For many years, Tesla wanted to carve its place in the Chinese auto segment, but China remained a distant dream for the Silicon Valley–based electric carmaker. The highly regulated Chinese market has always been difficult terrain for overseas companies and continues to remain so to this day. But the size and growth opportunity presented by the world’s most populous nation was hard to ignore.
Consumer interest in electric vehicles is rapidly growing Down Under. The latest report from Aussie EV industry group the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC) describes major increases in the number of consumers that are researching and/or considering buying EVs.
I wrote the other day about how crazy it is that there are still tens of thousands of Americans buying Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords month after month. Amidst the hundreds of thousands of views on that story, some people griped that the purchase price of a Model 3 is considerably higher than the purchase price of an Accord or Camry. A point I alluded to repeatedly is that the Model 3, despite a higher purchase price, may well have a lower 5 year cost of ownership than an Accord or Camry for many people. Yes, I’m sure there are some Accord and Camry buyers who couldn’t get financing for the ~$39,000 base price of a Model 3, but there are certainly many other Accord and Camry buyers who could quality for financing for a Tesla Model 3 — and then would reap financial savings over time while enjoying a much better car. But that’s all moot for the focus of this article — luxury cars.
At the end of August, Tesla reached the #3 spot in terms of 2019 Dutch auto sales, as Zach wrote yesterday. That was a memorable achievement for a model that started deliveries only halfway through February in earnest. But we also have September sales data for the top 3 automobiles, and September is a last-month-of-quarter month. All Tesla watchers know what that entails — the end-of-quarter delivery rush that Tesla still hasn’t gotten rid of.
The German plug-in electric vehicle market continued on the right track in August, having registered 8,121 units. Fully electric vehicles (BEVs) were up +104% year over year (YoY), while plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) keep suffering (down 9%). The plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) share was 2.6% in the month, with BEVs alone hitting 1.6%. That kept the 2019 plug-in share at 2.6% (1.7% BEV).
Aside from the usual swarm of Tesla stories that catch readers’ attention more than anything else, hot topics this past week on CleanTechnica were the semi-arrival of the Volkswagen ID.3 and how it competes against other electric hatchbacks, the Honda E, and enormous sea level rise. (One of these is not like the other.)
After growing fat on expanding sales and record profits, the world’s automakers are now facing lean times. The decade-long global economic expansion is running out of gas, and the industry-changing trend of electrification, which automakers happily ignored when the profits were rolling in, now looms as an existential threat.
All my talk this week about fairy tales started with the Tesla [TSLA] bear assumption that the Tesla factory in Shanghai was a huge mistake. Lack of demand in China following all of that investment would bring inescapable bankwuptcy soon. Really soon now. Any day. Really.
The Dutch electric vehicle market grew 79% in August, with 2,839 EV registrations logged. That translated into an electric vehicle share of 8.3%, placing the year-to-date EV share at 7.5%.
Tesla’s road to delivering 360,000+ cars in 2019 starts in the United States, runs through Europe, and ends in China. In Part 1 of this analysis, we detailed Tesla’s production capacity and how many cars the company will be able to deliver in the United States this year. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what Tesla must do in Europe, China, and other major markets, along with the challenges that await the electric car maker.
