Tesla is no longer the largest EV producer

Misleading if you consider “EV” as referring to fully battery electric vehicles. BYD was able to surpass in sales for the second quarter purely because their factories were outside Shanghai (which was locked down). Another thing to note is China’s BYD also makes considerably less margin (if at all from their sales, mostly serving the domestic market in China). Clickbait, because most people don’t bucket hybrids as EVs in part because most people simply use them as ICE cars.

jazzyjackson• 4 years ago

Plug-In Hybrids (PHEV) are distinct from hybrids, and usually cost thousands more than the base model hybrid, so I wouldn't expect people to purchase one if they don't use it (I plug in my prius every night and the EV-only range covers all my daily driving, I don't know the last time I bought gasoline, it's been months)

toast0• 4 years ago

I bought my PHEV to get carpool stickers and use better parking with free charging at work. The stickers expired and I don't work there anymore, but it never made sense to get rid of, so I still drive it, but rarely charge it.

It's way more convenient to pump gas for a few minutes every 600-700 miles than plugging in every 20 miles. Especially since I would prefer not to charge to full; I live on a hill and pick up 1-3 miles of charge on the way out of my neighborhood, I wouldn't want to miss out on that if I filled up.

dotancohen6• 4 years ago

But your PHEV still needs oil changes and other maintenance, and has all the same failure modes that conventional ICEs have: plugs, coil, belt-driven water pump, the belt itself, timing belt, etc. One of the really nice things about EVs is the reduced maintenance.

Just out of curiosity, how much EV range does the Prius have? I drive 51 KM each way to/from work. So every day I drive 102 KM (about 60 miles), that's about 15 kilowatts-hours and costs $2.50 to recharge at home. If I sign up for day/night rates that will drop, but I don't know by how much.

donkeyd• 4 years ago

Maybe it's changed, but in the Netherlands PHEVS were mostly bought because of lower taxation when driving them as a company car. Because the companies paid gas, people used them as regular cars and ended up polluting more due to the weight of the batteries.

We've had some changes in the taxation scheme though, so this may no longer be relevant.

coryrc• 4 years ago

Sometimes the purchaser is not the user. I've seen plug-in Prius bought with grant money... and never plugged in.

KennyBlanken• 4 years ago

PHEVs are pointless. All the disadvantages of an ICE vehicle with no benefit over a regular hybrid; they get worse gas mileage, the added cost (~4000-5000 dollars) is probably never paid back by the first owner in electricity vs gas, and they have less cargo room.

GRBLDeveloped• 4 years ago

Just a heads up, gasoline can go bad on you https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/how-long-can-ga...

kryptiskt• 4 years ago

"Considerably less margin" isn't a bad thing, when the competition heats up it's far easier for a producer that is lean and mean from the start than for a company used to fat margins.

kjksf11• 4 years ago

Or maybe it's the high margin that is a good thing?

When competition comes and both Tesla and BYD have to lower the prices, which one will be better off?

The one with slightly lower margins?

Or the one that is now unprofitable?

NonNefarious5• 4 years ago

"the company was able to avoid the lockdown-spurred factory closures"

But the "article" conspicuously fails to say HOW.

This whole thing is as bullshit as the hype over Android's "market share" being higher than iOS's. Sure, when you're troweling out third-world junk to undiscerning customers, you can "dominate."

thematrixturtle• 4 years ago

What exactly is "bullshit" about the fact that there are way more Androids out there than iPhones? And how is (say) a Samsung any more "third-world junk" than an iPhone assembled in India or Brazil?

makeitdouble• 4 years ago

people don’t bucket hybrids as EVs in part because most people simply use them as ICE cars

This would warrant a "[Citation needed]", if I had any idea what source would even be acceptable to settle such a question as what portion of the system PHEV owners use their vehicle the most for.

Most PHEV prioritize battery and switch to combustion only when battery is depleted, so in short everyday trips, the ICE might never engage for instance. My personal experience in the EU was these cars mostly running at low speed in urban settings in electric mode (noise is different so you can tell)

jimbob45• 4 years ago

I’d agree with you. If there’s gas in it, then I don’t consider it an EV.

jillesvangurp2• 4 years ago

Also, Tesla is in the process of roughly doubling their capacity with their new factories. Texas and Berlin only came online fairly recently. The plan with all four of the Tesla production sites is to get to 500K vehicles per site per year. That's 2M vehicles per year, up from around 1M last year. Originally the plan was to get the monthly production rate there end of this calendar year.

