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Model 3 set to dominate it's category as early as next month
- Thread starter Swampgator
- Start date
AustinPowers
Total Smeghead
Not trying to dampen your optimism too much, but the Model 3 will never be "the best selling model, bar none, ever".
Sorry. Not in another quarter, not in ten years, never.
Like others have said, the Model 3 has a huge impact on the BEV market, but that market at the moment is roughly at 1 percent of the whole auto market, in other words, barely noticeable. And by the time BEVs will become more commonplace, there will be so many offerings from established manufacturers that the market will be far more diversely distributed than it is today.
Just look at the "selection" of affordable long range BEVs available today (and that is only in select markets anyway):
Tesla Model 3
Chevrolet Bolt
And that's about it. Model S and X as well as the i-Pace are certainly long range, but far from affordable. And all others are perhaps affordable but certainly not long range.
Now look at the BEV roadmap of all the established manufacturers. By 2020-2022 the Model 3 will be one among quite a few long range affordable BEVs, sedans as well as SUVs and others. And don't forget the Model Y, which I predict will eventually outsell the 3 at least twofold.
AustinPowers
Total Smeghead
Funny, both BMW and Mercedes are posting record sales numbers each year, even for VAG - in spite of Dieselgate - 2017 was the best sales year in the company's history.
Plus, BMW has BEV know-how just like Mercedes (who incidentally are building kind of their own "Gigafactory" right now). And VW has been into BEVs decades before Tesla even existed, and are offering the e-Golf, which imho is currently the best non-Tesla BEV available for the price. And the roadmap is filled with BEVs that are due to come to market in the next few years. The more the merrier I say, and Elon seems to agree, because that was his vision and mission all along, wasn't it?
AustinPowers
Total Smeghead
This.
Trust me, over here - at least in the minds of the general car buying public - Tesla has such a bad image that unless they build a dedicated factory in Europe they are just seen as that American car company that can't deliver. That's the sole thing that comes up in every conversation I have about Tesla. People always asking me why I stick with my Model 3 reservation as they think I will never get to see my car because Tesla just can't deliver.
So the consensus here is just the opposite, namely that Tesla will go bankrupt sooner rather than later, because legacy automakers will take over the BEV market soon as Tesla just doesn't manage to deliver. At least not in relevant segments of the car market.
Of course, the Model S might outsell the S class or 7 series, but the fact of the matter is these luxury niche vehicles are not relevant in the grand scheme of things. The worldwide car market is dominated by millions upon millions of economy vehicles that are sold each year. Unless Tesla manages to make a dent in that market they will certainly not push BMW or any of the others to the brink of bankruptcy.
To put things into perspective, Dieselgate cost VW billions up to now, and might cost them some more, yet still the company is not even close to bankruptcy, far from it.
Funny, as BMW by now has years of experience in not only building BEVs but also using advanced material tech (full carbon fibre body) in order to do so. If anything, Mercedes has a lot more catching up to do, as their BEV offerings up to now have just been old models with even older Tesla tech inside.
And which countries would that be?
At least to my knowledge, the US and Canada currently are the only markets where the Model 3 is even available.
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Expand your view Mr Powers. It is not about BEV vs BEV. It is about good BEVs like Teslas taking out ICE competition.
When BMW finally sells a BEV to compete with Model 3, it must be good enough to beat Model 3, which means it must be good enough to beat the BMW 3 series. So you see BMW at best can maintain some market share. But every BEV 3 series they sell mean one less ICE 3 series. And I'm sorry, but Tesla is the only company that has figured out how to make money selling electric cars.
By year end they will be making solid profits selling hundreds of thousands of electric cars. VW? They loose money on every e-golf. It's a compliance car, just like Chevy Bolt. VW does not want to sell hundreds of thousands of e-golfs because they will bleed money.
These legacy automakers really are in serious trouble.
Usually when a disruption happens the old companies that were disrupted simply die. I think in the case of automakers they will get propped up by governments so they will survive somehow. But I don't think for a minute that BMW, VW, MB, GM, Ford, etc just somehow flip the switch to BEVs and remain profitable businesses.
Their balance sheet sup to now claim otherwise. Alle we see is the usual "get big fast enough" just like we`ve seen it with amazon f.e.
So far it`s "just" the usual ecenomy of scale direction that`s been so en-vogue since this millenium started.. There`s nothing special or a big secret about being able to make profit on a BEV,
You just have be able to produce large enough numbers for a market-relevant pricepoint which is exactly why the classic manufacturers will bleed money on BEVs for a time. they´ll have to do their own ramp up first.
The biggest issue they have is that they will be completely dependent on suppliers like LG Chem which refused long term price-bound supply contracts for not so secret reasons......
AustinPowers
Total Smeghead
So what? As long as it is a BMW and not a Tesla, I think BMW as a company will be happy. Probably not as happy as with an ICE sale, but happy nonetheless.
Since when?
I have to strongly disagree. From my experience, the e-Golf is not at all a compliance car. If it were, I would certainly not ordered one recently, in addition to my day one Model 3 reservation.
And where did you get the information that VW loses money on the e-Golf?
ℬête Noire
Active Member
This is not correct. The 'B' part is the special sauce, what makes up around 1/3 or more of the material cost to build the vehicle. Tesla is years (2 generations of battery tech) ahead right now. Both is stability and in cost.
Years.
It's a bit more foggy because it's hard to read the books this way, but when you filter out out the expansion portion they do NOT claim otherwise. Tesla can't make cars and expand quickly while turning a Q to Q profit but indications are that they can do the first one if they forego the later. That suggests that they are indeed in line to turn the profit corner when their growth stabilizes.
