And which states are the leaders in pickup truck sales?
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
At the end of the third quarter, there were 283.8 million vehicles in operation (VIO) in the US, of all model years, from the oldest still-registered classic to new vehicles that were just sold, up from 281.6 million vehicles a year earlier, according to Experian’s quarterly report, based on registration data. And over the 12-month period, 43.4 million used vehicles changed hands.
The net gain of 2.2 million vehicles in operation over the 12-month period is a result of:
- Plus: New cars and light trucks registered: 16.1 million
- Minus: Vehicles taken out of operation (salvaged, exported, etc.): 13.9 million.
Vehicles in Operation by Automaker:
Of all the 283.8 vehicles still on the road, 21.6% were manufactured by GM, and 16.4% by Ford. Toyota is number three. Where is Tesla? It still has only a minuscule share of 0.3% all VIO and is relegated to be part of “Other manufacturers.”
New Vehicle Sales in 2021 by Automaker:
In 2021 through Q3, Toyota became the market leader as its supply chains were less tangled up by the chip shortages than those of other top automakers, pushing GM and Ford into second and third place.
Tesla, with a share of 1.9% of new registrations in 2021, ranked just behind Daimler and ahead of “Others,” near the bottom.
Bestsellers: The Toyota RAV4 accounted for 2.6% of all sales in 2021 through Q3, making it the #1 bestseller this year, followed by the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (2.5%), the Ford F-150 (2.5%), the Honda CR-V (2.5%), and the Toyota Camry (2.2%).
Segments of Vehicles in Operation.
Of all 283.8 million vehicles in operation, compact SUVs had a share of 20.4%, split into entry level (11.0%), mid-range (5.6%), and premium (3.9%).
Midsize cars, the mainstay of rental fleets, accounted for 19.5% of all VIO, split into standard (9.4%), lower end (7.1%), premium (3.0%).
Full-size pickups accounted for 16.3%; and compact pickups for 4.3%, for a combined pickup truck share of 20.6% of all VIO.
Not shown here are EVs because in terms of VIO, their numbers are too small: There were 1.3 million EVs in operation at the end of Q3, accounting for 0.46% of all vehicles in operation.
Truck Country.
These are the top six states in terms of the most new pickups sold in 2021 through Q3, with their share of total pickup registrations in the US:
- In Texas: 13.0%
- In California: 8.0%
- In Michigan: 4.3%
- In New York: 3.7%
- In Pennsylvania: 3.6%
- In Ohio: 3.3%.
But note: Oklahoma has only 1.2% of the US population, but 2.2% of all pickups were sold there in 2021, while New York has 6.1% of the US population, but only 3.7% of all pickups were sold there.
EV sales by state:
In 2021 through Q3, of all the EVs sold, over one-third were sold in California (which has 12% of the US population), making it by far the hottest EV state. Top five states in terms of the share of EV registrations in 2021.
- California: 34.9%
- Florida: 7.5%
- Texas: 5.9%
- New York: 4.9%
- Washington: 3.7%
Automakers’ share of EV sales in 2021 through Q3.
Tesla still totally dominates the still minuscule EV market, and its sales grew in 2021, but competition from the legacy automakers is encroaching on it at a snail’s pace, and its total share of EV sales fell to 68.2% in 2021, from 79.4% in 2020. But at this pace, it’ll be a while before the legacy automakers transcend their own hype and actually start making and selling enough EVs to pull up next to Tesla:
- Tesla: 68.2%
- Chevrolet: 7.6%
- Ford: 5.2%
- Volkswagen: 3.6%
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Stellantis sells trash like GM.
Well that’s a good sign to buy Stellantis shares then as history shows customers love buying trash, it’s a good business.
Their RAM trucks are great.
I had to look Stellantis up.
“The principal activity of Stellantis is the design, development, manufacture and sale of automobiles bearing its 15 brands of Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Fiat Professional, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram and Vauxhall, and Mopar auto parts. ” – Wikipedia
It must be all of the Jeeps and Ram trucks.
@SiB
Where did Ferrari go?
They were part of FIAT, Maseratis got Ferrari V8’s around 2008 I think.
Alfa Quadrafoglias are mucho belissima!
Auldyin,
“Where did Ferrari go?”
Ferrari went to the NYSE, ticker [RACE]
IPO in 2015.
Yikes! I missed that, thanks.
Were Fiat/Chrysler stuck for a buck?
Who would sell Ferrari?
Don’t know where you might be coming from Red,,, but, after many years a huge fan of International pick up trucks, starting with a ’56 step side half ton that could haul a couple of tons each and every day, and did for years, then many others until the availability/cost of parts became prohibitive.