I think there will be a bit of back and forth between Tesla, Byd, and Volkswagen in the next few years. I don't think there are many more contenders for the #1 postion in terms of volume. Volkswagen seems to believe they can overtake Tesla in a few years and they are certainly investing heavily in their production capacity.

More interesting is who will have the guts to start targeting the low end market in Europe and the US. There's no technical need for cars to cost more than 10-15K in the low end price range. Existing manufacturers are happy to lurk at the high end with fat product margins.

However, there are a few cars well below 10K in the Chinese market already and it sure must be tempting to sell those with a fat margin in Europe. Even with a 5K markup they'd still be way cheaper than anything else in the market. The main cost driver is the size of the batteries. Light cars can get a lot more miles out of a relatively small battery. And of course battery prices continue to drop as well.

A small reasonable car could sell much higher volumes than the current batch of ridiculously oversized SUVs that people seem to spend many tens of thousands on. IMHO that would create some challenges for legacy manufacturers that are currently very dependent on selling cheap crappy ICE cars to cost conscious consumers. A cheap EV with large fuel and maintenance savings is basically going to kill that market in no time. Some people are predicting 2028 as a key year where a lot of the demand for that will start dipping to problematic ranges. By that time a lot of new factories will be producing batteries and cars.

ano88888• 4 years ago

and yet Tesla PE is still sky high even during a bear market. Their stock value cannot be justified unless you believe they will continue to dominate EV market, they will have auto driving cars replacing uber , they will have Tesla bots in every office ,home and factory, their ai software will dominate the market.

hansword3• 4 years ago

You forgot, they will solar-roof every house, solve traffic, replace public transport, and provide transportation in Space and on Mars.

baq3• 4 years ago

They might actually deliver on the space thing.

mmarq• 4 years ago

Their stock value is somehow correlated with bitcoin, that suggest the same people are investing in both for similar reasons.

brtkdotse2• 4 years ago

The Tesla stock price is based off of the cult-of-personality followers of the CEO and his promises that FSD, Cybertruck and Tesla Semi are _just around the corner_

extheat3• 4 years ago

The latter two are just a matter of mass production, intentionally delayed in favor of other priorities. FSD is certainly possible, and good headway is being made on it. When it’ll be as good as a human however is an unresolved matter setting aside the hype and speculation.

cypress662• 4 years ago

People have been saying that for years, but their growth and margins continue to be incredible year after year.

And it seems like other manufacturers, even if they make good EVs, won't be able to scale their battery production quick enough. Meanwhile Tesla is quite ahead in this department.

rcxdude• 4 years ago

Both statements can be true at once. Tesla can have incredible growth and margins for many years and still be overvalued at its current price. (I personally believe both are true: Tesla obviously does have a lot of potential to grow from where they are now, but their stock price implies a level of dominance which seems unrealistic).

sschueller• 4 years ago

Tesla stock is like crypto. People are HODL and will sink with the ship to the bottom but the "captain" will bail long before then if he doesn't already have one foot on the pier...

jillesvangurp2• 4 years ago

If you just look at their cost advantage, their war chest, and construction plans, you can pretty much extrapolate that they will be a major car manufacturer by the end of the decade with volume sales ranging well over 10M vehicles unless something happens. They seem to be well capable of creating more production capacity. They seem to have no demand problem. So, there are lots of good reasons to assume they might be growing quite a lot in the next years.

Their expressed goal is actually closer to 20M vehicles long term. That would be on top of their plans in the energy sector (batteries, virtual power plants, etc.). And on top to eventually have a cheap, driver less car on the road. That last one is a bit of a controversial goal and you may have some reservations about whether they can or cannot do that. But if you are an investor you might reasonably lean one way or another and buy accordingly.

If you look just at their current size and assume they cannot possibly do more and grow, then yes, you'd be right to be skeptical. If on the other hand you look at what they did with quarter on quarter growth (until the current one), and extrapolate that some years in the future you might start wondering where that might end up and you might see a path to Tesla becoming quite big indeed.

The reason the share price is high is obviously that there are a lot of share holders that believe that Tesla is well on their way executing the necessary steps to reach all of their ambitious goals. They seem to have a head start on other manufacturers both in volume production and cost savings. That won't last forever. But at the scale of Tesla's ambition, having a lot of control over their suppliers and R&D related to that is a smart strategy if you plan to grow aggressively and something that most of their competitors are still figuring out. Maybe some of them will and maybe some of them will have to sell products at a loss for some time to come just to keep up.

