Tesla short sellers land a $16.2bn payday on stock plunge as rival BYD hits record high on world's fastest EV recharging tech
Tesla bulls have it hard right now. After suffering an unprecedented plunge in the stock price that has enriched short sellers to the tune of $16 billion, arch-rival BYD just celebrated an all-time high.
Shares in the Chinese EV manufacturer hit a record after it unveiled two new models from its Dynasty family: the five-meter-long Han L executive sedan and the Tang L SUV, vehicles that are capable of recharging just as fast as refueling a conventional combustion engine car.
The pair are built off BYD's new 'Super-e Platform', a vehicle architecture that features a 1,000-volt electrical system, higher than even the 900v found in a Lucid Air.
Together with a 1 megawatt DC fast charging system, the two BYD models can add 400 kilometers of range in just five minutes, according to Chinese EV motoring site CnEVPost.
Typically, the higher the rate of charging, the more the battery is subjected to stress. Over time, this creates the formation of microscopic needles made of lithium metal that can puncture a cell's isolation and trigger a short circuit. In a worst-case scenario, the battery pack could catch fire.
But BYD's Blade cells use iron-based LFP chemistry that is more robust than the better-known NMC cells based primarily on nickel.
BYD's U.S.-traded American Depository Receipts (ADRs) traded 2.6% higher on the announcement to hit a new high of $102.70 each.
The company's Shenzhen-listed stock likewise hit a record, resulting in a market cap of nearly $160 billion—or more than Volkswagen, General Motors and Ford combined.
It's the latest example of how BYD is diverging more and more from arch-rival Tesla.
While the Chinese manufacturer is investing further in EV innovation, Elon Musk's carmaker has chosen a strategic pivot towards the development of humanoid robots, which he believes will vault it to become the world's most valuable company.
Speaking in June at Tesla's annual shareholders meeting, the entrepreneur claimed their company is on track to one day achieve $1 trillion in annual profits—or 10 times what Apple currently makes.
In a matter of years, he estimated his investors would be earning a 50% return by selling 100 million Optimums robots per annum at a price tag of $20,000 each, twice what he expects it will cost to build them. This would usher in a utopian 'age of abundance', where robots would do all the work, leaving humans to focus entirely on more spiritually rewarding endeavors.
This ambitious vision relies on Musk's ability to pull off the seemingly impossible—dividing his attention between multiple companies and also dedicating time to his role as President Trump's cost-cutter-in-chief.
With so many obligations, Musk recently admitted he is experiencing 'great difficulty' running his corporate empire, which is mainly comprised of Tesla, SpaceX, the social media platform X, and his Grok chatbot developer xAI.
The result of this has been a tumbling Tesla share price, which has seen over $700 billion of stock market value lost since its mid-December peak.
Short sellers betting on a decline in the Tesla share price have now pocketed $16 billion from their trades, the Financial Times reported, citing data provided by financial analytics firm S3 Partners.
The number of shares being shorted has grown 16% over the last month to encompass 2.6% of Tesla's outstanding shares.
Per Lekander, managing partner of a $1.5 billion hedge fund that first went short on Tesla several years ago, warned Musk his embrace of Trump's political agenda will backfire on him. 'It's not people with cowboy boots who buy Teslas,' he said in comments quoted by the FT.
Musk, who relishes burning short sellers like Bill Gates, can still smile, however. Even after accounting for their recent gains, short sellers have lost a cumulative $64.5 billion since Tesla first went public in 2010.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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