It is evident by the fact they only sell them in ZEV credit states in the US. If this model was profitable why would they not sell as many as they can across the US?
Volkswagen's Decision To Not Offer A Mass-Market e-Golf, Focus On 48V Hybrid Instead, Raises Questions | CleanTechnica[/QUOTE]
Volkswagen's Decision To Not Offer A Mass-Market e-Golf, Focus On 48V Hybrid Instead, Raises Questions | CleanTechnica[/QUOTE]
ℬête Noire
Active Member
You probably shouldn't mix the Bolt in with it. Bolt is more than compliance, even if it is a marketing orphan and whose sales at one point was very much supply limited.
P.S. VW does make available and sell the e-Golf in Europe in somewhat larger quantities. Still not Tesla level numbers, though.
If Bolt is more than compliance then why does GM intentionally limit the total production to under 30K per year?
Could it be because they lose almost 9K on every Bolt they sell?
Could it be because they lose almost 9K on every Bolt they sell?
ℬête Noire
Active Member
"Compliance" is a dreamt of definition, of course. But using your definition, it's shouldn't be for sale outside of ZEV states but it is. There is certainly no regulatory floor lifting production to that 30K-ish level. Or even 20K.
Also, maybe they did read the market better than was first thought because sales have stalled and now nose dived and at this trend look unlikely to break half those sales in the US this year.
That isn't supply limited, the vehicles are there to purchase.
"Compliance" is a dreamt of definition, of course. But using your definition, it's should outside of ZEV states. There is certainly no regulatory floor lifting production to that 30K-ish level. Or even 20K.
Also, maybe they did read the market better than was first thought because sales have stalled and now nose dived and at this trend look unlikely to break half those sales in the US this year.
I'm glad you enjoy your Bolt. I have a friend here in Florida who owns one and loves it. But GM is either purposely limiting the production or it does not have demand to sell any more then 2000 a month in the US. Why is that?
Lets not forget that Porsche workers are agreeing to forgo raises to help finance the build out for the Taycan(sp?) and basically stated that building BEV's is not as easy as they thought. The IPace announced delays as well. This throws some cold water on the "Tesla is in for it when legacies decide to get serious".
That and battery availability mean Tesla will dominate for some years IMO.
Oh and let's not forget about the charging network. The legacy threat is overblown.
That and battery availability mean Tesla will dominate for some years IMO.
Oh and let's not forget about the charging network. The legacy threat is overblown.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
I don't really view the notion of a ZEV mandate compliance car available for sale in non ZEV states as mutually exclusive. Companies do things all the time that are not profitable for PR or future possible advantage. Moreover, Tesla has taught us very well that the manufacturing cost per car scales with volume. What fraction of Bolt sales are to non ZEV states ?
Competing priorities can lead to a final behavior that superficially appears contradictory.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
As I said, they'll be doing well to break 15K this year. In the end they might get close to 20K if they have a blow-out November/December. However they are behind last year's year-to-date numbers, and headed in the opposite direction. That is NOT supply limited. Poking around, there are Bolts on lots for sale. They may have horribly missed on options they provided at some point but they've had months to turn that around, and the sales have only stabilized after dropping off.
Monthly Plug-In Sales Scorecard
I understand they don't advertise the vehicle (though dealerships are providing incentives to move them off their lots), so they could pump up sales to some extent, but it looks like GM roughly had the numbers "right" on production.....once the Model 3 materialized as a car you can purchase in something other than completely abstract way. That took away one of the two things it had going for it over the Model 3. The other is really only a differentiator of vehicle format, "compact crossover" with the rear lift gate, full height roof in the backseat, and higher H-point.
It isn't looking much better going forward, either, as that format space is about to get another two BEVs, though not clear how wide distribution in the US the Kona and the Niro will have, and Tesla is only months away from shipping a Model 3 cars with a matching sticker price and only slightly lower range (functionally higher range if you 70mph on Interstates a lot).
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I highly doubt that actually.
Take a closer look at the differentiating factors between a 2170 and a ncm 811 for example and the decisions behind those differences.
LG Chem is following a slightly different route here but are imho on eye level with tesla/panasonic. Same goes for Samsung.
The battery cell manufacturers are much closer to each other than you think and the pack assembly while not being trivial is not something that the old car manufacturers won`t be able to handle. With good thermal management you can`t go wrong with the cells of any of the big manufacturers.
Tesla mainly has their own cell production capabilities over everyone else who`s dependent on out-of-house resources.
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ℬête Noire
Active Member
Tesla has effectively leapfrogged 811 with the NCA 2170 (which has 5% Co rather than 10%). So the rest of the field is currently 611 and hoping to spin up 811, Tesla has been shipping the step past that for over a year and is now producing in quality of anything that's second only to BYD.
Same on price. While the field has pushed below $200/kWh, which is good news, Tesla is closing in on $100/kWh. When your batteries cost maybe a 1/3 less and the batteries make up about 1/3 of the vehicle cost, that gives you a 12% edge on the rest of the field. In automobile land that is a massive advantage.
You mean 622, not 611. And the 811 has been postponed, yes but we`ll see how that pans out.
We already know that the cost has been below 150/kwh for gm for quite a while and aside from that we only know that VW tried to get to 100 or less per kwh int their negotioations and Tesla representives said that they were aiming to get below 100$/kwh in 2018 and are relatively sure to be able to do that "long-term"
And that´s about all we actually know.
So with all due respect, you`re basing your optimism about Tesla`s domination here on very thin material
In the name of my tesla-stock I hope your optimism turns out to be justified, but I´m not throwing a cocktail party before we actually have hard evidence.
I
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