Tesla Model Y Is Now the World's Best-Selling Car, First EV To Do So (electrek.co) 192
The Tesla Model Y has become the world's best-selling car in the first quarter of 2023, according to industry analyst JATO Dynamics, making it the first time an electric vehicle (EV) has achieved this milestone. Electrek reports: The Model Y has dethroned the Toyota Corolla as the world's best-selling car in Q1 and looks like it may well maintain this position for the full year. JATO Dynamics analyst Felipe Munoz compiled the data for Motor1, showing that the Model Y had 267,200 sales in Q1, according to data from 53 markets and projections/estimates for the rest of the world. This put it ahead of the Corolla at 256,400 sales for the same period and significantly ahead of the other top-five cars, the Hilux, RAV4, and Camry, all from Toyota.
While we don't know if this placing will continue for the rest of the year, Model Y sales have been continually growing, whereas Corolla sales are trending slightly downward. One model is new and based on new technology, and the other is an old standard -- though the current iteration of both models came out in a similar time frame, 2018 for the Corolla and 2019 for Model Y. And given Tesla's massive price cuts this year on Model Y, this will surely make the car accessible to more people compared to 2022.
Indeed, Model Y sales are already growing compared to last year. In 2022, Tesla had two of the top ten cars in the world, with Model Y achieving 759k sales. That gives it an average quarterly run rate of 189k, and this year's Q1 number is a significant increase from that. If Model Y continues at this rate or sales continue to grow at all for the rest of this year, it will exit 2023 with over 1 million sales. The only other vehicle in the world to sell 1 million units last year was the Toyota Corolla, at 1.12 million. So it might be close at year's end, but we think it's likely that Model Y will maintain its position. "The achievement is even more impressive given Model Y's pricing and availability," adds Electrek. "While the Model Y does have broad availability in the world's largest markets, the Corolla is available everywhere. And despite recent price cuts, the Model Y at ~$40k (after credits) is still significantly more expensive than a base-model Corolla at $21k."
In other EV news, Ford and Tesla announced a partnership that will allow Ford owners access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers across the U.S. and Canada starting early next year. "And, Ford's next-generation of EVs -- expected by mid-decade -- will include Tesla's charging plug, allowing owners of Ford vehicles to charge at Tesla Superchargers without an adapter, making Ford among the first automakers to explicitly tie into the network," reports CNBC.
While we don't know if this placing will continue for the rest of the year, Model Y sales have been continually growing, whereas Corolla sales are trending slightly downward. One model is new and based on new technology, and the other is an old standard -- though the current iteration of both models came out in a similar time frame, 2018 for the Corolla and 2019 for Model Y. And given Tesla's massive price cuts this year on Model Y, this will surely make the car accessible to more people compared to 2022.
Indeed, Model Y sales are already growing compared to last year. In 2022, Tesla had two of the top ten cars in the world, with Model Y achieving 759k sales. That gives it an average quarterly run rate of 189k, and this year's Q1 number is a significant increase from that. If Model Y continues at this rate or sales continue to grow at all for the rest of this year, it will exit 2023 with over 1 million sales. The only other vehicle in the world to sell 1 million units last year was the Toyota Corolla, at 1.12 million. So it might be close at year's end, but we think it's likely that Model Y will maintain its position. "The achievement is even more impressive given Model Y's pricing and availability," adds Electrek. "While the Model Y does have broad availability in the world's largest markets, the Corolla is available everywhere. And despite recent price cuts, the Model Y at ~$40k (after credits) is still significantly more expensive than a base-model Corolla at $21k."
In other EV news, Ford and Tesla announced a partnership that will allow Ford owners access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers across the U.S. and Canada starting early next year. "And, Ford's next-generation of EVs -- expected by mid-decade -- will include Tesla's charging plug, allowing owners of Ford vehicles to charge at Tesla Superchargers without an adapter, making Ford among the first automakers to explicitly tie into the network," reports CNBC.
Compared to the Corolla ICE (Score:4, Informative)
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Can get complicated.
