...
That is the portion of our income requires for food is pretty small compared to the rest of the world. In other word, other people have to work a lot more just to feed themselve!
That is true, but highly misleading:
Americans spend just 6% of their income on food. In some countries, that figure is as high as 56%.
www.weforum.org
A relevant metric is proportion of income required for food in the poorest decile or so of the population. The US suddenly might not look so good on that metric. It's not surprising that accurate data on that is a trifle harder to find.
Add medical care cost and suddenly the US becomes pretty much the OECD worst.
health-spending-u-s-compare-countries-2
From our narrow TSLA perspective the more material question is the size of the population that could afford, say, a Model 3 RWD. There is plentiful data on that sort of metric.
This article from Bloomberg provides a bit of context for the US:
electric-vehicles-are-out-of-reach-for-most-u-s-consumers
For Tesla it becomes more clear that the Chinese market is so huge it is hard to imagine, but there the progress was becoming stifles by becoming more like the US:
In 2021 the Chinese passenger car market shows a small improvement on 2020, up 5.7%. The market is almost back at its 2019 level at just over 21 million deliveries, well below the peak of 24.3 million in 2017 but still better than any year before 2016. Crossovers and SUVs gain market share with...
carsalesbase.com
Rising levels of household debt, unaffordable homes, and a risk of falling out of the middle class — wait, is this the US or China?
www.businessinsider.com
Sorry for quoting Business Insider, something I rarely do. This tome they seem both accurate and useful. The better sources are hard to absorb IMHO, because they have mountains of data.
What seems to happen in much of the world is that personal vehicle use has been rising, with sizes tending to vary by urban congestion, and prices vary with disposable income levels. The two do correlate but there are those 'pocket rockets' and luxury small cars that are increasingly popular.
For Tesla we will soon have more dominate in Asian and European markets than we now do, driven substantially by smaller, not necessarily much cheaper smaller vehicles. Production costs will continue to rise, but more subscription-based services and options will drive margins.
The US, depending on National and State political decisions, will be a reduced part of the whole, even as the overall market of BEV and renewables will inexorably continue to rise.
In the meantime Tesla will have gigantic growth in stationary storage, especially at industrial levels because the transition to renewables si now progressing even in anti-renewables markets, because it is cheaper. In Brazil, for example, it is hard to find a more anti-environment government than the Bolsonaro one, (even importing diesel fuel and fertilizer from Russia!) but even there, according to recent O Globo reporting more than 90% of growth in energy generation next year will be solar and wind. Article is in Portuguese:
Fontes vão representar mais de 90% da expansão prevista. Preço menor, avanço do mercado livre e compromisso com a agenda ESG explicam o crescimento dos investimentos
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oglobo.globo.com
When that is happening we certainly are entering a global movement that is inexorable, so Tesla suddenly will need to expand TE vastly faster than even automobiles and trucks.
The only question is not how much growth is in the US but how much opportunity is in the world. Recessions fears and petroleum shortages will simply accelerate those moves.
When
@WADan posted about US food costs that spawned these thoughts about how much the world is changing before our eyes. China, India, Russia and many other places re responding to these issues, including food costs, by rapidly moving asymmetrically to the US.
FWIW, State Grid, Huawei, BYD, and many others are using to fill these needs, as the US is viewing all this a pure politics rather than 'realpolitik'.
Elon Musk sees all this and tries to imagine solutions. Quite obviously no single person can cope with solutions for these issues, not even the obvious present manifestations in Ukraine and Taiwan. The Ukraine one, specifically does directly affect food prices.
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