The reason Tesla will overtake BMW

[ianc]

Had (and heavily modified) an E82 135i for over 10 years. Loved driving that car, but the maintenance, which I did myself, was just the death of me. By 80K, I'd done the water pump, multiple sets of injectors, multiple valve cover gaskets, spark plugs, rotors and pads, and all the other myriad crap that wears out on an ICE car. When you've done the same job 3x and you're getting on 60, there just seem to be a whole lot better ways to spend weekends and vacations. It never really shifted that well either, despite adding stiffer trans mounts.

Happy with the 3 and never going back to an ICE car either...

 

[cwerdna]

BMW 2020 US sales 280,297 vehicles

Tesla 2020 US sales 292,902 vehicles.

Worldwide we're probably looking at 2023 for Tesla to pass BMW in annual sales, though 2022 might be possible if BMWs sales keep dropping YoY as they did 19->20.

BMW Group concludes year marked by corona pandemic with strong fourth quarter and leads premium segment worldwide for 17th consecutive year

BMW Group in 2020 sold ~2.3 million vehicles worldwide. Per Tesla Q4 2020 Vehicle Production & Deliveries | Tesla Investor Relations, Tesla did just under 500K in that same time period.

Looking further down in the BMW press release, almost 1.9 million of BMW Group's sales that year were in Asia + Europe.

Seems unlikely Tesla's worldwide sales could exceed BMW Group's at the end of 2022...

 

[Dolemite]

Had (and heavily modified) an E82 135i for over 10 years. Loved driving that car, but the maintenance, which I did myself, was just the death of me. By 80K, I'd done the water pump, multiple sets of injectors, multiple valve cover gaskets, spark plugs, rotors and pads, and all the other myriad crap that wears out on an ICE car. When you've done the same job 3x and you're getting on 60, there just seem to be a whole lot better ways to spend weekends and vacations. It never really shifted that well either, despite adding stiffer trans mounts.

Happy with the 3 and never going back to an ICE car either...

I've never done a VCG job without it not leaking again in <10K miles. I use OEM gaskets with the highest quality sealant in the right places with the right torque specs and tightening patterns... always starts leaking again.

ALWAYS

 

[Rottenapplr]

Had (and heavily modified) an E82 135i for over 10 years. Loved driving that car, but the maintenance, which I did myself, was just the death of me. By 80K, I'd done the water pump, multiple sets of injectors, multiple valve cover gaskets, spark plugs, rotors and pads, and all the other myriad crap that wears out on an ICE car. When you've done the same job 3x and you're getting on 60, there just seem to be a whole lot better ways to spend weekends and vacations. It never really shifted that well either, despite adding stiffer trans mounts.

Happy with the 3 and never going back to an ICE car either...

Gosh I love my e82 but it was the 128i manual m -sport. Never had any issue. Love that car I too did all the work but didn’t really experience anything like you had. I actually did a bbk upgrade. Changed suspension. The steering was lovey on that car.

 

[Knightshade]

BMW Group concludes year marked by corona pandemic with strong fourth quarter and leads premium segment worldwide for 17th consecutive year

BMW Group in 2020 sold ~2.3 million vehicles worldwide. Per Tesla Q4 2020 Vehicle Production & Deliveries | Tesla Investor Relations, Tesla did just under 500K in that same time period.

Looking further down in the BMW press release, almost 1.9 million of BMW Group's sales that year were in Asia + Europe.

Seems unlikely Tesla's worldwide sales could exceed BMW Group's at the end of 2022...

That's what I said probably 2023, but maybe 2022 if BMW sales keep dropping as they just did- they were down 15.7% in Europe year over year and down in the United States 18% year over year for example (Asia was only down 7.4%).

If BMWs sales KEEP declining like that, and Tesla keeps to the targets it has suggested for growth, it could pass BMW worldwide by end of 2022, but 2023 would be more likely.

 

[cwerdna]

(Asia was only down 7.4%).

BMW Group's Asia sales were not down 7.4% for 2020 vs. 2019. They were up 6.1%.

They went from 923,999 in Asia for 2019 to 984,515 for 2020.

You can confirm the figures at New all-time high for BMW Group deliveries in 2019 confirms position as world’s leading premium car company vs. BMW Group concludes year marked by corona pandemic with strong fourth quarter and leads premium segment worldwide for 17th consecutive year.

Let's revisit this in 2023.

 

[Knightshade]

Apologies- they were indeed up in Asia.

Not as far up as they were down everywhere else though.

Which is why they were only down, overall, 8.4% for the year- instead of double digits which they would've been without Asia to help.


So to be clear- If you continued that decline year over year for BMW, while increasing Teslas sales by projected amounts, Tesla should pass BMW on or before 2023.

Most folks are projecting somewhere in the 850k-1 million range for Tesla in 2021 (Troy has 880k for example, 875k from James Stephenson in a very detailed analysis, etc).


Those analysis are pinning those numbers on very little output from Berlin and Austin in 2021 as they'll just be ramping up.

That's about a 75% YoY increase...and 2022 is likely to be at least as large with those 2 new factories fully ramping and the 4680 supply also hitting high gear.

So that puts 2022 output around 1.5 million from Tesla.

Even dropping back to a mere 50% growth rate in 2023 puts them ahead of BMWs current sales, and as we've noted, BMWs sales are in decline.

If that decline accelerates it's not impossible you'd see Tesla outselling BMW by late 2022 (maybe for Q4 or something).

It's possible of course BMW will turn things around on their own sales- but given how slowly/poorly their EV movement has gone I wouldn't count on it.