After that, Chevy pick ups for my biz(s) from new ’89 to new ’07,,, but when I needed some new ones, the local dealer would NOT deal,,, so I decided to try RAM,,, and have been totally satisfied with the two RAM pickups since…
And even though I look with a lot of caution at such,,, several ”evaluators” have recently announced RAM is doing best with reliability, etc…
Current ’19 RAM 1500 rated to carry more and tow a couple tons more than my fave of all time ’84 Chevy 3/4 ton that I finally sold in ’18 due to personal challenges from arthritis and vision dis abilities…
And BTW, supporting Wolf’s reporting, dealer recently told me my ’19 RAM is currently worth more than I paid for it!!
Mine was…. Sold it to carmax last summer…
The funny thing is seeing manufacturers that you don’t see anywhere else as some automotive companies are increasingly becoming reliant solely on the US market. Globalization? Hah, that’s so 20th century, they don’t do that anymore.
GMs case is quite obvious, but Subaru? You barely see them on any other continent. Ford is also loosing ground everywhere around the world and if this trend keeps up for a decade longer they will no longer be considered an international automotive powerhouse, more like a US truck manufacturer. The Japanese in general still count as global players of course, but their premium brands (Lexus, Acura, Infiniti) giving a huge part of their sales (and even bigger part of the revenue) are almost solely US creations.
No reason to conclude anything dangerous from this data at the moment as nobody is expecting the US market to collapse right now, so those guys will be reaping in the rewards for their market share in a strong economy, but the lack of a diversified portfolio means bigger risk in the long run.
Good report.
Tesla is a premium vehicle. It’s going to capture 2% of US sales in 2021, but probably around 5% of revenue.
Perhaps someone could address the issue of which companies in or how much of Stellantis is a 50/50 venture with China. Looks like some very popular brands, and I’ll bet most Americans are clueless. I was, and when I look for explanations I don’t exactly get enlightened.
Stellantis was formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group in 2021. It’s a European-American company.
During the bail-out, wasn’t it a PE company that started with a “C”?…Cerebrus?
I can’t keep up with all this merger, spin off, renaming, shell corps, etc, etc, and I bet neither can any regulatory body, and I bet that is probably the idea.
“Why make business simple when to can make it complicated”
-told to Bucky Fuller by a Rockefeller friend…I believe Bucky
Dongfeng formerly had some shares in PSA as Peugeot almost went bust during the Eurozone crisis, basically they were the Chrysler-equivalent of Europe living on state aid and cash-for-clunkers programmes day-by-day, so Asian investment was a good way to raise money. The original plans were to sell luxury French cars (LOL) in China under the newly launched DS brand, but of course it was a big flop. In the end it was too big to swallow for the Chinese, so by now it’s PSA (now Stellantis) helping out Dongfeng, rather than the other way around. The main private shareholders behind Stellantis are the Agnelli family (Fiat-clan) and the Peugeot family (French clan) and some French state funds, the Chinese only have some very minor few % shares. Although it is called a merger of PSA and FCA, it’s clearly the French that will dominate the management. The current CEO comes from Peugeot, but he was formerly the right hand of Renault-Nissan Carlos Ghosn. Automotive enthusiast do not really like the guy because of the strict cost-optimization measures, but business wise it worked.
Toyota has announced that it will extend production stoppages at some factories in Japan. So sick of covid.
Toyota is building a $1.3 billion battery plant close to me in NC. It’s going to employ 1700 people which kind of fits in with modern manufacturing where it takes roughly a million bucks of capital to provide manufacturing job. Phase 2 goes up to $3 billion and about 3500 jobs.
States have to sell themselves out to get these jobs though and is kicking in somewhere between $150 million and possibly as high as $500 million depending on investment.
Toyota has 25% battery powered vehicles if you count hybrid s so the plant is mainly a hybrid battery plant that can make full EV batteries is my understanding.
I know Toyota believes EV is not the solution and are focusing on hybrid and hydrogen. I think Toyota knows there is not enough mining and clean grid capacity to make EV a practical reality any time soon.
Toyota has done a U-Turn on battery EVs. Lexus is going to be entirely battery EV by 2030. And its Toyota brand is going to have a full lineup of battery EVs by 2030. But Toyota is now YEARS behind. Its full lineup of battery EVs will take 9 years to develop….
The japanese are smart. They know EV’s are a dead Stop. All the Cobalt in the WORLD will give you 30 Million more EV’s. Globally. And Then it’s over. Battery Recycling ist a No-Go.
Same goes For silver, Copper and Lithium.
Good lordy. Where do people come up with this nonsense, still after all these years? For 10 years, people have spouted off nonsense about how EVs will never work and cannot work and how there is not enough of this and not enough of that and yada-yada-yada. And here we are, and the only thing that is growing in the auto industry, and is growing in leaps and bounds, are EVs. While the ICE segment is declining in leaps and bounds. Reading this copy-and-paste stuff is just hilarious these days.
