The US auto industry under its pro-oil policy incentives is in for a disastrous long-term outlook in exchange for short-term prosperity.
At best, it’ll be a situation where the US market is segregated from the rest of the world: US auto consumers will be buying inferior vehicles from the rest of world that are more expensive to buy and own, since they will only be viable in the US market and will only be built in the US, Canada, and Mexico.
At worst, the US is setting itself for horrendous energy policy issues moving forward. Sure, the US produces a lot of gas and oil and will for a long time, but any sort of price shock will be leaving the US and its car-dependent economy destabilized while Europe and Asia power forward with an ever-decreasing dependence on oil and gas. The US’ endless energy wars will continue to serve as incredibly expensive endeavors that other countries don’t even need to engage in.
Just look at the number of nuclear power plant projects in progress in China. Comparatively few people in China depend on oil to get to work and travel long distances, and the amount that do is plummeting.
jfengel 23 hours ago [-]
It is remarkable that a US company had an enormous lead in BEVs for a decade. Then they just kinda stopped innovating, and slid backwards.
rsynnott 14 hours ago [-]
At least in Europe, they were only the top seller for about 18 months (overtaking Nissan, then being overtaken by VW AG). Don’t think they were ever in the lead in Asia. That they had an ‘enormous lead’ in the US was more down to the paucity of options there than anything else.
Gud 15 hours ago [-]
Let’s not overstate Tesla’s lead.
BYD were breathing down their neck after a few years.
aetherspawn 23 hours ago [-]
Having owned a Model 3 I would argue that it’s basically “done” at this point, pending software updates for better FSD.
It already charges in 20-30 min at Tesla chargers and has a practical range of around 600 kms, so super fast charging is a bit of a straw man.
Their big downfall is they lack an advertising department willing to spend $1B on pro-electric propaganda to debunk all the Trump/big oil propaganda. IMO EVs have addressed all the main product concerns, and the last ones are buyer stupidity.
Grombobulous 23 hours ago [-]
I think this opinion fails to explain why Tesla is faltering so badly in China.
The products aren’t “done.” They’re stagnant.
Where is their proper 3 row SUV, not a hacked together half-effort like the YL?
Where is their passenger premium van product for China?
Remember that this is a company with a huge factory and presence in China, and they were the first mover in that market, but they’re getting eaten alive by competitors.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the Volkswagen Group is outselling Tesla in EVs. The #1 EV in Europe is a Skoda, and on top of that Tesla doesn’t make a European style city car. Small sedans like the Model 3 are really not popular in Europe, you need a hatch.
And I haven’t even brought up the Cybertruck selling a couple hundred thousand units below company expectations, that is kind of a low blow cherry on top.
plqbfbv 22 hours ago [-]
> I think this opinion fails to explain why Tesla is faltering so badly in China.
To some degree, I agree. Esp. on the 800V part which could make charges a bit faster. But I think they're overall stagnant: they pushed a ton of boundaries in the first 10-15y because they had to make something people could buy and use, but now that innovation push has diminished greatly: the cars work for most people, and the range is acceptable and not such a big inconvenience that pushes people to other brands. So no sense in going axial flux motors (that everyone is experimenting with) or bigger battery capacities, or even 48V + Ethernet instead of 12V + CANbus (the CyberTruck has these, but I don't think it has trickled down to the other models).
> Meanwhile, in Europe, the Volkswagen Group is outselling Tesla in EVs. The #1 EV in Europe is a Skoda, and on top of that Tesla doesn’t make a European style city car. Small sedans like the Model 3 are really not popular in Europe, you need a hatch.
Yes, but the Model Y remains the single unique best-selling car. VW needs to put together a few vehicle models to get to the same numbers. And I think the reason is the same as with China: Tesla has always been EV only, and built assistance and infrastructure for it, while VW doesn't have a very clear direction and makes products which are perhaps slightly mechanically superior, but feel inferior on the software and UX side. A car with hardware equivalent to Tesla (which now has 2 trims and 2 battery picks) costs anyway more than the base Tesla (you need to add a few optionals to the VWs). What Tesla is lacking in Europe are smaller models with ~450-500km range.
Grombobulous 19 hours ago [-]
Judging by single model is going to make Tesla look better than it is when compared to badge engineering and/or whole platform sales. The MEB platform/ID.4 cross brand cousins outsell the Model Y.
BYD is likely moving a few hundred thousand more pure BEVs than Tesla each year, although it’s hard to gauge the exact mix given that they have hybrids and ICE vehicles.
I am not saying Tesla is in doomed in China or anything like that, they’re a top brand. But they should be definitively the #1 brand and their product lineup is short 2-3 models.
Danox 18 hours ago [-]
They are doomed in China. It’s over for Tesla in China and it’s not just China. It’s the rest of the world outside the US doomed.
ben_w 13 hours ago [-]
IMO that depends on if they're financially dependent on Musk's reality distortion bubble. They're stumbling and wasting a lot of money on Musk's pet project (Optimus), but if you cleared out that rot and put the same teams to work doing car stuff, I think they'd be a nice dull car company doing nice dull car company things.
However, a nice dull car company with Tesla's sales would be worth 1-10% of Tesla's market cap, and I don't know what happens if Musk is e.g. sentenced to prison time, or even just stripped of US citizenship and deported, or even just the SEC gets their teeth back and bans him from serving as CEO of publicly traded companies like they almost did for the "$420" tweet. That bubble popping may reveal financial shenanigans whose unwinding cause a fire-sale that ends the company.
ben_w 13 hours ago [-]
> Yes, but the Model Y remains the single unique best-selling car. VW needs to put together a few vehicle models to get to the same numbers.
This is why I'd say Tesla's stagnating. They don't have brands to fill in those gaps, other car makers don't feel the need to say "best selling model", they just go for the total sales.
Similar thing happened to Apple with the original iMac: it was the (world's? USAs?) "best selling model" of personal computer. The entire company was still struggling and had like 5% of the total personal computer market, but they had only one model of consumer-focused personal computer and everyone else had loads of models.
I think Apple are still only around 10% of the personal computer market today, their money is from branching out to phones and so on.
handle584 7 hours ago [-]
> Tesla is faltering so badly in China.
Huh? In June the best selling EV in China is Model Y across all price ranges. Model 3 a tie for the 8th with many ~$10k entry level higher up. If you only rank among ~$40k, then it's a tie for the 4th.
This is very very far from faltering so badly.
Grombobulous 4 hours ago [-]
It is faltering badly when you consider first mover status and previously being the #1 EV brand in China. This would be like if GM/Ford/Chrysler lost their #1 status to Toyota in less than a decade.
Toyota didn’t start outselling GM until 2021. Honda and Hyundai still sell fewer vehicles than Ford and GM in the US.
Tesla still sells a lot of product and does relatively well for itself, but proportionally to its prior status in the market, it has fallen far.
Tesla’s small model range makes their numbers look better because they can say that their two volume models sell very well. In reality, BYD is shipping hundreds of thousands more BEVs than Tesla and Volkswagen Group is outselling Tesla in Europe.
Another way to put this is to say that it’s really impressive that the Model Y sells number similar to the RAV4 and CRV in the United States. It’s far less impressive when you consider the fact that Toyota has nine SUVs in their lineup.
When you have a small model lineup like Tesla has it skews things a bit. Let's say you have a buyer who really likes the Tesla brand and wants a subcompact city car, or maybe they want a 3-row SUV. Let's say about 40% of them say "you know what, I like Telsa so much, I'll compromise and get a Model 3 even though it's bigger than what I want" or they say "I'll get the Model YS even though it's not a full large sized 3-row SUV I want."
This scenario now pads the numbers for those models and makes it look like the Model Y/YS/3 are incredibly successful, even though they didn't quite fit their buyer demographic and those buyers might not be back as repeat buyers as soon as there's another option available on the market that works better for them.
This hypothetical leaves 60% of potential buyers defecting to other brands right away. They'll say, "Tesla doesn't make what I want, I'll go buy an EV9 or a Renault 5 instead, even though I prefer Tesla."
A lot of those buyers are buyers that Tesla could have had, but they don't have because their model lineup is too thin.
This is exactly why most large volume brands have some kind of badge engineering and sub-brands going on. Toyota doesn't lose any buyers that want a Camry but want it to be more luxurious, those buyers are directed to Lexus. Hyundai doesn't lose any buyers that want more aggressive/sporty/modern styling, those buyers go with a Kia.
Tesla sells far too many cars to not have any of this yet, but they've just under-expanded, IMO.
kccqzy 23 hours ago [-]
You think it’s done only because you are not ambitious enough. And neither is Tesla. A Hyundai charges faster than a Tesla. Chinese cars from several brands are getting five-minute charging times. If you think that’s a straw man I don’t know what to say; a buyer wants charging to be as fast as pumping gas, and are you going to blame buyer stupidity for not delivering on that?
stasomatic 10 hours ago [-]
I drive a Hyundai Ioniq 5. It charges fast(er), rides nicer than a Tesla and carries no stigma. However, Tesla is the only manufacturer (in US) that has FSD. Having experienced FSD in a relative's Tesla S last week, I now know what I am missing and I'd be willing to give up a few feature comforts to have the FSD.
aetherspawn 22 hours ago [-]
But which brands last longer than a Tesla? None. That’s because faster charging wears out the battery. Charging fast is not marvellous, actually it requires a lot of self-control from the manufacturers to limit charging speed for longevity, even though most people won’t understand why.
satvikpendem 22 hours ago [-]
No, because Chinese EVs have advanced in battery technology too above Tesla.
> CATL also says the battery retains more than 90% of its original capacity after 1,000 ultra-fast charging cycles
China is even doing 90 second automated robotic battery swap stations.
IncreasePosts 21 hours ago [-]
Yes, I would blame the buyer for thinking it's important at this point. It's almost a meme response to EVs.