Gas and routine maintenance might cost an extra $9,000 per 100,000 miles traveled in the ICE at Corolla levels of fuel efficiency. So after 200,000 miles, the maintenance cost has about rendered them even.
Except, depending on battery chemistry and performance, the EV may be getting near a pretty expensive battery situation. With LiFP batteries, it's probably not too close though, but for NMC with typical EV ranges, about 300k miles is around the replacement zone. Of course ICE engines
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I personally own a 2008 Honda Fit with nearly 250k miles on it, and I haven't spent more than $5,000 on maintenance and repairs over the past decade. This car has proven to be highly reliable for me.
However, I had a different experience with a used Subaru Crosstrek that I purchased in 2020 with 130k miles on it. In just 3 years of ownership, I have spen
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Most of the cost I cited was fuel/energy used, based on my area's residential electricity rate vs. typical gas. Refueling Gas versus charging residential is about 3x more expensive for the gas. This goes somewhat out the window if going to fast charging, but at least for someone like me, a fast charger is only a concern for a rare road trip.
The only maintenance I tacked on was oil changes, ignoring repair costs for the same of simplicity. I don't consider things like coolant leaks, gaskets going, blocks
Informative (Score:2)
Where as my "+1, informative" mod points when I need them?
Nice post.
but those are a bit more rare, and already the fuel difference dominates the math.
Yup, given the mind-blowing amounts of fuel an ICE needs to guzzle to work, fuel is the one thing that will dominate the difference in prices.
This will be even more the case over the coming years/decades, as gas price will keep going up, even more so as incentives to decrease CO2 are enacted (tough probably not so much in the US as here around in Europe); all the while investment into lower emission electricity generation will lower its pri
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1. That is a maintenance item, and yes their choice is impractical for ongoing costs. I think this doesn't displace oil changes in cost though.
2. Yes, that sucks and is a Tesla problem. It's not really 'maintenance' though, he had to wait a long time for a replacement part, but that was obnoxious wait rather than a cost. The 12V battery situation would be a 'repair' rather than maintenance, and frankly ICE cars have pretty much the exact same crap with the 12V batteries on occasion.
3. That's not maintena
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1. That is a maintenance item, and yes their choice is impractical for ongoing costs. I think this doesn't displace oil changes in cost though.
I just replaced my tires for $1000 after 4 summers. There is no way I paid that for oil changes, not even close. Tires are much more expensive.
I just looked and a Michelin tire for Corolla is $175. And $456 for the Model Y (I guess even more with 20" wheels). That's not exactly the same model but still, Tesla tires are VERY expensive. And I bet they wear faster as well (low profile and heavy weight).
The added cost is much more than oil changes (maybe $70 for synthetic where I live). You only need one oil ch
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Re:Compared to the Corolla ICE (Score:4, Funny)
Plus the steering wheel won’t fall off. https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com]
Re:Compared to the Corolla ICE (Score:5, Informative)
You say that like it's a problem unique to Tesla. 10 times Ford steering wheels came loose or off, causing massive recall [usatoday.com], and Toyota Highlander Steering Wheels Are Falling Off [carcomplaints.com] and more recently Toyota finally found a way to keep wheels from falling off its electric SUV [cnn.com] and 2023 Nissan Ariya Recalled Over Steering Wheel That Might Fall Off [insideevs.com].
Ford, Nissan and Toyota have been making cars for a while now, they don't really have an excuse for wheels falling off their vehicles.
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At least they where wheels though, no those silly yokes.
I think the only thing worse was the Saab Prometheus, which they wisely didn't put into production: https://www.goodwood.com/globa... [goodwood.com]
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Plus the steering wheel won’t fall off. https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com]
Are you sure? https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
I find it hilarious how people complain about every little tiny incident from Tesla and yet ignore cases similar from manufacturers across the industry as if somehow every other car company is perfect.
But maybe it's just Tesla and Toyota who have steering wheel problems and it's just something with companies starting with T. *Goes googling*.