IMHO, the biggest threat for Tesla are not European or US companies but Chinese manufacturers. The market is plenty big enough for the both of them though. It will be interesting which of the ICE car manufacturers survive this decade.

saos• 4 years ago

This was always going to happen once the big boys stepped in

kjksf11• 4 years ago

Except BYD is not the "Big Boy".

They sold 730k cars in 2021.

While respectable, it's less that Tesla's 900k and clearly not in the VW / Toyota league.

If anything, it's BYD and Tesla that are chasing the big boys while the big boys, with the exception of VW, still seem to be half asleep when it comes to EVs.

lnsru2• 4 years ago

The people are different and their taste is different. One must really love Tesla’s design language. For me it’s weird with single big display in the middle and I picked competing Kia EV6 model just because of that.

Tesla is/was a status symbol without competition for long time and logically it will need to adapt to the new reality. There are Mercedes EQS and EQE now. Well made luxury cars from old luxury brand with known history. There are many many new brands coming with electric vehicles in all segments and Tesla will have hard times for sure.

brodo• 4 years ago

They still have the best software. That’s why I think the new Apple Car Play is such a big deal. If everyone uses their phones OS on their car, Teslas advantage goes away.

iasay7• 4 years ago

I’d rather the car has no software at all past simple audio connection myself. My current set up is a BT connection to my iOS device and it is absolutely spot on for reliability and I have full voice and tactile controls for everything.

mike_d7• 4 years ago

They have pretty software that is shit.

I don't own a Tesla, but whenever I ride with friends the center console shows an overhead type view of the other cars around. The cars randomly blink in and out, indicating it doesn't know if the other car really exists or not.

A cars UI has has exactly one function: provide accurate and actionable information to the driver. You should never need to second guess the information you are receiving.

brtkdotse2• 4 years ago

Tesla dropped the ball going from niche bespoke vehicles to mass production. Big “senior engineer from Chernobyl” as they disregarded a lot of common automotive knowledge and opted for consumer grade components.

colordrops2• 4 years ago

Can you be more specific? I've been driving mine for almost 5 years now and it's better in almost every way to every other care I've ever owned.

padjo• 4 years ago

The EV6 looks stunning. Tesla design feels very old and boring now. Gotta be like 6 years since they updated the design right?

hef198983• 4 years ago

I'm still looking forward to see Tesla pull off its first face lift followed by its first model update. There are still things legacy manufacturers do routinely that Tesla never did so far.

kjksf11• 4 years ago

Both Model 3 and Model Y are best selling cars with 1 year wait list for new orders.

Changing the design would be a very stupid thing to do.

Don't fix what ain't broke.

Unlike other car makers with yearly cadence of changes, Tesla iterates on the guts of the car on an ongoing basis.

Model 3 / Y got front casting with giant casting machines.

Then back casting.

Then structural battery pack.

Ongoing work on improving the batteries etc.

colordrops2• 4 years ago

Tastes differ. The EV6 looks like a smashed crossover to me. Really not a fan of the wagon/crossover look.

notacoward4• 4 years ago

Tesla design isn't so much about looking good as about looking distinctive. People have to be able to tell that it's a Tesla before they even see the logo. It's a characteristic of fashion/vanity brands in all markets. As another example, a lot of fashionable clothes or shoes are actually - and often deliberately - quite unappealing by any standards much outside the fashion industry (including "influencers") itself.

parkingrift3• 4 years ago

I tried out the Kia and Hyundai EV platform and found the infotainment incredibly bad. The Kia in particular is a case study in UX anti patterns. Toggles for switching the same capacitive buttons between different functions is almost a caricature of good UX in a car.

The Hyundai was better, but still everything was capacitive and unintuitive.

The Tesla big screen and UX is also bad, but I certainly wouldn’t put the Kia or Hyundai infotainment on a pedestal as a job well done. I am personally waiting to see what Honda or Toyota release.

A bigger issue (to me) is that EVs are just too expensive. You won’t save money unless you’re comparing an EV to a luxury car. If you’re comparison shopping an EV6 against a CRV you’ll never get the numbers to work. And if you’re in the market for a luxury car would you rather have a Kia or a Tesla??

kjksf11• 4 years ago

EVs are just too expensive

Per https://insideevs.com/news/586195/tesla-model3-rwd-tco-toyot... 5-year Total Cost of Ownership of Model 3 SR is about the same as Toyota Camry for an average 10k miles / year driver.

And that was probably calculated with the old gas prices.