All you need to do is an honest look at how many days a year you drive 500+ miles per day. People can't seem to do that and fixate on the ultra long distance road trip that they might make once per year. And neglecting to realize that they stop for bathroom breaks and food and so the actual time you're simply waiting for charging is, at best, maybe 20-30 minutes per year.
99% of the time you would be plugging your car into the charger at your house. And it just charges overnight.
I guess it's different if people have no way to charge their car at home or have it plugged in overnight. But in that case a lot of times they can pick up charge while at work, or whole doing grocery shopping, etc.
kccqzy 18 hours ago [-]
No. You are presupposing a particular usage of a car and imposing that on a potential buyer. I take the train or bike to work, so for me my car is only for weekend trips. That’s why I bought the fastest-charging car available at that time.
Even for road trips there are different ways to approach it. Some people just want to get to their destination fast and don’t mind eating at wherever the charger is. Others take road trips differently and would want to eat at the best restaurant at each local town they pass through, which may not be where chargers are. And if there are many passengers the bathroom breaks are usually not aligned with when the car needs charging. The perfect scenario of getting food or bathroom breaks exactly when the car needs charging could be a rare scenario.
IncreasePosts 6 hours ago [-]
That's how designing products works. There are particular use cases one designs for. My point is that by far the most common use case I'd daily driving, and very few people would be majorly and continually inconvenienced by charging 200 miles in 15 minutes.
Even if your use case is "only take the car on 500 mile road trips and I don't want to stop for 15 minutes", you should be able to understand how exceedingly rate that is.
kccqzy 6 hours ago [-]
That’s how the modern way of designing products works. 90% of use cases is enough. YAGNI. The R&D needed for the last 10% is not worth its marginal return. There is no ambition, no perfectionism, no maniac attention to detail any more.
reverius42 23 hours ago [-]
I am very skeptical that your Model 3 has a "practical range" of 372 miles. EPA range for the long range model is 342 miles, and I would expect usable range to be considerably less (since you probably want to start charging at around 10% remaining, and you probably want to stop charging at 80-90%). 0% - 100% is kind of not "practical" as it would require you to fully deplete the battery, and then wait for the slow charging at the margins (90 to 100% tends to be pretty slow).
aetherspawn 22 hours ago [-]
Practical meaning I don’t plan to ever drive more than 600km per day so if it’s 600km from A->B, and then a 8 hour charge, that’s fine by me… if I want 700km I’ll stop and charge for 5 min at 30% SOC or so
stavros 22 hours ago [-]
But the GP is saying a Tesla won't do 600km on one charge, which does sound reasonable.
I agree with you about just stopping to charge for a few minutes along the way if I need more, though.
ben_w 23 hours ago [-]
Not everyone wants the same thing from a car. Some care most about the price, some about the efficiency, some about the size, some about the comfort, some about the charging speed despite what you say.
If Telsa were still innovating, they'd have rounded out their offerings to fill in the gaps that are now getting filled with other brands in the world outside the USA.
Grombobulous 23 hours ago [-]
I keep shouting from the rooftops that Tesla’s lack of offerings has them completely hamstrung.
Tesla sells more vehicles than Mazda, and both brands are in a similar semi-premium non-luxury segment. Compare lineups between these brands.
How does Mazda have 3.5 SUVs and Tesla only has 1.5? (The .5 is counting the CX-70 and CX-90, and the Y and YL as essentially the same car)
Mazda is able to offer a sedan and hatchback variant of the 3.
They also have a city car in Europe, the Mazda 2. Absolutely nothing in the segment from Tesla.
And of course, Mazda has the legendary MX-5, which chugs along selling a very respectable quantity while the Tesla Roadster remains MIA.
Where is Tesla’s lineup? For being a being China-focused brand, where is their premium/luxury van? For being a US-focused brand, where is their family 3-row Grand Highlander killer? How did they botch a truck made in Texas?
foogazi 21 hours ago [-]
> Tesla sells more vehicles than Mazda
Isn’t that all that matters ?
ben_w 13 hours ago [-]
> Isn’t that all that matters ?
Where the ball is vs. where the ball is heading.
Musk (and TSLA shareholders keeping the price where it is) is arguing the ball is heading to robotics and AI; I think we're at least a decade from the robotics+AI vision he's trying to sell the dream of, and in the meantime he may lose the car business by everyone else out-innovating on vehicles with regards to stuff he's either lost interest in, or lost the trust of the best designers an engineers to hire to work on for him.
Grombobulous 4 hours ago [-]
Also, why would Tesla be uniquely positioned in a robotics market? They’re not the market leader in that area, why are they trying to enter that market?
It’s not like Tesla runs a Japanese-style corporation with tons of product breadth…they don’t even have product breadth in their primary business.
If they couldn’t maintain market leader status in their primary area of expertise, what makes them likely to gain market leader status in a tangentially related field?
It seems like an incredibly random product opportunity, and it’s highly suspicious of being a stock pump mechanism.
Grombobulous 19 hours ago [-]
My point is that they don’t have a wide enough breadth of models and that’s holding them back, and the fact that lower volume brands have more models and appeal to a wider range of customers helps demonstrate that.
medler 23 hours ago [-]
I’m convinced super-fast charging will be a game changer, because it will eliminate the ~only remaining downside to EVs. If Tesla had charging tech like BYD the market in the U.S. would look very different
tialaramex 23 hours ago [-]
I don't buy it. "Recharging == Fuel" is the wrong way to think about it.
Think about your phone. Do you plan how you'll charge that quickly? Do you know where you can get a quick charge at a local mall while ordering coffee? Nope, it just gets charged over night when you're asleep, no problem.
medler 22 hours ago [-]
I agree charging at home/work is best, and ideally we would have ubiquitous slow charging at apartment lots, workplaces, and on the street. But that’s not really realistic right now in the U.S., and more importantly, it isn’t under Tesla’s control. Whereas they could have solved the problem for people with less charging access by making their fast charging faster like BYD has done.
With respect to your phone analogy, if I weren’t able to charge my phone at home or at work, I would definitely be interested in being able to fast-charge it at some conveniently located business
stavros 22 hours ago [-]
I think you're both right. An EV is wonderful if you can charge at home, and a chore if you can't. Fast chargers help, but they're expensive and still not as fast as gas.
If you have a wall plug at home, an EV is basically always full. I'm shopping for a flat and one of my non-negotiable requirements is a parking spot with a plug. The one I'm looking at now even has a three-phase plug, which is a nice extra, but not really necessary.
satvikpendem 22 hours ago [-]
Yes I do get the fastest charging speed and highest battery capacity phone, which are Chinese now too like OnePlus. Once you know you can depend on your phone for a few days, it's a game changer.
cadamsdotcom 20 hours ago [-]
For me Tesla's brand is irreparably damaged.
That's worth accounting for - I'm likely not alone.
Danox 18 hours ago [-]
They cost too much…
asdff 23 hours ago [-]
I can’t own one because I can’t install a fast charger at my place.
Grombobulous 23 hours ago [-]
Most people don’t need a fast charger to own an EV. Most people would actually be just fine on a household outlet.
realityloop 23 hours ago [-]
Have been charging my model 3 from an outlet since 2020, we only need fast charging occasionally when taking a long trip
stavros 22 hours ago [-]
Not to mention that fast charging degrades your battery faster. I've had my car for a year and a half and I charged at a fast charger maybe four times.
asdff 23 hours ago [-]
Sounds terrible if that is your only car.
Grombobulous 23 hours ago [-]
Not really.
The average person in America drives about 37 miles a day.
EVs gain about 3-5 miles per hour on a household 120V charger.
You sleep for about 8 hours and are probably home away from work and errands for an about 12 hours.
Do the math: 3 miles per hour for 12 hours is 36 miles.
And even if you don’t keep up with your pace, the weekend can act as additional time to charge. Or if you drive more on the weekend, you can basically decide that you’re going to go to a fast charger every 2-4 weeks just like a gas car (or maybe even less frequently than a gas car).
Let’s say you drive 50 miles a day but you’re only able to charge up 35 miles per day at home. If your vehicle’s range is 250 miles that means you need to go to a fast charger every 15 days including a little room for reserve power.
Also, all of this is even less of a concern if you live in a country with 240V power.
asdff 16 hours ago [-]
So you forget to plug in one night and are screwed for work the next day it sounds like
cevn 6 hours ago [-]
It's worked for me for about 10 years. Maybe don't forget if it's so critical that you get to work the next day. Sounds like you have a skill issue
abenga 15 hours ago [-]
You are probably never starting from zero on workdays, are you?
asdff 6 hours ago [-]
Depends if you did something after work the day before
stavros 22 hours ago [-]
I forgot that the US uses 120 V, that's a bit less convenient, but I agree. I live in a country that uses 240V, and I ~never need to worry about charging. I'll usually intentionally not charge for days/a week because I wait for the battery to go down to 20%.
medler 23 hours ago [-]
What is terrible about charging at home from a regular outlet? As long as you average <50-60 miles a day, like most people, you basically never have to go to fast chargers (or gas stations). It’s amazing.
stavros 22 hours ago [-]
I have a standard plug (not even three phase) and charge 30 kWh in ten hours (overnight). That's around 90 miles, which is plenty.
If I'm going on a long trip, I just make sure I start charging from > 50% the previous day, and I'm good. It's trivial to manage the state of charge when you have a charger at home and a planned trip coming up.
medler 21 hours ago [-]
In the U.S. our standard outlets are 120V, so you only get about 1kW or so out of them. Plenty for most people, but annoying if you need >50 miles of range a day, or if you want to boil water in an electric kettle. The situation is much better in Europe, and most of the rest of the world, where you have 220+V
stavros 22 hours ago [-]
That's my only car, and it's the best thing ever. I'm never going back to ICE. I have a normal wall plug in my garage and I charge once or twice a week overnight, and I never need to worry about gas station trips.
