Tesla, the popular electric car maker, is facing an unexpected challenge: Its yards are so full of unsold cars that they can be seen from space. This phenomenon reveals a number of worrying factors for Elon Musk's company.

In the first quarter of this year, Tesla produced an impressive 433,371 vehicles, a feat that belies sales of just 386,810 units, leaving about 46,561 vehicles without a specific destination in the United States.

Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla's chief financial officer, attributed this excess inventory to the discrepancy between production and demand, expressing his optimism about reversing this scenario in the second quarter.

However, Tesla's approach to production, which differs from the traditional practice of matching production to demand, could lead to an urgent need to burn inventories and offer discounts to stimulate sales.

Satellite images, provided by SkyFi, reveal a surprising sight: Tesla's yards, especially in Austin, Texas, are full of unsold vehicles. This situation is especially noticeable considering that Tesla has not expanded its sales to other countries recently, relying on local demand.

This stock crisis represents a setback for Elon Musk, whose vision for the future extends from cars to space exploration with SpaceX. The prospect of yards full of cars visible from space is certainly not the kind of publicity he was hoping for.

As Tesla searches for solutions to this excess inventory, it is watching the US auto market closely, realizing that the strategies Tesla adopts to address this situation will have significant implications for the industry as a whole.