“All the whatever in the WORLD will only allow…..”
Here’s my favorite Periodic Chart for when it comes to answering such baseless statements from……wherever.
Of course extraction and manufacturing/combining and disposal/recycling are separate issues.
Si and O form various kinds of sand, rock…or just call it all “dirt”. Logarithmic scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust#/media/File:Elemental_abundances.svg
Not to worry.
Full Disclosure: My Cousin was a CEO of a Toyota Parts Supplier in JPN – probably retired now.
Toyota will most likely have a faster recovery than most major Automakers.
They’re flexible with the Hydrogen and P/HEV+BEV realms as well.
They already produced a NewGen Mirai that has a Range of Approx. 800Km/500miles and rolled out an Hydrogen ICE Race Car and will follow through with Consumer Models.
Hydrogen is pushed by the JPN Govt as well. As a Mfg Hub, JPN have access to Industrial Processing Hydrogen can be extracted from.
Since NatGas usage jumped to replace Nukes after Fukushima (JPN used to have Nukes providing 25% of Baseline Power – good to make H2 overnight), SteamFracking NatGas is a cheap source of H2. Of course, there are CNG Consumer Vehicles, so they are options as well.
DEU were to have NatGas and Hydrogen pumped through NordStream2; but that’s on hold. CNG and StreamFracked Hydrogen will be available for DEU’s Planned Energy Schemes. DEU may use Hydrogen for Infrastructure, Trucks and Buses (Auto plans being scrapped often); but Porsche came up with a Hydrogen-based Low-Emission Liquid Fuel for usage in ICEs recently.
The BEVs are popular(but don’t dominate Sales) in the USA+Europe – with some Nation-States like NOR Surtaxing in favor of EVs. Toyota have several Models Ready for that – anywhere. The USA State Grids and Final Mile/Housing Wiring in Murica aren’t ready or steady for Widespread EV Adoption by Moderate-Income Single Family Homes+Apt Communites (e.g., Outages by Weather/Wildfire/Facility Casualties in California – where most BEVs are bought) now; but I expect DEU, DNK, FRA, JPN, and CHN will build out their Grids first to Accommodate P/HEVs and BEV according to demand, convention, and mandates.
The “Source Options” for Alternative Fueled Automobiles shift often; but one thing for certain is that Gasoline and Diesel will be used less on the Road.
My Preferences are on Hydrogen FCVs+ICEs and CNG ICEs – “straight from the Tap” refueling in 3-5 min – and lighter. That’s mine – I’m probably going to take my Elderly Mother home to JPN; and Work in Europe/CHN/JPN in Tech-Mfg. Murica have Outsourced Too Far; and due to being a PetroUSD Capital and Crude Producer/Refiner – probably don’t have the Willpower+Engineering to build out the Infrastructure for the widespread usage of CNG+H2 Passenger Vehicles in Metropolitan Areas and across the Country via the Interstates.
Best Regards,
Tesla’s market cap is akin to the Dutch tulip bubble. It is ludicrous.
Don’t be surprised if Musk completely bails out of Tesla next year, and their stock drops enough to be declared insolvent. It’s debt load is ludricous, and all battery powered EVs will be rolling bricks in less than 10 years. Once Tesla croaks, the legacy makers will all but bail out of EVs too. It would take all of them years to recoup their wasted investments on EVs. Tesla is still losing Money on every single copy made, despite their accounting shenanigans. The power grid simply won’t be able to handle any more than a few percent of ev super charging stations, and users will tire of the slow chargers and lack of infrastructure. EVs are DOA folks. It’s a very costly experiment.
Mike R,
Tesla is sitting on $20 billion in cash that it raised from investors in 2020. And it’s now somewhat profitable. So unless it loses lots and lots of money over the next few years, it will have a hard time becoming “insolvent.”
That said, it might well be that its P/E ratio drops to 15 or 20, where other profitable automakers usually are in a no-growth industry — which would divide its current stock price by 10 or 20.
Wolf. Could you share some perspective, perhaps another report on historical data of cars removed from operation. 2.3m increase in existing, at a time of essentially flat pop growth, supply shortages, less driving, so forth seems quite high. Could you share some color insight on trends. Tks.
In percentage terms, VIO increased by 0.8% yoy, one of the smallest yoy increases since the Great Recession. Typically increases by 1%+ to over 2% in recent years.
Part of this equation is the average AGE of vehicles in operations, which continues to increase, meaning there are proportionately more older vehicles on the road. I update this once a year, in the summer when data comes out. This is from my June 2021 update:
At the very least a LOT is being learned about Regenerative Braking. That applies to most ALL forms of transport.
They hired an expert in litigation recently.
Probably one of Elon’s humanistic hunches.
