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Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

reuters.com

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Re: Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

#101

Post by ErroneousBosh »

impossiblefork wrote: post #81
fpoling wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A modern small and medium-sized car in Europe consumes like 4-6 liters/100 km. Even if one drives 15 thousands km/year (way above average) that gives like 900 liters of gasoline per year or like 1500-1700 euros with typical European prices. And electricity is not free especially when using fast chargers. So at the end the savings is about 500-1000 euros per year. Which still is a good deal, but explains why people pr…

Ah. I hadn't realised that modern petrol cars had gotten that efficient. When I had a petrol car it was like at least 12 L/100 km, probably more. I remember 100 km drives (Stockholm-Uppsala and back) costing hundreds of Swedish crowns in petrol.

> When I had a petrol car it was like at least 12 L/100 km, probably more

What was it? That's approximately what my late-90s Range Rover does, although it's converted to run on LPG which is much cheaper and much much much cleaner.

Re: Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

#102

Post by nine_k »

Ankaios wrote: post #98
rr808 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is to create an ICE is a very complicated process requiring lots of specialist knowledge, skills and technologies. An EV is just much simpler, comes down to who has the cheapest batteries. Europe and Japan are great at the former, the latter no chance.

Europe and Japan are great at the former, the latter no chance. Europe and Japan should be totally capable of producing super inexpensive batteries. They just don't, at the moment.

How? By building entirely automated factories, they way they do for medicine production?

Re: Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

#103

Post by forinti »

moffkalast wrote: post #82
toomuchtodo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BYD recently went live with a highly automated, large scale manufacturing facility in Brazil. The BYD Dolphin Mini sells for ~$22,500, and the manufacturer already has 200 showrooms open across the country. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/22/cop-brazil... https://www.byd.com/us/news-list/First-BYD-Electric-Vehicle-...

I'm surprised Mercedes was ever price competitive for taxis even in Germany, I mean the average VW would do the job just as well at half the cost. These days they're both priced like they're selling Ferraris anyway so yeah. The ID Buzz starting at 70k EUR is such a joke.

I remember all taxis in Portugal being beige Mercedes in the 80s,when Portugal wasn't well off. I guess their durability is what made them worthwhile.

Re: Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

#104

Post by forinti »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #34
weinzierl wrote: post #18

When I grew up in Germany it always made me proud that 100% of taxis were Mercedes Benz. If a car can withstand the rough demands of taxi service, it has to be good. And even in South America back then German cares were ubiquitous, especially Volkswagen. When I was in Brazil this spring[*] I rode a lot of Uber and they were 100% BYD - 100%, no exception. It's not that my head hadn't known that German auto was dead bu…

BYD recently went live with a highly automated, large scale manufacturing facility in Brazil. The BYD Dolphin Mini sells for ~$22,500, and the manufacturer already has 200 showrooms open across the country. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/22/cop-brazil... https://www.byd.com/us/news-list/First-BYD-Electric-Vehicle-...

They are everywhere. The only limit to adoption is that many people live in buildings where chargers can't easily be installed.

Re: Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

#105

Post by FireBeyond »

inthaiguy wrote: post #36

I wonder how many clicks Reuters get on "Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America - without Tesla" vs "Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America"

Well, as Tesla fans like to remind people, the MY is or has been the most popular model of EV.

So yeah, to see EVs in South America without Tesla is actually newsworthy.

Re: Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

#107

Post by SoftTalker »

moffkalast wrote: post #82
toomuchtodo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BYD recently went live with a highly automated, large scale manufacturing facility in Brazil. The BYD Dolphin Mini sells for ~$22,500, and the manufacturer already has 200 showrooms open across the country. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/22/cop-brazil... https://www.byd.com/us/news-list/First-BYD-Electric-Vehicle-...

I'm surprised Mercedes was ever price competitive for taxis even in Germany, I mean the average VW would do the job just as well at half the cost. These days they're both priced like they're selling Ferraris anyway so yeah. The ID Buzz starting at 70k EUR is such a joke.

Mercedes taxis in Europe are not appointed like the cars they sell in North America. They are just normal cars there.

Re: Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

#108

Post by dzonga »

weinzierl wrote: post #18

When I grew up in Germany it always made me proud that 100% of taxis were Mercedes Benz. If a car can withstand the rough demands of taxi service, it has to be good. And even in South America back then German cares were ubiquitous, especially Volkswagen. When I was in Brazil this spring[*] I rode a lot of Uber and they were 100% BYD - 100%, no exception. It's not that my head hadn't known that German auto was dead bu…

Tesla has no moat

1. Batteries - BYD has them beat 2. Self Driving tech - other players are better 3. Luxury brands already provide the luxury aspect & even better built cars 4. in the US they're being saved by US protectionism. in Europe etc - we already see the chinese brands making inroads for EV sales

Re: Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

#109

Post by lostlogin »

grosswait wrote: post #76
lostlogin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ford has said unequivocally that they'll never make an all-electric muscle car What’s the thinking here? Pandering to some market segment? It sounds like they are organising the deck chairs in the titanic. Edit: I tried looking into the comment. It seems he was referring to Mustangs specifically, which is weird as they do make an electric one (assuming you agree it’s a ‘real’ mustang). I’m confused.

It’s not though. Just borrowing the name as they said.

That’s just it though. If the name doesn’t make it a Mustang, what does?

Re: Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

#110

Post by sofixa »

jack_tripper wrote: post #69
sofixa wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only reason why cars are the size and shape they are is because ICE engines couldn't be made smaller. Electric engines on the other hand are small enough that I can have the chassis of a fully functioning car be light enough to lift by one man. Nope, the Smart existed for quite a while. Safety standards made cars slightly bigger (e.g. the new Renault Twingo is bigger than the original), but modern American "car…

>but the average car is a VW Golf or a Renault Clio sized That hasn't been the case here in a long time. SUVs and crossovers are outselling all other categories.

Where is "here"?

Most cars on this list, and the ones I see while living in one big European city, and regularly visiting lots of others, are not SUVs. There are plenty of them, but even then it's on the smaller side (e.g. a Renault Captur, not a Escalade 8 wheeled 65ton)

https://bestsellingcarsblog.com/2025/11/europe-october-2025-...

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