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In the month of February, these luxury auto companies and car divisions had the following sales drops:
Acura Cars: −12%
Audi: −12%
Audi Cars: −12%
BMW Cars: −12%
Infiniti: −17%
Infiniti: −46%
Lexus Cars: −2%
Mercedes-Benz: −13%
Mercedes-Benz Cars: −4%
Volvo Cars: −77%
BMW and Mercedes are considering a partnership to develop a new chassis for electric cars. They are also cooperating on autonomous car technology as convergence in the industry continues.
I recently ran a Twitter poll to decide what to write about next. The top article the voters asked me to write was an article on how the Tesla Model Standard Range (SR) competes against models from incumbent auto manufacturers. The wonderful thing is that Tesla is now price competitive, without incentives. It is very competitive on a total cost of ownership basis. With incentives and TCO factored in, the Model 3 is tough to beat.
Let’s take a look.
The French plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) passenger car market had 4,178 registrations in February, up 32% year over year (YoY), with all-electric models growing faster than plug-in hybrids (+46% vs +16%). A big portion of this growth came from the landing of the Tesla Model 3, which had 401 deliveries last month, but even discounting the “Model 3 effect,” full-electrics grew 26%, a positive sign that the Model 3 isn’t stealing sales from other electric cars but from its gas/diesel competitors.
February had 2,457 plug-in vehicle (PEV) registrations in February, up 232% year over year (YoY), which translates into a PEV share of 8.2%. That pulls the year-to-date (YTD) count to 5,713 units (+213%) and a 7.4% market share. Within the PEV market, fully electric vehicles (BEVs) represented 80% of registrations, or 5.9% of overall market share.
On March 9th, 1954, Carlos Ghosn was born in Brazil. A full 65 years later, the best we can say about this day is that he did not spend the day in jail.
Many have predicted that the growth of Tesla in Germany will be limited by different factors that are unique to the market and differentiate it from markets like the US, Norway, and the Netherlands. The first of those factors is the German auto industry, which is without any doubt the dominant industry (including suppliers and suppliers of suppliers and suppliers of suppliers of suppliers) in the largest economy in Europe. As such an influential industry, it has a large influence on politics, laws, and regulations.
The European passenger plug-in vehicle market achieved over 33,000 registrations in January, growing 28% compared to the same period last year, but don’t be fooled into thinking that it’s business as usual in Europe.
Some things cannot be explained by numbers. The Tesla Model 3 driving experience is phenomenally better than the driving experience of nearly every other car on the market. That is not hyperbole. Race car drivers have said it, top auto journalists have said it, and hundreds of thousands of other people have said it. You just have to experience the Model 3 to understand it.
