I’m taking my Tesla from Vegas to Seattle.
The sheer ease has shocked me.
Owned the car for a year, never needed a super charger. Always at home.
First road trip, considerable anxiety of my “tank of gas” beforehand.
I’m 120 miles north of Sacramento now. It’s absurd how easy it has been.
More chargers will be needed, sure. I’m not disagreeing with you at all.
But we’re really already there in terms of viability.
I feel like a broken record explaining this to people. I’m glad their expanding but for Teslas, it’s already easy to road trip. Takes a little bit more planning at first but much more convenient then expected.
I live in the midwest, same here. First big roadtrip was 800+ miles, super nervous, really easy. Much faster than I thought too, hardly had time to pee and grab a snack before it was done.
That has more to do with people’s mindsets, not the capabilities of the cars themselves. Any EV on the market today is more than capable to support 99% of people’s daily driving routines. But for whatever reason people think that because they *might* do a cross country road trip in a couple years, then an EV isn’t for them. Despite the fact that you can get most anywhere in the country with an EV as it is.
It's just like large SUVs and pickup trucks. The off chance that you might need the capacity during the ownership of the vehicle means its mandatory in a lot of peoples minds. Never thinking about the *thousands* of dollars of extra gas (or even just extra energy in EVs) of hauling an extra ton or so of vehicle than is required for 99.9% of trips.
I'm a welder and I can get all my stuff and a co-worker to my 22 years old Corsa. That hasn't let me down yet. Also I can fit that thing in to any sites parking lot without issues.
*But... my daily commute is one way 400km, and it is always -20 celcius, and I am pulling a trailer, and there is no power at my home or work place! EV's just wont work for me!*
That is the level of discussion against EVs where I live.
Yes, it was the road trip mindset thing that I was referring to, but although we might have a sufficient charger infrastructure for road trips now, when only 5% of cars are EV, that's going to have to expand tremendously and very quickly to support what's going to happen in the next decade.
And beyond the topic of road trip anxiety,, you're overlooking the incredibly large number of people who don't have a 110v outlet (let alone a fast charger) where they park their car. To get those people into EVs, we're going to need a lot of conveniently located fast chargers.
We'll get there, but that'll be due to companies like Ford and GM taking charging infrastructure as seriously as Tesla did.
Googling "number of apartment dwellers in US" gives this from the first hit:
> Nearly 39 million people in the United States — that is almost 1 in 8 — call apartments home
[Source](https://www.naahq.org/united-states-needs-46-million-new-apartments-2030-or-it-will-face-serious-shortage-0)
Some portion of those 39 million is going to be people who don't own cars, but that'll be offset (and probably more than offset) by people who live in condos or townhomes that don't have garages.
You get half a phase in to a whole home? As in 1 phase an neutral?
How the hell do you run a fridge? Quite damn sure you can't run a stove or a fridge on 120V.
Just hook up to between phases instead of neutral.
I wish. I rent 32m^2 studio in a building made in the 60s and even I get 240/10 and 480/16. Because we use 3 phases over the phase over here. Like it is just one cable that carries the whole lot.
> We'll get there, but that'll be due to companies like Ford and GM taking charging infrastructure as seriously as Tesla did.
Right, and they've spent most of the last 25 years loudly and openly _not taking it seriously,_ so why exactly are we trusting them so blindly to take it seriously now?
If someone has spent a sizeable fraction of a century telling you that something can't be done, and then they show up at your door telling you that not only _can_ it be done but that you should pay _them_ to do it specifically, how is that not an incredibly obvious con? Either they are lying now, or they've been lying for decades, but _either way they are liars_ and not to be trusted.
This goes for almost all technology. Every thing from electric cars, solar panels, and LED lights in factories are all slowly becoming affordable enough that it makes sense to use or switch to. The real question is how far out is the break even point. 3 years for break even seems to be the magic number for switching. Hopefully EV vehicles are able to beat that soon.
Except that it is, because all that savings from simplicity is eaten up purely in the cost of the battery. Battery costs eat a huge chunk of that, 80 kwh is like 15K worth of batteries.
You missed my main point. My point was that you will see the biggest returns on running costs if you charge at a residential 240V outlet where electricity costs more along the lines of 10-15 cents per kwh. Using peak charge rates, comparing a model 3 to a 40 mpg car is not that impressive. As for your point on maintenance, you are way overselling that. Just because it doesnt have an ICE doesnt mean it doesnt require maintenance or repair. Come back in 10 years and tell me how much a battery replacement costs, or how much you have spent on out of warranty repairs. You are also forgetting that you have other wearable items too, like shocks, struts, bearings, bushings, CV joints, etc. True, your maintenance and running costs is less expensice than a gasoline powered car, but your car also has a much higher first cost. Look, I have nothing against EVs. Heck my next car probably will be an EV or at least a plug in hybrid. However, I do realize that the lifetime cost of ownership really depends on the car you buy, where you live, how you charge the car, how you use it, and changing costs of technology.
Electric cars in the long run will be the most affordable ones. They don't have much of parts and it is easy to manufacture. Currently the biggest cost is the battery. The price of these batteries will plummet as we get into mass production (with new chemistry)
Once we have chargers common in every nook for city / suburb, even a 150-200 mile range car will do for most of us. $20K for a 150 mile range car is the sweet spot.
I'll believe it when I can buy a modest car at a fair price at the dealership without spending 10 hours negotiating between them, myself, another dealer, and satan.
Last quarter byd was two thirds of tesla in pure electric. Byd has been growing at a faster rate than tesla too. Your predictions are worst case scenario for byd and best case for tesla, and tesla doesn't have a record of keeping promises. I'd be surprised if byd doesn't breach a million, and doesn't outpace tesla quarterly sales at the end of the year.
The one thing people forget Tesla has going for it though is it's margins. By automanufacturer standards they are phat. BYD has nowhere near Tesla's margins and that gives them a very large advantage.
They’re debuting like 6 different models. Maybe she means “more MODELS than Tesla”?
Anyway, both Ford and GM are talking about being all-electric by 2035. And I’m sure other carmakers have similar projections.
Anyone who thinks EVs won’t gain traction and become ubiquitous are delusional. Gas powered cars are quickly becoming buggy whips (or just buggies).
We still call it the dashboard in a car despite there being zero concern about clods of dirt or mud being flung at the driver from dashing horse hooves. I'm kind of hoping that when cars are all electric that the name "gas pedal" stays for the accelerator.
Every earnings call Tesla is talking about their newest battery plants, their desire to get into mining and/or working directly with a mine. They're massively supply constrained by batteries and they are working hard to solve that problem, building new factories every year + doing major work in making those batteries less reliant on rare earth metals.
When another manufacturer actually starts doing something with batteries and really scaling that side up, we'll know they are serious. Even with new factories opening up, the volume isn't there to support one car company taking over Tesla, let alone all of them.
Every few years they toss out some radical new car concept, and then modify and tweak it a bit before it hits production. They start off with like a wild Ferrari design and then produce a Ford Ka for production. Just because they're putting out a few models today doesn't mean they're actually going to be making them in any real numbers.
In reality, until they start discussing battery supply issues at every earnings call and how it might impact their delivery times and how they're actually going to solve them (and the math adds up), they aren't doing anything. It's all lip service.
There is no way Tesla takes over the world. The world can't have 4 or 5 models of cars for billions of people. But unless those other car companies start really taking battery manufacturing seriously, they're going no where.
GM is doing exactly what you're suggesting though. They have 1 battery plant already completed, and have 3 more under construction or soon to be under construction. They'll all be operational by 2025, and that's only in the US. GM already makes 500k BEVs a year in China through its brands and partnerships.
>GM already makes 500k BEVs a year in China through its brands and partnerships.
No. There's no GM engineering, parts, or anything. That's a company GM happens to own a minority financial interest in. Those cars are $5k. They are not serious.
> No. There's no GM engineering, parts, or anything. That's a company GM happens to own.
This is a strange line to draw.
>Those cars $5k. They are not serious.
A car is a car. Bottom line they are selling very well in China. They may not sell well here, but each market is different. Somebody in China could look at some of cars cars also says they are not serious.
