Electric car sales accounted for about 7.9% of the market in the third quarter of 2023, which is an all-time record and an improvement over the 6.1% it represented a year prior. Sales of electric cars, in fact, have increased for 13 consecutive quarters. So why did Tesla CEO Elon Musk signal caution and concern in his call with investors yesterday?
As James Carville once famously said: “It’s the Economy, stupid.” More specifically, Musk thinks higher interest rates could potentially soften the market for electric cars.
Do you like talking about Tesla? Journalists sure do and, while I usually try to ignore this tendency, Musk was unusually candid about his company and the future yesterday and there’s a lot there to mine for discussion. Plus, there are some interesting updates about the Cybertruck.
Let’s Musk it up!
The Reality Of Electric Car Sales
Will there come a point where electric car sales plateau or will government requirements mean that they’ll keep growing until they reach 100%? This is the question that keeps product planners up at night. The good news, for now, is that there’s still room for growth in the market.
Here’s an update from Cox Automotive on what we’ve learned so far in the first three quarters of the year:
Total EV sales in Q3, according to an estimate from Kelley Blue Book, hit 313,086, a 49.8% increase from the same period one year ago and an increase from the 298,039 sold in Q2. Most automakers posted sizeable gains over 2022, with Volvo, Nissan, Mercedes and Hyundai delivering increases above 200%, thanks mostly to new products entering the market. In Q3, 14 new EV models that did not exist one year ago were in the mix, including Chevrolet Blazer and Silverado EVs. (The new Chevy EVs had very low sales – just an initial few to mark a Q3 launch). The EV market is transforming, to be sure.
This seems like good news, right? Well…
EV transaction prices in Q3 were down significantly from 2022. In an attempt to increase sales volume, Tesla slashed prices, which are now down roughly 25% year over year. The price cuts have helped, as Tesla’s Q3 sales grew by 19.5% year over year, surpassing the industry’s overall growth rate of 16.3%. However, Tesla’s share of the EV segment continues to plunge, hitting 50% in Q3, the lowest level on record and down from 62% in Q1.
This is good news if you’re a consumer. Just last night my buddy was so pumped to show off his Model Y, which he got for an extremely fair price, that he half-seriously offered to sell his old gas-powered car at a huge discount (when I offered to buy his car at this price this morning he admitted to talking out of his ass).
Whether this is good news for automakers is a much bigger question. Many of these cars are subsidized by government rebates and are still not profitable, which means the discounting is not necessarily a reflection of the decrease in what it costs automakers to actually make these cars (to some degree it is for Tesla).
Still, the graph above from KBB shows that more and more automakers are seeing EVs grow as a part of their portfolios.
Tesla Predictably Stumbles In Q3
Margins are a measure of profitability, and pretty much everyone knew that Tesla was going to report lower margins this quarter. This is not a shock. No car company, not even Tesla, can cut prices to maintain market share and stay extremely profitable forever. Additionally, investments in products like the Cybertruck start adding up quickly.
So how bad was it? The company’s full investor deck is here, but the highlights are a gross margin of 17.9%, down from 25.1% in Q3 of 2022, but close enough to the 18.0% analysts were estimating ahead of the call. Revenue was about $24 billion, which is also within spitting distance of expectations.
Still, investors didn’t like what they saw according to Reuters:
“Tesla’s auto business is a legacy business now,” Chaim Siegel of Elazar Advisors said.
[…]
Overall, 10 analysts cut their price targets on the stock, pushing the median view to $260, according to LSEG data.
Tesla shares were at $224.89 in premarket trading. The stock has nearly doubled in 2023 on investor optimism that the company will fare better than rivals in an uncertain economy and see a long-term boost from its self-driving efforts.
I do agree that Tesla’s auto business is a legacy business, but it’s still the best legacy car business that currently exists and has profits and revenue everyone who isn’t Ferrari (an apparel company that also makes cars and prints money) would kill for.
Elon Musk Is “Worried” About Interest Rates
Above is the full livestream of the roughly hour-long financial results webcast which, you know, feel free to listen to it if you want.
Here’s what stuck out to me in response to a question about the impending Gigafactory in Mexico:
[I]n Mexico, we’re laying the groundwork to begin construction and doing all the long lead items, but I think we want to just get a sense for the global economy is like before we go full tilt on the Mexico factory. I am worried about the high-interest rate environment that we’re in. I just can’t emphasize this enough, that the vast majority of people buying a car is about the monthly payment. And as interest rates rise, the proportion of that monthly payment that is interest increases naturally.
This is absolutely correct. In some ways, lowering the price of the Model Y has mostly kept its price in line with its original price relative to inflation and financing. Musk goes on:
We are advertising. I think there is something to be gained on the advertising front. I don’t think it’s nothing, but informing people of a car that is great but they cannot afford doesn’t really help. So, that is really the thing that must be sold, is to make the car affordable…
I agree with Elon Musk.
Elon Musk Is Suddenly Very Candid About The Cybertruck
Let’s check in on the “Era of the Cybertruck” why don’t we? The sense that most people I trust seem to have about the Cybertruck is that it’s going to be extremely hard to make and, because of that, extremely hard to make profitable. It’s just slightly too much like a concept vehicle and too far away from something that’s practical to use.
Here’s what Musk had to say about it in that same investor call:
I’ve driven the car. It’s an amazing product. I do want to emphasize that there will be enormous challenges in reaching volume production with the Cybertruck and then in making a Cybertruck cash flow positive. This is simply normal for –when you’ve got a product with a lot of new technology or any new–brand-new vehicle program, but especially one that is as different and advanced as the Cybertruck. You will have problems proportionate to how many new things you’re trying to solve at scale.