The fact that I can do 100km with 3 €, even with our expensive electricity, is icing on the cake.
If you don't have a charger at home, though, an EV is a chore, I agree.
aetherspawn 23 hours ago [-]
Yeah this is the kind of thing people say on a day to day basis.
reverius42 23 hours ago [-]
I don't have a gas station at my house, and yet I still own a gas-powered vehicle.
I also don't have a fast electric charger at my house, and yet I still also own an EV.
belorn 23 hours ago [-]
I have compared prices in fast-charging stations to gasoline here in Sweden, and a gasoline car get more miles for the money. The price can be up to 100x, or 10000% that of the market price that the fast-charging stations buy their electricity from.
And even with that, very few places seems to be willing to build competing charging stations that will undercut those prices. The only way to actually save money is to have a charging stations at home or at work where you pay the normal (through still very high) cost that the utility company take.
reverius42 23 hours ago [-]
I have found fast-charging prices near where I live to be fairly competitive with gasoline per-mile. The lower maintenance costs of an EV are icing on the cake, so to speak.
But I actually do most of my charging as trickle-charging from a regular home outlet, despite it being slow; it adds about 40 miles of range per 24 hours of charging. My car sits in my driveway most of the time so that's actually sufficient most of the time.
asdff 43 minutes ago [-]
If it was about reducing lifetime ownership costs, you'd be hard pressed to ever exceed what you pay for an EV with say a couple grand used japanese ice car with a basic 4 banger engine and manual transmission.
stavros 22 hours ago [-]
In Greece, fast charging is 4x more expensive than slow charging at home. Slow electricity is around 4x cheaper than gas, so you're right, fast charging makes it about even.
Good thing I only need to fast charge a few times a year, on long trips (or consecutive trips away from home/a plug).
asdff 16 hours ago [-]
I can fill a gas car in 3 mins basically anywhere within reach of civilization. It is frictionless pretty much. People I know with ev and no home charger have to plan their entire life around when they take the car to charge. Sometimes they have to just take the gas car because the ev is down to 30% and too close to empty for comfort.
Animats 23 hours ago [-]
> At best, it’ll be a situation where the US market is segregated from the rest of the world: US auto consumers will be buying inferior vehicles from the rest of world that are more expensive to buy and own.
That's where we are now. Here's BYD's main model lineup.[1] Ford's CEO brought a few into the US, paying the insane tariffs, and has his executives driving them to see what the rest of the world is doing.
US automakers are already unable to compete globally even within the ever shrinking ICE share.
Protectionism makes industries weak and uncompetitive, ultimately hurting the economy of the nation doing the protectionism. The proper strategy to become competitive is to provide a small amount of protectionism so that the industry does not die, but to ruthlessly cull underperforming companies so that only the strongest survive. The continual bailouts of companies, keeping old and incompetent executives at the helm, has destroyed the US car industry.
Capitalism requires killing the underperforming companies. Until we let that happen, or at a minimum cull leadership and boards, nothing will get better. The rot is at the top.
cineticdaffodil 23 hours ago [-]
The rot is that a empire selling security can subsidize any economic policy indefinitely and is completely decoupled from anything resembling a free market forever.
epistasis 6 hours ago [-]
I would quibble with the "forever" there. Eventually empires have bad leaders, and Trump is showing how a bad leader can disassemble an economic empire in just a few short years. One can do tremendous damage from the inside, especially when the populace has been cowed by broad misinformation and the checks and balances have been removed by single party rule.
testing22321 23 hours ago [-]
And Canadians will soon stop buying the inferior US vehicles (and Mexico already has), because Chinese EVs are now allowed in at only 6% tariff.
BYD are taking over.
slaw 21 hours ago [-]
Chinese made vehicles are limited to 49000/year only. 2.5% of Canadian market.
testing22321 21 hours ago [-]
For now. The quota increases every year.
And it’s very likely that If the orange idiot keeps threatening 50% tariffs on Canadian goods Ike he is now every two weeks then Canada will just drop the quota and open the floodgates.
slaw 21 hours ago [-]
Quota will be 70,000 vehicles per year in 2030. That's almost nothing.
Grombobulous 19 hours ago [-]
I thought I read that this exact thing happened when Honda and Toyota arrived in the US: they started selling in Canada first.
This has happened over and over, really. See also: Hyundai and Kia.
cineticdaffodil 23 hours ago [-]
Nothing you wrote there makes sense, there is just no chain of causality in it.
fugalfervor 23 hours ago [-]
You didn't take the time to point out what was wrong with what they said, and why. So please do so if you don't want people to just ignore your comment.
Grombobulous 23 hours ago [-]
Can you explain further? I’d be happy to see some of my specific ideas challenged.
cineticdaffodil 7 hours ago [-]
The whole economic landscape of the us is artifical. As in what survives and thrives does not need to provide any value, but need only have political connections, to remove competition and be good enough to supress all alternatives.
The oil and gas industry survives and dictates policy not because its very influential- its simply the economic backbone of the empire via the petrodollar. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar
And the people life in de-concentrated large scale villages instead of cities, because the empire is in no need to tax economic activities such as moving large distances via driving a car efficiently. So the government, cursed with the ressource curse of beeing able to sell security outside of the us- pacifies the population with economic presents, which are often just frozzen in time retro trinkets.
One can not derive any political and economic lessons from such a strange diorama.
There is no incentive
Freedom2 19 hours ago [-]
In what way are US vehicles inferior? I've been told from many in the country that Americans make the hardiest, most rugged vehicles in the world, and everybody is clambering to get them.
A record for EV sales in Norway was set in 2025: 95.9 percent of all new passenger cars sold were fully electric, up from 88.9 percent in 2024.
bashtoni 22 hours ago [-]
Yes, but Norway is a very rich country because of all the resources they can just extract from the ground. Australia.. wait, never mind.
padjo 14 hours ago [-]
In fairness Norway does have ludicrous levels of hydro per capita which makes electricity very cheap.
kalleboo 8 hours ago [-]
Although I guess now Australia has ludicrous levels of solar per capita - they're famously launching 3 hours/day of free electricity to try to soak it all up.
padjo 4 hours ago [-]
Hydro has the benefit of being available at night when you're unlikely to be using your car.
emil-lp 23 hours ago [-]
Top 10 new passenger cars 2025
1. Tesla Model Y: 27 621
2. Volkswagen ID.4: 8 802
3. Toyota bZ4X: 7 274
4. Volkswagen ID.7: 6 976
5. Tesla Model 3: 6 608
6. Volkswagen ID.3: 5 572
7. Volvo EX40: 5 270
8. Volvo EX30(xc): 5 206
9. Skoda Enyaq: 4 836
10. Nissan Ariya: 4 565
rstuart4133 18 hours ago [-]
Yes, Norway leads. But it's not an apples with apples comparison.
Norway is a smallish country (you can fit 24 Norway's in Australia - so less range anxiety), whose government pushed the transition to EV's hard. Australia has the worlds most competitive new car market and with one of the least restrictive emissions controls on ICE engines.
It's not that surprising that Norway's government engineered transition to EV's was successful. In Australia EV's became around the same price as ICE vehicles in the last 12 months, and it feels like we've hit a market driven tipping point.
If battery developments take their predicted path, with pricing dropping about 10% per years and range per unit weight doubling, it's difficult to see how it isn't all over bar the shouting - for USA car manufacturing.
Trump sealed the USA's fate, when his changes EV policies lead to $51B in direct write downs. I don't see how you can recover from that.
aetherspawn 23 hours ago [-]
Sweet free free sunshine down here.
tialaramex 22 hours ago [-]
Right. Australia is crazy sunny. You might intuitively expect there'd be more PV power closer to the equator but that's not how it works, Australia just doesn't have as much cloud as almost anywhere on Earth, especially places a bunch of people actually live - and so that's a lot more energy ("insolation") from the sun ready to harvest.
aetherspawn 22 hours ago [-]
Yeah, also we have a lot of room we don’t care about and nobody goes there, so we just put solar panels out there.
throawayonthe 24 hours ago [-]
BEV - battery electric vehicle
(P)HEV - (plugin) hybrid electric vehicle
ICEV - internal combustion engine vehicle
xela79 9 hours ago [-]
how many none battery electric vehicles are out there that we could confuse EV with that the B is required in that name....
dsunds 21 hours ago [-]
I need to replace a 20 yr old Prius. I’d be a natural Tesla customer if not for Elon. All the BEV cars I like have been cancelled by their manufacturers. I want value and I keep my cars a long time. What should have been a slam dunk purchase has become disappointment. I’ll be buying another hybrid.
Server6 18 hours ago [-]
I'm trading in my 2018 Tesla Model 3 soon to buy a Rivian R2. It seems like the only real Tesla competitor actually coming to market.
agumonkey 24 hours ago [-]
The industry has managed a transition. Some European brands have partnered with chinese suppliers while integrating some research in-house. Some cars have a lot of features, cute look, and good price.
HDBaseT 21 hours ago [-]
By features you mean surveillance and spyware bundled with locked down, closed source software aimed at restricting you as much as possible whilst extracting every last cent out of you.
Effectively no modern car "looks cute" or good. They are all stupid SUVs for soccer moms brainwashed by car marketing.
rsynnott 14 hours ago [-]
> Effectively no modern car "looks cute" or good
The Renault 5 is kinda cute.
agumonkey 2 hours ago [-]
The latest twingo too
Danox 18 hours ago [-]
Big oversized, rolling couches down the road big and square, model 3 or Prius sized if you’re trying to save the environment.
kawogi 23 hours ago [-]
While I'm waiting for my Kia EV3 to arrive, I'm desparately trying to figure out which wallbox I need to buy to make use of V2H/V2G. Everything claims to be "ready", but I still don't know whether V2H/V2L will be DC or AC. Which protocol do my smart meters have to provide? What about the PV-inverter? How many apps will I need? How many cloud accounts? What about island-operation? Will I be able to use Home-Assistant for everything? What about feeding in the flexible pricing of my power provider? Another App/API? Which node in this hairball will have which role? Will the car decide when to charge? Or the App? Or the Wallbox? Or its App?
