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BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

electriccarsreport.com

131–140 of 341 posts

Re: BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

#131
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that's actually the dominant factor. The market share for EVs is still small enough that there's no real shortage of buyers. But it turns out that having a hundred years of domain experience building cars actually matters for something. Tesla cars have had a lot of avoidable failures on technical merits.

We cancelled ours when he tweeted and insinuated there were valid reasons for someone sneaking into the Pelosi house and hitting her husband in the head with a hammer. It would have been our second Tesla purchase and now we have none. Could not imagine being associated with Elon in any way and certainly not in the car I drive around.

The article is about European sales though. I know some European people are obsessed with American politics as if there was nothing worth discussing that's European, but the number of people who knows and cares about whatever happened at Nancy Pelosi's house, then knows what Elon had to say about that, then deciding it's so egregious that they can't buy a Tesla anymore it's probably single digits.

Re: BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

#132
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Tesla's execution has been really terrible. There's some really good tech inside their cars, but the direction of which cars to make, when, and the investments in non-car tech, the over-promising of "Full Self Driving," etc. All huge detractors. There's also the CEO, who has a huge public profile, deciding to become extremely political, which smart CEOs usually avoid doing because it has little potential to help…

Was it not the mission of Tesla to make electrical cars an alternative to cars running on petrol? To me this was achieved. Bmw or Tesla, i do not care about that too much. But we have an alternative. Great! And politics, well, only for people who do not agree with him it is an issue. But that's normal in politics, is it not?

I was seriously considering a Model X until Mr. Musk decided to open up on his political ideology..

Re: BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

#133

The Tesla brand has suffered enormously due to the actions of its owner.

Please show the evidence of how it has suffered

Multiple in thread mentions they cancelled their order due in whole or part to him, they are not alone. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41334247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41334102 etc

Personally, I decided to not to buy a Tesla because of how he over hyped self driving and then tried to weasel out by calling the system ‘full self driving’ when it’s clearly not. It doesn’t mean the cars are actually crap, but the company just came off as hella sketchy. Like how they didn’t care about panel gaps or similar issues because people were buying cars sight unseen, just gives this cheap vibe without actually hitting that price point.

It’s not that uncommon for people to quietly boycott companies. My mother refuses to get Starlink because of Musk.

Re: BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

#134
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that's actually the dominant factor. The market share for EVs is still small enough that there's no real shortage of buyers. But it turns out that having a hundred years of domain experience building cars actually matters for something. Tesla cars have had a lot of avoidable failures on technical merits.

As far as ICE vehicles go, most mechanics will advise you to lease a BMW / Audi over buying one. After 60k miles, the maintenance costs and electrical gremlins are noticeably frequent. German EV's are probably better built - fewer electrical issues over a longer duration (I hope), and fewer moving parts to replace. I think this is a product differentiation / segmentation problem. People who wanted the current Tesla o…

Surely the dealers leasing those vehicles are factoring cost of maintenance into the lease, no?

Re: BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

#135

And yet today BWM's marketcap is about $70bn (~53bn Euros) vs Tesla's $690bn. Is there really 10x the potential? Edit: My formulation is confusing. I meant whether folks really think that Tesla will eventually have 10x BMW's revenue.

Tesla has a market cap twice what Toyota does. They have a P/E ratio over 60, vs about 7 for Toyota. Clearly the market thinks Tesla's future is not as a car company, because compared to literally every other car manufacturer they are wildly overvalued.

My personal opinion is that TSLA has only one direction to go for a while. Down. Nothing about the business supports the market optimism. Not that I'm going to run out and short the stock, mind you, that old adage about how long the market can stay irrational seems very on point in this case.

Re: BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

#136
post #59
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The real reason Tesla is suffering is because they've not delivered on innovation, quality, or price in a long time. Haha what. Price has dropped, quality increased, their self driving tech recently had a step change in functionality. I don't really think Tesla is suffering but I think most of these narratives are in peoples heads and don't reflect reality.

The step-change is real, and a lot of people don't know that Tesla now has the best self-driving ability out of all the competition. But that's only true on 4th gen hardware, and unfortunately that represents a minority of the vehicles sold to date.

Mercedes is taking legal liability for their L3 system. That's better than Tesla

GM's supercruise allows safe hands free driving as a L2 system. That's better than Tesla

Waymo is operating a true L4 system in multiple markets. That's better than Tesla.