Musk is trying to do many, many new things with the Cybertruck. He goes on:
[T]his difficulty going from a prototype to volume production is like 10,000% harder to get to volume production than to make the prototype in the first place. And then it is even harder than that to reach positive cash flow. That is why there have not been new car start-ups that have been successful for 100 years apart from Tesla. So, I just want to temper expectations for Cybertruck.
It’s a great product, but financially, it will take, I don’t know, a year to 18 months before it is a significant positive cash flow contributor. I wish there was some way for that to be different, but that’s my best guess.
Musk cited demand for the Cybertruck, which has more than one million reservations, as proof that they’ll eventually get there.
The Big Question
One of my favorite visualizations is when Wile E. Coyote runs off the cliff but doesn’t fall until he looks down. Is this the moment that carmakers are looking down when it comes to electric vehicles? Is this the inevitable moment in time when we find out that demand is actually only 10% of the market? Or are we just waiting for more affordable options to help bring reluctant buyers in to the EV fold?
“That is why there have not been new car start-ups that have been successful for 100 years apart from Tesla.”
What a load of absolute bollocks. Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz aren’t even 100 years old. Honda is 60. He just says words that don’t mean anything and too many people treat them as though they’re the truth.
It is alarming how many people (at least a lot of the older people I know tend to this) equate money with intelligence.
New flash… He talks out his ass. Scary thing is I think he actually believes the crap he says.
I mean yeah it’s mostly bullshit but so are your examples. None of those 3 were car start-ups, they evolved from another brand or started off making something else.
He pulled the number out of his ass and failed to mention it’s only US brands, but there is a point in there somewhere; there hasn’t been a successful US car company in a really long time.
When’s the last time a new company was actually putting cars in customer hands for more than 10 model years? 5 even?
I’ve said this before, but “only” growing by 19.5% YoY or dropping to “only” 50% marketshare wouldn’t be a problem for most companies. It’s a huge problem for Tesla in particular.
Tesla’s market cap is bigger than Toyota and VW combined. That’s not based on where Tesla is now, it’s based on predictions of future positioning. Tesla has long asserted they’ll make 20 million cars per year (as much as Toyota and VW combined) by 2030. This goal requires a little over 50% YoY growth until 2030 — a growth rate which Tesla had no problem achieving until quite recently.
Not only is Tesla failing to keep its trajectory, but it’s losing marketshare — and fast. In a growing market, losing marketshare means you’re being outpaced. This means their future position is in jeopardy.
To people like you and me, none of this matters. The 20 million target was pretty stupid, and it’s not like missing that target means Tesla starts losing money. But investors, CEOs, and hedge fund managers aren’t normal people living on Main Street, they’re lizard people living on Wall Street who’ve never turned a wrench or opened a CAD drawing. They think perpetual exponential growth is a realistic expectation simply because Tesla says it’s a tech company, and tech companies like Amazon and Google have normalized that kind of growth by employing tactics once reserved for robber barons.
TL;DR: Tesla’s stock prices will take a beating when investors start realizing that Tesla sells hardware, not software.
“Is this the inevitable moment in time when we find out that demand is actually only 10% of the market? Or are we just waiting for more affordable options to help bring reluctant buyers in to the EV fold?”
I think it’s option #2. And it’s not even just ‘more affordable’ options. It’s just the need for ‘more options’ period.
Consider that if you want a minivan, there are exactly zero BEV options.
If you want an electric sports coupe… also zero options.
Electric convertible.. same deal.
We need more BEVs and a greater variety of them in more body styles.
And I think at least some people are holding off buying some BEV models until they get the NACS connector. I personally wouldn’t bother getting something like a Mach E unit it has that charge connector.
Eventually we will get to the point that the ‘BEV market’ is basically ‘just the vehicle market’.
If the Ultium platform Bolt is $25k I’m buying it as soon as it’s on sale. Prices will make a massive difference
The costs are still high, the Chevrolet Blazer EV is $56k. That’s nuts.
I’d like to see a lineup of the different vehicle types, their percentage of total vehicle volume, and then see how the gaps in EV coverage line up with those percentages, then total them up. Then we’ll see just how much the market is covered with EVs, and how much of the vehicle market is left on the table by not having an EV option.
The gaps you mention are valid, but minivans, sports coupes, and convertibles don’t cover huge swaths of the market anyway. I think it’s more price-related. Look at the Lightning and its market penetration vs. ICE F150s. That said, there’s more to the Lightning penetration than price (conservative truck owners’ stance on EVs), but there’s a pretty big price gap, too.
Now? Tesla’s auto business has clearly been legacy since their market cap blew up to the point where it was larger than the car market in its entirety. There is no way Tesla ever justifies their current stock price by building cars. This whole Tesla investment boondoggle has always been working under the assumption that they pull an Amazon (something that basically only Amazon has ever done) and pivot from selling
bookscars to selling everything.After having seen a number of photos of Cybertrucks IRL, those foggy, blurry photos of the original look positively attractive.
I’ve seen it in person and thought it looked better in person but I would rather have a Rivian.
Here in the centre of Toronto, which by the way is the centre of the universe, I see lots of luxury EVs, be they Teslas or e-versions of German brands. Adoption appears pretty high. However, I still see a whole lot more Corollas and other small basic appliance vehicles. I know a number of people who drive those, none of the people I know are specifically choosing those because of price, they could afford other options. They just don’t care. Simple easy to drive, park and maintain appliances are all that really matter to them. The manufacturer that decides to hunt in that part of the market will be the one that moves the needle on volume. I think the Chevy Bolt kind of proves the theory, but surprisingly not that many people actually know about that product. A lot has been said about Toyota being late to the party, but they probably have the right formula, compact relatively affordable hybrids are hugely popular around here and I see a lot of extension cords in driveways at night topping up the plug in models. It probably won’t be long until that’s what my driveway looks like too. Especially if Toyota figures out how to make a nice ergonomically designed interior for one of them.