Nope.
GM: https://www.wsj.com/articles/B... [wsj.com]
Ford: https://www.endurancewarranty.... [endurancewarranty.com]
Nissan: https://electrek.co/2023/03/08... [electrek.co]
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Not Quite Fair (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not a precise comparison because the Corolla has loads more competition and equivalent models for people in its target demographic to choose from. The Tesla is one of a handful in its class. What this statistic does show, however, is that EVs are extremely desirable to the market and the Model Y is an outstanding product.
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However you slice it: 267,200 is a LOT of cars.
That's pretty good sales for a startup.
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The company's also 20 years old at this point.
Side note, Musk has been CEO and "founder" for 19 of those years.
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I'd also say that McKinsey (I think) recently said that in 5 years all cars will be "connected" and will have "apps" and how this will be a revenue stream for auto makers. I've got to say, Tesla are head and shoulders above anyone else in that regard right now. The others are still turning out the cheapest outsourced crapola infotainment systems and offering no software updates (even for the maps). There's a long way for them to go.
Whether you really need "apps" in your car is (IMHO) questionable - kids wil
Re: Not Quite Fair (Score:2)
You're assuming they don't do apps like "radio" and "A/C" and "Doorlock" (now with remote locking!).
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It's not a precise comparison because the Corolla has loads more competition and equivalent models
Only if you artificially pre-segment the market by "EV" and "ICEV". If you just consider them all "passenger cars", then it's perfectly fair... and the Model Y won. It not only beat the Corolla, it also beat all of those other competitors and equivalent models.
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You think the cybertruck will be available by 2025? I'd honestly be surprised if it was available at all much less in large numbers. The new roadster vanished, also.
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First delivery event is expected this fall.
High volumes not until next year, though.
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First delivery event was expected years ago. For both the cybertruck and the new roadster.
You also told us we'd all have properly working full self drive and could use our Teslas as auto taxis by the end of 2019. You're on slashdot. You can't say outrageous shit here and hope everyone will forget. I have a Tesla since before then. Help me out, how do I activate the auto taxi mode in 2023?
Did you have a point?
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These are global sales figures, and globally the Model Y is outselling the F-150. Almost all the F-150 sales are in North America (about 97%). [fordauthority.com]
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The F-150 is not even the most popular pick up truck, that honor goes to the Hilux, despite not even being sold in North America.
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Apples to Oranges (Score:5, Informative)
It's certainly an impressive achievement by Telsa, though it's not as meaningful as it sounds.
The reason is that Tesla only has 5 vehicles in production [wikipedia.org] while Toyota has about 70 [wikipedia.org].
This is why Tesla has position 1, but Toyota has 2-5 [motor1.com].
So good for Tesla, but this hardly justifies them having a bigger market cap than Toyota.
Re:Apples to Oranges (Score:5, Interesting)
They're a lot more reasonable if you consider that Toyota is carrying $217 Billion in debt, compared to $5B for Tesla. If you wiped out Toyota's debt, adding that $217 to their market cap of $219, it totals almost $440B vs $580B for Tesla.
Anyways... I would consider this a watershed moment for EV's whether it was Toyota or Tesla who was making it. Although a startup beating all the incumbents to this milestone is remarkable. They blew it.
Re:Apples to Oranges (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed 100% with both points.
This never should have happened. The only reason Tesla even exists was a gross lack of vision and understanding of consumer desires by automakers, and a subbornness that let these attitudes persist for far too long. Even to this day, Toyota execs sound almost angry about having to pivot to EVs. Honda may be a bit ahead of Toyota in this regard, but still not enough.
Some other automakers however seem to be true believers. VW did until Diess was booted, now it seems to be reverting. Ford however now seems to be truly convinced. GM seems to just want to act like they are. Stellantis remains a hot mess.
