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Comment by small_model | Hacker News Reader

Hundreds of Cybercabs are driving around cities right now with no steering wheel or pedal making money and growing 20% a week, Model Y is the best selling car (of any type) in the planet. European sales are going through the roof, they are doubling production.

Cybertruck was a mistake but rest of the business is printing cash hand over fist.

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> European sales are going through the roof

A side effect of Trump's war with Iran is that every country which doesn't have sufficient domestic oil production, which is most countries especially in Europe, has accelerated their EV transition. Buyers are grabbing every EV they can get their hands on, and yes Tesla are the leader there.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-electric-car-registratio...

"Tesla (TSLA.O), led the UK BEV market year-to-date, with registrations up 25.4% from a year earlier and a 9.53% market share South Korea's Kia (000270.KS), and China's BYD (002594.SZ), continued to compete for second place, with market shares of 6.9% and 6.8%, respectively"

The Kia model breakdown: https://www.kiapressoffice.com/releases/1975 (mostly Niro, now withdrawn, then EV6)

Maybe in the UK, but in the EU+UK Teslas (which are made in China and the EU) are falling behind GEELY, BYD, SAIC, and even Chery

https://www.reuters.com/business/tesla-registrations-surge-a...

That ain’t a good thing. Europe continues to deindustrialize themselves. How is that a good thing?

Do you know that Europe is not just the UK? How odd to present that quote to support your claim that Tesla leads in Europe.

It's actually 4th in ev sales in Europe.... https://cleantechnica.com/2026/10/03/europe-ev-sales-report-...

And that's when ranked by manufacturer, which is only slightly less arbitrary than by model as auto groups just use it for market segmentation. If you rank them as groups (e.g. VW group), then Tesla isn't even in the top 5.

If something is growing 20% a week, it should see more than 1,000,000% growth after 1 year. I call bullshit on this one.

https://robotaxitracker.com/cameras?kind=cybercab&metric=veh...

Ummm.. when normalized (per 1000 vehicles/sightings), there is 35-42% increase.

But that is over a baseline of 2-7 sightings.

There's a reason why we don't go all in on penny stocks when they go up 200% in value, you know.

Yeah, I'm not saying anything beyond the fact that they did indeed grow about 20% for the past handful of weeks.

> Model Y is the best selling car (of any type) in the planet.

Depends on the year. It and the RAV4 switch places now and then.

It's also a meaningless metric because most manufacturers sell multiple models of the same type. Toyota has Corolla, Prius, Camry, Crown, Mirai, Ativ, Century, Belta - all small-mid sized sedans. Add them up and they outsell every Tesla model put together.

BYD has 61 different models in its lineup compared to Tesla's 2.

Yes for example in 1955 it wasn't, the OP was suggesting Tesla is doing badly now.

> European sales are going through the roof, they are doubling production.

Only when compared to their recent record lows... the broader trend is still downwards. This is disingenuous. They are losing ground to other manufacturers in Europe

Also the Teslas that Europe is buying are made in China not the US.

The countries where EVs are increasing the most are those that have access to Chinese EVs.

> Also the Teslas that Europe is buying are made in China not the US.

They are primarily from Germany. There are some imports from China but they are subject to tariffs.

> Hundreds of Cybercabs are driving around cities right now with no steering wheel or pedal making money and growing 20% a week

Huh? The cybercab with no steering wheel is only operating in Austin, in tiny premapped areas. There are 45 registered in Texas, and they have only been operating since September.

This isn’t Twitter, you’re generally expected to at least attempt to provide factual information here.

https://www.fox7austin.com/news/tesla-launches-cybercab-aust...

“Printing money hand over fist” is an interesting way to frame the dramatic drop in their margin on every vehicle sold.

Incorrect

About as many cybercabs driving around as Waymo, and this doesn't count the Model Y Robotaxis:

https://robotaxitracker.com/cameras?kind=cybercab&metric=veh...

~300 cybercabs in service in TX

I've seen the golden Cybercabs rolling around in DFW. Not sure if they're actually accepting fares or not. I know they offer services with a Model Y operating "autonomously", I know in the past they had chaser cars monitoring but I've heard they've stopped that these days.

FWIW they have Cybercabs rolling around many places right now even in boring suburbs- they've all got drivers except for some very select areas (e.g. Bay Area)

Not sure what numbers you are looking at but Tesla vehicle sales peaked in 2023 and have been falling every year since then. The "sales going through the roof" narrative exists on Twitter, not their balance sheet.

Poe's Law is still in effect. You have to add an /s at the end.

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