Canadians have different aspirations and motivations than Americans, though. (that’s a compliment)
“Here in the centre of Toronto, which by the way is the centre of the universe, “
This is the correct take.
I think the Bolt is somehow still production constrained with batteries so they don’t really push it
Tesla is not luxury. Maybe expensive but they are Dodge and not BMW.
It’s hard to believe that Toronto is the “centre” of the universe when its residents can’t spell “center” correctly.
/s?
I don’t see what’s “advanced” about the Cybertruck. Beneath the skin it’s the same electric motors and software in every other Tesla that’s been sold for over a decade. It doesn’t represent an advance in suspension technology or utility over any other truck on the market. The stainless skin has been done before (it was expensive and impractical then, too), and the design is 1950s future car goofy. Is it more advanced than a Rivian? Don’t see it. If, and it’s a big if, Tesla can create production methods that will make stainless steel easier to work with and more affordable, that would qualify as an advance, but the truck itself is just a funky contemporary electric car. Nothing wrong with that, but certainly nothing revolutionary either. Unless they’re also working on a flux capacitor, too!
It’s got highly advanced hyperbole!
The bed was designed to carry one of these:
https://www.theonion.com/amazing-new-hyperbolic-chamber-greatest-invention-in-th-1819567821
I am not a Tesla stan, but it would be advanced in the sense that if it performs like Tesla’s of the last 10 yers it blows everyone elses EV Truck outta the water.
In performance sure, in its ability to actually be used a truck? Hell no
Oh so you’ve driven one?
No, but I have eyes and can see that bed is horrible. Driving would be performance and handling, which like I said doesn’t matter for real truck stuff.
That’s not how automotive (or any product) review works. It’s literally an old saying. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.
I can tell the bed is a dumb shape by looking at, I’ve seen it parked next to other trucks. You aren’t putting anything over the side and leaning against those hard edges to grab something is going to be awful.
If you aren’t using the bed, you don’t need a truck. Sure lots of posers buy trucks and don’t use it, but this thing is only for posers.
It might be slightly better at towing than its competitors because Tesla typically has long ranges, but it will still be shit like all EV trucks.
Advanced methods of separating idiots from their money for absolute bare-bones crap
Some seriously long list of asterisks that aren’t said here to make this statement true. (e.g. Chinese brands need not apply, companies that started not making cars that transitioned to making cars, nor the many dedicated low-volume sportscar car manufacturers)
I like the idea of an electric car. The initial price are high, but that is not what keeps me from buying one. I keep cars a long time, and currently an electric vehicle that is over 10 years old and has more than a 100K miles is a paperweight for the most part. Replacing the batteries exceeds the value of the car. Until that is fixed, or there is no other choice, I don’t see purchasing one.
Get one with an LFP battery. Those don’t go bad. Also, liquid cooled batteries run about 15 years
Lots of today’s EVs will last well over a decade and over 200k miles. It’s not like Leafs. There are a lot of old Tesla Model S vehicles still on the road and the technology has come even further.
I’m sure someone’s already said it below, but the maximum demand for EVs will continue to be limited by the quality/availability/speed of the charging network (not accounting for any potential legislative forcing of the markets hand) once the early adopters are satisfied. I don’t think we are quite to that point yet but rather as mentioned the high interest rates are the biggest factor currently.
I find it hard to believe all those lux brands over 10% of sales being EV, only because I hardly see any of them around me. Though there was a brand new BMW iX at the free town charger the other day, I said to my wife the person just got a $120k EV SUV and can’t afford to charge at home… or too cheap to install a charger…. BMW used to give free 120v charger back in the i3 days, imagine the iX & i4 come with it too.
BMW will lease you an iX for like $800 a month, which if I’m not mistaken is lower than the average car payment in the US. You don’t have to be rich to get into a flashy luxury EV, manufacturers know they’re disposable products. You’d have to be absolutely insane or a total financial nincompoop to buy something like an iX outright.
The iX is a bargain to lease compared to the BMW ICE lineup. But it is just too much – too big, too ugly, etc. Lucid is running some intriguing lease promotions, but their 3 years of free EA charging is kinda worthless to me since their closest charger is at least 20 minutes away which would result in me charging at home, which is super expensive in my neighborhood (~$0.27 per KWh) and my partner pays the electric bill (which is currently negative due to our solar panels). The EA charger sparseness was really surprising- I am 15 miles from the city center in a dense suburb (and ~25% of my neighbors have Teslas of one kind or another – although the fleet does seem to be aging with very few new or replacement Teslas in recent years).
The BMW i4 is a good lease deal too. Last I checked they were running $599 a month for the all wheel drive ones and less for RWD. I think Lucid has a $799 deal going currently unless something has changed. If I were to need a car tomorrow there’s a decent chance I’d lease a luxury EV…not necessarily because I’m particularly EV passionate either, I just think it’s the most bang for your buck on the market right now.
I mean shit, my payment on my Kona N is $600 a month. The fact that I could be in a $70,000 luxury EV for similar money isn’t lost on me. Not that I’m going to run out and get one or anything…but shit, it’s one hell of a deal, and it’s not like it’s a great financial decision to own a first gen EV anyway, so if anything the fact that you’re giving it back is a plus.