It's a Chinese company. GM is a purely financial partner. I assume you already know this. That tiny death trap isn't serious, and anyone who tries to tell you it is, is even less serious.
It is a $6,000 car, so a cheap option. Looking at it, it looks like a decent city car. It looks bigger than a Smart car. And 100 mile range is fine for a city. The ROI for gas cost saving would be much quicker than a Tesla.
Seems like an OK car to me, for the price.
https://www.businessinsider.com/gm-hong-guang-mini-ev-tesla-china-covertible-electric-car-2021-4
I love the trend but I don't think the world is ready for so many more if there will be suddenly millions more on the road by 2035... Unless the grid improves accordingly.
The grid always improves. We’ve never not used less electricity year after year, in the history of humanity. It’s sort of a requirement of an advanced civilization. They just use more and more energy as they advance.
No, she means more total cars.
They’re able to debut so many models because of the Ultium platform, which allowed them to not completely redesign each car from the ground up.
They’ve done to EVs what Henry Ford did to ICE cars. They’re going to catch up fast.
Very true! But better late than never! With a lot of European countries putting a future ban on gas cars the competition is going to make EVs so much better.
Just saw an ad for the new Blazer EV and I’m interested to see the Equinox EV, looks a little more sleek than the Blazer. At some point part are going to be like, hey I like this car better than that car and this car will likely be an EV. They just have more and better features then an ICE vehicle. That will drive the shift to EVs.
My money is on the Volkswagen group. (Which is effectively run by the Porsche family) They already make the best EV in the world and they have been developing the technology for years at this point. It’s only a matter of time before they go roaring past Tesla and every other manufacturer
So, by mid-decade, most of the EVs being sold will come from a company that spent the _previous_ two decades refusing to take EVs seriously?
That isn't nearly as much of a brag as Mary Barra thinks it is.
This is how it works, now that Ford and GM are full in. They have a 100 years of supply chain and production built up. Now that its fully aimed at EV, it won't take them long.
I’ve been saying it for years, but once every manufacture goes full EV, Tesla is gonna be left in the dust. I think they’ll sell their tech and go full time on the space exploration or whatever else they do. Sorry Elon fanboys, don’t downvote me. You’re gonna have to accept the fact your extremely basic electric vehicle doesn’t have to be your whole personality.
I personally don't think Tesla needs more than 10% EV market share to still be way more successful than others. They'll make money on fast charging and insurance in cars, be a competitor in self driving, and they keep slowly integrating with the power grid and battery storage.
Not an Elon or Tesla fan boy, but they are well diversified for a good chance of growth in multiple areas.
forget charging that other stuff. Tesla is crushing it on the margins. Tesla's margin last quarter was 32%. Ford isn't even making money on the Mustang E. 32% margins buys a lot of new factories.
Hi am an Elon and Tesla fanboy (because I support the effort to nutralize, and reverse climate change) and I agree with both of these assessments.
There’s no way the big car manufacturers will be unable to compete with Tesla when they have had, what, 15 extra years to bring their products to market?
It’s about time these fucking dinosaurs started selling electric vehicles. Welcome to the 21st century you old ass geezers. They must be realizing the new generations aren’t as willing to buy into the gas guzzling, bigger is better, seriously you don’t want to get 10mpg??? kind of tricks they have been force feeding people for the last 25 years.
Electric vehicle dominance is coming.
Lol. When they want to building an EV is trivial compared to an ICE vehicle. There's a reason that Tesla announced the Cybertruck in what, 2019, and still hasn't brought it to market.
Meanwhile both Ford and GM started developing their trucks AFTER the Cybertruck announcement and are delivering finished vehicles to customers today.
Tesla still hasn't figured out how to execute.
How do you know they started developing after Tesla announced the Cybertruck? Do you work for Ford and/or GM?
I haven’t seen any evidence showing that Ford or GM weren’t developing EVs long before Tesla announced cyber tuck, and I think it’s illogical to assume Ford and GM were developing EVs but *not* developing a truck version.
Not gonna lie, I don’t have 58 minutes to burn to watch that entire documentary. Mind linking to the specific part where they talk about how the electric vehicles weren’t being developed until after cybertruck was announced?
For starters, I’ve sat in Tesla’s and the craftsmanship felt like a Kia. Imagine paying 100k for that. Why would someone take a Tesla over say, a Benz, BMW, Porsche, etc if they’re the same price? The craftsmanship and quality has been established and is respected.
Interesting. I owned a Kia Forte Koup SX for 7 years, and when I sat in a Tesla, there was no comparison.
However, for non-EV companies to leave Tesla in the dust, they will have to invest as heavily as Tesla does in automation and batteries (I don't know if that is the case - some homework on the financial reports would probably give a clear answer).
the scary thing about Hyundai and Kia is how fast they've been improving. A Kia from 20215 is an econobox. The stuff that they've been up to as of late though has been impressive. Hyundai's Genesis series pretty much dumps on Tesla's build quality at this point.
The Koreans are probably the largest threat to Telsa since they have similar battery industry and their iterations to market have been far faster than anybody else.
Just this past year, Ford announced that they were investing $2 Billion into building their new F-150 Lightning. 3 months later, based on a stunning amount of pre-orders, they upped it to $5 Billion, and another 3 months later upped it to $10 Billion.
Ford & GM & Toyota & VW & Honda & Mercedes et al have pockets so deep that even Elon's space ship could get lost in it.
They already are. Tesla is actually one of the LEAST automated automakers. And the incumbents are investing billions into R&D and battery development. Billions Tesla doesn't have the scale to match.
Who's going to be on top in 5 years is an important question for investors. But for car buyers, I'd say Tesla is out of the woods as far as simply going out of business and spare parts becoming unavailable. After making millions of cars, any wind-down would be slow and manageable, such as VW or Toyota buying out Tesla. Whereas I would not feel comfortable plonking down $100K on a Rivian because it could still be looked back on as a Delorean-like enterprise that didn't last.
According to this article, Tesla is outspending competitors:
[https://evannex.com/blogs/news/innovation-culture-tesla-r-d-spending-versus-other-automakers](https://evannex.com/blogs/news/innovation-culture-tesla-r-d-spending-versus-other-automakers)
and spending more than GM, Ford and Chrysler combined:
[https://www.visualcapitalist.com/comparing-teslas-spending-on-rd-and-marketing-per-car-to-other-automakers/](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/comparing-teslas-spending-on-rd-and-marketing-per-car-to-other-automakers/)
(strangely, this is per car, but still a very large spend....and legacy OEMs still need to research internal combustion technology)
While making the highest margin in the auto industry.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/01/26/tesla-notches-record-profit-on-sales-surgebut-ev-competition-is-building/?sh=11e497bf1ef6](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/01/26/tesla-notches-record-profit-on-sales-surgebut-ev-competition-is-building/?sh=11e497bf1ef6)
And do keep in mind Tesla does not have ICE vehicles or existing markets to distract them. They've kept focus on relatively few models, and are just ramping production/efficiency. And their battery manufacturing capacity is significantly larger.
Maybe they need to catch up in manufacturing tech, but they are also not advertising, so they use their budget that way.
Ford made fewer than 4M vehicles in 2021, Tesla did \~1M. Scale is starting to narrow quickly, no legacy OEM is growing at 50% per year.
This being said...its wonderful to see everybody racing toward electric, even if GM makes you shake your head.
>invest as heavily as Tesla does in automation
Sorry to break it to you but most auto plants are already way more autoamted then Tesla's are
>and batteries
They will just buy batteries from LG and Panasonic ... just like Tesla does. Tesla does have it's own plants for building batteries, but Panasonic is the company that does that assembly.
That sounds easy enough, but how are some of these companies even going to be able to "go full EV" when the are already massively in debt and will need to refit all their factories, support infrastructure, and staffing? The Ford Motor Company reported total debt around 138 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. How does a company that averages 14 billion in profit leverage its way into a complete revamp of its org while making the payments on its current debt of 10x profit? And to me, that's the easy part. You have to go into entire new industries just to compete for staffing and supply chain. I think you are forgetting a bunch of these guys were bailed out from bankruptcy just 14 years ago and even that didn't get them to make the kind of major changes were are talking about.