My friends with Teslas love them. Total cult status. Apple on wheels. I call them phone apps on wheels. Friends are big into cars, one of them has owned a bunch of EVs and says Tesla software is so far ahead of the others it’s not funny. And Tesla has rolled out new features to older cars, which you never get. The only thing a conventional car owner might get is an offer to buy some new maps for $200.
The legacy car makers have had 10+ years to bring some decent EVs to market while Tesla popularity has risen, but meanwhile they’re so far behind.
America is a funny place. Even the idea about money has changed. In my parents day you paid for everything with cash and tried to do like my parents and get their house paid off as soon as possible, in their case at 35 years old. Then you lived debt free from there on.
Now I have been hearing that members of Congress have very high college loans and are wanting to pass legislation to forgive them.
Anyway, auto market and housing market can’t make money building entry level products. I suspect a lot of near car buyers and new home buyers have a good job, but are about three months from losing it all.
I have driven a Tesla Model 3. Still don’t get what’s so special about the product itself that’s worthy of cult admiration.
Sure the acceleration was great and the range is best among EVs. But what else? Fit and finish was subpar, interior design and quality was meh, exterior design was dull and got old fast.
Like you said, it’s a phone on wheels. Are the touchscreen and software gimmick features such a big deal to so many people? Or is it simply a psychological phenomenon — status symbol and novelty — but no one wants to admit it.
It’s said that all Tesla’s are “Premium” vehicles, but the ones that I have been in don’t give me that impression. The interiors are stark and made of cheap materials. The body design is not striking and quality of fit and materials is sub par like you mentioned. My 2021 Hyundai SUV ($28 K one MSRP) interior is as nice or better than the Tesla’s I have been in.
The only thing that stands out to me as premium is the price.
@in
“Sure the acceleration was great and the range is best among EVs.”
Did you get both of these at the same time?
If so for how long?
Ethan,
The legacy auto makers have to support a wide range of vehicles that solve all kinds of transportation and even some military requirements…
Abandoning the macro to focus on one relatively tiny market is imprudent…
Especially when the market for SUV and trucks are so profitable right now…
You do Not Inderstand today’s Market.
Tesla is Not about Products, it’s about a New Paradigm.
At least that’s what i read i a Dilbert Comic
And as the months slog along, the new car lots continue to look like vacant parking lots. “Experts” told us early in the year that the semiconductor shortage would be over by the 3rd quarter, and that things would be back to normal by this time. Reality shows that these so-called experts need to find a new job, because they were bullshitting their way through interviews.
Why would anybody hire somebody who doesn’t know wtf they’re talking about? Imagine you want a house built, and the winning bid is a builder who, unbeknownst to everybody, doesn’t even know what a blueprint is, doesn’t have any tools, has never built a house in his life, and therefore just took the money and ran. Should this guy ever be hired again? Of course not, he should be fired and outed as a fraud.
The same should go for these “experts” – the talking chuckleheads on tv. They should be sent packing. Instead, they’ll keep burping forth nonsense and collecting a paycheck. There’s no such thing as failure for “economists, analysts, politicians, media pukes, experts, scientists” and the like in the United States of Greed. In the real world, when you fail, you’re done.
So true!
Experts are not failing. Lying is their job. They are succeeding magnificently, and they are paid accordingly.
I like your thinking, but you’re out of line; therefore you will have to get a booster computer chip injected into you until 100% conformity of is achieved ;>{)
Social science is not science, which advances over time as theories are tested and rejected. Economists don’t know as much as they think they know, and they don’t know what they don’t know, which means that an economist often expresses his or her opinion as fact. Of course, that also makes it easy for a dishonest economist to lie to the public and difficult for the public to know whether the economist’s statement is an honest opinion or a lie.
If you have to put ‘science’ after it, it is probably not science.
Good point.
Might as well ad my usual……
“There is NO Nobel prize for economics!”
So what do you think the targeted ads and manipulations in social media are based on? As well as the biased factions in media? They are based on predictable audiences, of which you and I are in different classifiable groups. One of those groups are people who predictably berate social sciences. It is an actual food chain of sorts, and you are not at its apex. All of which is — drum roll please — “social sciences.” Which also encompasses your armchair classifications and assertions about it, and its practitioners, right here. Expressions of sweeping broad-brush contempt for something one has never (consciously) used is another trait it will tell you that you exhibit, right here and now. That’s because you derive a reward from it: behavior science stuff.
phleep,
Assuming you were criticizing me, I want to state that I was not berating social sciences or social scientists because they often serve a useful function. I was contrasting science and social science. A chemist can test his pet theory over and over again in a lab, but an economist cannot rerun the economy with new facts, and no economic model can fully capture the interactions of billions of people, numerous governments, and countless business enterprises. As Paul Krugman has written, economists are never punished (by the loss of their credibility) for being wrong in their forecasts.