A variety of factors are contributing to EVs being in a deeply weird place. First of all, most of the early adapters have already…well, adapted. They only make up so much of the population, and while they’re willing to put up with assorted compromises because of their personal interest in the products, not everyone else is.
The cost of EVs is also too damn high. It’s not surprising that manufacturers have had to slash prices aggressively to get them to sell recently. Most people can’t afford $60,000+ cars….and even if they can as a stretch/over extending of their finances purchase they’re not going to do it for a car that requires so many compromises. In the US they’re going to do it for ICE SUVs and trucks….which are still selling at a maniacal rate.
It’s also easy to sit around in a city (which I do! Every single day) and talk about how easy having an EV is….but as soon as you’re out in the country there is 0 charging infrastructure, and the charging infrastructure we have sucks ass. Massive chunks of what we have are already broken and we don’t have enough electricians to be able to service what already exists, let alone expand it.
And finally, most people aren’t interested in all the incredibly weird shit manufacturers are cramming into EVs. Everyone chased the goddamn Tesla dragon without realizing that what makes Teslas appealing for people isn’t the Scandinavian prison interiors that are controlled by a tablet. And don’t even get me started on the exterior design of gen 1 EVs…not everyone wants to drive a gaudy spaceship that would fit in in a Tron or Bladerunner movie.
They also have very little driving character. It’s a same-ey experience across the board and apparently (I’m basing this off what journalists are saying) the only ones that are engaging to drive are built on ICE platforms rather than ground up EV ones, like the i4 and Taycan.
So…they’re compromised, they’re extremely expensive, they’re complicated, and most of them look ridiculous. No shit people don’t want them right now. I’ve said all along that if the goal is to get people in EVs then these companies should be focused on making normal cars that happen to be EVs….not the other way around where you make a ridiculous concept car esque technical showcase that happens to be a car.
More of these resources should be utilized on making PHEVs and hybrids because they work for everyone right now. EV technology is cool, has applications/advantages, and will get exponentially better in the coming years. But right now most EVs are still beta products. I’m not surprised that people don’t want to pay $60,000 up front or $75,000 total financing at the current absurd interest rates to be beta testers.
Very much this. The things are too tech laden. This design choice is creeping into ICE cars too, unfortunately. Having all cars being sealed, unrepairable, tech-laden appliances going forward is too tempting for the manufacturers to pass up. EV technology which easily allows the construction of vehicles built to last a lifetime(compared to ICE), is being squandered on continuing a paradigm of planned obsolescence. PHEVs won’t solve this issue either, as it’s a deliberate design choice independent of powertrain.
What we need is the availability of inexpensive, reliable, efficient electric cars built to last decades, and are repairable with basic hand tools when something breaks. You know, something akin to the ICE cars that Honda and Toyota used to build from the 1980s through the early 2000s, except in EV form.
“but as soon as you’re out in the country there is 0 charging infrastructure,”
Show me where in the country that there is no electricity.
Hell… even if there are no “charging stations”, there is probably a camp ground that has 50amp RV plugs that would work as a good Plan B.
A 50 amp plug is not a fast charger, and I have little interest in having to stay at a campground for a few hours every 180 miles.
I have a BEV, but there are simply a lot of places in appalachia I can’t go, or can go to but can’t get home from again in any reasonable amount of time. It’s a tradeoff I can make because we have a 2nd ICE car, but not everyone can do that.
“A 50 amp plug is not a fast charger,”
No it’s not, but it’s better than nothing… and far better than a standard 120V outlet.
“but there are simply a lot of places in appalachia I can’t go, or can go to but can’t get home from again in any reasonable amount of time”
Technically you CAN go, but it would require some extra planning along with extra time.
I just realized there is a Cripple Creek in Appalachia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple_Creek,_Virginia
So maybe if you’re in Appalachia, you just gotta call up old Bessie… I hear that she’s so helpful that she can’t be beat!
https://youtu.be/NKu0OTDvQ-w?si=uDGDNG8gMkTdI2ZI&t=12
They chased the wrong part of Tesla. The user experience of ownership is dead simple. There is a lot to criticize about the company but living with a Tesla vs other EVs is night and day.
The telling part of EV sales was in the graph posted under “The Reality of Electric Car Sales.” Count the luxury manufacturers towards the top. Quite a few, eh? Electric cars are still more easily attainable for those with high incomes. And those with high incomes often buy luxury cars. Another reply mentioned this – EVs have to be attainable by the masses. The Ioniq 5 and 6 both start above $40,000. Most EVs are quite frankly, expensive. Only the Bolt is reasonably priced, but maybe its problem is it is made by Chevrolet?
There are multiple factors at play that could make or break the U.S. EV market.
-If BYD or some other company decides to get an inexpensive, practical, long-range EV into the U.S., say at least 200 miles range and a price tag under $20k, that could quickly expand the market and steal marketshare from established manufacturers. To really take off, the monthly payment of a new EV must be less than the amount that a less-financially-endowed buyer would be saving versus continuing to pay fuel+maintenance to maintain their 10+ year old clunker ICE, and the warranty must last for at least the duration of the payment plan on the new EV
-Gasoline availability is taken for granted. There are multiple geopolitical events in play that could eventually put this into jeopardy. When/if events line up to restrict this availability, prices could go up to as much as the market will bear in the U.S., and elsewhere availability may be tenuous at best
-People also take the consistency of the electrical grid for granted. The infrastructure is degrading and has not been maintained or repaired adequately. While concerns of charging infrastructure straining the grid are overblown, the actual state of the grid in the U.S. is deteriorating, and has been rendered more vulnerable by connecting components of it to the internet. A grid disruption or significant grid-down event for a long enough duration will render EVs worthless for those who don’t have renewable energy systems set up at home
-Battery prices have been on a downward trend and technology continues to improve. We now have off-the-shelf Lithium Ion batteries with 3,000 cycle life to 100% discharge, 270 Wh/kg specific capacity, and at a retail price of under $300/kWh. Versus a decade ago, cycle life and gravimetric energy density have doubled, while retail cost has halved. Production cost has decreased even more dramatically than retail cost.