And if you get the new usage based insurance from Tesla (available in 8 US states) then you might additionally save on insurance (see e.g. https://twitter.com/jd_average/status/1543083099701010434 saving $1.6k for 2 cars compared to Geico).

lnsru2• 4 years ago

I mostly have calls while driving, so infotainment is rather secondary gadget for me. Software will be ironed out in coming months. The car is still too new. I think even parking brake was failing and recent software update fixed it.

I wouldn’t buy any current Tesla as luxury car. EQS is my favorite or BMW iX as cheaper alternative. Or 2008 Tesla Roadster :-) I know couple very wealthy individuals driving that ancient car as a statement.

Edit: about being too expensive. I doubt it. With current petrol prices in Germany my monthly saving on petrol alone will pay for electric vehicle. I forecast seeing liter for 2,5€ in winter here.

hericium• 4 years ago

And if you’re in the market for a luxury car would you rather have a Kia or a Tesla??

Tesla build quality[1] has nothing in common with luxury. Lucid is trying to fill the "luxury EV" gap.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgjVvetGPak

cjrp• 4 years ago

A bigger issue (to me) is that EVs are just too expensive. You won’t save money unless you’re comparing an EV to a luxury car.

Certainly in terms of raw price, but a lot of companies in the UK are doing effectively a company car scheme so you pay for the car pre-tax (saving about 20-45% depending on your tax rate). That same saving doesn't apply to ICE vehicles (gets eaten up by benefit in kind tax).

fjfjfjlwerklj4• 4 years ago

Well made luxury cars from old luxury brand with known history.

I laugh whenever I hear someone talking about Tesla, etc, "disrupting" the "legacy auto industry". The "legacy auto industry" (and I'm mostly talking about the German manufacturers) are going to be just fine. After all, they are the backbone of one of the dominant EU member states. Do you really think they are going to be caught by surprise by the mandated transition to EVs?

hansword3• 4 years ago

While this claim is a bit dubious (at present), as Tesla had lockdown-related problems, and BYD vehicles are just as likely to be plug-in hybrids as full EVs, the trend looks like, by the end of the year, Volkswagen will likely sell more EVs than Tesla.

Edit: typo

rob74• 4 years ago

Tesla is no longer the largest EV producer, if you consider plug-in hybrids EVs. Reminds me of the great idea of German politicians to "save" the "ailing" car industry (while pretending to be doing something positive for the environment) during Covid by heavily subsidizing EVs, where the definition included plug-in hybrids. Which led to a run on large luxury plug-in hybrid SUVs, which probably use more gas than a smaller non-hybrid car, and it's safe to say the plug-in charging functionality is seldom used (although with the increase of fuel prices since Russia invaded Ukraine, maybe some owners will now start searching for the charging cable).

Fnoord• 4 years ago

Hybrid seems like a huge shade of gray though, while the two ends on the spectrum are absolute. How efficient a hybrid is would depend on where on the spectrum it lies, whether that suits your usual needs, and how often you have these exceptions. Also, in order to utilize a charging cable you need to have access to a charging station. Not everyone has that, nor a garage. Fuel prices have gone up, but so has electricity prices.

cloutchaser• 4 years ago

Perfect example of how government intervention has the opposite of the intended effect.

stkdump• 4 years ago

I don't think that is really the case here. It is more greenwashing of the intentional effect to subsidise expensive cars.

occz• 4 years ago

SUVs in general should probably either be outright banned or taxed to the point of not being competitive anymore. The immense harm they cause is just laughable, and the benefits are highly dubious.

fjfjfjlwerklj4• 4 years ago

In the next few years, the majority of new cars (at least, those sold in the EU) will be bloated hybrid SUVs. It's the most cost-efficient way for manufacturers to meet the EU emissions regulations, and apparently will help us transition.

Gigachad• 4 years ago

SUVs have become a prime target for activist vandalism recently. Oversized and not linked to any practical work use like other large vehicles.

dangus2• 4 years ago

I would qualify this more. A Chevy Tahoe/Suburban is a much different SUV than a Toyota Corolla Cross, which has a better fuel efficiency rating than my conventional sedan.

The latter is a car in basically every way that matters and would be described as a hatchback if the marketing department didn’t have their way.

I think the best type of tax would be on weight, emissions, and energy usage, the factors that most greatly affect the public (road maintenance, public health, and climate change/resource consumption, respectively).

ZeroGravitas• 4 years ago

So you're claiming that hybrids are bad, if a) people buy a bigger car than they would otherwise, and b) never plug it in.

Is this true, and does it actually happen in numbers we should care about and why do you think it is true? Did some respected environmental group suggest this was bad for the environment?