“ So what do you think the targeted ads and manipulations in social media are based on? ”
I used to think they were the dumbest and stupidest things I’d ever seen…
Until I realized they weren’t selling to me, they were selling to the other dumbest and stupidest things I’d ever seen….
I settled down after that…
What a load of Cr*p.
Science is skepticism- true and false are never proved.
The whole premise is that things are hypothesized to be not not true, or not not untrue with probabilities applied.
The two biggest variables are the amount of subjects in the study and the amount of time. The larger the better for both of these. Data is easily manipulated by using cherry picked variables, and short periods of time with small numbers of people or products in the study.
Aka “big pharma clinical results”. Dig into details, oh wait they will not be available till 2075. Wonder why?
And even then, only after some nameless schill somewhere performs the “clinical endpoint adjudication”…..what a racket!
Turning other elements into gold was where it all started, and damned if they haven’t finally done it!
You have to listen closely and understand when an ‘expert’ is in fact making a normative statement. “In many disciplines, including economics and philosophy, a normative statement expresses a value judgment about the desirability of a situation. Whereas a descriptive statement (also known as a positive statement) is meant to describe the world as it is, a normative statement is meant to talk about the world as it should be.[1]” Oftentimes what is a normative statement is projected as a descriptive one. That’s where the reader gets into trouble.
Most economists are actually political apologists for some ideology, the one they support. It doesn’t matter how contrary to reality or common sense.
It’s the only reason I can come up with where they seem to actually believe that debasing the currency (“printing”) and endless deficit spending makes an economy more productive and a society wealthier. That’s how the government learned to “manage” the economy since WWII and the source behind the concurrent artificial economic stability which at some future date, will fail spectacularly when the “fat tail” event hits.
Like Uncle Milty and his other Chicago pal’s “Supply Side Economics?
Sure served Ronnie’s masters WELL.
They used to say you can tell how much a science something is by the math content of it’s text books. I think it’s pretty much true.
News is “Entertainment”. Not facts.
“News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.” – Lord Northcliffe
[with apologies for being repetitious]
Semiconductors: the reality is that the lagging edge chip factories that supply this segment are running at 100% capacity. Either consumer “smart” appliance consumption has to drop (hah) or new factories have to be built. It will take 2-3 years for a new factory, and even then the economics is going to be difficult (competing vs. fully depreciated, decades old factories).
So yes, any expert that thinks the shortage is going to stop very soon, is really an idiot.
Interesting…
So, were all the chip factories prior to Covid shutdowns not able to meet the demand then?…
Never heard that prior to Covid more capacity was needed…
At least it wasn’t on my radar…
Perfect storm where several of the legacy factories were damaged/destroyed (one had a fire, another got flooded.)
Most of the fabs in Texas were knocked offline for 1 month+ by the extended power outage last winter.
Add in record demand from unexpectedly strong sales and one chip shortage coming right up.
We’re trying to schedule circuit board production for next year and have seven components that are simply unavailable. If we can’t find all seven, or at least acceptable substitutes, we won’t be building anything.
Wait til we get to scaling EV’s. It’s about 15 years to get a mine permitted and up and running.
Government had worse possible policy of cutting supply and increasing money by 25% unless they wanted to generate inflation.
These unaccountable experts have taken a page from ‘Scent of a Woman’ disregarding their countless flubs like Colonel Slade advises about dance …
“No mistakes in tango … not like life. You get tangled up, you just tango on.” Media interviewers agree and never ask about past predictions that flopped.
US subsidy structure do not make it attractive to sell lots of EVs. In Europe Tesla’s EV share is much smaller.
Speaking of US’ EV subsidies, Elon Skum suggested recently that the government should “get rid of all subsidies” (now that Tesla is near trillion dollar company, that took billions in subsidies and credits).
If they follow through with his suggestion, maybe the Gov can claw back Tesla’s prior credits? Boy that would be fun!
Of curiosity, the bestseller the Toyota RAV4, is that one classified as a car or as truck in the cars vs. truck sales?
It’s a compact SUV (not so compact anymore). And is in the “truck” category.
Thanks!
Still it amuses me that a Toyota RAV4 is a truck, while a Chevrolet Caprice Station Wagon was a car.
for what it’s worth, my rav4 hybrid gets 36-40 mpg.
Friend bought Kia iconic hybrid. 40 mixed in town, 55 on freeway, pretty good.
that’s actually unusual. hybrids tend to get better for city driving than the highway.
Regenerative braking, Jake. The only true energy savings.
That is, other than going to smaller, lighter, and slower personal transport, which is what we should really be focused on….and demanding.
But we sure dumped Carter’s ass fast for just suggesting stuff like that…only Prez we ever had who was a scientist.
Can’t fight mass ignorance and the advertising that promotes it.
