Tesla's vehicle sales declined 1.1% in 2024, marking the company's first full-year sales drop since before it became a mass-market seller.

• The year-long performance fell short of CEO Elon Musk's projected "slight growth" for the year.

The big picture: Tesla's lack of major new models is limiting its upside potential.

• The Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover collectively made up about 95% of the company's global vehicle sales last year.
• The Cybertruck is coming on strong but remains a niche vehicle for now — and Tesla hasn't introduced a new mass-market model in several years.

What they're saying: "In our view, the miss reflects a relatively aged product and increased availability of lower priced competition globally," Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas wrote Thursday in a research note.

State of play: Tesla has long been viewed as a bellwether indicator for EVs. But Chinese EV maker BYD is surging globally, having sold about the same number of pure EVs as Tesla in 2024.

• Tesla shares slipped 6.1% today. But most long-term investors don't view it simply as a car company, but as a bet on self-driving cars and AI technology.

Go deeper

1. ⦿ The New Year's Day attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas thrust car-sharing app Turo into the spotlight. The company said it had no reason to believe that either of the alleged attackers was a security threat when they rented their vehicles from other users. (Axios)
2. 🚙 Hindenburg Research disclosed it's shorted Carvana, saying the used car retailer's "turnaround is a mirage" built on questionable loan sales. The company was in dire straits after the pandemic boom in car sales ebbed, but its stock is up more than 40-fold since its nadir. Carvana did not comment.
3. 🐘 Meta's global policy leader, former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, is stepping down. He'll be replaced by his deputy Joel Kaplan, a former Bush administration official, "the company's most prominent Republican" and a "forceful" voice against restrictions on political speech. (Semafor)

All that holiday cash you got from Grandma might not be enough for the Rolex you've been dreaming about after all.

State of play: The luxury watchmaker is raising prices on its watches by up to 8% depending on the model, Bloomberg reports.

• For example, a yellow gold Day-Date model with a 40-mm black dial now costs about $45,809, up nearly 8% from last year.
• Much of the blame likely goes to the price of gold, which spiked by 27% in 2024, its biggest increase in 14 years.

💭 Nathan's thought bubble: I've been watch-less for more than a decade and I guess that'll have to continue.