Namaste, Sat Sri Akaal, and Salaam. 🫡

Today we’re diving into -
- How BYD eked out Tesla’s sales numbers,
- Adani’s latest $500mn electric park,
- And Fidelity’s mammoth X valuation cut.

Our read time is 4 minutes and 57 seconds - faster than 50% of your Parle G falls into the chai (maybe not lol)

Let's dive in. 👇

Market Vibe Check

Tesla loses part of it’s trillion-dollar throne to BYD. ⚡

TLDR -
- BYD has officially beaten Tesla to claim the title of ‘EV king.’
- They delivered 525k cars in Q4’23, 15% higher than Tesla’s 484k.
- China’s CCP is giving them full autonomy to do business as best as they can.

Last year, we ran a story on how little-known Chinese EV giant BYD was on the way to smashing Tesla’s records for electric car deliveries.

Yesterday, it finally happened - during the Q4’23, Tesla sold 484k cars, and BYD one-upped them by around 15% to sell 526k units.

Of course, the raw sales number doesn’t speak to the different pricing powers which both these companies have - where Tesla is winning by a MILE, FYI - but it’s a good barometer of continued growth in a relatively depressed market.

BYD’s strategy of de-premiumising has made them a very attractive option across the world, especially in Europe, where you can import a high-end BYD (including import tax!) for ~20-25% cheaper than you can buy a Tesla.

Another important thing to note - BYD has FULL support of the Chinese government. They’ve been provided with:
- Subsidies to develop and invest in newer, stronger battery tech
- Funding for research and development
- Factory land at throwaway prices
- Direct, red-tapeless access to any Chinese market they want to tap
- and a WHOLE lot more.

Amazing pace, and also an interesting indicator of just how many customers would switch to electric, but don’t have the budget to do so.

Adani gets approval to hook his energy park with the mains. 🔋

TLDR -
- India current has 180GW of renewable power capacity, govt wants to take it to 500GW by 2030.
- V. ambitious, so they’re getting Adani Green started on a 30GW renewables park in Gujarat.
- They’re planning to spend around $500mn on wind and solar projects.

India currently has 180 GW of renewable power generation capacity. To sustain, power, and ensure that 1.4 billion people thrive, those are pretty rookie numbers - so the government is going all-out on renewable expansion.

Modi’s best-friend Adani just won a $500mn contract to build a massive ‘renewables park’ and a power line which hooks said park up to India’s grid.

This park will generate 30GW of power, all through primarily wind and solar.

Renewable energy has a very high capital expense (startup cost) but negligible operating expense (running cost) when compared to “dirtier” fuels.

This is reassuring, since Adani’s own ‘Green’ arm - the one responsible for this project - has always been the standout amongst all group companies for the sheer amount of debt on it’s balance sheet.

Rock on it is… 🤷

Fidelity slashes their Twitter X valuation by 75%. 🫣

Elon Musk’s 2024 mantra seems to be - less is more… his investors surely agree.

Fidelity owns a decent chunk of X, and they’ve internally written down the value of their investment by ~75%. They spent $19.2mn buying their stake - wrote it down 65% in October last year, and are at 75% write-off now.

During an interview, CEO Linda Yaccarino also claimed that the company would turn profitable in 2024 - I guess time will tell what happens here.

Monthly active users are down ~15% since the name was changed and big ticket advertisers have also slowed their activity - which is why Elon is trying to appease more SMEs to run ads.

What a rollercoaster this one is…

In other news… ☕

Wall Street starts giving up the Santa Rally gains (FT)

Claudine Gay resigns from Harvard (BBG)

Earthquakes rock Japan yet again (NYT)

Maersk holds their horses on Red Sea shipping due to Houthi attacks (CNBC)

Countdown Capital shuts down (TC)

And that’s the tea the chai for today.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoyed it.

Lots of ❤️,

Team CC