Toyota hybrid seemed like a great private sector product mostly bought without incentives. It is a shame politicians were too dumb to get in Engineering School but want to dictate engineering specs for design.
there were some incentives at the very beginning with the priuses, but they’ve long since expired. california allowed priuses to use the hov lanes by themselves for a while.
but agreed, toyota has really perfected the hybrid.
VW Rabbit got 50 mpg 50 years ago and ran on gas; doesn’t impress me.
Ha !
The Rabbit truck… in diesel…
Semiconductor shortages are blamed on Supply Chain issues = empty Dealer lots = fewer cars for sale to New Car demand driven by PPP $ = more ADM.
Sounds like the perfect senario for record dealer $. 🤑🤑
If it’s by design, it was designed by those that do not understand the economics of the automobile business.
Factories have break even volume as they have heavy fixed costs which are not as variable as one might think. Even when the factory is shut down, the power is on, computers are running, HVAC is running, etc.. Lower volume also dings cost of salaries as a slower line is a less profitable line.
Dealerships don’t make their money selling cars in a normal market. They make their *big* money on warranty repairs, service, parts sales, used vehicles, etc.,. The lower new car sales are going to ding their ability for future service / warranty business as the gene pool will be reduced according to the decrease in sales volume. That reality will come home to roost in a few years.
“In 2021 through Q3, of all the EVs sold, over one-third were sold in California (which has 12% of the US population), making it by far the hottest EV state. Top five states in terms of the share of EV registrations in 2021.”
The state with one of the weakest energy infrastructures (and leadership plans to make it WORSE) leads in EV sales. Train wreck coming.
Too much time on my ‘schedule’ these days…just spent the morning hours doing a Census.gov and Tev owner 50-state registration/ population density calc.
Then overlaid a Red State Blue State comparo. This helps in the ‘relocation calculus’. Wyoming and Montana looking all the more enviable.
CA @ 93: 1 Tesla…..WA @ 153: 1….MA and NJ cluster around the US average @325: 1 The Red state median@ 1154: 1
Expected and confirmed urban-dense Blues were near 3x more favoring Muskmobiles @ 400 conscious citizens per each four wheeled phone. By contrast: Two Hydrocarbon dense states were WV@3,000:1 and ND@ 3,541:1
None of the Blues got beyond three digits. I didn’t have time yet to do a Mask Sales-Density calc. My hypothesis is they’re correlated. Forgive me. > sar <
Tesla stock starting to have significant gas………broke 1000 yesterday. Lots of volume. Lithium is leading the inflation.
Reality is coming to the markets. Fed decision will make it clear that the funny money days are ending.
Look out in the first quarter next year.
Tesla’s finances have improved, but debt is still rated junk. Tells you it wouldn’t be around without Fed money printing like about 20% of US businesses.
What i am really interested in is if the “taken out of operation” portion of vehicle operations is going to change.
There has been a market for many years of used car exports – to South and Central America, poorer parts of Asia, Russia etc.
With the sky high prices, I’m guessing these exports are no longer economically feasible.
If true, this means the used car inflation is even worse than it seems…
I would think that used vehicle prices are now also much higher south of the border. In Canada, the same thing is happening, with any price differences being arbitraged out in the cross-border trade.
But as you said, given the huge price spikes in the US, why go through the hassles of exporting vehicles? Why not just sell them in the US without all the additional costs and risks? And if that happens, then used vehicle prices south of the border would be boosted further, until it makes financial sense again to export…
It makes sense (to export) if the titles are branded or the vehicle is well beyond it’s “use by” date. Flood cars, reconstructed, etc., have limited value even in this nutso economy.
I saw a convoy of clunkers heading south last weekend. Hadn’t seen that in a while. I guess there is still a good market for our leftovers.
In the countries I have been to south of the border, used cars are/were already very expensive, though I don’t know about Mexico now. A lot more expensive than the US.
“ There has been a market for many years of used car exports – to South and Central America, poorer parts of Asia, Russia etc.”
Pretty good market for stolen new ones too…
Especially, Jeep products…
Keep in mind the average vehicle age is continuing to increase. Also, a new vehicle becomes a used vehicle as soon as you drive it off the lot. That’s one steep used car supply curve that inflation will have to overcome.
I don’t think you can rightfully call the recent auto price spikes inflation. It’s probably due to supply/demand imbalances that leads to shortages which leads to higher prices.
Competition for Tesla will accelerate over time. Ford announced recently that it will triple the number of Mach-Es it intends to produce (to 200K units) and has already run out of reservation slots for the F-150 Lightning. It now expects to produce 600K EVs annually by 2023. Hopefully, it can actually secure sufficient battery supply to make this happen.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… it is ludicrous to assume that Tesla will essentially remain the only significant purveyor of EVs in the marketplace, as many Elon fanboys insist will happen.
especially given that the other manufacturers have decades of experience in building cars, so they don’t have the quality control issues tesla has had. elon fanboys talk about their software…as though the other manufacturers can’t hire good software engineers.
