European Auto Shares Collapse Following Ice Cream Fiasco at Shanghai Auto Show, but the Deeper Reason Goes Far Beyond that, with Tesla Involved

After the opening of the European stock market on April 20, the six major auto stocks all went down after a higher opening. As of the close of the day, Renault had the largest decline of 7.97%, while BMW, which was in the midst of the scandal, closed down 3.62% at 100.02 euros. Among other individual stocks, the stock prices of stellantis Paris, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Porsche fell 5.31%, 3.37%, 3.09% and more than 2% respectively.

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On April 20th, at the MINI brand booth at the Shanghai Auto Show, a blogger took pictures of the incident in which the staff treated Chinese and foreign visitors differently when distributing ice cream, and posted the video on the Internet, which went viral instantly. Subsequently, MINI China's official Weibo issued two apologies on April 20 and April 21.

However, the first quarter report of Tesla disclosed on the same day might be the biggest "culprit” for the battered auto shares. The electric car maker's fiscal first-quarter operating margin was 11.4%, down from 19.2% a year earlier, while analysts had expected 12.2%. After Tesla took a series of sharp price cuts, its operating profit margin has become the most concerned performance indicator on Wall Street.

Later on Wednesday, Musk emphasized on the earnings call that we believe that the pursuit of increasing sales and expanding the fleet size is the right choice at this time relative to low production and high profit margins. "Despite the price cuts we made on some models in different regions in the first quarter, the rate of decline in operating margins remains manageable." Musk said, "We expect vehicle costs to continue to decrease due to improved production efficiency at the new factory and reduced logistics costs, while we remain focused on improving operating leverage."

On April 19 local time, Tesla officially announced that it would lower the price in the US market.

Faced with Tesla's "endless price cuts", Renault said that the price reduction of electric vehicles will "kill" the residual value of the car. "When you cut prices significantly, the residual value falls," said Renault Chief Financial Officer Thierry Pieton. "We haven't made any drastic price changes and we don't intend to." Thierry Pieton said Renault would run its business to maximize value, not market share. According to the data, the sales of Renault electric vehicles in Europe in 2022 ranked third, after Tesla and Volkswagen.