I'm drowning in theoretical options and I'm left with the feeling that everything seems to be possible in theory, but I won't find a solution that works in practice. There are just too many protocols and regulations at play.
Would have loved to wait another year until the dust around these topics have settled a bit, but the old car broke too early :(
(sorry for the rant)
DennisL123 1 days ago [-]
I wish the article was written in a better way. It throws put many percentages in different contexts. 50-26-37-41- …
Not saying any particular number is wrong, just wishing it was a clearer way of writing.
npunt 23 hours ago [-]
They're making the typical journalism mistake of trying to use prose for what would be better expressed in a chart. This is a pretty common issue with journalists who can write but don't know how to create useful and informative charts.
I looked at other posts by this author and they're all sales by month charts, which are totally devoid of context as they lack historic trend data. So you have to read words to find that out, and its a slog.
I have firsthand experience starting a news company and dealing with this...
consumer451 23 hours ago [-]
> I have firsthand experience starting a news company and dealing with this...
What is the solution for this, from the management POV?
Maybe having a data-viz person as part of the editorial process?
a_paddy 1 days ago [-]
Why would anyone buy a Tesla in 2026?
thebruce87m 1 days ago [-]
Best charging experience and best software experience.
Note: I do not want this to be true. Other companies please copy what Tesla has done with both of these. You’ve had years to do this and failed.
ezfe 24 hours ago [-]
> Best charging experience
This isn't accurate - they charge slower and Plug & Charge is common in many vehicles now, including with the Tesla network - whereas Teslas cannot Plug & Charge on other networks.
thebruce87m 13 hours ago [-]
(Up to) 250kW is fine in my Model Y - it’s always charged by the time my family has refreshed on a long trip.
Ironically - if it was faster I’d need to go move it in the middle of the bathroom/food stop.
In the UK most EVs use the standard CCS2 plug.
brianwawok 23 hours ago [-]
Sure they can, you can buy a CCS adapter. You are limited a bit by 400V, but honestly I have never been able to not find a Tesla charger - and I’ve done 100k miles around the US over the last 5 years
ezfe 18 hours ago [-]
Plug & Charge, referring to the ability to Plug in and automatically process payment, is what I am referring to.
Tesla cannot Plug & Charge on any non-Tesla network. Whereas other vehicles can Plug & Charge on Tesla networks. Therefor, the advantage is to everyone else.
Teslas have poor charging curves and are not cutting edge for charging performance. They are average.
pinkyboy 24 hours ago [-]
Charging experience? Teslas can't charge as fast as a modern Kia, Lucid, Geely, or BYD. They can't two-gun charge like a BYD. They don't have battery-swaps like NIO. They've got a single charge port in a back corner... very unclear what's best about them.
And as for software, on the infotainment side, AA/CP are great (but not available on Tesla), and people often like having _some_ physical controls, which goes against Musk's aggressive cost-cutting.
If by software you mean FSD (Supervised), I think essentially every major auto lane-keeping + adaptive cruise covers the key use case where FSD is useful: highway slogs.
For anybody who lives outside of the USA, the Chinese EVs are the obvious answer -- they've surpassed Tesla on essentially every dimension.
For people who live inside the USA the math is different, since the government is actively interfering with the free market to protect a critical donor.
kcb 23 hours ago [-]
Android Auto and Carplay are better than dealing with just crappy infotainment systems but they still don't make the overall software experience good. You end up with disjointed interface with functionality split between the automakers UI.
FSD is unmatched. Auto lane-keeping and adaptive cruise control don't provide the reactivity that FSD does even for straight highway driving.
Most objective reviews comparing a Model Y and Chinese EVs are far less conclusive than you propose.
slaw 23 hours ago [-]
Tesla FSD and infotainment is the best in the US only. Tesla is no match for Xiaomi or Li Auto.
Rohansi 23 hours ago [-]
> Charging experience?
They have a very reliable charging network with excellent coverage. You just plug your car in and it charges. No fiddling with the charger or apps.
> And as for software, on the infotainment side, AA/CP are great (but not available on Tesla)
The infotainment is good enough where you don't need AA/CP but that's a very subjective detail. The software also extends outside of your car because you can do a lot from the Tesla phone app. It's your car key, control/schedule/monitor charging, lets you control climate remotely, use GPS to find your car, dashcam, etc... all are standard with a Tesla but unavailable or locked behind a subscription elsewhere.
> If by software you mean FSD (Supervised), I think essentially every major auto lane-keeping + adaptive cruise covers the key use case where FSD is useful: highway slogs.
Agree but FSD (Supervised) is actually getting better over time. You 100% need the latest model/hardware car to see those improvements though. Still needs supervision but far less than you may have seen before.
pinkyboy 23 hours ago [-]
And you can plug almost any modern EV into the Tesla supercharging network without issue. However, unlike Teslas, you can _also_ plug and charge them in other networks.
On self-driving: if you want true autonomy, where you can relax and do something else entirely while you drive, the answers are Waymo, Apollo Go, and to a lesser extent: rideshare.
Every other system requires that you sit in the driver's seat, pay attention, and be ready to handle exceptions. Which means that ongoing improvements don't actually buy you much of anything, because having to handle an exception every 50 miles isn't a better experience than having to handle one very 5 miles.
Rohansi 22 hours ago [-]
> Which means that ongoing improvements don't actually buy you much of anything, because having to handle an exception every 50 miles isn't a better experience than having to handle one very 5 miles.
That's what I thought too but after trying FSD on HW4 for two months I really think they are almost there. HW3 was really bad but I didn't need to intervene once with HW4. I think their biggest hurdle will be more of a legal or insurance one when they need to shift liability to actually stop saying it needs supervision.
> the answers are Waymo, Apollo Go
Both of which are supervised too, but remotely, and not constantly. There's no reason why Tesla can't do the same - they probably do for Robotaxis now - as soon as the exception rate is low enough, why not?
__m 21 hours ago [-]
If it is so good why don't they take liability? They aren't even willing to risk money while you are ready to risk your life...
Rohansi 20 hours ago [-]
Because it's not good enough yet.
__m 8 hours ago [-]
Ah ok, i thought you meant it’s just a matter of paperwork
fragmede 17 hours ago [-]
comma.ai is the one that's available now to cars today.
Rohansi 16 hours ago [-]
comma.ai requires supervision just like Tesla's FSD.
kcb 23 hours ago [-]
> However, unlike Teslas, you can _also_ plug and charge them in other networks.
why?
thebruce87m 9 hours ago [-]
I think the plug situation in the US is different and they only just settled on a standard which is what I assume the parent comment is talking about.
decimalenough 23 hours ago [-]
Tesla wins on charging because Superchargers are ubiquitous and they just work: you can pull up to one and be pretty much guaranteed that you'll be able to charge. This is manifestly not the case for any of the competition.
audunw 20 hours ago [-]
This article was about Europe. There is no benefit for Tesla here. It’s all CCS now. Anyone can use Tesla superchargers.
Afaik it’s the same in US, isn’t it? Just with the complication that there’s no government mandated standard, but NACS seems to becoming the de facto standard? So a benefit to Tesla for older models I suppose?
pinkyboy 23 hours ago [-]
Pretty much every EV can use Superchargers.
I'm setting aside that charging off of public EVs is relatively rare anyway... but your premise is flawed.
nielsbot 24 hours ago [-]
(In the US) I switched from Tesla to Rivian. Their approach seems to be “Tesla, but nicer”. They have a similar non-legacy automaker feel.
That said while I appreciate their design focus their software still feels not quite as polished as Tesla’s.
lotsofpulp 24 hours ago [-]
“Tesla, but nicer, and $20k more”
Also, while FSD has limitations, I have found it provides enormous utility for older people, and Rivian doesn’t yet have a competing product for FSD.
Grombobulous 24 hours ago [-]
The Rivian R2 is not $20k more. It’s $5k more than the deeply stripped down Model Y base model.
The R2 base model is not as premium as the higher models but the Model Y base model is really deeply stripped down including some really barebones stuff like removing liner material from the frunk and removing some of the exterior LED lights.
lotsofpulp 24 hours ago [-]
Cheapest Model Y is $40k and cheapest R2 is $58k. Cheapest Model 3 is $37k. The vast majority of Teslas sold are in an entirely different market than Rivian, which hasn’t even started delivering R2s yet.
So really, the price gap is $40k or more until R2s are actually delivered.
Grombobulous 24 hours ago [-]
Look again, cheapest R2 is $44,990. Deliveries haven’t started on that trim but they are less than a year away.
You are incorrect when you say that Rivian isn’t delivering R2s. Factually untrue. This claim of a $40k+ price gap is absurd.
lotsofpulp 24 hours ago [-]
Oh yes, I see that now. Either way, Tesla has a proven product that is cheaper, so if I’m trying to save money, for all intents and purposes, a Tesla is still thousands cheaper with a far longer track record, plus the option of FSD.
Grombobulous 23 hours ago [-]
I think you should go look at journalist reviews and impressions of the R2 if you still doubt them. Rivian is also a proven brand, and they also have a self-driving product. And while it isn’t as good as Tesla’s, most customers are pretty happy with basic highway self-driving/adaptive cruise control, as that’s the most fatiguing form of driving.
Only about 12% of Tesla owners have the FSD subscription or purchase according to articles I’ve found on the subject.
