Tesla CEO Elon Musk Blames Banking Crisis For Falling Auto Sales

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk on Sunday pegged the ongoing banking crisis in the U.S. as the reason for falling car sales.

What Happened: Musk said U.S. residents are finding it harder to get car loans despite good credit. The CEO was responding to a Twitter user who shared U.S. sales figures of Toyota Motor Corp’s TM Corolla cars.

As per the data shared by the user, the Japanese automaker sold only 13,528 Corolla cars in the U.S. in March 2023, its lowest sales numbers to date since 2005. Corolla sales hit their peak in May 2008 when it touched 52,826 units.

Pegging the ongoing banking crisis as the reason for the problem, Musk said, “Understandable that banks are slow to extend credit when they're trying to avoid bankruptcy themselves!”

Why It Matters: Last year, Toyota was the world’s most valuable auto brand as per a report by Brand Finance. However, this year, Tesla overtook Toyota with a brand value of $66.2 billion.

Toyota took second position with a brand value of $52.5 billion. In November, it was reported that Tesla earns 8 times more profit per vehicle than Toyota despite its position as an industry leader in terms of volume.

Last month, Toyota reported a 9.1% fall in March U.S. sales to 176,456 vehicles. For the first quarter, Toyota Motor North America reported sales of 469,558 vehicles, down 8.8 percent year-on-year.

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