-Many of the resources used to manufacture EVs have bottlenecks in availability, whether it is raw material availability, the ability to process said material, or the capacity to make EV subsystems with said material. This is exacerbated by the insistence from manufacturers on producing high-margin SUVs/CUVs/trucks with massive 3-digit-kWh battery packs. Were there a push to make inexpensive, efficient EVs that get the same range on much smaller battery packs, and required less materials in general to build, many of these bottlenecks would be less a factor.
-Charging infrastructure is an issue. Because so many EVs are oversized bloated road hippos with massive battery packs, this is largely responsible for queues at fast charge stations. We need more fast charge stations along with better maintenance of them. We also need more low-power chargers for apartment dwellers. Existing infrastructure is a bottleneck on the number of people willing to switch to EVs. This is not a difficult issue to solve, just an expensive issue to solve.
Are the land hippos driven by Boobus Americanus?
Commonly so. I see them every day staring at their ironically-named “smart” devices instead of paying attention to the road.
10% is probably not the ceiling, but part of that is because it appears the replacement window for BEVs is noticeably shorter. If, after another decade or so, ICE still has an average age of 12 years on the road but EVs are 8, that’s a lot more sales to people that want EVs.
Barring a major breakthrough in battery price to allow pack replacement to be the norm for 12 year old BEVs, most of them are just getting scrapped when degradation is noticeable. The cheap end of the used market will be the minefield DT’s Leaf represents.
Repairable packs need to be a thing. When a battery pack is ‘dead’, more common than not, you have a large majority of cells still delivering 80%+ of original capacity, with a bad cell or two in each series string dragging the rest of the pack down to the point that it no longer works. In a series string, the performance of the whole is only as good as its weakest cell.
The way packs are currently sealed off with fusing and electronics tightly integrated, they are generally unrepairable without specialized tools, software, and skillsets.
You could’ve just designed it differently, less Judge Dredd move prop, and you might have a vehicle that would actually contribute to the bottom line.
Exactly! Learned nothing from the Model X falcon wing fiasco. They could’ve had a Santa Cruz/Maverick fighter with a model Y trucklet and be raking money in hand over fist by now.
Why do that when we can be COOL and EDGY and implement U MAD BRO? Shitposting as your design language?
Musk is nothing more than a hype-man and CT illustrates that perfectly. Before Tesla, his biggest contribution was cobbling together a functional enough concept and hyping it to VC until he could cash out and move on. He’s just been lucky enough that Tesla and SpaceX had enough “adults in the room” to run a functional operation while he juiced the hype-cycle… until now. The Model X “wings”, FSD, CT, and all that are instances of his showmanship. A Model Y-based trucklette isn’t edgy so he doesn’t care.
Especially boneheaded when you look at stainless steel pricing. The Cybertruck was announced in 2019 and stainless is up 40% since then. Oops.
United States – Producer Price Index by Commodity: Metals and Metal Products: Steel Pipe and Tube, Stainless Steel – 2023 Data 2024 Forecast 2010 Historical (tradingeconomics.com)
Some of the EV stalling may be a couple things. There’s people that want an EV but don’t want Tesla with the dousc..dude in charge. So then there’s also GM/Ford/BMW/Hyundai all said they’re going with NACS “soon”. You gonna buy a 40″ plasma when all the 75″ 4k tvs come out in a couple years for the same price?
Also we want EV minitrucks, Chevy Montana, Toyota Hilux, VW Scout, I think that’s the big thing everyone wants 🙂
Is Elon Musk ignoring Kaiser-Frazer in his no new startups in 100 years? I mean, yeah, they didn’t stick around in their original form for that long, but they didn’t go out of business either and sold a lot of cars for awhile there
As far as electric car sales go, obviously they’ll reach 100% eventually, too many governments have already put hard deadlines on ICE vehicle sales, so that’s it. They legally have to stop selling ICEs on a specific date, so it is going to be electric only after that. I don’t think many automakers are going to keep building a whole parallel lineup of vehicles to sell in the fragmented patchwork of areas where they might still be legal
“Is Elon Musk ignoring Kaiser-Frazer in his no new startups in 100 years?”
Yeah… and Delorean and Bricklin!
But seriously… I think he’s referring to startups that have survived…
“As far as electric car sales go, obviously they’ll reach 100% eventually”
I don’t think they’ll go to 100%… but probably something like 95%. There will always be a small percentage of specialty/niche vehicles.
Well, technically, they did survive by turning themselves into Jeep, then eventually splitting themselves in 3 with the US/Canadian part of the company going to American Motors, the Argentine part going to Renault, and the Brazilian part going to Ford.
Bricklin and DeLorean were never successful and went out of business entirely after a short period, so it’s OK to not count them, along with Muntz, Avanti, and the approximately 7,292 short-lived British sports car companies started in storage units
“Well, technically, they did survive by turning themselves into Jeep, then eventually splitting themselves in 3 with the US/Canadian part of the company going to American Motors, the Argentine part going to Renault, and the Brazilian part going to Ford.”
When reading that, I was imagining the founders (or descendants of the founders) of Kaiser-Frazer having a reaction similar to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sIYe74sczE
Though then again, maybe not as the top execs probably got nice payouts when parts of the business were sold off/acquired by others.
