European BEV Sales 2020 - Tesla down to nr 3 and share down by 10%

[pdk42]

Skewed by CO2 compliance push - but nonetheless an indication that the going will get harder for Tesla.

 

[Jez_GB]

Yep, but then the going needs to get harder for Tesla if they are to continue to up their game in terms of QC and Customer Service.

But, oh dear, I can't bare to look at FB, the Tesla haters will be out in much more force than usual, you can hear it now.... the comments, the vitriol, the self righteous bollocks!

 

[SpareHeadOne]

Yep, Tesla are way overdue for a wake-up call.

The cars are basically good, but massively spoiled by their obsession with doing everything in a different way, often to the detriment of functionality or usability.

Within a few years the charging infrastructure is going to largely negate the SC advantage and that's going to push Tesla into the same place as the big old Citroens of the 60's and 70's - good cars with lots of innovation, but just too weird for most people to live with day to day.

Who can be bothered to dig through 17 screens to turn on the windscreen wipers?


Sorry. I like my Tesla and it frustrates me so much that they're just throwing away their advantage on nonsense like fart noises.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

To be fair, Tesla has pretty much had a large part of the EV market to itself for a fair time, so this isn't that surprising. The EV marketplace has been long overdue for a bit of rebalancing, and with the advent of a handful of new EVs from volume manufacturers coming to the market, some of which are pretty close to being direct competitors for Tesla, it's inevitable that there's going to be a shift. Most of the present shift is due to one model, the VW ID.3, that isn't a competitor for anything Tesla offer, anyway, but is filling a gap in the EV market where sales volume seems likely to be fairly high.

Be interesting to see what happens when some of the VAG EVs that are close to being competitors to the Model Y hit the European market. I can see the VW ID.4/Skoda Enyaq/Cupra Tavascan offering a range of features that may well appeal to a different market than those committed to the "Tesla way", for example, and probably at a lower price point, especially within Europe.

 

[doats1]

Hardly breaking given that their lowest price point is £40,000+.

The traditional manufacturers weren’t going to just watch Tesla sweep up so I’d be surprised if anyone thought Tesla was going to remain dominant for much longer. I have no doubt that they’ll remain key players in the EV game, though.

 

[Medved_77]

13.4% of a market that includes Audi, Seat, Skoda, Porsche, Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Citroen, Peugeot, Vauxhall, and Fiat is still quite remarkable.

 

[White Eusebio]

If you are supply-constrained, and more players are entering the same market, then until such time as you can expand production, your market share will inevitably fall

 

[thx1139]

If you are supply-constrained, and more players are entering the same market, then until such time as you can expand production, your market share will inevitably fall

Wow simple common sense.

 

[Gamemeister]

Once giga berlin is online and model y goes on sale i suspect that will have a pretty big impact. You've also got to consider the cost advantages of that so I suspect we may get a minor wiggle on price. Nothing major. If they continue to sell every ev they make before it leaves the factory, the only option it has is to make more.

 

[thx1139]

Tesla right now has to decide how many cars do they take from the North American and China market and ship to Europe. It is a balancing act. They dont want to become a trivial small niche manufacturer, but then again they dont want to incur additional shipping charges and costs associated with taking production from markets that dont need to have cars loaded up on ships.

Once Berlin opens and is rocking then the equations totally change.

 

[Tonyf]

I can’t wait to see a German built Model Y with a cast rear end and the new bigger battery cells. Seriously great car potentially and likely to be Tesla’s biggest seller in Europe.

Simultaneously launched with a Chinese model 2 and both with the umbrella of the Model S being the world’s fastest production car.

it’s easy to see why some argue Tesla’s best days are ahead and don’t be fooled by iffy build quality coming out of The US. China M3 will likely be better built too.

Thank you VW, it’s just what Tesla needed to focus on their game. We’ll all be better off for it.

 

[Zakalwe]

The market is also growing and that growth will accelerate.
A thought experiment-what would you prefer? A 30% share of a market worth $1billion or 10% of a market worth $10billion?

 

[NeilG40]

Is this not a case that as the number of different EV's available increases the ones that sell in the highest numbers will be the cheapest ones, just like ICE cars?