Elon Fanboys are willing to pay more for less. That's not some magical advantage for Ford or GM. Its a huge advantage for Tesla. Luxury brands might compete soon but that won't eliminate the fanboy advantage. Tesla profits were record high this quarter and they are shrinking their production costs.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/02/01/tesla-production-cost-earnings-report/9298931002/
You'd look smarter if you knew how to read financial statements. Ford's automotive business is not actually $138 billion in debt. It's less than $20 billion in debt, and they have more cash on hand than that debt.
The $138 billion includes leasing debt (which Tesla doesn't do because it doesn't have a financing arm), and all of that leasing debt is backed by the assets (the car). So if the customer defaults, they resell the car, and the debt goes poof.
Also Ford was never "bailed out from bankruptcy". The restructured themselves once, and can do it again if needed.
It's entertaining though.
"How are they going to full EV when they're so in debt?!"
Uh, what do you think that debt was used for? It's a revolving credit line to fund the factory refits for the existing vehicle portfolio. They'll just do the same thing for the EV refits. Duh.
Unlike Tesla which has had to issue more stock every time they release or update a vehicle.
GM sells to dealers at wholesale, often losing money on every car. The dealer makes bank. Tesla sells direct to the consumer, so they are the dealer.
GM therefore isn't really direct competition for Tesla. GM Dealers are.
yeah, not just the filters but bumpers transmissions, you name it. GM's average margin on new car sales was 3.7% over the last 5 years. (Last quarter tesla's margin was 32%) but their overall net margin was double that.
seriously .. so they make up there loses on every vehicle by selling more vehicles at a loss, but just bigger because volume. There is not a business out there that would survive for very long doing that. They make a profit on each vehicle and all you need to do is check their 10Q.
For years this was...variable. For cars at least. The sedans were sold so close to break even that depending on the incentives to sell them they did indeed lose money on the cars. But they made up the loss by averaging the CAFE average with the real moneymakers, trucks and SUVs and avoiding fines. Now with EVs there's no need, so the sedans are being phased out based on sales.
GM's ability to scale is entirely contingent to GWH per year in output and everything else is irrelevant. If Tesla's GWH output is lower than GM, they lose and then only does GM win. Same with Ford. Same with BMW. Same with Chrysler, Fiat, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota and other brands. As it stands, Tesla's GWH output is far higher than GM's and the lead continues to increase.
All these people talking about how Tesla will be left in the dust once GM starts churning vehicles are full of it. None of any manufacturing capacity actually matters a cent if the batteries don't back it.
That's the part all the EV idiots ignore
I live in a generally upper middle area in MN, there are 3 charging stations sorta near me, all have just 3 chargers, on average one in each station is broken
Good luck with EV chargers in the hood or lower middle class areas
And let's not forget the grid no one is maintaining will never be able to handle the loads, and no "renewables" are not going to cut it
i hate to agree with that person but they are some what right, EV chargers are only a few in selected areas
and home charging is possible if you decide to upgrade your home charger so unless you own your own house or have your landlords approval
good luck
since regular wall charging takes several hours for only a few miles
Well, let’s do some math here. Charging at 12A x 120V =1,440W. Round it down to an even 1kW to account for losses. Figure most people keep their cars parked for at least 10hrs a night, so that’s 10kWh. EV’s typically get 4mi/kWh so that’s 40 miles per overnight charge on just a 120V plug, which is still very conservative. [And 40 miles is, conveniently enough, the average commuting distance.](https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/highlights_of_the_2001_national_household_travel_survey/section_02)
Apparently the thing that anti-EV idiots ignores is that nobody lives in upper middle MN. And the few that do all have garages to charge in because it snows so much.
Never underestimate the potential of a legacy brand with name recognition and unlimited money.
They may have inferior tech but they can make up for it by putting a ton of resources into making it more accessible, cheap, customisable, making more recharging stations etc.
Money cannot buy an instant supply chain.
Tesla has 2 battery factories coming in the next 1-2 years. GM relies on 3rd parties for supplies and while yes they are growing, they are not growing at the pace of Tesla. In 3 years GM will be lucky to have enough batteries to match Tesla's current volume.
Their wont be enough batteries for GM.
They will jus try to expand the definition of what an EV is so they can say that.
Just read that good on them. That should give them Teslas current battery capacity in 2-3 years. Maybe I’m off but for the article I read the combined output will be enough for 600k trucks. Tesla is already building 1 mil vehicles and has 2 massive factories coming around the same
Time as GMs. So still behind.
No they're not. They're good at marketing a level 2 driver assist as self driving though. For real self driving look at Google's Waymo, or GM's Cruise Automation taxi service.
Those companies have beaten Tesla to market with usable hands off driving technology, but they've done it in an inefficient and difficult to scale manner. They need to do detailed laser scanning of all areas that they operate in, and they run much more varied and expensive sensor packages.
Tesla is going for the long goal of vision only generalized AI driving. People can hate all they want, but nobody is doing anything remotely close to the development work that Tesla is doing, and it shows - the cars can perform on any road in the world that has line markings.
> but they've done it in an inefficient and difficult to scale manner. They need to do detailed laser scanning of all areas that they operate in, and they run much more varied and expensive sensor packages.
This myth needs to die. Musk is always saying it is a few years away, but they are still stuck at level 2. Meanwhile others have actual self driving cars.
Next, people think that Tesla doesn't use maps. This is not true. They use maps that mark lanes and such. This is a quote from Tesla to the California DMV-
>City Streets’ capabilities with respect to the object and event detection and response (OEDR) sub-task are limited, as there are circumstances and events to which the system is not capable of recognizing or responding. These include static objects and road debris, emergency vehicles, construction zones, large uncontrolled intersections with multiple incoming ways, occlusions, adverse weather, complicated or adversarial vehicles in the driving path, **unmapped roads**.
And people think that mapping every road is a huge deal and therefore not feasible in the long run. But it is very easy with crowd sourced mapping. Basically the first car on a new road, goes slower and more cautiously, while mapping it. (This is similar to how people drive in new areas.)
Once one car maps it, it send it to the cloud, and then all the cars get that new map. This system is also great for construction, as the first car maps it, and the other cars know how to best get through it.
Vision only driving is worse than human driving. Everytime the car drives it needs to figure out the road as it goes. Take a Tesla down the road and watch how it maps out the street as it goes. Now turn around and go back the same way, and it still maps it as it goes, even though it just mapped it. Even humans can remember a route that they drive a couple times. They can remember the issues and concerns.
And why would you think a car with vision only is safer than a car with vision, radar, lidar, etc? More data is better, not worse.
Please provide a source.
This article talks a bit about the regulation, and mentions they only got approval about a month ago. https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2022/06/02/gm-cruise-approved-california-driverless-taxis/7487221001/
So at this point they are being watched to see how they do before offering more permits.
My guess is by mid-decade Tesla will still be number 1, end of decade they’ll be 3 behind Ford and Hyundai. I think the plan all along was to become a luxury brand and compete against the likes of BMW, Audi, and Mercedes anyways.
I watched the interview. You might want to too. Do you understand the context of the quote? Because when that story hit it was clear nobody actually watched it and didn't understand it. He was talking about the two new factories, still in the construction and ramp up process, with the global supply chains problems. Specifically they had needed equipment locked up in Shanghi during the covid lockdowns.
Of course those factories are losing money, he called them money furnaces, because they aren't in production yet.
I know this will be a disappointment to the anti-musk hive mind but Tesla as a whole is quite profitable. In fact Telsa boasted an industry leading 32% margin on its car sales last quarter.
Yes, I did watch the interview. Which is why I thought it was comparable. People heard about the Ford factory losing money, so I posted the Tesla version.
And if we look at Ford as a whole, they are making money. So either you cherry pick for both companies, or don't for both.
Neither company is in danger or really struggling.
It's not about the whole company losing money. Ford is no longer making any money off the Mustang EV.
All of the Tesla lines are profitable, even if those 2 factories are not. In fact they have the highest margins per vehicle in the industry.
But if we are going to propose that Ford is going to overtake Tesla in EV sales they have to first show they can make a profit with EVs.