Being the cheapest game in town isn’t always the path to success. The RAV4 is at least $5k more in street price than an equivalently specced out Mitsubishi Outlander and Toyota sells a whole lot more RAV4s than Mitsubishis.
In my opinion, the base trim Model Y is probably not being purchased by a lot of non-fleet-style customers. I think that model is a price anchor like a 256GB MacBook Air. Your Uber driver will buy one but someone buying a new car paying the EV price premium rather than a used car really doesn’t want a stripped down experience.
pinkyboy 24 hours ago [-]
R2s are already being delivered to customers.
There is no honest way to manufacture a $40k price gap.
Grombobulous 24 hours ago [-]
Not really true in Europe where charging is properly standardized.
“Best software” is subjective as well. Many car owners really don’t care for their software and just want to bypass the infotainment system for CarPlay and Android Auto.
slaw 24 hours ago [-]
The best charging experience would be any of 10 BYD models with flash charging.
Pushing electrons around quickly is only part of the charging experience.
coliveira 23 hours ago [-]
Yes, but Americans don't have the freedom to experience this. They have to choose between expensive and more expensive.
Panino 23 hours ago [-]
Capitalism With American Characteristics
fragmede 17 hours ago [-]
Americanism
the_gastropod 24 hours ago [-]
I'm an admitted Elon hater, so maybe that clouds my judgement. But I rented a Tesla 3 a few years back to try an EV before deciding to buy one. I ultimately went with a Chevy Bolt, and find the Apple Carplay to be far better than Tesla's proprietary system. The only thing I recall that Tesla did better was pre-conditioning the battery before planned charging--something Apple Carplay (at least its current version) lacks the API to handle.
As far as charging, I think that was the case even as recently as ~2 years ago. But today, the charging game is pretty decent for CCS cars. You can even charge at Tesla stations using an adapter.
CrimsonRain 24 hours ago [-]
Calling it clouded is an understatement. Apart from some Chinese cars (xpeng comes to mind), Rivian, bmw new class (but on paper; practically there are too many issues), other cars don't even come close to Teslas.
matthewdgreen 24 hours ago [-]
I own a 2018 Model 3 and I love it. Plus it's in good shape with limited maintenance. I'm looking to trade it in. But honestly, I don't want to buy effectively the same car but slightly worse, with no turn signals (the recent M3) or an uglier version (the Model Y.) Historically, upgrading from an eight-year old car to the current version of the same model was a pretty big upgrade. Not with Tesla: I'll either keep this car until the wheels fall off, or I'll buy an R2.
CrimsonRain 1 hours ago [-]
You should rent a latest 3/Y for 3 days and then make the decision.
The difference between them are subtle but massive. To the point, I will say a good amount of Tesla owners complains about build quality are fully on point.
On the other hand, those same people will be pleasantly surprised if they try out ~2025 models.
I own both. To an external eye, latest Y just has lightbar and more space. But only when you use it, you notice the QoL improvements. I rarely drive the M3 even though it is the more "fun" car...
As for turn signal stalk, it is present in Y. and newer 3 as far as I know.
wasfgwp 1 days ago [-]
Price? They are quite cheap these days relative to comparable cars from other manufacturers.
bdangubic 1 days ago [-]
only if you exclude cars made in Asia
wasfgwp 15 hours ago [-]
In Europe not so much. At least the base Model Y/3 are competitive or even cheaper than equivalent Chinese models.
dawidpotocki 1 days ago [-]
Tesla does have production in Shanghai.
afavour 1 days ago [-]
Self driving maybe? I’m happy to be corrected but I think most brands don’t offer the full self driving package Tesla offers.
pepperoni_pizza 24 hours ago [-]
As a data point - in my market Tesla is the only manufacturer that makes an EV sedan, and has made them long enough for there to be used ones at reasonable prices (not a lot of people have Taycan money). Most of EVs, especially used ones, are tall and heavy SUVs that put driving experience as the absolutely last priority.
Did I actually buy a Tesla? No. But this has entered as part of my "which EV" conundrum.
psychoslave 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
CrimsonRain 24 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
spapas82 23 hours ago [-]
Well one interesting thing is that if you want to buy a Toyota Yaris right now in Europe (specifically in Greece) the only options offered are hybrid. One with 116 hp and one with 136 hp. No petrol, no diesel. And only automatic transmission (a no no for me but that another discussion).
Now considering that Yaris is one of the most popular cars (if not the most popular), the increase in sales is not surprising
hedgehog 23 hours ago [-]
They Toyota hybrids are still gasoline, what's the objection to the eCVT? So long as we're still using combustion engines it seems like the best design anyone's come up with.
Markoff 14 hours ago [-]
yaris would be the most popular only if you combined yaris cross and yaris together and those are quite different cars, otherwise yaris cross is on 6th place in Europe and ordinary Yaris on 10th, if you are gonna merge them then you should also merge first two places Dacia Sandero and Renault Clio since they share many parts as well
here in Czechia Toyota is fairly popular, but I wouldn't say Yaris is the best selling car model, the top 10 best selling models is absolutely dominated by Skoda, only 3 spots in top 10 made other brands - 6th place Hyundai i30, 9th Toyota Corolla and 10th Hyundai Tucson
btw. my mother has the latest Yaris Cross as well and it's horrible car for the money, the rear seats are unusable for anyone taller with very little space, trunk is very small, usable really only for 2 people, for the money it cost I would much rather bought Hyundai i30 Combi or Dacia Jogger
JumpCrisscross 1 days ago [-]
What are their sources? How are they defining Europe?
tecleandor 1 days ago [-]
They don't seem to link their sources (that's bad) but the general numbers seem to match The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) report for H1 2026 [0]. They include EU + EFTA + UK.
I'm not entirely sure why you're getting downvoted. I wasn't able to find a source for the data but it is probably new vehicle registrations. Europe here seems to include Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland.
criemen 24 hours ago [-]
Sweden, Finland and Iceland would be part of any definition of Europe? They're all EU countries, and (irrelevant to that) are now all NATO members too.
ithkuil 24 hours ago [-]
Switzerland is not but its meager population can hardly significantly skew the sales stats
tpm 16 hours ago [-]
Iceland is not in the EU
hhh 1 days ago [-]
Why wouldn't it?
Foobar8568 1 days ago [-]
Typically European Union vs Europe.
24 hours ago [-]
bdangubic 1 days ago [-]
they’ll get included again if they order a few humanoid robots that will be shipping by 2078
cptskippy 1 days ago [-]
Vehicle registrations.
sivanmz 23 hours ago [-]
We own a Model Y and now subscribe to FSD. The car is basically done and I sort of see why Tesla isn’t bothering
dgudkov 20 hours ago [-]
It looks like Europe no longer hates Elon. That didn't last long.
kevinqi 24 hours ago [-]
does anyone have a data-backed reason as to why US market share has capped out around 10%? is it economics + lack of access to chinese EVs? range anxiety?
jfengel 23 hours ago [-]
We have just about the cheapest gasoline in the developed world. Partly because we make it here, and partly because we refuse to raise taxes on it. (The federal tax was last raised in 1993. It has be 18 cents per gallon ever since.)
If gas were 2 to 4 times as expensive, as it is in much of Europe, there would be a lot more demand for electric cars.
It doesn't help that we exclude all of the new BEVs from China, which are considerably less expensive.
bloomingeek 23 hours ago [-]
And there it is, we're keeping competition out of the states to protect our auto industry, instead of giving we consumers other options. I've rented cars in Aus/New Zealand, if I lived there I'd own an EV, hands down.
The only way to make our auto makers change is to "make" them change by competition. Consumers want this change, why else do we buy so many Japanese cars? (Beside the fact they are superior.)
asdff 23 hours ago [-]
I’d guess a greater percent of car owners in the US are working class. A lot of cities car modal share is like 85% or higher which shows how much car ownership is democratized in the US compared to asia or eu, where ownership might be higher relative income and more able to afford new ev premium prices vs cheap used gas cars.
atom058 15 hours ago [-]
Another interpretation of the high modal share of cars in the US is that there are no viable alternatives to driving in many US cities. In Europe, public transport and biking are viable forms of transportation, so we're not forced into car ownership to participate in society (although the situation can definitely still be improved further). I believe this to be a more "democraticed" outcome than an inescapable 85% modal share for cars.
asdff 6 hours ago [-]
There are people in those cities that don’t have cars and might rely on bussing, biking, sourcing rides from others. That being said you can get cheap cars in the US really easily.
thinkcontext 22 hours ago [-]
We're talking about new cars, which in the US the average price of is $50K. The working class tends to buy used cars, of which 3 times more than new cars are sold each year.
asdff 16 hours ago [-]
Doesn’t matter the price really. People will lease new cars for a couple hundred a month. Or finance them to about that monthly. No one is paying $50k day one. This makes it so people you wouldn’t expect to afford a 50k asset actually do have one, because they can afford to part with like $200/mo.
thinkcontext 1 hours ago [-]
You brought up the working class as sensitive to price and now you say they aren't. That doesn't seem like a logically consistent position but maybe I'm not understanding what you are saying.
asdff 1 hours ago [-]
Europe doesn't seem to have this financing environment. There are places that you don't even need credit or down payment to finance a used car here.
coliveira 23 hours ago [-]
EVs continue to be expensive in the US. But the trajectory is the opposite in the rest of the world due to the benefit of Chinese exports. In Brazil, for example, new car prices have a now a discount of up to $10K, all due to increased competition from China.
nickez 23 hours ago [-]
probably gas price
SoftTalker 23 hours ago [-]
And range/charging infrastructure. The middle of the US is large and mostly rural. There's no charging infrastructure to speak of. But even the smallest towns at least have a gas station.
zombot 9 hours ago [-]
Do their dashboards show ads? That's the foremost question in my mind after the BMW fuckup.
> Thanks to a number of factors (new cheaper models, high gas prices, mass arrival of Chinese models, etc.), EVs are currently in high demand in Europe.