Or like a comment lower down, do you believe that every government regulation mysteriously has a perfect 180 degree backfire? Which would be fascinating if true, but seems unlikely.

I looked up Greenpeace's take on this:

Short version, Public Transport > BEV > PHEV > HEV > ICE and various non vehicle things should be kept in mind like designing cities around people not cars, supporting auto workers during the transition, ensuring the wider electric grid is decarbonised, reducing the carbon impact of steel manufacturing and mining are all important goals.

They're keen that HEV get phased out at the same time as ICE (no new sales after 2028 in EU) and warn that PHEVs are being overmarketed but still seem to think they're better than ICE alone, but not as good as EVs.

https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-eastasia-stateless...

benj111• 4 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if hybrids were better for the environment than evs.

every comment I see about any ev is more range. but the fact of the matter is, most people don't travel that far most of the time. So if you buy a hybrid with a range of 100 miles electric, with an IC just in case, but that never gets used. thats less embodied energy than building a 400 mile range ev where the extra 300 miles still doesn't get used.

Or in other words we can all construct a scenario that proves the point we want to make.

xiphias22• 4 years ago

Hybrids that companies bought with lots of tax deductions were not used as hybrids (gasoline was payed by the company).

Hybrids bought by private people are usually used in EV mode.

The problem is the 10x mismatch between the expected CO2/pollutant emissions and the estimated after usage for company owned PHEVs. They caused a mess in EU.

Markoff• 4 years ago

Tesla never was largest EV producer, if you consider hybrids, Toyota was always bigger

mike_d7• 4 years ago

It was always going to be easier for [your favorite traditional car company] to figure out non-internal combustion drive trains than it was going to be for Tesla to catch up on 100 years of how to build really good cars.

The smart move from the beginning for everyone except Elon was to become a drivetrain OEM.

Edit: removed the reference to a specific car brand because people got hung up on it.

dotancohen6• 4 years ago

GM's been trying to figure out the non-ICE drivetrains for three decades. They have a tradition of one step forward, three steps back. I'm confident that GM will take another step forward. I'm also fairly certain they'll take as many steps back as well.

011000113• 4 years ago

My Bolt is awesome. I don't know how they would significantly improve it.

Unfortunately it's a lease. Due to the upcoming glut of used cars, I'll probably switch to a used hybrid when the lease runs out. I'll miss the Bolt and the full EV drivetrain though.

mgiannopoulos2• 4 years ago

I see no mention of GM in the article. It talks about Chinese automaker BYD.

nosefrog• 4 years ago

I find the implication here that GM makes good cars amusing.

kjksf11• 4 years ago

You picked a strange company to make that point.

GM sold 7k "plug in" cars in Q2 2022. That's compared with ~250k pure EV by Tesla. It's 1.2% of GM's total sales.

Their overall sales are declining for the past 5 years.

That doesn't look like a company that has figure out how to make EV at scale.

The supposedly "smart move" isn't reflected in GM's EV sales or their profit margins.

mike_d7• 4 years ago

Don't read too much in to it, I just picked a random car company that had been around for a long time.

jaimex2• 4 years ago

Strange it's not measuring sales.

pmorici4• 4 years ago

The article doesn’t support its own headline. BYD sold 323k EVs while Tesla sold 564k for the first 6 months of the year.

So called plug-in hybrids that represent the other half of BYD’s sales are just gas powered cars with a very small battery similar to a Prius. To call them EV’s is fake news.

timbit42• 4 years ago

The Prius isn't a plug-in hybrid and the NiMH battery can only go a few kilometers. The Prius Prime (aka. Prius Plug-in Hybrid) is a plug-in hybrid with a Li-ion battery that can go 40 kilometers.

pmorici4• 4 years ago

Yeah, exactly, not an ev. 40k is so little it wouldn’t even cover the average daily driving distance in the US

bArray• 4 years ago

During ongoing Chinese lockdowns and a global chip shortage where local manufacturing is favoured, this isn't a surprise. I also wouldn't be surprised if this was somewhat malicious, allowing competitors to steal IP and build up their local competitors.

There is yet not a good answer to preventing global IP theft. With Western laws, the only thing we have successfully done is prevent localized IP theft, whilst foreign Countries continue to benefit from directly stealing it.

alimbada• 4 years ago

325% YoY increase in sales. I wondered how - a quick google of "byd forced labor" brings up plenty of articles regarding allegations of Uyghur forced labour including a public letter to the CEO of BYD from the UN Office of Human Rights.[1]

[1] https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublic...

Tesla is no longer the largest EV producer

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