Friend has a Mach E. Build quality is nice, fit and finish better than Tesla. Software he says is pretty bad. I think he said Ford outsources most of it. Tesla hires really good software developers and knows how to do it modern.
hopefully that’ll be improved. it’s a shame for good hardware, whether it’s a car, phone, computer, or whatever, to be hampered by crappy software.
Legacy car companies aren’t all that adept at writing software. The one that I worked for got dinged into oblivion for their interfaces and constant “crashes” (of software that is). The cars, themselves, are among the most reliable on the road mechanically – but the software (HVAC, radio, navigation, “safety suite”, etc.,) leave a lot to be desired. That’s likely due to the wanting to do things “in house” to protect proprietary knowledge as opposed to farming it out to someone who can’t build a decent car but can code like there’s no tomorrow.
It’s baffling because I expect they would simply park a Ford compu-car next to a Tesla compu-car and poke at the screens for some compare and contrast to find their deficiencies versus the competition.
Something about their company culture must make them accept crap software for the UI whereas the hardware probably receives a lot more care.
Dan Nathan on cnbc has one selling ,because no charging stations doesn’t really work out in nyc
If you don’t have a way to charge your vehicle at home, an EV is probably not a good solution for you.
Ron, you are not making any sense with this post. Please use proper punctuation if it’s possible for you to do so. Thank you!
It is ludicrous to think that there will be no competition. I think they will hardly gain any share from this point actually. In this fanboy analysis they are saying that all the huge corporations that have been building cars for decades and have so much logistical, research and other experience won’t be able to compete!?
Like Germans can’t engineer anything!?!?!?
Have you seen the Mercedes and Porsche first tries!? There’s no way I would buy a Tesla over one of them already. Tesla might end up making a good product but there is very little reason to think they should be worth more than another manufacturer with a regular piece of the market.
not just worth more than another manufacturer, but worth more than every other manufacturer combined. it’s obscene.
I will continue driving 25-year old Hondas, Acuras, and Mazdas. Japanese manufacturers got it right; the quality of their products peaked a couple decades ago. The cars I have are great vehicles that require little repair and deliver great fuel mileage, and are fun to drive.
This last weekend I drove a uhaul truck from Portland to LA along I5 with my son. Once we left the Portland metro area we did not see a Tesla ‘ or any EV, along the way until we got within 80 miles of LA. Most of the cars on the road were the smallest class of SUV’s and and compact cars, especially in California. Perhaps the $5.00 per gallon gas is making people rethink the big SUV pickup thing.
I only see Teslas and EVs around wealthy cities. It is a rich man’s game. Some of my neighbors have Teslas but they also have SUVs or cars for when the weather is bad.
I imagine guilt made them buy the EVs. The gas mileage is not that good in areas with high temps or low temps (most of the country). Hence that’s why moderate temp California is king of EVS.
Try saving money on gas with an EV in Wisconsin!
I’m surrounded by Teslas here. Two-Tesla household across the street. Several Teslas on the block. Teslas driving by constantly. By the end of this year, EVs will account for about 8% of all new vehicles sold in California, and a lot more in the coastal cities. But it could be that you see fewer of them on I-5.
There have only been 5.8 million hybrids sold in the USA as of 2020. Sales peaked in 2013. Electric vehicles constitute only 1% of vehicles world-wide. (*)
Most of the Electric vehicles in the USA are on the west coast because of moderate weather (good for the batteries). I won’t buy a hybrid until I can find mechanics outside the dealership to fix my car.
All this means the planet is doomed as only the rich can afford to buy, fix and maintain Electric vehicles. Real people with real jobs living outside of the la la land of California can’t deal with the hassle of electric vehicles. The green revolution is a total farce and it won’t really be taken seriously until it is too late. Electric is not an efficient substitute for the high energy density of hydrocarbons given the current structure of our society.
Too bad, it was a nice planet.
*
Search ‘Electric car use by country’ in wikipedia for data. And ‘Hybrid electric vehicles in the United States’ in wikipedia as well.
Europe claims to be green. We will see how green they are this winter when people start getting cold because of fossil fuel shortages. They won’t accept austerity. I’m not against renewables and live off grid very comfortably with solar. At least in my opinion the problem is that the timeline they are using to become carbon neutral is insane .
Much harder to roadtrip in an EV due to charging times.
QQQ close the gap, the rest is bs
I believe I heard top 6 companies in QQQ make up 25%. I think it’s over 10% in S&P. Good sign of top. GE was number one not that long ago. If I am not mistaken Enron might have been number one for a day or so. If not they were a giant right before the dance stopped. It was all over in a few weeks.
Thanks for the translation of ME’s post. Can you do that on all of them?
1) The Korean, Kia + Hyundai, are 10% of the market, equal to Honda.
