Is a Tesla a German car?

Tesla sold over one million cars for the first time in 2022.

3. března 2023 ve 1:45 ET
Autor: Juan Felipe Munoz
Adaptace: Christopher Smith
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The gap between Tesla, with its popular electric cars, and Germany’s three premium carmakers continues to close. This is the main conclusion of last year’s preliminary sales volume results. The massive push by governments around the world for electric cars certainly has a winner. And it’s not the traditional brands.

Tesla Has Recharged

Once a niche manufacturer, Tesla is finally a millionaire automaker in terms of units sold. Last year, the US-based company delivered 1.31 million vehicles worldwide. For the first time since its creation a few years ago, the brand has exceeded the milestone of 1 million. But the most surprising part is the comparison with the volumes of 2021: deliveries have increased by 40 percent in a very complex global context.

And Tesla, which recently presented its Investor Day from its headquarters in Austin, Texas, without announcing new product launches, has set a sales target of 1.8 million units for 2023.

It was the Model 3 that first drove growth between 2018 and 2021. It has allowed Tesla to expand its presence in Europe and China. Once the company caught on with consumers, it introduced the Model Y, a car-like crossover, to continue the pace of growth. Since then, deliveries have not stopped growing. The volume grew 17-fold between 2016 and 2022.

Stalled Traditional Brands

On the other side, there are the traditional premium brands, led by the BMW Group, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi. They have dominated the premium car market for decades thanks to their ability to anticipate demand and offer a plethora of different models to suit all tastes.

Last year, BMW Group led this premium club with 2.40 million vehicles sold under its BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce brands. However, volume fell 5 percent due to demand woes in Germany and China, its two main commercial outlets.

Mercedes-Benz followed in second place which, unlike BMW, managed to increase sales by 5 percent to 2.04 million units. The performances, lower than those of Tesla, can be explained by the excellent results obtained in the United States, the second reference market.

Audi finished, as usual, in third place. With 1.61 million vehicles sold, the Ingolstadt-based house recorded a 4 percent drop in deliveries compared to 2021. The global decline is due to the Chinese division.

Věc času

Last year’s ranking is an early indicator of how Tesla is preparing to change the status quo in the global premium car market. The company continues to expand its global presence through the opening of new plants, including the recently inaugurated Berlin facility and the newly announced Mexican facility.

At the same time, a small hatchback/crossover from Tesla is expected to be announced soon, and of course there is the Cybertruck arriving eventually. The EV brand wants a spot in entry-level and lucrative truck segments.

Meanwhile, German premiums are doing their best to improve the technology and performance of their cars so they can participate in the electric vehicle boom. However, recent data points to the opposite: Combined 2022 pure EV sales from Audi, BMW, and Mercedes totaled 483,200 units, or just 37 percent of Tesla’s overall volume.

Další čísla Motor1:

If the shift to battery-powered vehicles continues into 2023, Tesla is likely to overtake Audi by the end of this year. And it will be just the beginning of an electrifying race against what, to this day, the industry considers the technology trendsetter.

Autor článku Felipe Munoz je specialistou na automobilový průmysl ve společnosti JATO Dynamics.

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US company delivered 889,015 cars in the first half of this year, more electric vehicles than Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz Group and Porsche sold combined

25. července 2023
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Germany’s car makers announced bold plans the past several years to shift to electric cars and challenge Tesla’s dominance. Instead, they are falling farther behind.

Tesla delivered 889,015 cars in the first half of this year, more electric vehicles than Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz Group and Porsche sold combined.

The Germans are struggling as software problems delay models and contribute to waning sales in China, their biggest market, where Tesla and local champion BYD have raced ahead.

They are also playing second fiddle in their home market, where Tesla remains the leading EV brand.

Investors will hear from three of the German companies this week, with Porsche reporting quarterly earnings on Wednesday, followed by Mercedes and VW on Thursday.

As Tesla pushes for more volume with aggressive price cuts, it is increasing the pressure on legacy manufacturers that are struggling to keep pace. Tesla’s EV sales increased 30 percentage points more than VW’s in the three months that ended in June, widening its lead.

While the Germans are in difficult talks with unions about retooling their combustion-era production sites, Tesla plans to expand its German factory and is preparing to build a plant in Mexico.

“Tesla is still miles ahead of the German car makers in all the major markets,” said Matthias Schmidt, an auto analyst based near Hamburg. “They’re under pressure to boost volumes to reach the kind of economies of scale needed to make EVs profitable.”

Germany’s car makers thrived because they perfected the production of vehicles running on petrol and diesel, with hundreds of high-quality local parts makers supplying them with gearboxes, fuel injectors and crankshafts. Now that the battery is taking over, their “Vorsprung durch Technik” has evaporated.

FOTOGRAFIE: Tesla předává první vozy vyrobené v novém závodě v Gruenheide

1. Tesla Model Y. Reuters

In Europe’s biggest economy, inflationary pressures, a dearth of skilled workers and high energy prices are adding to the structural challenges posed by the EV shift. German car makers’ expectations are at their lowest since the 2008 financial crisis, according to a survey the Munich-based Ifo Institute published this month.

The Germans’ biggest threat is their weakening position in China.

VW, BMW and Mercedes dominated combustion-car sales in the world’s biggest car market for decades, but recently have fallen behind Chinese brands that have been better at building affordable EVs with technology and software geared to local tastes.

Mercedes cut prices in China for its flagship electric sedan, the EQS, late last year after poor sales.

VW, in particular, has come under pressure, with BYD outselling the company in China during the first quarter. The German manufacturer’s EV sales in China dipped in the first half in a market that grew 20 per cent.

EVs are expected to make up 90 per cent of the Chinese market by 2030, adding urgency for the Germans to accelerate more competitive EV offerings. Europe’s biggest car maker last month replaced the chief executive of Audi partly because it wants to halt the brand’s slide in the country.

The current EV leaders in China “will tighten their grip on the market”, analysts from HSBC said in a report this month. “With the exception of Tesla, we think they will all be China EV brands.”

All is not lost. Elon Musk has left open a window of opportunity for incumbents looking to catch up, having launched his last new passenger vehicle – the Model Y – in 2020.

Tesla has not redesigned the Model 3 since it went into production six years ago, although work on a refresh is under way.

BYD, meanwhile, is steering clear of the US market because of trade barriers, and several smaller Chinese EV start-ups may not survive the industry’s price war.

The German companies still generate healthy profits selling combustion-engine models, including in China. Mercedes and BMW are not following Tesla out of premium price segments and are still roughly doubling EV sales, year-over-year.

Plans by the Germans to introduce EV-focused platforms around the middle of the decade to lower the cost of their electric cars and equip them with new technology could alter the dynamic.

VW is preparing a compact EV priced at less than €25,000 – a people’s car for the electric age – that is a couple of years away from production.

It recently bolstered its rolling five-year spending plan to €180 billion, with more than two-thirds going to software and EVs. Its ID. 7 sedan that will hit showrooms later this year comes with an augmented-reality display that beams information into the driver’s field of vision.

Mercedes will introduce an electric version of its compact CLA sedan in the US next year to better compete with Tesla’s Model 3, according to an Automotive News report. It is also electrifying the G-Wagon.

BMW is betting that its “Neue Klasse” underpinnings, scheduled to arrive around 2025, will help to improve sales. The manufacturer aims to cut battery costs by half and increase range and charging speed 30 per cent compared to current models.

„Německé platformy pro elektromobily nové generace by mohly věci změnit,“ řekl analytik Bloomberg Intelligence Michael Dean. “Tehdy od nich uvidíte velký tlak, také v Číně.”