It was the Kaiser family themselves that did it, like 2 1/2 years after Henry J. Kaiser died, they decided to take Kaiser Industries out of the auto business and divest Kaiser-Jeep, Industrias Kaiser Argentina, and Willys do Brasil all at once, reinvest the proceeds into the real estate, steel, and aluminum businesses.
I think the market demand will continue to grow as the infrastructure builds. The fact that most companies are going to adopt the Tesla plug, allowing them access to supercharger stations, which are the only form of public charging that I don’t constantly hear about how broken it is will be huge. When you can reliably travel for 4+ hours in your EV, and then top up in 30 minutes or less and get on your way again, that’s when I think things will really take off. And I know we are close to that, but we’re not there still, especially without the electricians to repair the chargers.
I stop for about 10-15 minutes every 200-250 miles. I really can’t sit in a car for 400 miles straight. I do drive from NorCal to Socal with 1 stop and it was the same in my Dodge Charger.
And 250 is pretty close to the 4 hours, so yeah that’s doable, and when you can do that from anywhere and easily find chargers then more people will go for it I think.
There are still plenty of places that make it a no go. Sure I don’t go there anyway but if people want to, a plug in hybrid is likely better. I have a friend that really wants to go electric but the hiking he likes doing makes it’s very difficult to for to go fully electric. Towing is the other dealbreaker still.
I was nervous on my first road trip and then my trip to Idaho was a test and it went so smooth. One thing I realized is in my Charger I would get low on fuel and the look for a gas station or find on on the GPS and Tesla takes that away, it’s just sets it unless there is a specific charger spot I want to stop at, like kettleman city, I don’t even think about “fueling” anymore.
Last weekend I went to Reno and they had L2 charging and a supercharger at the hotel. The L2 were all used so I just parked. When I was leaving I plugged into the supercharger, got coffee and it was ready to go.
There is still a lot of infrastructure work but I am optimistic that it will get there for most drivers.
I still want to stuff a 440 into a Dodge Scamp for fun but I don’t want to daily something like that.
No offense by any means, Matt, but why even bother doing “The Big Question” today? It’s the same topic that has been talked about all week. Also, you know as well as anyone that the majority of the replies are just gonna come from the same 30-40 members that will just cut and paste the same tired “insults” regarding Musk that are always written. That and how they wouldn’t be caught dead driving a Telsa because they won’t give him a dime of their money or how they insecurely believe that other people actually care what they drive.
Hope everyone is having a nice Thursday 🙂
It is a variation on the same theme, you’re right. I’m gonna make it a bit more original tomorrow.
We’re at the point that offering an electric vehicle isn’t enough to gain/maintain market share, and several manufacturers are only starting to see that. We need EVs to differentiate themselves and we need to assuage range anxiety (whether through charging that is reliable and fast or through offering massive range).
EVs aren’t just competing with other EVs, they are competing with hybrids, PHEVs, and gassers. But companies still see EV buyers as somehow a distinct category. Until EVs are positioned to capture buyers at a variety of price points, vehicle types, and use scenarios, they can’t capture major market share from other options.
It’s going to take a hell of a usable EV van to provide a compelling alternative to the Pacifica. It’s going to take massive range and/or charging speed gains to convince people that an EV pickup will work (even if people aren’t towing, they think they might tow, so towing range is going to be critical). The SUV space is also interesting. People want good ground clearance and good range, and EVs tend to be lower for aero, so it’s a balancing act that pretty much ensures no one’s quite happy with what they can get.
“EVs aren’t just competing with other EVs, they are competing with hybrids, PHEVs, and gassers.”
Actually that is what is happening the majority of the time. Most BEV buyers are coming from ICE vehicles.
Right, but the car companies seem to be working under the assumption that the buyer who chooses EV has already decided to go EV and just needs to decide which one. And I think we’ve reached a significant level of saturation in that market.
Which means they need to do a better job making EVs more appealing to the customer who is going to buy whatever suits their needs. Because EVs are just mainstream enough to get some consideration, but they need to be compelling for general use. They probably need to be more compelling than an equivalent gasser just to overcome the inertial force of the familiar.
“They probably need to be more compelling than an equivalent gasser just to overcome the inertial force of the familiar.”
I agree. And I think when it comes to trucks, the fuel savings argument can be very compelling. Just look at all the people who bought the Ecodiesel RAM trucks.
And for myself, while I’m pro-BEV, when looking at candidates for my next car, for me a used Tesla Model S is the most compelling option FOR THE MONEY… which also factors in things like style, space, driving dynamics, efficiency, etc.
But my list of vehicle candidates is not all-BEV.
But it’s not the only vehicle I’m considering. Also looking at the Prius V, Ford C-Max, the Bolt, the Model Y, Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6.
I could get into why all these other options are not as ideal for me as a Model S as it would result in a LONG post.
But nonetheless, if legacy carmakers assume that BEV buyers only want/look at BEVs, they are wrong about that.
I am also pro-BEV, and looking at some of the same options. And the upcoming Equinox EV. I drove an EV6 for a week and there was a lot to like, but definitely some things that I don’t know if I could be okay with.
I will say the prices on a used S vs some of the other options out there really offer a pretty compelling case. Not one I’m going for, but I get it.
It might be best at this point to have a separate Tesla (maybe even electric car) morning news dump because there must be other news that isn’t related to them not being covered that could be but the space here is always taken
There are. Here are 3…
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2023/10/19/ford-announces-more-layoffs-as-uaw-strike-enters-day-35/71238634007/
https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2023/10/19/gm-driverless-cars-japan/71237489007/
https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/10/18/kumar-galhotra-new-chief-operating-officer-global-industrial-system/71229518007/
That’s just from the Detroit papers.