2) Ilan cut 20% for himself, before another Tesla bailout, part of AOC $6T.
3) AAPL in every car is down to 172, before a sling shot to $3T.
4) ETH/USD fell on a Lazer coming from Aug 9 and Aug 19 lows.
I think it would be rather obvious why pickup truck ownership in OK is disproportionately high. They actually use them for their intended purpose.
Same for TX. I’d imagine that usage in CA, MI and Ohio might be the same – rural agricultural areas that require a lot of hauling. I’m waiting for truck prices to come down to earth, but I can tell you without a doubt that hauling 400 pounds of corn feed is no fun in an Alfa Romeo.
Pickups have always been hugely popular in the big cities of TX and OK, even back in the 1980s, when dealers still sold some cars. Women loved driving them, guys loved driving them. Most of them drove their trucks to the office and to the store and to take their kids to daycare. Sure, there were some ranch hands that drove some old beater truck, and the ranch owners that drove nice trucks, and there were the roughnecks that drove the nicest trucks of them all during the oil boom back then, but that number was small. We (Ford store in Tulsa) couldn’t get enough trucks from Ford, even at the time. Lots of my friends drove trucks, and none of them did anything that they would ever need a truck for. They just liked them. Most of them didn’t even own a cowboy hat. Some of these people were in my bicycle racing club. That was 1985-1995.
I remember those days when heart surgeons were driving pickups. It was a fad, but it was a long time ago.
I’ve seen very few pickups in the hospital doctors’ parking lots for quite a few years. Lots of Teslas, R8s, Porsches, etc.
I’m going to start going through the obituaries to see if someone died and left an old beater.
Modern automakers use modular platforms that take half a decade to develop with an expected duration of use to around 15 years. Once developed though they can design new model base on those platforms relatively quickly. Likewise manufacturing can proceed rapidly.
Many automakers really only started the push in around 2018/2019 so depending on the speed of development they aren’t really getting new models to showrooms until 2022-2025.
So Tesla has had a massive head start and they’ll continue to have their lead in sales for at least a year. But by 2025 the market will be flooded with choices. Tesla’s best strategy is to try to stay the ‘Apple’ of cars however it will struggle to reach the volumes of Apple even if it can maintain the demand.
I expect the other manufacturers will be able to build better EVs for cheaper.
(Norway gives a better indication of mainstream consumer electric car buying desires as electric cars have reached 75% of new sales. And the reduction of Tesla’s market share there is telling.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_Norway
This seems so obvious to me as well. I don’t see how Tesla survives without merging with another automaker at some point. That would certainly improve their build quality. Elon is the creative genius but couldn’t care less about the nuts and bolts of building a car.
Great article W
I’m intrigued by Hyundai/Kia and why they list separately. They are highly integrated platform-wise.
Kia poached Audi’s top designer (Peter Schreyre?) a few years back. Their big target was to trounce VW.
The Germans had diesel to themselves till about 2005 because of EU tax policy until Hyundai did their superb Crdi engine which left everybody for dust in the emissions stakes. Some cynics say that was why they all ‘cooked’ the figures but not me.
If you put Hyundai and Kia together in your list they trounce VW.
Yes, Hyundai has controlled Kia ever since it bailed it out of bankruptcy years ago. But a portion of Kia’s shares are still traded publicly on the Korea Stock Exchange. So sometimes they’re lumped together, and sometimes they’re listed separately.
2022 begins the proliferation of EV options by big manufacturers with people like me waiting for a better quality and trustable option. My 15yr old ICE vehicle is running like a champ. Tesla will be the biggest loser. The shorts were correct but a little early to the game. Expect it to get worse for Tesla every year with their truck an fugly pipe dream. I heard Ford is seeing unprecedented interest in their EV truck.
What I gather from the article is that despite all EV hype ICE vehicle market is still growing at a pace of about 1% in the US. And that growth alone is larger than the entire EV market share.
And EVs seem to replace hybrids, not pure ICE vehicles.
BS. I have no idea how you can come up with this BS based on anything I said in this article. It’s just your own fantasy of what you would like.
1. You’re confusing “vehicles in operation” with “vehicle market.” VIO = every vehicle out there that still has a valid license tag, including that Olds from the 1950s. Vehicle market = current sales.
2. New Vehicle sales (total passenger vehicles, ICE and EVs) in the US peaked in the year 2000 and then kissed that peak again in 2016 and have since then declined, and by 2019 were down 1.4% from 2016 and from 2000. Not shown in the chart below is 2021, when total new vehicle sales will likely be down around 10% from 2016.
So while total vehicle sales (ICE and EV combined) declined by a bunch, EV sales are up by the double digits in percentage terms. EVs are red hot. And sales are booming. ICE sales are way down, and ICE sedan sales have totally collapsed.