Re:Apples to Oranges (Score:5, Insightful)
There are other issues as well. Car dealers, and having to constantly haggle and deal with all kinds of crap. Compared to buying virtually any other make of car, Tesla buying is a relative pleasure. Get your financing, select what you want, hit go, and done. Yes, there is discussion about quality issues, but the fact that one doesn't need to play the stupid games with the sales guy, then the finance guy, then a sales manager, then the used car "appraiser" is one thing that makes a Tesla worth buying, especially if one has the ability to have a decent charger at home.
The fact that one certain other make demanded $10,000 over sticker for their vehicles, claimed to have zero models on the showroom floor in stock, while they had a number in dealer inventory on their website, is something that can make just ordering a Tesla a nice experience. Wish other auto makers would either reign in dealers, or just charge a static price, just like they do in Europe. No over sticker, no finance shell games. A price that you pay, you drive it out, done.
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The Tesla web site is a bit scummy thought.
The base Tesla models are so stripped down, they're not worth buying. Everyone I know who want to buy a Tesla either abandon their purchase midway through, or feel the need to add an extra 10k to 25k in unforeseen options (that they thought came standard with the car).
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To be fair many of the "premium" German manufacturers do that too, e.g. BMW.
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You bring a book, you go in about 25m before closing on a Friday night at the end of the month, you don't argue, you don't debate, you name your price, they can accept it or not.
That used to work pre-pandemic when the lots were overflowing with unsold inventory. Now they'll just tell you to GTFO, because there will be another customer who is willing to pay full sticker because that customer needed a new car yesterday.
You pay in cash.
Even pre-pandemic, saying "I'm paying cash" at a car dealership would make the manager come back in the little paperwork signing room and kill your deal. Without those sweet points on the loan that the dealers get from the lender, it's simply not worth it to them to
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I've always bought with cash. First new one was Saturn, great car, no haggling, they let me order my car (none on the lot had passenger air bags). The next two were more traditional with the hard sell and unwilling to sell something not actually on the lot, but they took cash.
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Saturn is what happens when GM tries to build a Nissan. As it turns out, it's inferior to a real Nissan.
Nissan is a bit of a dog's breakfast today, but back then they were the absolute business. Solidly the best, yet also solidly in the middle in sales (between the big Japanese guys Toyota and Honda on one side, and the smaller guys Mitsu and Suby on the other.) Meanwhile Saturns were surprisingly reliable for a GM product, but otherwise just mostly terrible. The packaging was atrocious, there was enough ro
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The SL1 and SL2 were great cars for their time and price: good interior room, comfortable, easy to drive, repair costs were reasonable (and many stayed on the road for 300k). Whereas my first Datsun rusted through at the firewall, broke in half, and the engine fell out. I have zero clue why anyone thinks Nissans aren't craps.
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I have zero clue why anyone thinks Nissans aren't craps.
A lot changed between the Datsun-era vehicles and when they were called Nissan. 280Zs had meaningful corrosion protection, for example, while 240Zs didn't.
Re: Apples to Oranges (Score:2)
Nissan was the second largest Japanese manufacturer for a very long time.
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I've bought every single car as described.
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The last time I bought a car with a loan I looked around for best rates, which turned out to be at m
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You don't deal with the loan guy. You pay in cash.
That's why I send my valet to buy the car for me.
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You may not have needed much service from the traditional dealerships lately, but since the pandemic scheduling for routine maintenance at my local GM dealer is 4-6 weeks out. For an emergency they'll take your car into the shop and diagnose within a day or two but it may be two weeks before they can schedule a repair. Assuming the parts are available - my last wait for a computer board was 5 weeks (of the estimated 12 weeks, but fortunately GM must have allocated some chips to those board sooner than exp
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Service at traditional car places is about as bad. Even independent shops, you will need to leave your vehicle there for almost a week before they have a chance to even look at it. Dealers can be months behind. The worst are RV shops, where people have had trailers at a shop for 6+ months, where the RV has been at the shop for the majority of its owned lifetime.
Either way, it sucks. In the past, one would do wrenching oneself, but a lot of problems only can be fixed with the dealer's configuration tool,
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GM's next gen corvette will be all electric and this generation is getting a top end electric assist. How is that not serious?
