Tesla stock price is down, deliveries missed expectations last quarter, and significant price drop — in China. Those are the major concerns swirling around the electric car manufacturer as investors took to Twitter to complain about the slash in prices overseas. However, there is a significant difference between the EV market in China compared to most other regions worldwide, especially North America.
Tesla dominates the market almost everywhere, except China. Unlike the dinosaurs in the North American automotive sector, Chinese car manufacturers have been developing and producing electric vehicles for a long time. While Tesla has had countries like the United States and Canada all to themselves for buyers wanting an electric vehicle, it’s not so easy in China. Telsa has to convince consumers to try something other than the BYD Song Plus or the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV.
Tesla has Competition in China
BYD started up in China in 2003, and by 2008 it was building the best-selling hybrid cars in the country. In 2009, several years after the carmaker achieved the top sales in the country. BYD was then converted to a fully electric vehicle, making it much easier for buyers to adapt to EVs while sticking with the brand they already trusted.
Then there is the horrendously ugly and ridiculously cheap Wuling Hongguang Mini EV. At a starting point of $4,500, anyone can hope no one sees them in this EV. The automaker hit the China market hard starting in 2020 and has not surpassed 500,000 deliveries.
Tesla’s main competitors have two particularly important advantages, BYD has brand loyalty, and Wuling Hongguang Mini EV is cheap. Therefore, it only makes sense that Tesla is aggressive. The Model 3 is now the cheapest it has ever been in China, and the Model Y has become much more affordable.
Tesla Cuts Prices
The company already dropped prices a few months ago, and now it's dropping them again. A RWD Model 3 is now $33,500 USD, when it was nearly $39,000; the same car in the United States goes for about $47,000. The RWD Model Y (not available in North America) is now $37,800 USD, down from about $42,000.
Following the announcement in China, Tesla has followed with reducing the prices in several other regions as well. The prices of the Model 3 and Model Y have been reduced in Australia, with price reductions in the 2-4% range, depending on the model.
In addition to China and Australia, Japan is also seeing the price of the Model Y reduced by up to 10%.
While these prices may be tough to swallow for someone in North America, consider that Tesla constantly changes prices to match what the market will pay. This practice has removed the slimy car salesman tactics that plagued the industry for decades. So, while it may seem unfair, Tesla owners must understand that the company doing well in all markets worldwide is vital to its survival as more competition emerges.
It's also possible that we'll see some price reductions in the U.S. as well. With the EV tax credit going into effect this January, Tesla aims to allow as many models to qualify as possible.
One of the upcoming features of the 2024 Tesla Holiday Update is the ability for Tesla owners to make custom wraps for their vehicles. The wraps will be displayed in the vehicle’s visualizations and in the Tesla app. You’ll also be able to select one of the wraps Tesla has provided if you prefer not to make or download your own.
This feature will roll out to the Cybertruck next week with the Holiday update, but it will be available for other models in the future as well.
Making your own wrap is super easy and takes just a few minutes. It doesn’t even require any special tools or software because Tesla provided a template.
Making a Custom Wrap
We’ll walk you through the steps to create your custom wrap. All you’ll need is an image editing program and an image editing program.
Download the Template
Tesla has all the details on their Github repository for Custom Wraps, but you can simply download the template below and open it in your favorite image editor like Adobe Photoshop, GIMP or even Windows Paint on Windows 11. Any software that supports layers will work.
Image Editor
Open the template in your image editor and create a new layer on top of it. You’ll want to edit on this new layer, not on the template layer, which we’ll hide later.
The template, in all its glory.
Not a Tesla App
Create the Wrap
Go ahead and work your artistic magic—here, we’ve taken a graffiti rendition of Not A Tesla App and our logo and placed it within the template's bounds.
Flex those creative muscles!
Not a Tesla App
Hide the Template
Go ahead and hide the template layer - you can also delete the layer if you want. This standalone image doesn’t look like much, but this is what we need for the final step.
Looks a bit simple right?
Not a Tesla App
Export
You’ll want to export the image with transparency - so it needs to be a .png file. You'll be good to go as long as it's the same dimensions as the template. We’ve gone ahead and exported our custom NATA wrap here - feel free to download it and let us know how it looks once you get the 2024.44.25 update.
The completed product.
Not a Tesla App
A couple of technical limitations:
The image must be 1024x768 pixels.
File Size max is 1MB.
You can’t use any special characters in the file name, and it must be shorter than 30 characters.
PNG is the only acceptable file format
You can load up to 10 images on your USB drive
Add Wrap to USB Drive
The last, and easiest step. Grab your USB drive, and create a folder called “Wraps” at the root level of the drive. Place your images in there, and you’re all set.
Load a Custom Wrap
Not a Tesla App
After placing the images on your USB drive and inserting it in your vehicle, you can then open Toybox > Paint Shop, and tap on Wrap. From there select your wrap from the custom list of images.
Tesla’s upcoming Holiday update introduces exciting new personalization features, giving you even more ways to customize your vehicle.
Building on the existing Colorizer feature, which lets you change the car’s color, the update will allow you to add a custom wrap and a license plate to the vehicle’s visualization. Both of these features will affect the vehicle's visualization on the screen and in the Tesla app.
While these features were originally announced to be exclusive to the Cybertruck, Tesla has now clarified and said that they will be available for other models in a future update. We expect them to be introduced for the Model 3 (new and old), Model Y, and the redesigned Model S and Model X.
Wrap & license plate customization coming to other models in future updates
Tesla announced custom wrap visualizations as part of the 2024 Holiday update for the Cybertruck. They’ve provided a template and instructions on how to design your own custom wrap and also included a few in-house designs, including the “unhinged” Doge wrap, the Cybertruck Graffiti wraps from the Baja Off-Road testing, and the Release Candidate wraps, amongst plenty of other simple ones. In all, it looks like Tesla will be providing 27 designs.
However, making your own wrap is actually very simple, and we’ll be providing instructions on how to create your own. Once these arrive for other vehicles, the instructions will likely be the same.
License Plate Visualization
Not a Tesla App
You’ll also be able to create custom license plates to show on your vehicle visualization. You’ll be able to choose custom text, and then also include a background - with plain colors, a stock image, or upload your own image.
If you have custom plates in real life, this is your chance to make your visualization perfectly match your vehicle.
Release for Other Models
Tesla hasn’t provided a timeline but said the feature would arrive in “future updates” in their post on X. It seems that it won’t be arriving with the upcoming Holiday update for all vehicles but will instead make its way to the S3XY lineup over the next few months.
We expect it to arrive sometime in early 2025. We’re super excited to see these come to more vehicles, so in the meantime, show us your best custom Cybertruck wrap on social media or our forums.