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Is this not a case that as the number of different EV's available increases the ones that sell in the highest numbers will be the cheapest ones, just like ICE cars?

I think it's more complex than that. Prices used to be driven down for popular models as a consequence of fleet sales, which was why some models from the likes of Ford or Vauxhall were always seen as being good value. That's changing with changes in company car provision, but the shift is to company cars that are tax efficient as well as well-priced, I suspect, which gives EVs an edge at the moment. EVs are a fairly long way from being truly affordable, as in down at Dacia Sandero territory, but then the Dacia Sandero doesn't sell that well, despite having been the cheapest car on sale in the UK for years. The best selling UK brand is VW, even now (as of December 2020) and Dacia aren't even in the top ten, and interestingly the top ten of sales by manufacturer at the end of last year was't dominated by particularly cheap brands, either:

 

[Dasher]

Well, it looks to me as if Tesla is succeeding in its mission, at least in Western Europe. A 105% year on year increase in BEV sales on this scale would not have happened without them, I reckon.

 

[Kenners]

If you look at cash invested VW is miles ahead of all the other traditional automakers. Miles. And they' know how to get a return on investment. And Tesla, for all its success has only ever had 1mn customers. This is why its focus is entirely on FSD, as if it can't get that to work it'll never get beyond BMW size in terms of cars built. But by focusing on FSD its not improving its build and customer service fast enough. So really its now an all eggs in one basket business and has become a victim of its own bloated market cap which management and the world's no richest man fear of losing. Its a bit of a trap really.

This is also why he won't/shouldn't ever float SpaceX (not because of short sellers!)

 

[phil4]

As competitors either direct (like Polestar) or indirect (like ID3) start selling well, Tesla's challenge will be differentiating itself in a way that attracts buyers. As they've a very contrary way of doing things, then any one of those might be how it chooses to play, but that'll be what it needs to play on, simply "being" isn't enough.

 

[Jason71]

The biggest issue for Tesla with all these other Bev Sales isn't the competition for car sales its that the others will be able to stop buying regulatory credits from Tesla which is where Tesla make a big chunk of their money!

having said that with the increase in overall sales of BEV I assumed Tesla sales would continue to climb. surprised it has dropped. They really need the Y or any hatchback TBH

 

[Jason71]

is this going to be like Apple Vs Android?

When Android came along it quickly swept Apple off the top spot volume wise but Apple was able to carry on selling large numbers of high price devices at high margins and ultimately, while not number one in sales, was and still very successful and is the one making the most money.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

As competitors either direct (like Polestar) or indirect (like ID3) start selling well, Tesla's challenge will be differentiating itself in a way that attracts buyers. As they've a very contrary way of doing things, then any one of those might be how it chooses to play, but that'll be what it needs to play on, simply "being" isn't enough.

I agree, and think that, right now, there are a proportion of Tesla purchasers who are buying the cars simply because there's nothing else on offer. If you're someone looking to either switch to an EV, or just replace an existing EV with another one, and you want to be able to drive more than a couple of hundred miles from time to time, then a Tesla was really the only option.

Tesla's key differentiation is with the supercharger network, the minimalist design of the Model 3 (that I think will become common to all Tesla models before long) and FSD. There will be some prospective buyers for whom none of those aspects of the cars are high on their priority list. In fact they may well actively put off some buyers.

As a case in point, I really loved the minimalist design of the Model 3 interior. It was one of features that really did swing me to order the car. However, having lived with it for a bit over a year, there is no way I would accept any design where form takes such precedence over function ever again. The very severe functional compromises that have been made to create that minimalist interior are, for me, a step too far.

Supercharging may or may not remain a powerful factor in future, it depends on the rate of development of other charging networks and whether or not the rumoured opening up of superchargers to other cars happens.

FSD seems a long way off, at least for the sort of roads I use most of the time. It may be that FSD starts to work well for roads like motorways before long, though, so for those who do a lot of driving on roads like that it might well become a significant factor. Whether we'll see FSD working adequately well on rural roads, or even in UK urban areas, remains to be seen. It seems probable that we'll see it within the next few years, but I have doubts as to whether cars being sold now will ever have a complete FSD capability. The progress being made by some other manufacturers seems pretty rapid, and, at least as far as UK roads are concerned, close to being as capable as AP.