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Tiny volumes which make news and don't require a serious investment in being able to mass produce economically because the price tag is so high it doesn't matter is exactly my point.
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Tell me they're not serious. Pull my thumb.
https://www.gm.com/electric-ve... [gm.com]
They built their own battery tech. Their headline vehicle is already semi electric and that was known by the in-crowd years ago. They built 2 other affordable electric cars in bulk. No they weren't super popular but plenty of people bought them over several years; it was a serious effort. They're building thousands of charging stations. They have a deal with Honda to develop new EV tech. By 2025 they will have invested $35bil
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Tell me they're not serious.
How many EVs will they sell this year?
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I'm good with power assist but have you seen the mess of an architecture when they flip it and the ice is used to charge the EV batteries?
In that kind of hybrid you get the worst of everything: small battery, weak motors, ice not hooked to drive train, very complex power/drive system and more expensive than equivalent power ice or EV. Yech. Gives me a headache to think about it. The Prius drive system is just plain nutty complex, for example compared to either pure system.
But adding another 100-200 HP to
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Looking at the cutaway diagram of the Chevrolet Gen2 Volt's torque converter/gearbox/kitchen sink of twisting force one would think it would be the weak point of the system but in the field very few of them have failed - what generally brings Volts down in the first 150k miles is lack of replacements for failed computer boards. Even high voltage contactors were on allocation in 2022 and those are 150-year-old technology. That said, although there were many factors in the Volt's cancellation including GM i
So that's actually not why Tesla exists (Score:3, Insightful)
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Your argument is a strong one although I don't agree with all of it. One the pedantic side though a "compliance car" - a term I don't think is particularly useful - is said to be car such as the Chevrolet Spark EV with just enough zero-emissions capability to meet the California Air Resources Board (CARB) definition and manufactured and sold in California only in exactly the minimum quantity needed to meet CARB requirements for a traditional automaker to not get prohibited from selling ICE vehicles in that
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I think you're going to find Toyota's strategy is proven correct in time. BEVs have never really made sense over PHEVs, and all the inputs for a BEV are going up in price, not down. Toyota wants to sell cars at a profit, so why would they focus on unprofitable BEVs? The only reason to sell BEVs is because of misguided policies forcing them upon the public and the fact that taxpayers have heavily subsidized what are often second cars (or one of two cars) for higher-income people. Toyota can keep on doing
Re: Apples to Oranges (Score:2)
Old git here. Been driving since the 70s. The "gross lack of vision and understanding of consumer desires by automakers, and a subbornness that let these attitudes persist for far too long" has been going on since at least the sixties.
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In fairness that would still be the case if the next gen propulsion technology were Stanley steam engines or Mr. Fusion Home Energy Kits. Stellantis is a perfect example of what happens when you take 5 organizations that are 20% brilliance and 80% disaster and merge them together: you get a large organization that is 20% brilliance and 400% disaster.
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>Indeed. Most C-suite occupiers in the automotive industry are still using Henry Ford's original playbook, making decisions along the lines of "any color you like - as long as it's black."
No
That is the part they specifically forgot.
The reason for black was because it would dry fast. Thus reducing manufacturing cost.
Any given vehicle of theirs has million of possible combinations of color and options, making manufacturing slower than it would be with less.
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Toyota is a Japanese company though, so it's debt is different to Western company debt. Money has been really cheap in Japan for a very long time. 0% interest rates at times. The government was encouraging companies like Toyota to borrow that basically free money and invest it, to get the economy moving.
Massive, long term borrowing, is not uncommon in Japan. The new high speed maglev line will take half a century to pay off the loans. It's just how things are done there. Even individuals can get a 50 year m
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Tesla gets about 3.5 miles per kW. kW is 14c delivered in my area.
Costs of driving 100k on the Toyota: $10k in gas/oil.
Costs of driving 100k on the Tesla: $4k in electricity.
You save $6000 per 100,000 miles, excluding any other repairs.