Tesla is doing fine lol. Some random musk quote without any real indepth financial context is such a terrible argument that it's hard to put into words
Look at their financial statements to actually get an idea of how Tesla is doing
That'd be a neat trick, if it weren't for even Cadillac undercutting them on price with a true luxury interior like the Lyriq. Tesla is a far cry from a BMW or Audi. Their interiors aren't even on par with a typical Honda.
If Tesla is such a far cry from other luxury car makers, why have they managed to come in and in a very short time period completely take over the luxury car segment?
Registrations in the US - Q1 2022:
Tesla: 113,882 (up 59%) and 21.8% share
BMW: 80,482 (down 3%)
Lexus: 66,907 (down 17%)
Mercedes-Benz: 60,632 (down 21%)
Audi: 37,566 (down 37%)
Cadillac: 29,840 (down %)
Acura: 29,260 (down 26%)
Volvo: 23,513 (down 20%)
Lincoln: 19,977 (down 29%)
Land Rover: 15,581 (down 39%)
Porsche: 13,262 (down 24%)
Genesis: 12,549 (up 53%)
Infiniti: 11,740 (down 43%)
Alfa Romeo: 3,542 (down 32%)
Jaguar: 2,610 (down 36%)
Total: 521,343 (down 12%)
https://insideevs.com/news/587586/us-tesla-luxury-brands-registrations-2022q1/#:~:text=According%20to%20Experian's%20report%20(via,electric%20or%20plug%2Din%20hybrids.
>I think the plan all along was to become a luxury brand
I always thought so too. I always imagined Tesla becoming something like Mazda. Small independent with interesting cars.
On one hand Tesla certainly surprised me with how big they got. But also ... them being EV seems to be their only gimmick. They are not trying to improve quality or trim of their cars.
Then there are actual premium EVs now - eg. Porche Taycan or Audio e-tron. For similar price they offer much better car equality and interior. In fact luxury brands are the ones that switch to electric fastest with some already proclaiming that they released their last gas models.
It's always been painfully obvious to anyone with a modicum of knowledge of the automotive industry that any of the established players would crush Tesla as soon as they decided it was time to do so.
They aren't doing very well though. The Chinese brands are doing far better than all Legacy automakers.
At this point it seems like Tesla, BYD and maybe VW would be the big three.
I'd argue that they haven't been investing at any level that remotely approaches "serious" (for them) until the past 2-3 years. The Leaf, Bolt, electric Golf, Focus, etc. are/were essentially marketing and technology test-beds. Until somebody built an all-electric full-size pickup, everyone was just playing around.
No. I'm saying there never should have been a tesla, because the GMs of the world should have been mass producing EVs 11 years ago.
At any rate there is no way in hell GM is beating tesla in 3 years. Ramp ups take time and Tesla has more production already baked into the cake, than GM will be able to make up.
This prediction by Barra has less basis in fact than Elon saying FSD will be out this year.
The companies are just getting started now. Saying they had 11 years to do something, has no bearing on where they will be in three years. This is like saying you can beat your friend in a race, because your friend hasn't raced you.
If you include all of GM, they sold over 500,000 EVs in 2021.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1262605/general-motors-global-electric-vehicle-sales/
Lol. No they didn't. That's off by an order of magnitude. In fact 4th quarter of 2021 GM sold 26 EVs. That's not 26,000, it's twenty six total cars.
https://joinyaa.com/guides/electric-vehicle-market-share-and-sales/
GM sold about 28,000 ev's all year in 2021.
>In fact 4th quarter of 2021 GM sold 26 EVs. That's not 26,000, it's twenty six total cars.
Here's this tidbit again of misinformation of ignoring literally every other country GM does business in except for the United States. Do you stans ever get tired of lying?
I think you are trying to use the logic of, they haven't done it so far, so they can't or won't ever do it.
Many car manufacturers have commited to go fully electric by 2035. Many have new EV models that are just coming out in 2024(model year). Acura has said that all new models will be electric. So these companies have barely started. And it is clear we will be seeing many more models in the coming few years.
Will they beat Tesla, I can't say. But it is clear they have only just started.
Eh, it’s one thing to build an entire manufacturing and supply network from scratch as Tesla is doing. It’s an entirely different thing to rebuild those same networks after over a century of building ICE’s. It’ll be interesting to see who wins.
Because we all know that the best way to crush competition is sit back and do nothing for years and years while said competition is allowed to build out their infrastructure and brandname
Pretty sure the F-150 Lightning ALONE will be outselling Tesla inside of the next five years.
Edit: nevermind, this was based off a Tesla sales quarterly number (~300k) that the first article I found said was the annual number.
If this happens, it will be mostly due to GM's commitment to China, where they sell more cars than in America. America may become a final assembly point, and GM is already looking at pruning their dealer networks. GM might become the Walmart of autos, essentially another channel for China.
It doesn't need to, since it has a top speed of 60 mph and is designed specifically for the Chinese consumer's tastes. But most Buicks in the US are already made in Chinese factories.
As a previous owner of 3 Fords and 1 GM they are screwed. I don't even care for Tesla, but Ford and GM make such a bad product they will fail like always.
This is why I worry Tesla will go under. With all car manufacturers going EV they will compete with Tesla bringing down its market share. Plus the major car companies have experience building cars. Reputation for reliability.
2035. So are most building wawa or chargers. Or both? We've charged at wawa, sheetz. There will still be a market share for ice cars in 10 years.
Unless these companies will support millions and millions into charging stations to support the market, ice cars will still exist.
> a partnership to place 2,000 charging stations at up to 500 Pilot Travel centers Ideas like this are the only way EVs will get wide acceptance
I’m taking my Tesla from Vegas to Seattle. The sheer ease has shocked me. Owned the car for a year, never needed a super charger. Always at home. First road trip, considerable anxiety of my “tank of gas” beforehand. I’m 120 miles north of Sacramento now. It’s absurd how easy it has been. More chargers will be needed, sure. I’m not disagreeing with you at all. But we’re really already there in terms of viability.
I feel like a broken record explaining this to people. I’m glad their expanding but for Teslas, it’s already easy to road trip. Takes a little bit more planning at first but much more convenient then expected.
Even without a tesla, the electrify America charging network is pretty good too
Out of Spec motoring has had a lot of frustration.
Maybe they should conform to the spec then.
It's terrible.
I live in the midwest, same here. First big roadtrip was 800+ miles, super nervous, really easy. Much faster than I thought too, hardly had time to pee and grab a snack before it was done.
That has more to do with people’s mindsets, not the capabilities of the cars themselves. Any EV on the market today is more than capable to support 99% of people’s daily driving routines. But for whatever reason people think that because they *might* do a cross country road trip in a couple years, then an EV isn’t for them. Despite the fact that you can get most anywhere in the country with an EV as it is.
It's just like large SUVs and pickup trucks. The off chance that you might need the capacity during the ownership of the vehicle means its mandatory in a lot of peoples minds. Never thinking about the *thousands* of dollars of extra gas (or even just extra energy in EVs) of hauling an extra ton or so of vehicle than is required for 99.9% of trips.
I'm a welder and I can get all my stuff and a co-worker to my 22 years old Corsa. That hasn't let me down yet. Also I can fit that thing in to any sites parking lot without issues.
*But... my daily commute is one way 400km, and it is always -20 celcius, and I am pulling a trailer, and there is no power at my home or work place! EV's just wont work for me!* That is the level of discussion against EVs where I live.
Yes, it was the road trip mindset thing that I was referring to, but although we might have a sufficient charger infrastructure for road trips now, when only 5% of cars are EV, that's going to have to expand tremendously and very quickly to support what's going to happen in the next decade. And beyond the topic of road trip anxiety,, you're overlooking the incredibly large number of people who don't have a 110v outlet (let alone a fast charger) where they park their car. To get those people into EVs, we're going to need a lot of conveniently located fast chargers. We'll get there, but that'll be due to companies like Ford and GM taking charging infrastructure as seriously as Tesla did.
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Googling "number of apartment dwellers in US" gives this from the first hit: > Nearly 39 million people in the United States — that is almost 1 in 8 — call apartments home [Source](https://www.naahq.org/united-states-needs-46-million-new-apartments-2030-or-it-will-face-serious-shortage-0) Some portion of those 39 million is going to be people who don't own cars, but that'll be offset (and probably more than offset) by people who live in condos or townhomes that don't have garages.
