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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

#191

Post by seanmcdirmid »

01100011 wrote: post #150
dzonga wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I just value my life enough that Waymo seems to be the better route. Tesla hasn’t shown that they’ve solved the problem while waymo definitely has.

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

#192

Post by seanmcdirmid »

energy123 wrote: post #156
vel0city wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different government subsidies, different manufacturing costs, different regulatory requirements, and different markets have different market competition. Think about this concept. It costs you $1 to make a widget. It costs your competitors $1.25 to make a similar widget. They sell theirs for $5. Do you sell yours for $1.50 or $4.75? Obviously, other things could be in play for the market for widgets, but if you coul…

A lot of this makes sense. But why would South America's consumer market be less competitive than China? If China's low prices are caused by, say, 3 Chinese brands competing with each other, why can't those 3 Chinese brands also compete with each other in South America?

Chinese brands are in a horrible price war ATM in China, with many cars being sold at losses (and tricks to get around government imposed price controls, like selling a new car as used!). In a less competitive market where they have more pricing power, they simply aren’t going to do that. And even if 3 brands have enough resources to go abroad, they left 10+ brands behind that couldn’t (every 3rd or greater tier city has their own brand, so even saying 10 is probably an underestimate, heck you have cities like Liuzhou that aren’t even 3rd tier!).

They will also sell higher end configurations abroad to make it worth their time. They won’t sell the absolute bare bones option that comes with almost no profit (if not a loss).

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

#193

Post by rootusrootus »

GiorgioG wrote: post #96
gmueckl wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Different people optimize for different things. I have a 450 mile trip (each way) next weekend. I can do it in 1 full tank of gas, but realistically I’ll stop once to fill up halfway. I don’t plan any other stops. If I had an EV, I’d probably have to stop twice, for 30+ minutes each, extending my already long trip by an hour each way.

Honestly, even my Lightning could do 450 with one stop, and it’s not the poster child for high range. My model 3 would do that no problem and the stop would be half as long.

My back and butt beg me to stop every couple hundred miles anyway, so on a long road trip I plan for a lunch stop. Longer than 450 and I stop for the night or fly. But I don’t love road tripping no matter how big the has tank.

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

#194

Post by nutjob2 »

yunnpp wrote: post #125
nutjob2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly the German car industry has lost its way in the EV transition and is now vainly trying to get the EU to rollback the sun setting of ICE car sales in 3035. Meanwhile the Chinese are eating their lunch.

3035? :)

Even 1010 years isn't enough time.

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

#195

Post by lawn »

LunicLynx wrote: post #90
lawn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Volkswagen is doing very well in Europe.

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

The article isn't at all about how Volkswagen is doing in Europe.

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

#196

Post by pfannkuchen »

energy123 wrote: post #137
pfannkuchen wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, at least domestically you don’t have to compete with someone who doesn’t have to pay that because their product is probably tariffed directly. Internationally, yes if you manufacture the international product in the home country, but AFAIK in auto at least there are usually satellite factories and have been for some time, and those wouldn’t be subject to home country tariffs would they?

Precisely, you need to set up plants overseas to dodge the input tariffs instead of onshoring manufacturing for export. That causes reductions in manufacturing investment compared to the alternative.

Compared to the alternative where the domestic plants don’t exist at all because they are competing domestically with low cost foreign products?

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

#197

Post by shermozle »

tensor wrote: post #115
dzonga wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

"I've tried all the options I have here in the country that banned the major players and I don't think any are better."

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

#198

Post by bgnn »

noosphr wrote: post #17
paxys wrote: post #7

Tesla was dead in the water when it became obvious that they couldn't make a sub-$30K car happen. They will still probably do well as a luxury brand, but China is going to fill in the demand for affordable EVs in the rest of the world outside USA/EU.

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…

This isn't correct. There were ICE mini and micro cars. It's just not popular in some countries like the US or Canada, but wildly popular in some (mainly Asia).

Nowadays there are electric micro cars too, like Citroën Ami. I believe Renault has sth too, and the Chinese brands too. They are cheap, often cheaper than an electric cargo bike!

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

#200

Post by tensor »

fragmede wrote: post #181
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.

http://comma.ai isn't self-driving, just really good cruise control (better than Blue cruise, imo), but most importantly, you can get it today. (And for less than $8k.)

TBF all I really want is highway driving. I probably even prefer signalling lane changes manually. Comma looks pretty neat.
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