Tesla has a better than average L2 system in autopilot. They have a downright dangerous L2 system in FSD that through its very design encourages unsafe driving habits. It lulls drivers into a false sense of security, but FSD can still hand control to the driver at the very last moment when they are unprepared to safely operate a vehicle.

Research has shown the L2 systems that border on L3 capability are dangerous, which is why all of the competition is staying well clear of that design and yet Tesla is forging ahead. There are times when going against the grain is a path to innovation, like Tesla using thousands of small cells to deliver viable BEVs. Or SpaceX using fast iteration on cheap reusable rockets. This isn't one of those cases as research has shown this pathway is not just non-viable, it's a safety risks to the public. There is a reason everyone else is working on L3 and L4 and developing it under carefully controlled testing conditions and methodologies. Tesla just slaps 'beta' on it and sends 4000 lbs of steel out hoping it doesn't run anyone over. When SpaceX rockets blow up during testing no one gets hurt. That is not true of FSD development.

I love my Tesla, but FSD is dangerous and the marketing was well into scam territory. There is a reason NHTSA and the FTC both have gotten involved.

Re: BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right, but I'm not so sure it's actually impacting sales to a large degree. For most people a 50k car is a huge investment that won't hinge on whether or not you agree with the CEO's politics.

I think it should be the opposite. If you buy a cheap thing and suddenly start feeling uncomfortable using it in public, you can just buy another cheap thing. With expensive things, you want to play it safe, because replacing it will be expensive if you start having second thoughts.

99% of eligible buyers don’t care one way or another. As big as it may seem to you, the US neoliberal bubble is not really that large. That’s why Tesla sold 1.81M cars last year. It is a formidable number no matter how you look at it.

Re: BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

#138
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Tesla's execution has been really terrible. There's some really good tech inside their cars, but the direction of which cars to make, when, and the investments in non-car tech, the over-promising of "Full Self Driving," etc. All huge detractors. There's also the CEO, who has a huge public profile, deciding to become extremely political, which smart CEOs usually avoid doing because it has little potential to help…

Was it not the mission of Tesla to make electrical cars an alternative to cars running on petrol? To me this was achieved. Bmw or Tesla, i do not care about that too much. But we have an alternative. Great! And politics, well, only for people who do not agree with him it is an issue. But that's normal in politics, is it not?

Most of the EV market are people who find his politics disagreeable. He’s not doing his duty to shareholders by driving them away, especially for such pointlessly offensive things which have nothing to do with the business. This is why you almost certainly know nothing about the views of the CEOs of any other car company, and why Musk is almost certain to face lawsuits after the inevitable decline - a meme stock can’t last forever, and the fundamentals don’t support the current valuation at all.

Re: BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

#139
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’ve been in the BEV market for a bit. Not long after the first Tesla Model S was released, BMW released the i3. That one’s since been discontinued but they have at least 8 other BMW i models on the market.

The i3 was such a great city car, well ahead of its time. Such a shame that they have apparently abandoned the EV design ethos embodied in that car (and that car alone) in favour of bloated luxo-barges. Tell me that your EV strategy is about brand greenwashing without telling me it’s about brand greenwashing. They seem to be really focused on chasing the Boomer demographic. I’m a happy former customer (twice over) bu…

BMW has not abandoned it. i3 was a cool cheap car, with a carbon fiber cell. It was ugly as hell, but cool tech.

BMW platforms now are both for ICE and EV, but "Neue klasse" that will start to arrive soon is a from-scratch, new, electric only platform. That will really make the cars more spacious. The sportiest platform is supposedly architected for 1350 hp, so it will be interesting to see if BMW will take up the lap time fight with Porsche. That would be interesting.

Re: BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time

#140

The Tesla brand has suffered enormously due to the actions of its owner.

I think it has more to do with Tesla being the modern EV pioneer. They were the only game it town for a while, and had the best charging network. However, there have been a lot of stories about build quality issues for years.

As the established automaker move into the market and charging is standardized, it would stand to reason that Tesla would suffer, as people see they can get higher build quality from experienced brands. The cool-factor of Tesla also starts to wear off when they are everywhere. Last time I was in a place I needed to Uber a lot, 4 of the 5 riders were in Teslas.

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