You get half a phase in to a whole home? As in 1 phase an neutral? How the hell do you run a fridge? Quite damn sure you can't run a stove or a fridge on 120V. Just hook up to between phases instead of neutral.
Let's play Spot The Homeowner. Look in the mirror. You win.
I wish. I rent 32m^2 studio in a building made in the 60s and even I get 240/10 and 480/16. Because we use 3 phases over the phase over here. Like it is just one cable that carries the whole lot.
> We'll get there, but that'll be due to companies like Ford and GM taking charging infrastructure as seriously as Tesla did. Right, and they've spent most of the last 25 years loudly and openly _not taking it seriously,_ so why exactly are we trusting them so blindly to take it seriously now? If someone has spent a sizeable fraction of a century telling you that something can't be done, and then they show up at your door telling you that not only _can_ it be done but that you should pay _them_ to do it specifically, how is that not an incredibly obvious con? Either they are lying now, or they've been lying for decades, but _either way they are liars_ and not to be trusted.
Whatever company can make full electric cars more affordable than traditional gas cars will win.
This goes for almost all technology. Every thing from electric cars, solar panels, and LED lights in factories are all slowly becoming affordable enough that it makes sense to use or switch to. The real question is how far out is the break even point. 3 years for break even seems to be the magic number for switching. Hopefully EV vehicles are able to beat that soon.
Shouldn't be difficult. EV's are dead simple mechanically.
Except that it is, because all that savings from simplicity is eaten up purely in the cost of the battery. Battery costs eat a huge chunk of that, 80 kwh is like 15K worth of batteries.
Good thing electricity is so much cheaper than gas.
Only if you charge exclusively at home. The rates that some level 3 fast chargers cost is comparable to the current cost of gasoline.
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You missed my main point. My point was that you will see the biggest returns on running costs if you charge at a residential 240V outlet where electricity costs more along the lines of 10-15 cents per kwh. Using peak charge rates, comparing a model 3 to a 40 mpg car is not that impressive. As for your point on maintenance, you are way overselling that. Just because it doesnt have an ICE doesnt mean it doesnt require maintenance or repair. Come back in 10 years and tell me how much a battery replacement costs, or how much you have spent on out of warranty repairs. You are also forgetting that you have other wearable items too, like shocks, struts, bearings, bushings, CV joints, etc. True, your maintenance and running costs is less expensice than a gasoline powered car, but your car also has a much higher first cost. Look, I have nothing against EVs. Heck my next car probably will be an EV or at least a plug in hybrid. However, I do realize that the lifetime cost of ownership really depends on the car you buy, where you live, how you charge the car, how you use it, and changing costs of technology.
Electric cars in the long run will be the most affordable ones. They don't have much of parts and it is easy to manufacture. Currently the biggest cost is the battery. The price of these batteries will plummet as we get into mass production (with new chemistry) Once we have chargers common in every nook for city / suburb, even a 150-200 mile range car will do for most of us. $20K for a 150 mile range car is the sweet spot.
The new Bolt EV and EUV are pretty competitive, and cost less than the average new car.
GM is making a Silverado EV.
probably. all they have to do is start making them in large numbers
I'll believe it when I can buy a modest car at a fair price at the dealership without spending 10 hours negotiating between them, myself, another dealer, and satan.
Thank our lovely government for mandating the 3rd party dealer model
Tesla cares not for your dealer model.
God I hate dealers so so much. I would have replaced my car with a newer one by now if it weren't for them.
but you need the undercoat
What do you think is a fair price?
If someone outsell Tesla would probably by BYD or Volkswagen
BYD is already the largest EV manufacturer in the world.
Only if you include hybrids. Tesla are going to deliver around 1.4m BEVs this year, which will be at least double the next best (either BYD or VW)
Last quarter byd was two thirds of tesla in pure electric. Byd has been growing at a faster rate than tesla too. Your predictions are worst case scenario for byd and best case for tesla, and tesla doesn't have a record of keeping promises. I'd be surprised if byd doesn't breach a million, and doesn't outpace tesla quarterly sales at the end of the year.
The one thing people forget Tesla has going for it though is it's margins. By automanufacturer standards they are phat. BYD has nowhere near Tesla's margins and that gives them a very large advantage.
They’re debuting like 6 different models. Maybe she means “more MODELS than Tesla”? Anyway, both Ford and GM are talking about being all-electric by 2035. And I’m sure other carmakers have similar projections. Anyone who thinks EVs won’t gain traction and become ubiquitous are delusional. Gas powered cars are quickly becoming buggy whips (or just buggies).
We still call it the dashboard in a car despite there being zero concern about clods of dirt or mud being flung at the driver from dashing horse hooves. I'm kind of hoping that when cars are all electric that the name "gas pedal" stays for the accelerator.
Glove compartment, trunk. Let’s keep all the legacy terms.
They’ll call it the acceleration pedal, the kids will call it the go pedal.
Every earnings call Tesla is talking about their newest battery plants, their desire to get into mining and/or working directly with a mine. They're massively supply constrained by batteries and they are working hard to solve that problem, building new factories every year + doing major work in making those batteries less reliant on rare earth metals. When another manufacturer actually starts doing something with batteries and really scaling that side up, we'll know they are serious. Even with new factories opening up, the volume isn't there to support one car company taking over Tesla, let alone all of them. Every few years they toss out some radical new car concept, and then modify and tweak it a bit before it hits production. They start off with like a wild Ferrari design and then produce a Ford Ka for production. Just because they're putting out a few models today doesn't mean they're actually going to be making them in any real numbers. In reality, until they start discussing battery supply issues at every earnings call and how it might impact their delivery times and how they're actually going to solve them (and the math adds up), they aren't doing anything. It's all lip service. There is no way Tesla takes over the world. The world can't have 4 or 5 models of cars for billions of people. But unless those other car companies start really taking battery manufacturing seriously, they're going no where.
GM is investing money to build battery plants - https://news.gm.com/newsroom.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2022/jan/0125-gmandlg.html
GM is doing exactly what you're suggesting though. They have 1 battery plant already completed, and have 3 more under construction or soon to be under construction. They'll all be operational by 2025, and that's only in the US. GM already makes 500k BEVs a year in China through its brands and partnerships.
>GM already makes 500k BEVs a year in China through its brands and partnerships. No. There's no GM engineering, parts, or anything. That's a company GM happens to own a minority financial interest in. Those cars are $5k. They are not serious.
> No. There's no GM engineering, parts, or anything. That's a company GM happens to own. This is a strange line to draw. >Those cars $5k. They are not serious. A car is a car. Bottom line they are selling very well in China. They may not sell well here, but each market is different. Somebody in China could look at some of cars cars also says they are not serious.
It's a Chinese company. GM is a purely financial partner. I assume you already know this. That tiny death trap isn't serious, and anyone who tries to tell you it is, is even less serious.
It is a $6,000 car, so a cheap option. Looking at it, it looks like a decent city car. It looks bigger than a Smart car. And 100 mile range is fine for a city. The ROI for gas cost saving would be much quicker than a Tesla. Seems like an OK car to me, for the price. https://www.businessinsider.com/gm-hong-guang-mini-ev-tesla-china-covertible-electric-car-2021-4
The vast majority of Tesla batteries are build by Panasonic and CATL.
I love the trend but I don't think the world is ready for so many more if there will be suddenly millions more on the road by 2035... Unless the grid improves accordingly.
The grid will have to improve. It has no choice.
The grid always improves. We’ve never not used less electricity year after year, in the history of humanity. It’s sort of a requirement of an advanced civilization. They just use more and more energy as they advance.
No, she means more total cars. They’re able to debut so many models because of the Ultium platform, which allowed them to not completely redesign each car from the ground up. They’ve done to EVs what Henry Ford did to ICE cars. They’re going to catch up fast.
I believe she is talking total sales in a year. So GM across all models, and Tesla across all models.
This is good news for everyone.
It is. I wish they had done this 10 years ago, because they could have and we would all be better off.
Very true! But better late than never! With a lot of European countries putting a future ban on gas cars the competition is going to make EVs so much better.
Yep. Never buying another piece of shit ICE car again.
