Tesla is at risk of losing subsidies in Korea over widespread battery failures
61 comments
·October 14, 2025nothrowaways
thelastgallon
It's a meme stock, like an NFT with a ticker.
nixass
Becaut Tesla is everything else (whatever is hot topic) than car manufacturer
/s
tromp
With possibly more cases outside Korea:
> My understanding is that most of Tesla’s vehicles sold in Korea are made at Gigafactory Shanghai in China, and that’s Tesla’s main export hub. Most of Tesla’s vehicles outside of the US are made in China. We should start seeing similar issues in other markets unless there’s a specific contributing factor in Korea.
cyp0633
A brief search in Chinese social media turns out:
- the cases are rare, once every several months
- the affected battery pack is usually replaced free of charge
- many of the cases are from Chinese in North America, and even one case is about imported Model 3
Considering Chinese media prefer reporting Tesla defects to gain more clicks, I would assume this is not a Shanghai-specific, broadly affecting problem.
zamadatix
I suppose that may depend how one defines a "broadly affecting problem". 2/3 (~2.9k) of the cases are for 2021 vehicles, and maybe it's possible those relate to specific batches shipped only to South Korea or something, but that still wouldn't explain the other 1/3 (~1.6k) of cases.
Tesla hasn't provided statistics about cases in the Chinese market, but I have a hard time believing it's really a handful of battery issues per year (regardless what one assumes of social media). That's just too far beyond any reasonable quality level expectation for ~half a million cars over the time period.
testing22321
Strange this has never been reported to happen elsewhere in the world with teslas.
Is there something different about South Korean cars?
pengaru
My totally uninformed guess is a defective run of batteries from gigafactory shanghai that landed in SK market next door
bestouff
... or something different about Korean administration which makes it more immune to corruption and allows it to report effectively batteries failures ?
Etheryte
Surely you can understand that the option that Tesla has quietly bribed every country in the world that its vehicles are bought at is not very likely.
HWR_14
I don't think it is happening in this case.
The idea that a trillion dollar corporation has sufficient lobbyists/PR people in western countries to cover up bad news up to a certain level seems reasonable.
iknowstuff
Lmao of course they bribed every country on earth except for the “immune” one known for chaebols like Samsung, Hyundai and LG
infecto
Glad someone else mentioned it. I was going to say that out of most developed nations, Korea has to be in or near the top spot for corruption. All countries have their flavor of corruption but the chaebol structure is unique and anecdotally it feels like every leader of Korea has eventually been connected to one of the chaebols.
josefritzishere
It's most incredible to me that this company, obviously in distress, still has not fired their CEO.
MBCook
I thought they couldn’t? Doesn’t he basically control the board through his shares and puppet/crony board members who have little incentive to kick him out?
I thought it was similar FB where Zuck owns enough voting shares to be effective untouchable as well.
kibwen
TSLA is a meme stock; the CEO's antics are the source of its value, and the board knows this.
izzydata
It's interesting that people are willing to take the risk buying a vehicle from a company that is effectively a meme. I take my safety seriously and I'd prefer the company that builds the vehicle I am driving to also be serious.
lotsofpulp
Teslas rank pretty highly on safety reports.
https://www.iihs.org/ratings/top-safety-picks
https://www.nhtsa.gov/ratings-search
There was also that guy that tried to murder-suicide his whole family by driving off a cliff and everyone survived. Crazy considering the picture of the crumpled car..
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/luck-tesla-family-plung...
Is there any evidence Teslas are not at least average, if not above average in safety?
testing22321
They sold more vehicles in the most recent quarter than ever in their history.
It’s always interesting when the perception given by the media is so far removed from the actual facts.
sottol
Beat Q4'24 by 0.3% in the quarter that EV tax credits ran out and EV buyers used their last chance to pocket it. Most other EV models had 50%+ sales lift that quarter.
nkrebs13
Most legacy manufacturers were/are still trying to figure out how to produce EVs to compete. Looking at this month's KBB report for EV-first brands:
YTD Sales
- Lucid: 23.4%
- Tesla: -4.3%
- Rivian: -13.2%
Lucid is the big surprise there to me (though only ~8K sold).
Aurornis
> They sold more vehicles in the most recent quarter than ever in their history.
EV tax credits were only available through Q3. There was a rush to buy EVs before credits expired.
If you’re only looking at that one quarter, that’s the most biased signal you could get.
kmontrose
YoY sales are down while other automakers are up, Q3 might be an artifact of EV incentives expiring. Iirc other manufactures also saw an increase in EV sales in Q3.
bdcravens
That quarter is an asterisk for every EV maker, due to the ending of US subsidies. (ditto for whatever decline we see in Q4)
etchalon
I think next quarters results are going to be a lot more indicating of the company's health than the most recent one, since the ending of federal subsidies inflated demand across the industry.
But "more vehicles than ever" is factually false, according to Tesla itself. They delivered ~397,000 vehicles in Q2-2025. They delivered ~437,000 in Q4 of 2024.
So I'm not sure what you meant by that statement.
lesuorac
Eh downvote. This is so trivially look-up-able.
> [1] Total revenue decreased 12% YoY to $22.5B. YoY, revenue was impacted by the following items:
> - decline in vehicle deliveries
[1]: Page 5 - https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/TSLA-Q2-...
_fizz_buzz_
I think they were talking about Q3 and not Q2.
stronglikedan
I'd imagine the entire EV segment suffered the same decline as people start to realize what a pain in the ass they still are, myself included. I can't wait to get rid of the failed experiment that is my EV and go back to ICE. Only two more years on my lease.
hearsathought
The stock doubled in the past 6 months. And tsla has a market cap of $1.5 Trillion. To put that into perspective, south korea's GDP is $1.7 trillion.
I don't think tsla shareholders are complaining.
josefritzishere
The reason it increased (not doubled) is that their CEOs public behavior drove the value down over 100 points in the months prior. I think the meme stock comment above actually has some merit though.
hearsathought
> The reason it increased (not doubled)
It did double. Check the april lows.
> is that their CEOs public behavior drove the value down over 100 points in the months prior.
And yet, he is still CEO. Not only that, didn't the board just award him a new pay package?
> I think the meme stock comment above actually has some merit though.
A $1.5 trillion meme stock? Don't think so. A S&P500 company that is a meme stock. Don't think so. It is highly volatile, but it isn't gamestop.
All I'm saying is that Musk is still the CEO because enough shareholders back him. Why? Who knows. Maybe it's because he's increased the value of tsla from a few billion to $1.5 trillion in the past 15 years. Who knows.
GuB-42
Elon Musk personal brand is incredibly valuable, justified or not.
I don't think that he really runs the company, and kicking him out will most likely not change anything technical, but it will affect the company image among shareholders, most likely negatively.
blackoil
TSLA is near all-time high and more valuable than next 10 automakers combined.
sidcool
[flagged]
speedgoose
As an owner of a 2021 Model Y made from the same factory, I will try to not think much about this.
But it needs a battery replacement under warranty, my car will truly be some modern ship of Theseus.
guywithahat
I'm not sure about the ones made in Shanghai, but the US ones have a very strong warranty, with an 8 year 120k miles retaining 70% of the battery. You likely still have four years to see
I never understood why Tesla valuation is orders of magnitude higher than honda