EVs are in high demand in the EU because laws have been passed in every country and ICE are getting banned in many cities.
Chinese EVs did flood the EU not because people did want to buy chinese EVs: people in the EU were totally fine buying ICE cars (german, french, italian, spanish, ...) but the EU pushed for both legislation and incentives greatly favoring EVs over ICE cars.
It's IMO a good thing to push people to buy EVs. But the EU being the EU, of course they did it incredibly stupidly and managed to inflict great harm to EU car manufacturers and basically hand the keys of the kingdom to both US and chinese EVs (because in the EU we're led by treacherous dumbasses).
People can nitpick as much as they want as to what makes a great car: I do personally have a car from 1988 (38 and a half years old now) that, unlike chinese EVs, doesn't spy on me and that I could still use as a daily (I regularly use it to go, say, pick my kid at school). It's a gas-guzzler and it's not as safe as a modern car, but we definitely could have a talk about the actual CO2 of that car over its lifetime (which is far from done yet) compared to the CO2 over the lifetime of a brand new EV (and if we talk about chinese EVs brought by boat to the EU, we can have a talk too about coal usage in China).
The article could be summed as: "Yay, the EU caused great harm to its car industry and is now buying chinese EVs by the cargo load!".
I take we should... Applaud that great success!?
Danox 17 hours ago [-]
Short term thinking in the EU and top it off Germany also got rid of their nuclear power plants, and then became dependent on Russian oil and gas.
HPsquared 23 hours ago [-]
They may import the cars, but now they don't need to import the fuel.
krelian 21 hours ago [-]
Yes there are incentives to buy EVs but they are still much more expensive than ICE vehicles (I'm in the market for a new car so that is an observation from my experience)
slaw 21 hours ago [-]
EVs are still more expensive? You should thank EU bureaucrats for setting penalty tariffs on Chinese EVs.
tpm 16 hours ago [-]
> EVs are in high demand in the EU because laws have been passed in every country and ICE are getting banned in many cities.
Can you give us an example of a city in the EU banning ICEs? (Not that I'm complaining, it's nice to have quiet cities with clean air, I just don't know about those)
> But the EU being the EU
The EU being the EU did the responsible thing and gave car manufacturers clear rules and a long timeline (over 15 years) to apply them; they also gave them the escape hatch of hybrids and PHEVs that will only be closed using the OBFCM in the following years. But the manufacturers chased fast money and refused to innovate and lower prices because they still made lots of money in export markets. Then China changed the rules, it became very hard to make money with ICE cars there, and then the mfgs complain about the EU and want to be saved again.
> Chinese EVs did flood the EU
There are tariffs on Chinese EVs, depending on the manufacturer, ranging from 27% (BYD) to 45% (SAIC). If the customers still buy a Chinese EV and not an european EV, then the European EV manufacturer does something wrong.
tialaramex 21 hours ago [-]
You imply that ICE is banned when in reality many European cities decided to require that you stop polluting their city by meeting newer standards but a brand new ICE car would do that too today, the problem is always that people think a car produced twenty years ago (or like yours, 38 years ago) ought to count, because hey, by the standards of twenty years ago it didn't pollute very much. Standards change. Fifty years ago you could smoke on an aeroplane, today you can't! When my mother first went out to work it wasn't yet legal for her to have her own bank account, the money was hers, her ancestors won that right, she was an individual who could own things and not legally a component part of her father, but banks didn't give out accounts here without a man's say so. By the time she had me, that changed and they'd also banned employers from paying her less because she was a woman.
Amsterdam's current plan says they'll eliminate ICE from their city centre by 2030. I have no idea why you'd drive in central Amsterdam anyway, seems like a terrible idea - but if you insist on doing it after 2030 you'll need an electric vehicle. But that's not today is it? Things change.
Yes, Reduce, Re-use, Re-cycle is in that order for a reason. It's good that you're continuing to use this old car while it meets your needs. A dense European city may well not want you there because the trade-off sucks too bad for them.
And while China does use proportionally more coal than Europe today and likely for the foreseeable future, like European leadership Xi can do the math. The problem I have with Trump is that I'm not sure he even understands the problem, obviously if he did understand he'd lie about it, but I'm just not sure he's even lying, I think he might well be too stupid to understand.
Danox 17 hours ago [-]
It is extremely stupid to kill your native companies and then become dependent upon foreign companies, see the US if you want to see what happens when you do.
rsynnott 14 hours ago [-]
The largest electric car vendor in terms of sales in Europe is generally VW AG. VW AG is European.
abenga 15 hours ago [-]
What's stopping the native companies from making EVs?
Rendered at 21:11:07 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
At best, it’ll be a situation where the US market is segregated from the rest of the world: US auto consumers will be buying inferior vehicles from the rest of world that are more expensive to buy and own, since they will only be viable in the US market and will only be built in the US, Canada, and Mexico.
At worst, the US is setting itself for horrendous energy policy issues moving forward. Sure, the US produces a lot of gas and oil and will for a long time, but any sort of price shock will be leaving the US and its car-dependent economy destabilized while Europe and Asia power forward with an ever-decreasing dependence on oil and gas. The US’ endless energy wars will continue to serve as incredibly expensive endeavors that other countries don’t even need to engage in.
Just look at the number of nuclear power plant projects in progress in China. Comparatively few people in China depend on oil to get to work and travel long distances, and the amount that do is plummeting.
BYD were breathing down their neck after a few years.
It already charges in 20-30 min at Tesla chargers and has a practical range of around 600 kms, so super fast charging is a bit of a straw man.
Their big downfall is they lack an advertising department willing to spend $1B on pro-electric propaganda to debunk all the Trump/big oil propaganda. IMO EVs have addressed all the main product concerns, and the last ones are buyer stupidity.
The products aren’t “done.” They’re stagnant.
Where is their proper 3 row SUV, not a hacked together half-effort like the YL?
Where is their passenger premium van product for China?
Remember that this is a company with a huge factory and presence in China, and they were the first mover in that market, but they’re getting eaten alive by competitors.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the Volkswagen Group is outselling Tesla in EVs. The #1 EV in Europe is a Skoda, and on top of that Tesla doesn’t make a European style city car. Small sedans like the Model 3 are really not popular in Europe, you need a hatch.
And I haven’t even brought up the Cybertruck selling a couple hundred thousand units below company expectations, that is kind of a low blow cherry on top.
Apparently not so much, the restyle and a consolidated assistance and charging network make people prefer it over the homemade products lately, which keep innovating but you essentially need to re-learn from scratch every time (my original source article is in Italian - https://www.vaielettrico.it/troppa-scelta-poca-fiducia-i-cin... ; this is the closest I could find in English: https://paultan.org/2026/01/21/tesla-model-y-again-best-sell... )
> They’re stagnant.
To some degree, I agree. Esp. on the 800V part which could make charges a bit faster. But I think they're overall stagnant: they pushed a ton of boundaries in the first 10-15y because they had to make something people could buy and use, but now that innovation push has diminished greatly: the cars work for most people, and the range is acceptable and not such a big inconvenience that pushes people to other brands. So no sense in going axial flux motors (that everyone is experimenting with) or bigger battery capacities, or even 48V + Ethernet instead of 12V + CANbus (the CyberTruck has these, but I don't think it has trickled down to the other models).
> Meanwhile, in Europe, the Volkswagen Group is outselling Tesla in EVs. The #1 EV in Europe is a Skoda, and on top of that Tesla doesn’t make a European style city car. Small sedans like the Model 3 are really not popular in Europe, you need a hatch.
Yes, but the Model Y remains the single unique best-selling car. VW needs to put together a few vehicle models to get to the same numbers. And I think the reason is the same as with China: Tesla has always been EV only, and built assistance and infrastructure for it, while VW doesn't have a very clear direction and makes products which are perhaps slightly mechanically superior, but feel inferior on the software and UX side. A car with hardware equivalent to Tesla (which now has 2 trims and 2 battery picks) costs anyway more than the base Tesla (you need to add a few optionals to the VWs). What Tesla is lacking in Europe are smaller models with ~450-500km range.
BYD is likely moving a few hundred thousand more pure BEVs than Tesla each year, although it’s hard to gauge the exact mix given that they have hybrids and ICE vehicles.
I am not saying Tesla is in doomed in China or anything like that, they’re a top brand. But they should be definitively the #1 brand and their product lineup is short 2-3 models.
However, a nice dull car company with Tesla's sales would be worth 1-10% of Tesla's market cap, and I don't know what happens if Musk is e.g. sentenced to prison time, or even just stripped of US citizenship and deported, or even just the SEC gets their teeth back and bans him from serving as CEO of publicly traded companies like they almost did for the "$420" tweet. That bubble popping may reveal financial shenanigans whose unwinding cause a fire-sale that ends the company.
This is why I'd say Tesla's stagnating. They don't have brands to fill in those gaps, other car makers don't feel the need to say "best selling model", they just go for the total sales.
Similar thing happened to Apple with the original iMac: it was the (world's? USAs?) "best selling model" of personal computer. The entire company was still struggling and had like 5% of the total personal computer market, but they had only one model of consumer-focused personal computer and everyone else had loads of models.
I think Apple are still only around 10% of the personal computer market today, their money is from branching out to phones and so on.
Huh? In June the best selling EV in China is Model Y across all price ranges. Model 3 a tie for the 8th with many ~$10k entry level higher up. If you only rank among ~$40k, then it's a tie for the 4th.
This is very very far from faltering so badly.
Toyota didn’t start outselling GM until 2021. Honda and Hyundai still sell fewer vehicles than Ford and GM in the US.
Tesla still sells a lot of product and does relatively well for itself, but proportionally to its prior status in the market, it has fallen far.