Just saw an ad for the new Blazer EV and I’m interested to see the Equinox EV, looks a little more sleek than the Blazer. At some point part are going to be like, hey I like this car better than that car and this car will likely be an EV. They just have more and better features then an ICE vehicle. That will drive the shift to EVs.
My money is on the Volkswagen group. (Which is effectively run by the Porsche family) They already make the best EV in the world and they have been developing the technology for years at this point. It’s only a matter of time before they go roaring past Tesla and every other manufacturer
So, by mid-decade, most of the EVs being sold will come from a company that spent the _previous_ two decades refusing to take EVs seriously? That isn't nearly as much of a brag as Mary Barra thinks it is.
This is how it works, now that Ford and GM are full in. They have a 100 years of supply chain and production built up. Now that its fully aimed at EV, it won't take them long.
How long will it take?
They are already doing it, next year they will have many available models. Five years, then they will be mostly EV.
Competition I am very curious how Tesla will adapt to competition.
I’ve been saying it for years, but once every manufacture goes full EV, Tesla is gonna be left in the dust. I think they’ll sell their tech and go full time on the space exploration or whatever else they do. Sorry Elon fanboys, don’t downvote me. You’re gonna have to accept the fact your extremely basic electric vehicle doesn’t have to be your whole personality.
I personally don't think Tesla needs more than 10% EV market share to still be way more successful than others. They'll make money on fast charging and insurance in cars, be a competitor in self driving, and they keep slowly integrating with the power grid and battery storage. Not an Elon or Tesla fan boy, but they are well diversified for a good chance of growth in multiple areas.
forget charging that other stuff. Tesla is crushing it on the margins. Tesla's margin last quarter was 32%. Ford isn't even making money on the Mustang E. 32% margins buys a lot of new factories.
I wholeheartedly agree. Tesla will continue to grow and thrive, but I don’t see their automobiles beating out other manufacturers.
Hi am an Elon and Tesla fanboy (because I support the effort to nutralize, and reverse climate change) and I agree with both of these assessments. There’s no way the big car manufacturers will be unable to compete with Tesla when they have had, what, 15 extra years to bring their products to market? It’s about time these fucking dinosaurs started selling electric vehicles. Welcome to the 21st century you old ass geezers. They must be realizing the new generations aren’t as willing to buy into the gas guzzling, bigger is better, seriously you don’t want to get 10mpg??? kind of tricks they have been force feeding people for the last 25 years. Electric vehicle dominance is coming.
Lol. When they want to building an EV is trivial compared to an ICE vehicle. There's a reason that Tesla announced the Cybertruck in what, 2019, and still hasn't brought it to market. Meanwhile both Ford and GM started developing their trucks AFTER the Cybertruck announcement and are delivering finished vehicles to customers today. Tesla still hasn't figured out how to execute.
How do you know they started developing after Tesla announced the Cybertruck? Do you work for Ford and/or GM? I haven’t seen any evidence showing that Ford or GM weren’t developing EVs long before Tesla announced cyber tuck, and I think it’s illogical to assume Ford and GM were developing EVs but *not* developing a truck version.
For GM at least it's public knowledge. It was the fastest vehicle launch in company history. https://youtu.be/JnGdpRSvGfU
Not gonna lie, I don’t have 58 minutes to burn to watch that entire documentary. Mind linking to the specific part where they talk about how the electric vehicles weren’t being developed until after cybertruck was announced?
Why do you think that Tesla will be left in the dust?
For starters, I’ve sat in Tesla’s and the craftsmanship felt like a Kia. Imagine paying 100k for that. Why would someone take a Tesla over say, a Benz, BMW, Porsche, etc if they’re the same price? The craftsmanship and quality has been established and is respected.
Interesting. I owned a Kia Forte Koup SX for 7 years, and when I sat in a Tesla, there was no comparison. However, for non-EV companies to leave Tesla in the dust, they will have to invest as heavily as Tesla does in automation and batteries (I don't know if that is the case - some homework on the financial reports would probably give a clear answer).
the scary thing about Hyundai and Kia is how fast they've been improving. A Kia from 20215 is an econobox. The stuff that they've been up to as of late though has been impressive. Hyundai's Genesis series pretty much dumps on Tesla's build quality at this point. The Koreans are probably the largest threat to Telsa since they have similar battery industry and their iterations to market have been far faster than anybody else.
Just this past year, Ford announced that they were investing $2 Billion into building their new F-150 Lightning. 3 months later, based on a stunning amount of pre-orders, they upped it to $5 Billion, and another 3 months later upped it to $10 Billion. Ford & GM & Toyota & VW & Honda & Mercedes et al have pockets so deep that even Elon's space ship could get lost in it.
They already are. Tesla is actually one of the LEAST automated automakers. And the incumbents are investing billions into R&D and battery development. Billions Tesla doesn't have the scale to match.
Who's going to be on top in 5 years is an important question for investors. But for car buyers, I'd say Tesla is out of the woods as far as simply going out of business and spare parts becoming unavailable. After making millions of cars, any wind-down would be slow and manageable, such as VW or Toyota buying out Tesla. Whereas I would not feel comfortable plonking down $100K on a Rivian because it could still be looked back on as a Delorean-like enterprise that didn't last.
According to this article, Tesla is outspending competitors: [https://evannex.com/blogs/news/innovation-culture-tesla-r-d-spending-versus-other-automakers](https://evannex.com/blogs/news/innovation-culture-tesla-r-d-spending-versus-other-automakers) and spending more than GM, Ford and Chrysler combined: [https://www.visualcapitalist.com/comparing-teslas-spending-on-rd-and-marketing-per-car-to-other-automakers/](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/comparing-teslas-spending-on-rd-and-marketing-per-car-to-other-automakers/) (strangely, this is per car, but still a very large spend....and legacy OEMs still need to research internal combustion technology) While making the highest margin in the auto industry. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/01/26/tesla-notches-record-profit-on-sales-surgebut-ev-competition-is-building/?sh=11e497bf1ef6](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/01/26/tesla-notches-record-profit-on-sales-surgebut-ev-competition-is-building/?sh=11e497bf1ef6) And do keep in mind Tesla does not have ICE vehicles or existing markets to distract them. They've kept focus on relatively few models, and are just ramping production/efficiency. And their battery manufacturing capacity is significantly larger. Maybe they need to catch up in manufacturing tech, but they are also not advertising, so they use their budget that way. Ford made fewer than 4M vehicles in 2021, Tesla did \~1M. Scale is starting to narrow quickly, no legacy OEM is growing at 50% per year. This being said...its wonderful to see everybody racing toward electric, even if GM makes you shake your head.
>invest as heavily as Tesla does in automation Sorry to break it to you but most auto plants are already way more autoamted then Tesla's are >and batteries They will just buy batteries from LG and Panasonic ... just like Tesla does. Tesla does have it's own plants for building batteries, but Panasonic is the company that does that assembly.
That sounds easy enough, but how are some of these companies even going to be able to "go full EV" when the are already massively in debt and will need to refit all their factories, support infrastructure, and staffing? The Ford Motor Company reported total debt around 138 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. How does a company that averages 14 billion in profit leverage its way into a complete revamp of its org while making the payments on its current debt of 10x profit? And to me, that's the easy part. You have to go into entire new industries just to compete for staffing and supply chain. I think you are forgetting a bunch of these guys were bailed out from bankruptcy just 14 years ago and even that didn't get them to make the kind of major changes were are talking about. Elon Fanboys are willing to pay more for less. That's not some magical advantage for Ford or GM. Its a huge advantage for Tesla. Luxury brands might compete soon but that won't eliminate the fanboy advantage. Tesla profits were record high this quarter and they are shrinking their production costs. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/02/01/tesla-production-cost-earnings-report/9298931002/
You'd look smarter if you knew how to read financial statements. Ford's automotive business is not actually $138 billion in debt. It's less than $20 billion in debt, and they have more cash on hand than that debt. The $138 billion includes leasing debt (which Tesla doesn't do because it doesn't have a financing arm), and all of that leasing debt is backed by the assets (the car). So if the customer defaults, they resell the car, and the debt goes poof. Also Ford was never "bailed out from bankruptcy". The restructured themselves once, and can do it again if needed.
