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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

#141

Post by jeltz »

LunicLynx wrote: post #94
jeltz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WV seems to do amazingly in Europe so not sure what you are talking about. It is Tesla thaumt seems to be leaving the EV market with no new exciting models and making the European market hate the brand. https://www.best-selling-cars.com/electric/2025-half-year-eu...

Reuters disagrees https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volksw...

Seems to me like they largely agree. VW has issues caused by US tariffs and problems with Porsche but EV sales in Europe are growing and carries the rest of the company.

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

#142

Post by cindyllm »

carlosjobim wrote: post #133
noosphr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we've seen the end game yet. I have an electric cargo bike. During a kids party yesterday I ran 5 different errands with it while someone with a car managed to get stuck in traffic, not find a parking spot, and miss the whole thing. 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…

Episode n# 348 of hackers never having heard about motorcycles. There's almost a billion motorcycles in the world currently.

[dead]

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

#143

Post by bryanlarsen »

gmueckl wrote: post #56
bryanlarsen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with the sole exception of marathon (>450 miles per day) road trips I've done 4 3000km road trips and intentionally took the EV leaving the ICE vehicle at home. It's a better car, and we need to stop to bathroom anyways, so charging isn't inconvenient. Saving a few hundred dollars in fuel is nice, too.

Long EV trips are possible amd convenient if there are enough chargers along the route. Sadly, this isn't the case on many routes in the US, at least. Europe is doing much better. I have no experience in other places.

Like what route? Everytime I've talked to someone who claimed they couldn't buy an EV because of a certain route, abetterrouteplanner.com showed it was covered.

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

#144

Post by Animats »

lifty wrote: post #85
JKCalhoun wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Americans only want trucks and SUVs." (I hear people say.) Cool. Then allow BYD non-trucks, non-SUVs into the U.S. then. The Japanese back in the 70's showed U.S. automakers that price and mileage (in that decade anyway) were important to Americans. I suspect price is still important.

Why would they allow it? It would destroy the remaining car industry in the US. Better to at least maintain a car industry, even if it’s inefficient.

The historical track record of that kind of thing is terrible. You end up with a bloated, inefficient industry that produces bad products. Britain, pre-EU, did a lot of that. British Steel, British Rail, British Overseas Airways Corporation, British Petroleum, English Electric computers, etc. Then they needed bailouts. This resulted in what's called "lemon socialism" - the state owns all the dud industries.

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

#145

Post by fwip »

pixl97 wrote: post #119
Marsymars wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, F150 lightening is such a failure. There was a recent video of it trying to haul very minimal load and it pretty much drained the battery in less than 100 miles. Was that due to something specific with the Lightning, or was it just due to the intrinsic energy requirements of hauling loads? (Or in other words, does an EV even exist that's notably better at hauling loads?)

I want an electric drive train with the engine that works like a generator at a fixed speed. Don't think anyone offers something like this.

They exist, but I don't think there's currently any new models for sale in the US. I think they're generally called "series hybrid," or sometimes it's marketed as an electric vehicle with range extender.

I believe the Chevy Volt worked this way - you can see used ones for sale for around $15k.

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

#146

Post by jeltz »

LunicLynx wrote: post #92
jeltz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. VW is up 78% and the market in general EV sales is up by 22%. It is actually just mostly Tesla doing poorly. https://www.best-selling-cars.com/electric/2025-half-year-eu...

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volksw...

What has their losses due to American tariffs have to do with their huge success in EV sales in Europe? Please stay on topic.

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

#147

Post by augusto-moura »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #100

Fake news? Seems like Tesla is doing just fine down there. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/byd-blows-past-rivals-tesla-1...

Nop, not fake, being Brazilian I hardly see any Teslas, BYD on the other hand are everywhere. Brazil is not the whole South America, but it is the biggest consumer of EVs so far, also the largest market

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

#148

Post by 01100011 »

audunw wrote: post #127
tensor wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree on all points, but what self driving tech is better? I've periodically looked at the options, and nothing really seems to compare in North America. Maybe BYD and others have great tech, but stuff like Blue Cruise works hardly anywhere in Canada, and to me, that makes it virtually useless.

He’s probably thinking of robo taxi self driving. So that would be e.g. Waymo. I don’t think anyone has better self driving for consumers out atm, but you could argue that’s because other companies are not using their customers as beta testers. I’ve seen demos that may indicate Mobileye has tech that’s just as good if not better. But they don’t release it to end users until it’s fully ready. I don’t think Tesla has a…

Yeah this.

The argument for years has been something like:

> Tesla will solve self-driving and everyone will be left unable to compete. Also, AI is advancing rapidly and will solve all kinds of problems for society.

But apparently it will not solve self-driving for anyone else but Tesla.

I gave up trying to argue with Tesla fans years ago. They are immune to logic which invalidates their priors.

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

#149

Post by kattagarian »

happosai wrote: post #16
billy99k wrote: post #5

This is a result of over regulation in the auto industry. I always shake my head at the group of people that wants cheaper prices on goods and services, but propose regulating large companies to death. China is winning because they don't have to work around pesky labor or IP laws. Then we have people pointing to how much better they are at business and also want all these protections.

You have no idea how regulated car business in China is... For example china is regulating the "innovative" Tesla style door handles.. https://carnewschina.com/2025/09/24/new-safety-requirements-...

While i don't doubt the chinese market is incredibly regulated, this car handle is a terrible trend started by tesla. Many cases were people couldn't open their cars because because it's eletronic was damaged. There is open investigations open in the US about the same thing too. If frozen, the thing becomes impossible to open too. And the manual handle inside is also known for being easily forgotten in cases of panic.

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

#150

Post by 01100011 »

dzonga wrote: post #108
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

Tesla also has a big Elon problem in that the blue cities where self-driving Taxis will be most profitable may opt for Waymo or boycott Tesla over politics.
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