Price difference is $26000, so you break even at 433,000 miles. If you make it that far.
Average American drives 13,500 miles per year. So... 32 years?
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Other reasons include Their factories are old as are their workforce and the company is on the hook with local govts to k
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So good for Tesla, but this hardly justifies them having a bigger market cap than Toyota.
Market cap is something related to future potential. While Tesla's is incredibly high, Toyota's is waaay too high. They are laggard in the industry and have rested on their laurels in ways never seen before as everyone else has caught up to them with the one thing they were known for: reliability. Future outlook they are almost entirely unique in backing a drivetrain that no other car manufacturer is looking into, and virtually no oil company is looking to support (a future of having to drive your Corolla t
But will it continue (Score:2)
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I think that Tesla build quality is touted up a lot more by its detractors than its customers and potential customers ever see.
It's like, well, anybody who has a beef against any manufacturer. They'll find something to justify individually boycotting the company's products, even if that something is ultimately not that big of a deal or even outright false.
I just shrug and well:
1. Agree that Tesla is very overvalued. When will that break? I don't know.
2. I used to think that the major car makers would b
Tesla is the Blackberry of EVs (Score:2)
It doesn't even take an iPhone-equivalent to crush them. In many ways, it was the commoditization by Android that destroyed Blackberry. Tesla seems unable to crack the sub-$20k market. If market forces shift to enable other manufacturers to sweep that consumer strata into their coffers, that could be what wrecks Tesla. Just on po
Don't think your math holds (Score:3)
Hm....
1. I don't think that "cracking the sub $20k market" is necessary when nobody [cars.com] is cracking the sub-$20k market. The cheapest EV on the list is $27k. Which also has ~10% range penalty over the cheapest Tesla ($35k, 272-358 miles, vs 247-259 for the Bolt).
2. Tesla has been able to sell every vehicle they can produce for a long time. Ergo, chasing the bottom of the market is something they don't have to do.
3. They seem to have been following a "trickle down" philosophy for their vehicles. As in,
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People don't have to buy EVs. The Corolla is close to 20K. Not sure why people don't realize that they could buy the Corolla and drive 200,000 miles before the Tesla paid off relatively. And that's not even taking into account interest costs, which are still going to go up.
Virtue signaling by social justice warriors.
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By the way, the Bolt is being discontinued [google.com].
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Yep, forgot to mention that one, it's being replaced by an EV Truck, which I did specify are most of the "new models" coming out.
It's inflation (Score:2)
The market segment that shops for a $52,630* car is very likely to be made up of people who are at an income level where the increased costs of damn near everything probably isn't putting a major crimp in their budgets. People who typically shop for Corollas, on the other hand, are probably more concerned with keeping food on the table rather than buying a shiny new set of wheels.
* Ignoring the tax incentives. But, let's also be honest about those tax incentives, too. They're only truly helpful if you ca
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Model Y starts at $47490, not $52630, in the US.
The average transaction price for a new car in the US is $48k.
Now, once you option out a Model Y, you get above the average, but not dramatically (there's just not that many options, and the only one that seriously jacks up the price is FSD, which only a relatively small percentage buys). And that's greatly offset by the lower operating costs.
Re:It's inflation (Score:4, Insightful)
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FYI: starting in 2024 [irs.gov], you will be able to transfer the credit to the dealer [google.com], meaning that the credit will immediately come off the purchase price, rather than having to "float" it until tax time. For most people, that will reduce the size of their auto loan, meaning that t
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People who typically shop for Corollas, on the other hand, are probably more concerned with keeping food on the table rather than buying a shiny new set of wheels.
People who are concerned with keeping food on the table don't buy new cars of any sort.