Tesla’s small model range makes their numbers look better because they can say that their two volume models sell very well. In reality, BYD is shipping hundreds of thousands more BEVs than Tesla and Volkswagen Group is outselling Tesla in Europe.
Another way to put this is to say that it’s really impressive that the Model Y sells number similar to the RAV4 and CRV in the United States. It’s far less impressive when you consider the fact that Toyota has nine SUVs in their lineup.
When you have a small model lineup like Tesla has it skews things a bit. Let's say you have a buyer who really likes the Tesla brand and wants a subcompact city car, or maybe they want a 3-row SUV. Let's say about 40% of them say "you know what, I like Telsa so much, I'll compromise and get a Model 3 even though it's bigger than what I want" or they say "I'll get the Model YS even though it's not a full large sized 3-row SUV I want."
This scenario now pads the numbers for those models and makes it look like the Model Y/YS/3 are incredibly successful, even though they didn't quite fit their buyer demographic and those buyers might not be back as repeat buyers as soon as there's another option available on the market that works better for them.
This hypothetical leaves 60% of potential buyers defecting to other brands right away. They'll say, "Tesla doesn't make what I want, I'll go buy an EV9 or a Renault 5 instead, even though I prefer Tesla."
A lot of those buyers are buyers that Tesla could have had, but they don't have because their model lineup is too thin.
This is exactly why most large volume brands have some kind of badge engineering and sub-brands going on. Toyota doesn't lose any buyers that want a Camry but want it to be more luxurious, those buyers are directed to Lexus. Hyundai doesn't lose any buyers that want more aggressive/sporty/modern styling, those buyers go with a Kia.
Tesla sells far too many cars to not have any of this yet, but they've just under-expanded, IMO.
> CATL also says the battery retains more than 90% of its original capacity after 1,000 ultra-fast charging cycles
https://www.evdances.com/blogs/news/hongqi-unveils-ultra-fas...
All you need to do is an honest look at how many days a year you drive 500+ miles per day. People can't seem to do that and fixate on the ultra long distance road trip that they might make once per year. And neglecting to realize that they stop for bathroom breaks and food and so the actual time you're simply waiting for charging is, at best, maybe 20-30 minutes per year.
99% of the time you would be plugging your car into the charger at your house. And it just charges overnight.
I guess it's different if people have no way to charge their car at home or have it plugged in overnight. But in that case a lot of times they can pick up charge while at work, or whole doing grocery shopping, etc.
Even for road trips there are different ways to approach it. Some people just want to get to their destination fast and don’t mind eating at wherever the charger is. Others take road trips differently and would want to eat at the best restaurant at each local town they pass through, which may not be where chargers are. And if there are many passengers the bathroom breaks are usually not aligned with when the car needs charging. The perfect scenario of getting food or bathroom breaks exactly when the car needs charging could be a rare scenario.
Even if your use case is "only take the car on 500 mile road trips and I don't want to stop for 15 minutes", you should be able to understand how exceedingly rate that is.
I agree with you about just stopping to charge for a few minutes along the way if I need more, though.
If Telsa were still innovating, they'd have rounded out their offerings to fill in the gaps that are now getting filled with other brands in the world outside the USA.
Tesla sells more vehicles than Mazda, and both brands are in a similar semi-premium non-luxury segment. Compare lineups between these brands.
How does Mazda have 3.5 SUVs and Tesla only has 1.5? (The .5 is counting the CX-70 and CX-90, and the Y and YL as essentially the same car)
Mazda is able to offer a sedan and hatchback variant of the 3.
They also have a city car in Europe, the Mazda 2. Absolutely nothing in the segment from Tesla.
And of course, Mazda has the legendary MX-5, which chugs along selling a very respectable quantity while the Tesla Roadster remains MIA.
Where is Tesla’s lineup? For being a being China-focused brand, where is their premium/luxury van? For being a US-focused brand, where is their family 3-row Grand Highlander killer? How did they botch a truck made in Texas?
Isn’t that all that matters ?
Where the ball is vs. where the ball is heading.
Musk (and TSLA shareholders keeping the price where it is) is arguing the ball is heading to robotics and AI; I think we're at least a decade from the robotics+AI vision he's trying to sell the dream of, and in the meantime he may lose the car business by everyone else out-innovating on vehicles with regards to stuff he's either lost interest in, or lost the trust of the best designers an engineers to hire to work on for him.
It’s not like Tesla runs a Japanese-style corporation with tons of product breadth…they don’t even have product breadth in their primary business.
If they couldn’t maintain market leader status in their primary area of expertise, what makes them likely to gain market leader status in a tangentially related field?
It seems like an incredibly random product opportunity, and it’s highly suspicious of being a stock pump mechanism.
Think about your phone. Do you plan how you'll charge that quickly? Do you know where you can get a quick charge at a local mall while ordering coffee? Nope, it just gets charged over night when you're asleep, no problem.
With respect to your phone analogy, if I weren’t able to charge my phone at home or at work, I would definitely be interested in being able to fast-charge it at some conveniently located business
If you have a wall plug at home, an EV is basically always full. I'm shopping for a flat and one of my non-negotiable requirements is a parking spot with a plug. The one I'm looking at now even has a three-phase plug, which is a nice extra, but not really necessary.
That's worth accounting for - I'm likely not alone.
The average person in America drives about 37 miles a day.
EVs gain about 3-5 miles per hour on a household 120V charger.
You sleep for about 8 hours and are probably home away from work and errands for an about 12 hours.
Do the math: 3 miles per hour for 12 hours is 36 miles.
And even if you don’t keep up with your pace, the weekend can act as additional time to charge. Or if you drive more on the weekend, you can basically decide that you’re going to go to a fast charger every 2-4 weeks just like a gas car (or maybe even less frequently than a gas car).
Let’s say you drive 50 miles a day but you’re only able to charge up 35 miles per day at home. If your vehicle’s range is 250 miles that means you need to go to a fast charger every 15 days including a little room for reserve power.
Also, all of this is even less of a concern if you live in a country with 240V power.
If I'm going on a long trip, I just make sure I start charging from > 50% the previous day, and I'm good. It's trivial to manage the state of charge when you have a charger at home and a planned trip coming up.
The fact that I can do 100km with 3 €, even with our expensive electricity, is icing on the cake.
If you don't have a charger at home, though, an EV is a chore, I agree.
I also don't have a fast electric charger at my house, and yet I still also own an EV.
And even with that, very few places seems to be willing to build competing charging stations that will undercut those prices. The only way to actually save money is to have a charging stations at home or at work where you pay the normal (through still very high) cost that the utility company take.
But I actually do most of my charging as trickle-charging from a regular home outlet, despite it being slow; it adds about 40 miles of range per 24 hours of charging. My car sits in my driveway most of the time so that's actually sufficient most of the time.
Good thing I only need to fast charge a few times a year, on long trips (or consecutive trips away from home/a plug).
That's where we are now. Here's BYD's main model lineup.[1] Ford's CEO brought a few into the US, paying the insane tariffs, and has his executives driving them to see what the rest of the world is doing.
[1] https://www.byd.international/models
Protectionism makes industries weak and uncompetitive, ultimately hurting the economy of the nation doing the protectionism. The proper strategy to become competitive is to provide a small amount of protectionism so that the industry does not die, but to ruthlessly cull underperforming companies so that only the strongest survive. The continual bailouts of companies, keeping old and incompetent executives at the helm, has destroyed the US car industry.
Capitalism requires killing the underperforming companies. Until we let that happen, or at a minimum cull leadership and boards, nothing will get better. The rot is at the top.
BYD are taking over.
And it’s very likely that If the orange idiot keeps threatening 50% tariffs on Canadian goods Ike he is now every two weeks then Canada will just drop the quota and open the floodgates.
This has happened over and over, really. See also: Hyundai and Kia.
The oil and gas industry survives and dictates policy not because its very influential- its simply the economic backbone of the empire via the petrodollar. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar
And the people life in de-concentrated large scale villages instead of cities, because the empire is in no need to tax economic activities such as moving large distances via driving a car efficiently. So the government, cursed with the ressource curse of beeing able to sell security outside of the us- pacifies the population with economic presents, which are often just frozzen in time retro trinkets.
One can not derive any political and economic lessons from such a strange diorama.
There is no incentive
1. Tesla Model Y: 27 621
2. Volkswagen ID.4: 8 802
3. Toyota bZ4X: 7 274
4. Volkswagen ID.7: 6 976
5. Tesla Model 3: 6 608
6. Volkswagen ID.3: 5 572
7. Volvo EX40: 5 270
8. Volvo EX30(xc): 5 206
9. Skoda Enyaq: 4 836
10. Nissan Ariya: 4 565
Norway is a smallish country (you can fit 24 Norway's in Australia - so less range anxiety), whose government pushed the transition to EV's hard. Australia has the worlds most competitive new car market and with one of the least restrictive emissions controls on ICE engines.
It's not that surprising that Norway's government engineered transition to EV's was successful. In Australia EV's became around the same price as ICE vehicles in the last 12 months, and it feels like we've hit a market driven tipping point.
If battery developments take their predicted path, with pricing dropping about 10% per years and range per unit weight doubling, it's difficult to see how it isn't all over bar the shouting - for USA car manufacturing.
Trump sealed the USA's fate, when his changes EV policies lead to $51B in direct write downs. I don't see how you can recover from that.
(P)HEV - (plugin) hybrid electric vehicle
ICEV - internal combustion engine vehicle
Effectively no modern car "looks cute" or good. They are all stupid SUVs for soccer moms brainwashed by car marketing.
The Renault 5 is kinda cute.
I'm drowning in theoretical options and I'm left with the feeling that everything seems to be possible in theory, but I won't find a solution that works in practice. There are just too many protocols and regulations at play.