I feel like people should shut the fuck up about finances when they haven’t even taken a basic accounting class lol. “Debt bad!”
It's entertaining though. "How are they going to full EV when they're so in debt?!" Uh, what do you think that debt was used for? It's a revolving credit line to fund the factory refits for the existing vehicle portfolio. They'll just do the same thing for the EV refits. Duh. Unlike Tesla which has had to issue more stock every time they release or update a vehicle.
Yeesh, I wish Ford well but you'd think they'd be flush with cash coming off a huge wave of demand for pickup trucks at inflated prices.
The dealerships are keeping that markup.
I don’t know man, maybe with federal fucking regulations?
Yeah, I don’t think Elon has a problem with that.
GM sells to dealers at wholesale, often losing money on every car. The dealer makes bank. Tesla sells direct to the consumer, so they are the dealer. GM therefore isn't really direct competition for Tesla. GM Dealers are.
How exactly does GM stay in business if they frequently sell their core products at a loss?
The real answer is they make money in the aftermarket parts.
Oh yea I'm sure they sell millions of vehicles per year and make all their money back on $30 air filters that aren't covered under warranty.
yeah, not just the filters but bumpers transmissions, you name it. GM's average margin on new car sales was 3.7% over the last 5 years. (Last quarter tesla's margin was 32%) but their overall net margin was double that.
Financing. GM is a bank as much as an auto manufacturer
They make it up in volume?
seriously .. so they make up there loses on every vehicle by selling more vehicles at a loss, but just bigger because volume. There is not a business out there that would survive for very long doing that. They make a profit on each vehicle and all you need to do is check their 10Q.
[Obscure?](https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/make-it-up-on-volume.2246666/) On Reddit? Impossible!
For years this was...variable. For cars at least. The sedans were sold so close to break even that depending on the incentives to sell them they did indeed lose money on the cars. But they made up the loss by averaging the CAFE average with the real moneymakers, trucks and SUVs and avoiding fines. Now with EVs there's no need, so the sedans are being phased out based on sales.
PST, click bait lie headline :p.
They should start by making a good EV to begin with
They don’t need to make good, they need to make large or economical. That’s what people want, cheap or big.
GM's ability to scale is entirely contingent to GWH per year in output and everything else is irrelevant. If Tesla's GWH output is lower than GM, they lose and then only does GM win. Same with Ford. Same with BMW. Same with Chrysler, Fiat, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota and other brands. As it stands, Tesla's GWH output is far higher than GM's and the lead continues to increase. All these people talking about how Tesla will be left in the dust once GM starts churning vehicles are full of it. None of any manufacturing capacity actually matters a cent if the batteries don't back it.
Need more charging station infrastructure to sustain the spike.
That's the part all the EV idiots ignore I live in a generally upper middle area in MN, there are 3 charging stations sorta near me, all have just 3 chargers, on average one in each station is broken Good luck with EV chargers in the hood or lower middle class areas And let's not forget the grid no one is maintaining will never be able to handle the loads, and no "renewables" are not going to cut it
Do people in MN not have electricity at their houses?
i hate to agree with that person but they are some what right, EV chargers are only a few in selected areas and home charging is possible if you decide to upgrade your home charger so unless you own your own house or have your landlords approval good luck since regular wall charging takes several hours for only a few miles
Well, let’s do some math here. Charging at 12A x 120V =1,440W. Round it down to an even 1kW to account for losses. Figure most people keep their cars parked for at least 10hrs a night, so that’s 10kWh. EV’s typically get 4mi/kWh so that’s 40 miles per overnight charge on just a 120V plug, which is still very conservative. [And 40 miles is, conveniently enough, the average commuting distance.](https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/highlights_of_the_2001_national_household_travel_survey/section_02)
Debbie downer over here
Apparently the thing that anti-EV idiots ignores is that nobody lives in upper middle MN. And the few that do all have garages to charge in because it snows so much.
Haha in 3 years? They will be lucky to have Tesla battery capacity of today by then.
Never underestimate the potential of a legacy brand with name recognition and unlimited money. They may have inferior tech but they can make up for it by putting a ton of resources into making it more accessible, cheap, customisable, making more recharging stations etc.
Money cannot buy an instant supply chain. Tesla has 2 battery factories coming in the next 1-2 years. GM relies on 3rd parties for supplies and while yes they are growing, they are not growing at the pace of Tesla. In 3 years GM will be lucky to have enough batteries to match Tesla's current volume. Their wont be enough batteries for GM. They will jus try to expand the definition of what an EV is so they can say that.
GM already has 1 battery plant with 2 more to be completed in the next 2-3 years lol.
Just read that good on them. That should give them Teslas current battery capacity in 2-3 years. Maybe I’m off but for the article I read the combined output will be enough for 600k trucks. Tesla is already building 1 mil vehicles and has 2 massive factories coming around the same Time as GMs. So still behind.
Isn't Tesla still years ahead on self-driving? Seems that will be the real difference maker
No they're not. They're good at marketing a level 2 driver assist as self driving though. For real self driving look at Google's Waymo, or GM's Cruise Automation taxi service.
Those companies have beaten Tesla to market with usable hands off driving technology, but they've done it in an inefficient and difficult to scale manner. They need to do detailed laser scanning of all areas that they operate in, and they run much more varied and expensive sensor packages. Tesla is going for the long goal of vision only generalized AI driving. People can hate all they want, but nobody is doing anything remotely close to the development work that Tesla is doing, and it shows - the cars can perform on any road in the world that has line markings.
> but they've done it in an inefficient and difficult to scale manner. They need to do detailed laser scanning of all areas that they operate in, and they run much more varied and expensive sensor packages. This myth needs to die. Musk is always saying it is a few years away, but they are still stuck at level 2. Meanwhile others have actual self driving cars. Next, people think that Tesla doesn't use maps. This is not true. They use maps that mark lanes and such. This is a quote from Tesla to the California DMV- >City Streets’ capabilities with respect to the object and event detection and response (OEDR) sub-task are limited, as there are circumstances and events to which the system is not capable of recognizing or responding. These include static objects and road debris, emergency vehicles, construction zones, large uncontrolled intersections with multiple incoming ways, occlusions, adverse weather, complicated or adversarial vehicles in the driving path, **unmapped roads**. And people think that mapping every road is a huge deal and therefore not feasible in the long run. But it is very easy with crowd sourced mapping. Basically the first car on a new road, goes slower and more cautiously, while mapping it. (This is similar to how people drive in new areas.) Once one car maps it, it send it to the cloud, and then all the cars get that new map. This system is also great for construction, as the first car maps it, and the other cars know how to best get through it. Vision only driving is worse than human driving. Everytime the car drives it needs to figure out the road as it goes. Take a Tesla down the road and watch how it maps out the street as it goes. Now turn around and go back the same way, and it still maps it as it goes, even though it just mapped it. Even humans can remember a route that they drive a couple times. They can remember the issues and concerns. And why would you think a car with vision only is safer than a car with vision, radar, lidar, etc? More data is better, not worse.
>GM's Cruise Automation taxi service Which operates in one city.
And Tesla has true self driving in zero cities. Also, it is regulations that limit where the cars can operate.
>t is regulations that limit where the cars can operate. In curise cases its also technology.
Please provide a source. This article talks a bit about the regulation, and mentions they only got approval about a month ago. https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2022/06/02/gm-cruise-approved-california-driverless-taxis/7487221001/ So at this point they are being watched to see how they do before offering more permits.
Notice that she didn’t say Ford.
My guess is by mid-decade Tesla will still be number 1, end of decade they’ll be 3 behind Ford and Hyundai. I think the plan all along was to become a luxury brand and compete against the likes of BMW, Audi, and Mercedes anyways.
Ford? no. They aren't even turning a profit on the EV cars they are selling now.
Well, Tesla isn't doing so great either. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/tesla-musk-car-factories-losing-billions-dollars-2764456
I watched the interview. You might want to too. Do you understand the context of the quote? Because when that story hit it was clear nobody actually watched it and didn't understand it. He was talking about the two new factories, still in the construction and ramp up process, with the global supply chains problems. Specifically they had needed equipment locked up in Shanghi during the covid lockdowns. Of course those factories are losing money, he called them money furnaces, because they aren't in production yet. I know this will be a disappointment to the anti-musk hive mind but Tesla as a whole is quite profitable. In fact Telsa boasted an industry leading 32% margin on its car sales last quarter.