YEP (Score:3)
where i live, these things went from 0.1% to 8-10% of the cars you see on the road in a year or something.
and, believe it or not, i live in a middle of nowhere broke ass mill town on the west coast of canada that's an hour minimum drive from any major business hub, not in a major urban center like vancouver where car owners have massive incomes and what is 'fashionable' matters to a car buyer.
i'm not personally a fan of the tesla as a car, and would never buy one, but widespread adoption of this tech is great -- a big eye opener for what other companies should be doing differently....TREND!
if you don't realize that 'fashionable' and 'trendy' is what turns a product into a cultural norm, you must be too young or stupid to remember the ipod/iphone. i truly believe tesla has accomplished that and that is some serious unicorn shit right there.
another good example of what tesla has done is **the harley davidson phenomena**. anyone who has studied marketing should marvel at the fact that the overpriced, slow, unreliable, two wheeled shiny garbage mobiles have driven culture and become a 'must have' for an entire subset of american society just based on image, in fact they have put a small fortune into examining why harleys became 'cool', because it makes NO LOGICAL SENSE.
here are way better vehicles than a tesla with in the price/performance/reliability matrix but they have made it COOL so they WIN it does not matter if they are BETTER because people NEED them to be COOL
i am a bit of a redneck when it comes to cars and never tend to drive anything newer than 20 years old or over a few grand, so i'm waiting for the price of components to settle and DIY something electric for fun and learning.
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If you don't realize that 'fashionable' and 'trendy' is what turns a product into a cultural norm, you must be too young or stupid to remember the ipod/iphone.
The only reason iThings became a fashion most people could get in on is because there's a model to fit almost every budget. This isn't to say Tesla can't be successful by only catering to the higher end of the market, but their total marketshare will always be limited as a result. Toyota has nothing to worry about.
Re: YEP (Score:2)
Very interesting point re your locale/population! I always saw harlys and iStuff as crap because harleys had rubbish performance per dollar and iStuff intentionally made it hard to do anything without throwing more $ at them. Fashion/Cool must be really really important to a lot of people.
So Tesla doesn't have a lot of models (Score:2)
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The C64 was dethroned by the Raspberry Pi, if I recall right.
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Not particularly meaningful (Score:2)
Beating a car in worldwide sales by 12,000 units in a single month is virtually meaningless. The real question is, how will the sales compare in an entire year?
IF the Model Y outsells a car half its price annually then really what this means is either that the average per capita income of buyers has gone way up worldwide, or the banking industry is starting to leverage more risk.
Way to bury the lede. . . (Score:2)
The bit about Model Y becoming the number one seller is interesting, but it may be an unfair comparison, symbolic win, etc. . . I'm surprised at how little reaction I'm seeing to the big news about the Ford and Tesla charging deal. That, to me, was the shocker. I had to double check that it wasn't somehow April 1 again.
I hoped that NACS might get some traction, but I never imagined it happening this way. I thought the other charging networks (Blink, ChargePoint, etc.) would jump on it first, and maybe
Charging (Score:3)
I think the big news here is Ford including the Tesla charging port - that will give them a huge advantage over other EV makers because the Tesla charging network is so large and simple to use (just plug and go).
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Europe where more than half are sold ... there is no such thing as a Tesla charging port - there is only one standard
Dealers are also not really a thing - you can buy from a dealer, but you don't have to ... and they are very aware of this
The real reason is Tesla make only a very few models, all the other manufacturers have large numbers across the prices ranges
All the other car makers horrifically outsell Tesla - just not on a single model
A pyramid of consumers (Score:2)
Let's be clear, Tesla is appealing ONLY to the upper tiers of consumers, which are a distinctly small subset of the population.
There are still HUGE questions remaining about EVs generally:
- a huge % of the auto-needing public SIMPLY CAN'T AFFORD A $40,000 car.
- in that same vein, what happens with EVs as used cars? Costs? Battery cycle?
- infrastructure: not everyone has a detached single-family home where they can install a level 3 charger. That said, there are still major obstacles to a vehicle that take
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But, Y? (Score:2)
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Ahoufe? The Akan word for "beauty"?
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I've thought about putting "I did that" Biden stickers on the Tesla Superchargers just to confuse people.
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Do you smile into the cameras, too?
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Do you smile into the cameras, too?
With this guy it's probably often a vertical smile.