I said it yesterday, I’ll say it again today, I’ll say it until the end of time.
EV apologists need only to read DT’s story from yesterday to understand how far we are from an all-electric future.
Besides my concerns over selling a bunch of low range models that may be paperweights in a decade like DT’s Leaf, there is a real possibility that charger problems will get worse before they get better. The large increase in sales over last year means more EVs on the road and more stress on an already-insufficient charging network.
It feels like we’ve already hit an inflection point, with nearly flat sales over Q2, and only Tesla’s price cuts keeping the overall EV market positive. Most other companies are highlighting YoY sales because QoQ is surely not as flattering. News stories are coming out about EV drivers switching back to gas.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/most-americans-still-dont-want-172005090.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJcvojBFDCPbYIQwYuPnMVMiEyqL364zy_INbjA4lnKL71v9g-zP6d8b1SmdCiRZvE4CFwDMMGKnl6Wf6IvWeHbJ1ZxEIblhi256gk4lDwyWa9pf3gLIpOenn_c9m8GjghI06YFNDZUFBvfCbBPy1-vU3bxbOqEIFYfME0Kglqh5
10% probably close to the ceiling until at least one of the following occurs:
-A breakthrough in battery chemistry allows much greater ranges
-A huge improvement in charger availability, reliability, and usability
-Interest rates drop to 0% again
-Ill-considered government bans force bitter consumers into buying things they don’t want.
Remember, even the EIA projects 30% max EV share (including PHEV) up until 2050.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56480#:~:text=According%20to%20our%20Annual%20Energy,%25%20and%2026%25%20of%20on%2D
That EIA chart is an anxiety relief for me, my daughter will be driving age in 2039 and I don’t want her to miss out on combustion vehicles
I’ve got 3 young kids too, and I want them to have options.
Stockpile ICE cars now for future generations, buy em cheap and stack them deep.
Working on it!
I don’t disagree with you entirely, however to use an article about a car that has a known range of under 30 miles, and try to extrapolate that into all EV ownership is a bit extreme. Taking edge cases and using them to say nothing works and never will is too much hyperbole for my taste.
Yes the charging infrastructure is not there yet, but manufacturers are not selling cars that need to be charged every 20 miles.
I am a 2 car family, and replaced a totaled ICE car with an E-golf with 125 mi range. In 4 months it has never been to a charging station, has never left anyone stranded, and it cost less than the ICE equivalent before a $4000 tax rebate. This vehicle works for us and allows me to drive my V-8 SUV when we go further away and not worry about anything. If people Hybrid their fleet (much like David has) it can be so easy to own an EV, especially one that gets under 250 mi range. Now I know my use case won’t work for everyone, but everyone isn’t driving a 30 mile EV either as you have insinuated.
No I realize that, but the broken and crowded chargers, the app to pay, the dark parking lots, etc are still issues no matter how much range you have.
And while the first gen Leaf is obviously the worst offender, the aging of the EV fleet will bring some low ranges into play for the type of people who can least afford it.
Many of these things are actively being worked on, and within 5 years should be better for most everyone. Pretty much every EV manufacturer in the US will be using the NACS plug, and supposedly Tesla will open their charging network. Also BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis currently have a charging network partnership that is already starting to roll out, and should be able to provide charging speed far higher than the tesla network. All this will take time, but it doesn’t mean EVs are a bad choice for everyone at this moment in time. My suggestion to anyone that asks me, is get an EV, but keep an ICE vehicle. If you can only have 1 get a hybrid.
I’ve never said this, but I do maintain that 10% early adopters is about right, and that flattening sales even in the face of big price cuts should tell us something important. If and when there are big improvements, I expect the percentage to rise again.
EV adoption was 25% of new cars sold last quarter in California and it keeps increasing. The rest of the country is trending the same path California had. It’s going to peak much higher than 10%.
I agree with most everything you’ve said here. 5 years will look very differently from today in the EV and charging landscape. And “most everyone” is also accurate. But that “most” is a concern I don’t hear governments or the market addressing.
36% of the US lives in rented housing. 20% of the US lives in apartment buildings (most of whom I assume rent, so they are part of the 36%). Now those numbers are just taken from google, so grain of salt, but I assume they are kind of close.
We still have no idea how to solve the charging problem for a full third of the country if we force EVs on everyone. Are apartment complex owners expected to foot the bill to install charges at complexes? Will those owners owners allow tenants to have them installed (for those few who could even afford that choice)?
Would your eGolf be viable if you were currently living in an apartment? Since you aren’t fast charging, I’m assuming you are charging at home, but I could be wrong there.
I’m not opposed to EVs by any means. But I do think there are some glaring gaps in government and climate policies around EVs.
Imagine if GM and Ford never get to true profitability on EVs. Let’s pretend its because of the power of the dealer groups, but they never see actual profit. It rapidly becomes a dangerous situation for the US government. Permanent subsidy? Let them fail? Crush all dealership laws and let the chips fall where they may?
I think there is a lot of change coming to the automotive world, much of which we really can’t anticipate.
I am not a huge fan of gov mandates for electric vehicles, but I see it playing out in one of 2 ways, Either the state mandates stay in effect or they get delayed because manufacturers aren’t selling full EV line-ups. I think the latter is the reality, especially after seeing the new Charger pic that looks like it will offer an ICE option, when they originally designed it as, and told us it would be EV.
In either case the freeish-market will dictate that apartment owners will want to install EV charging capabilities for their clients, as a competitor will simply to gather that market. If all new cars are EVs and people cannot charge at a prospective place to live they will likely choose somewhere else that offers the option. Yes this is a cost, but it is considered a property improvement, and it will bring residents that will be happy with their service.