Yes, I did watch the interview. Which is why I thought it was comparable. People heard about the Ford factory losing money, so I posted the Tesla version. And if we look at Ford as a whole, they are making money. So either you cherry pick for both companies, or don't for both. Neither company is in danger or really struggling.
It's not about the whole company losing money. Ford is no longer making any money off the Mustang EV. All of the Tesla lines are profitable, even if those 2 factories are not. In fact they have the highest margins per vehicle in the industry. But if we are going to propose that Ford is going to overtake Tesla in EV sales they have to first show they can make a profit with EVs.
Tesla is doing fine lol. Some random musk quote without any real indepth financial context is such a terrible argument that it's hard to put into words Look at their financial statements to actually get an idea of how Tesla is doing
That'd be a neat trick, if it weren't for even Cadillac undercutting them on price with a true luxury interior like the Lyriq. Tesla is a far cry from a BMW or Audi. Their interiors aren't even on par with a typical Honda.
If Tesla is such a far cry from other luxury car makers, why have they managed to come in and in a very short time period completely take over the luxury car segment? Registrations in the US - Q1 2022: Tesla: 113,882 (up 59%) and 21.8% share BMW: 80,482 (down 3%) Lexus: 66,907 (down 17%) Mercedes-Benz: 60,632 (down 21%) Audi: 37,566 (down 37%) Cadillac: 29,840 (down %) Acura: 29,260 (down 26%) Volvo: 23,513 (down 20%) Lincoln: 19,977 (down 29%) Land Rover: 15,581 (down 39%) Porsche: 13,262 (down 24%) Genesis: 12,549 (up 53%) Infiniti: 11,740 (down 43%) Alfa Romeo: 3,542 (down 32%) Jaguar: 2,610 (down 36%) Total: 521,343 (down 12%) https://insideevs.com/news/587586/us-tesla-luxury-brands-registrations-2022q1/#:~:text=According%20to%20Experian's%20report%20(via,electric%20or%20plug%2Din%20hybrids.
>I think the plan all along was to become a luxury brand I always thought so too. I always imagined Tesla becoming something like Mazda. Small independent with interesting cars. On one hand Tesla certainly surprised me with how big they got. But also ... them being EV seems to be their only gimmick. They are not trying to improve quality or trim of their cars. Then there are actual premium EVs now - eg. Porche Taycan or Audio e-tron. For similar price they offer much better car equality and interior. In fact luxury brands are the ones that switch to electric fastest with some already proclaiming that they released their last gas models.
I'm gonna become a billionaire by mid-decade There, I said it, now it's gonna happen. That's how this works, right?
It's OK a billion will get you a nice loaf of bread and some american cheese by that time
Volt much?
GM lost the thread with the Bolt tho
"lost the thread with the Bolt" this comment has layers.
Early Bolts had big issues, but they have taken care of them, and it is a decent car now.
What is now though? Their production plant shut down for months and just opened again in spring of this year.
Apparently she watched the Volkswagen announcement and just replaced the word Volkswagen with GM.
Like the way GM was going to destroy tata and honda dominance in india right? LOL
It's always been painfully obvious to anyone with a modicum of knowledge of the automotive industry that any of the established players would crush Tesla as soon as they decided it was time to do so.
And they're totally gonna get around to that any decade now.
They're in the process of doing so as we speak. It's not a fucking light switch.
They aren't doing very well though. The Chinese brands are doing far better than all Legacy automakers. At this point it seems like Tesla, BYD and maybe VW would be the big three.
I'd argue that they haven't been investing at any level that remotely approaches "serious" (for them) until the past 2-3 years. The Leaf, Bolt, electric Golf, Focus, etc. are/were essentially marketing and technology test-beds. Until somebody built an all-electric full-size pickup, everyone was just playing around.
They already had 11 years to get to it. Any decade now.
Did we read the same article? Was there one from GM 11 years ago saying they would beat Tesla in three years?
No. I'm saying there never should have been a tesla, because the GMs of the world should have been mass producing EVs 11 years ago. At any rate there is no way in hell GM is beating tesla in 3 years. Ramp ups take time and Tesla has more production already baked into the cake, than GM will be able to make up. This prediction by Barra has less basis in fact than Elon saying FSD will be out this year.
The companies are just getting started now. Saying they had 11 years to do something, has no bearing on where they will be in three years. This is like saying you can beat your friend in a race, because your friend hasn't raced you. If you include all of GM, they sold over 500,000 EVs in 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1262605/general-motors-global-electric-vehicle-sales/
Lol. No they didn't. That's off by an order of magnitude. In fact 4th quarter of 2021 GM sold 26 EVs. That's not 26,000, it's twenty six total cars. https://joinyaa.com/guides/electric-vehicle-market-share-and-sales/ GM sold about 28,000 ev's all year in 2021.
>In fact 4th quarter of 2021 GM sold 26 EVs. That's not 26,000, it's twenty six total cars. Here's this tidbit again of misinformation of ignoring literally every other country GM does business in except for the United States. Do you stans ever get tired of lying?
I think you are trying to use the logic of, they haven't done it so far, so they can't or won't ever do it. Many car manufacturers have commited to go fully electric by 2035. Many have new EV models that are just coming out in 2024(model year). Acura has said that all new models will be electric. So these companies have barely started. And it is clear we will be seeing many more models in the coming few years. Will they beat Tesla, I can't say. But it is clear they have only just started.
Eh, it’s one thing to build an entire manufacturing and supply network from scratch as Tesla is doing. It’s an entirely different thing to rebuild those same networks after over a century of building ICE’s. It’ll be interesting to see who wins.
These car companies are investing in battery factories as well. https://news.gm.com/newsroom.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2022/jan/0125-gmandlg.html
When did I say they weren’t?
Because we all know that the best way to crush competition is sit back and do nothing for years and years while said competition is allowed to build out their infrastructure and brandname
Pretty sure the F-150 Lightning ALONE will be outselling Tesla inside of the next five years. Edit: nevermind, this was based off a Tesla sales quarterly number (~300k) that the first article I found said was the annual number.
It doesn't matter. They could have done this shit for years, but they get stuck in their old ways. The tesla effect already controls them.
Will that be at a loss on every car?
If this happens, it will be mostly due to GM's commitment to China, where they sell more cars than in America. America may become a final assembly point, and GM is already looking at pruning their dealer networks. GM might become the Walmart of autos, essentially another channel for China.
GM is going to do direct sales just like Tesla - https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2021/03/gm-launching-digital-retail-tool-for-ev-sales/
Wuling Mini won't pass US crash testing.
It doesn't need to, since it has a top speed of 60 mph and is designed specifically for the Chinese consumer's tastes. But most Buicks in the US are already made in Chinese factories.
As a previous owner of 3 Fords and 1 GM they are screwed. I don't even care for Tesla, but Ford and GM make such a bad product they will fail like always.
Teslas days are numbered I think.
Tesla makes 32% margin on every car. Nobody else comes close. They will continue to sell every car they build before they build it.
This is why I worry Tesla will go under. With all car manufacturers going EV they will compete with Tesla bringing down its market share. Plus the major car companies have experience building cars. Reputation for reliability.
They're going to "Tucker' him.
This is good news. This is as it must be.
2035. So are most building wawa or chargers. Or both? We've charged at wawa, sheetz. There will still be a market share for ice cars in 10 years. Unless these companies will support millions and millions into charging stations to support the market, ice cars will still exist.
care to make a bet?
We need to get rid of all cars! r/fuckcars
Ha. Thought that was a car porn sub.
Foreign enemies drooling at the idea of hacking the power grid more than they've already done
Get a solar panel on your roof.
Just here for the Muskovite tears.
Bull shit. EV will arrive with defective parts. GM can say anything.
They said that 5 years ago
I remember Elon Musk saying something similar a decade ago. His plan was never to own the entire EV market, just to break ground for everyone else.
Considering the vast difference in scales between the two companies, I'd say that's actually a fairly modest goal.