Would have loved to wait another year until the dust around these topics have settled a bit, but the old car broke too early :( (sorry for the rant)
Not saying any particular number is wrong, just wishing it was a clearer way of writing.
I looked at other posts by this author and they're all sales by month charts, which are totally devoid of context as they lack historic trend data. So you have to read words to find that out, and its a slog.
I have firsthand experience starting a news company and dealing with this...
What is the solution for this, from the management POV?
Maybe having a data-viz person as part of the editorial process?
Note: I do not want this to be true. Other companies please copy what Tesla has done with both of these. You’ve had years to do this and failed.
This isn't accurate - they charge slower and Plug & Charge is common in many vehicles now, including with the Tesla network - whereas Teslas cannot Plug & Charge on other networks.
Ironically - if it was faster I’d need to go move it in the middle of the bathroom/food stop.
In the UK most EVs use the standard CCS2 plug.
Tesla cannot Plug & Charge on any non-Tesla network. Whereas other vehicles can Plug & Charge on Tesla networks. Therefor, the advantage is to everyone else.
Teslas have poor charging curves and are not cutting edge for charging performance. They are average.
And as for software, on the infotainment side, AA/CP are great (but not available on Tesla), and people often like having _some_ physical controls, which goes against Musk's aggressive cost-cutting.
If by software you mean FSD (Supervised), I think essentially every major auto lane-keeping + adaptive cruise covers the key use case where FSD is useful: highway slogs.
For anybody who lives outside of the USA, the Chinese EVs are the obvious answer -- they've surpassed Tesla on essentially every dimension.
For people who live inside the USA the math is different, since the government is actively interfering with the free market to protect a critical donor.
FSD is unmatched. Auto lane-keeping and adaptive cruise control don't provide the reactivity that FSD does even for straight highway driving.
Most objective reviews comparing a Model Y and Chinese EVs are far less conclusive than you propose.
They have a very reliable charging network with excellent coverage. You just plug your car in and it charges. No fiddling with the charger or apps.
> And as for software, on the infotainment side, AA/CP are great (but not available on Tesla)
The infotainment is good enough where you don't need AA/CP but that's a very subjective detail. The software also extends outside of your car because you can do a lot from the Tesla phone app. It's your car key, control/schedule/monitor charging, lets you control climate remotely, use GPS to find your car, dashcam, etc... all are standard with a Tesla but unavailable or locked behind a subscription elsewhere.
> If by software you mean FSD (Supervised), I think essentially every major auto lane-keeping + adaptive cruise covers the key use case where FSD is useful: highway slogs.
Agree but FSD (Supervised) is actually getting better over time. You 100% need the latest model/hardware car to see those improvements though. Still needs supervision but far less than you may have seen before.
On self-driving: if you want true autonomy, where you can relax and do something else entirely while you drive, the answers are Waymo, Apollo Go, and to a lesser extent: rideshare.
Every other system requires that you sit in the driver's seat, pay attention, and be ready to handle exceptions. Which means that ongoing improvements don't actually buy you much of anything, because having to handle an exception every 50 miles isn't a better experience than having to handle one very 5 miles.
That's what I thought too but after trying FSD on HW4 for two months I really think they are almost there. HW3 was really bad but I didn't need to intervene once with HW4. I think their biggest hurdle will be more of a legal or insurance one when they need to shift liability to actually stop saying it needs supervision.
> the answers are Waymo, Apollo Go
Both of which are supervised too, but remotely, and not constantly. There's no reason why Tesla can't do the same - they probably do for Robotaxis now - as soon as the exception rate is low enough, why not?
why?
Afaik it’s the same in US, isn’t it? Just with the complication that there’s no government mandated standard, but NACS seems to becoming the de facto standard? So a benefit to Tesla for older models I suppose?
I'm setting aside that charging off of public EVs is relatively rare anyway... but your premise is flawed.
That said while I appreciate their design focus their software still feels not quite as polished as Tesla’s.
Also, while FSD has limitations, I have found it provides enormous utility for older people, and Rivian doesn’t yet have a competing product for FSD.
The R2 base model is not as premium as the higher models but the Model Y base model is really deeply stripped down including some really barebones stuff like removing liner material from the frunk and removing some of the exterior LED lights.
So really, the price gap is $40k or more until R2s are actually delivered.
You are incorrect when you say that Rivian isn’t delivering R2s. Factually untrue. This claim of a $40k+ price gap is absurd.
Only about 12% of Tesla owners have the FSD subscription or purchase according to articles I’ve found on the subject.
This lines up well with Gallup polling that states that less than 20% of Americans even have a desire to own a driverless car in the future: https://news.gallup.com/poll/708683/americans-driverless-car...
Being the cheapest game in town isn’t always the path to success. The RAV4 is at least $5k more in street price than an equivalently specced out Mitsubishi Outlander and Toyota sells a whole lot more RAV4s than Mitsubishis.
In my opinion, the base trim Model Y is probably not being purchased by a lot of non-fleet-style customers. I think that model is a price anchor like a 256GB MacBook Air. Your Uber driver will buy one but someone buying a new car paying the EV price premium rather than a used car really doesn’t want a stripped down experience.
There is no honest way to manufacture a $40k price gap.
“Best software” is subjective as well. Many car owners really don’t care for their software and just want to bypass the infotainment system for CarPlay and Android Auto.
10% to 70%: 5 minutes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Flash_Charging
As far as charging, I think that was the case even as recently as ~2 years ago. But today, the charging game is pretty decent for CCS cars. You can even charge at Tesla stations using an adapter.
The difference between them are subtle but massive. To the point, I will say a good amount of Tesla owners complains about build quality are fully on point.
On the other hand, those same people will be pleasantly surprised if they try out ~2025 models.
I own both. To an external eye, latest Y just has lightbar and more space. But only when you use it, you notice the QoL improvements. I rarely drive the M3 even though it is the more "fun" car...
As for turn signal stalk, it is present in Y. and newer 3 as far as I know.
Did I actually buy a Tesla? No. But this has entered as part of my "which EV" conundrum.
Now considering that Yaris is one of the most popular cars (if not the most popular), the increase in sales is not surprising
https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2025-full-year-euro...
here in Czechia Toyota is fairly popular, but I wouldn't say Yaris is the best selling car model, the top 10 best selling models is absolutely dominated by Skoda, only 3 spots in top 10 made other brands - 6th place Hyundai i30, 9th Toyota Corolla and 10th Hyundai Tucson
https://www.cebia.cz/novinky/trh-s-automobily/top-30-nejprod...
btw. my mother has the latest Yaris Cross as well and it's horrible car for the money, the rear seats are unusable for anyone taller with very little space, trunk is very small, usable really only for 2 people, for the money it cost I would much rather bought Hyundai i30 Combi or Dacia Jogger
--
If gas were 2 to 4 times as expensive, as it is in much of Europe, there would be a lot more demand for electric cars.
It doesn't help that we exclude all of the new BEVs from China, which are considerably less expensive.
The only way to make our auto makers change is to "make" them change by competition. Consumers want this change, why else do we buy so many Japanese cars? (Beside the fact they are superior.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49135511
EVs are in high demand in the EU because laws have been passed in every country and ICE are getting banned in many cities.
Chinese EVs did flood the EU not because people did want to buy chinese EVs: people in the EU were totally fine buying ICE cars (german, french, italian, spanish, ...) but the EU pushed for both legislation and incentives greatly favoring EVs over ICE cars.
It's IMO a good thing to push people to buy EVs. But the EU being the EU, of course they did it incredibly stupidly and managed to inflict great harm to EU car manufacturers and basically hand the keys of the kingdom to both US and chinese EVs (because in the EU we're led by treacherous dumbasses).
People can nitpick as much as they want as to what makes a great car: I do personally have a car from 1988 (38 and a half years old now) that, unlike chinese EVs, doesn't spy on me and that I could still use as a daily (I regularly use it to go, say, pick my kid at school). It's a gas-guzzler and it's not as safe as a modern car, but we definitely could have a talk about the actual CO2 of that car over its lifetime (which is far from done yet) compared to the CO2 over the lifetime of a brand new EV (and if we talk about chinese EVs brought by boat to the EU, we can have a talk too about coal usage in China).
The article could be summed as: "Yay, the EU caused great harm to its car industry and is now buying chinese EVs by the cargo load!".
I take we should... Applaud that great success!?
Can you give us an example of a city in the EU banning ICEs? (Not that I'm complaining, it's nice to have quiet cities with clean air, I just don't know about those)
> But the EU being the EU
The EU being the EU did the responsible thing and gave car manufacturers clear rules and a long timeline (over 15 years) to apply them; they also gave them the escape hatch of hybrids and PHEVs that will only be closed using the OBFCM in the following years. But the manufacturers chased fast money and refused to innovate and lower prices because they still made lots of money in export markets. Then China changed the rules, it became very hard to make money with ICE cars there, and then the mfgs complain about the EU and want to be saved again.
> Chinese EVs did flood the EU
There are tariffs on Chinese EVs, depending on the manufacturer, ranging from 27% (BYD) to 45% (SAIC). If the customers still buy a Chinese EV and not an european EV, then the European EV manufacturer does something wrong.
Amsterdam's current plan says they'll eliminate ICE from their city centre by 2030. I have no idea why you'd drive in central Amsterdam anyway, seems like a terrible idea - but if you insist on doing it after 2030 you'll need an electric vehicle. But that's not today is it? Things change.
Yes, Reduce, Re-use, Re-cycle is in that order for a reason. It's good that you're continuing to use this old car while it meets your needs. A dense European city may well not want you there because the trade-off sucks too bad for them.
And while China does use proportionally more coal than Europe today and likely for the foreseeable future, like European leadership Xi can do the math. The problem I have with Trump is that I'm not sure he even understands the problem, obviously if he did understand he'd lie about it, but I'm just not sure he's even lying, I think he might well be too stupid to understand.