I think a bit that is forgotten is that PHEVs will count for most of these mandates. Even California, which people often report as a full EV mandate, also includes PHEVs. So we may see a massive shift to PHEVs in would-be ICE vehicles.
Street parking?
Easy. Charge at work!????
I know that won’t work for all, but this is like buying the 3500 truck or the 400 Mile range EV. So a third of the population can’t charge at home? Well, what if 25% of those can charge at work? I bet a lot of those street parking apartment dwellers could bike or use transit also!
We don’t need to get to 100% able to charge, just like we don’t need to remove 100% of ICE vehicles.
As Bob Dylan once said ” the times they are a-changin”.
I have never argued for or supported 100% EV adoption, however there are plenty of current ICEs in use that could be replaced with EVs and a lot of people wouldn’t be inconvenienced. Cities and towns and infrastructure will adapt to the reality and needs over time. All this will provide jobs as well.
Yeah, as I’ve said elsewhere, right now we’re in the early stages of HDTVs for BEVs. Remember CRT EDTVs? Remember when most sets were 720p? 1080i? Didn’t include a tuner? Remember DLP? Remember Plasmas that used 500+W of power? Remember TVs with only 1 HDMI port?
Then the Samsung 81 series came out. 2nd best set for picture quality (Pioneer Kuro 2 being better for FOUR TIMES the power consumption), great black levels for 2007, dynamic LED backlit LCD, 4 HDMI ports, all the legacy ports (including 2 Component!), only weighed 40lbs, and only used 120W of power in a 40” set, 135W in a 50” set.
Most every other TV afterwards was an improvement to the 81-series template established in late 2007. That’s what people are waiting for. All the nonsense to shake out, so they aren’t holding the early adopter bag on voltage architecture, thermal solutions and cold/hot weather tolerance, battery conditioning, charging interfaces, battery capacity lifetime and weight and in time — battery pack rebuilds or replacements being reasonable, and something even independent shops are handling regularly.
It’ll get there. It’s just moving so fast right now, and right now the likelihood of owning a pre-2007 HDTV or a pre-war car (or heck, even a 50s-80s car) is way too high. People want a mid-80s/early 90s Toyota Camry-ish BEV, and they’ll continue to wait.
Agree with all of that, now what TV should I buy?
Right now? Wait for 4K 240Hz to be standardized. Be another year or two.
Thanks! All good things are just a few years out.
So that’s the last thing on my own personal checklist to replace my 81-series I bought on sale after the Super Bowl in early ‘08. I replaced some capacitors in it recently (with new Nichicons) but with that and 2007-era latency aside, it has done everything I’ve wanted for 15 years.
Right now I want 4K/240Hz, ideally micro-LED right now since OLED ghosting and burn-in isn’t a completely solved problem yet. That eliminates my latency issues for legacy consoles (HDMI modded, or SCART/JP21 modded and running through a line multiplier), 240Hz is evenly divisible by all filming and broadcast frame rates, Micro-LED is still a massive improvement over everything not OLED, and at normal viewing distances, 4K is “good enough” to bring me to the 2040s.
I approach all major purchases the same: With requirements.
I then wait for all the boxes to be ticked, and save money for when it finally happens. Wait and save long enough, and don’t waste money on interim compromises, and you can buy the high-end thing you actually wanted when it finally comes out.
That’s how I am approaching my 3D-printer purchase, but sadly it seems most people are largely interested in speed and I want maximum precision (for printing 87th scale automobiles) and don’t envision ever printing anything larger than the head of a salmon.
Get a Prusa, use the “fine” setting (higher detail than “quality”). I doubt you will be disappointed!
Damn you, now you have me remembering my PRO 151-FD, and how I’ll never have another. I think I have speakers around for it, but my god was that a beautiful screen.
“EV apologists need only to read DT’s story from yesterday to understand how far we are from an all-electric future.”
Or DT just needs to get a properly designed BEV with a proper/reliable charging network… which is basically only Tesla at the moment.
Case in point.. this little video from Aging Wheels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8&t=32s
“EV Road Trips Suck Now (Except in a Tesla)”
Tesla should’ve just made a Model 3amino, the front of a Model 3 with a pickup bed. Or otherwise just a truck that happens to be a Tesla. It would’ve cost them much less and be much more popular.
Too bad we don’t have more Rex EVs like the i3.
Wasn’t the Gen1 Volt one as well? And wasn’t Mazda working on a rotary powered range extended car? I think the priority should be getting people using electric MOST of the time.
I really wanted to check out that Mazda and was disappointed when they announced it would not be coming to the US.
yes
A Model 3 turned into a Ute, with 3 seats up front, no back seats, and a usable bed taking up the space where the back seats would have been, with a retractable aero cover for said bed, could be surprisingly efficient, useful, and relatively inexpensive to build.
I think the biggest thing we will find out is that unless a massive break thru in something like Solid state batteries or even Fuel Cell cars(essentially electric with their own electricity station built in) the majority of the US will still prefer to pay less up front and maybe a bit more more per month for the convenience of a quick fill up. We already see the stories about 80k EV’s that are just at the 10 year old mark needing very expensive battery packs so that sticks in buyers minds, especially as the price to play in the new arena continues to climb. If you cannot resell to cover down payments and taxes on your next car you might be legitimately walking.
Yeah battery packs are averaging $15K plus for a replacement, I read recently. Cost per repair and frequency of repair have increased significantly on EVs over the last 12 months, at least according to some companies in the extended warranty arena who were featured in an article I read a few days ago.