to develop brand new, affordable EVs that can compete across the world. Tesla’s last genuinely new model, the Cybertruck, is certainly big but only about as “beautiful" as the Trump tax bill that Musk now openly derides as an “abomination." While Tesla sits apart from the legacy automakers in the US, Germany and Japan in many respects— certainly in terms of valuation—it has, like them, seen its position in China weaken rapidly. And regardless of Musk’s latest posts on X, he worked hard to secure the election of a president and Congressional majority intent on crushing EV sales in the US. With the end of the second quarter approaching, and the sales figures emanating from China and Europe portending another set of weak earnings, it is perhaps little wonder that this narrative is crowded out by all manner of other things. Musk, who ditched Tesla’s public relations team and routinely denounces the media as “propaganda" has nonetheless plunged into a media blitz of late, and has now whipped up a new political intrigue.