Tesla +24.6%, Toyota +2%. Model Y +52%, #1 bestseller by far; Model 3 is #2 bestseller. Toyota loses it, Camry sales -16%, RAV4 +1%.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Tesla’s share of all light vehicles sold in California in 2023 surged to 13.0%, behind only Toyota, whose share fell to 15.7% (from 17.3% in 2022), according to the California New Car Dealer Association, based on registrations data by Experian. Honda was #3 with a share of 9.7%. Toyota and Honda had ruled California before the arrival of Tesla.
Tesla’s sales in California jumped by 24.6% in 2023. Toyota’s sales edged up merely 2.0%. This is now the battle for #1 in California. It’s between these two automakers. No one else is even close. Back in 2019, Toyota’s share had been 17.2%, while Tesla’s share was just 3.8%. Toyota has essentially no EVs to sell; Tesla only has EVs. This represents a massive shift in the market, instigated by a newcomer and only automaker that manufactures vehicles in California.
Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3 were by far the #1 and #2 bestsellers in California in 2023 by registrations, far ahead of the next models in line: Model Y sales spiked by 52% to 132,636; Model 3 sales rose by 4.9% to 82,786.
Sales of the Toyota RAV4 dipped by 1% to 58,496. Sales of the Camry, the former #1 model in California, plunged by 17%, to 51,330. Those two have gotten totally crushed not only by the Model Y but also by the Model 3.
Toyota has completely dropped the ball with EVs. Toyota has no EV to speak of. A year ago, Toyota’s longtime anti-EV CEO Akio Toyoda was forced out and replaced by a new guy, Lexus boss Koji Sato, under whom Toyota is now trying to build an EV strategy, while he’s dousing the media with commentary about how EVs will never amount to much – to distract from Toyota’s fumble. Losing the #1 spot in California would be very embarrassing.
Toyota sales have also been on a down-trend in the entire US since the peak in 2015, and we discussed this here.
Total new vehicle sales in California rose by 11.9% to 1.775 million in 2023.
Sales of vehicles with internal combustion engines (ICE) of all types, including hybrids and plugin hybrids, rose by 5.2%, or by 69,298 vehicles. Since the peak in 2016, ICE vehicle sales have plunged by 30% (blue line).
EV sales jumped by 46.1%, or by 120,204 vehicles, to 389,000 (red line).
While sales of ICE vehicles have plunged by 600,000 since the recent peak in 2016, EV sales have soared by 340,000, multiplying by over 5:
Tesla is finally getting more EV competition – slowly but surely. Though Tesla’s sales jumped by 24.6%, its share fell to 60.5%. The share of all other EVs combined rose to 39.5%.
The Chevrolet Bolt was the #3 EV model in California, with the lowest-priced model at around $20,000 after federal tax credit, a very desirable price point at which there are not many new vehicles left to buy. But GM ended production of the Bolt in 2023, and now the wait is on for whenever GM will introduce its new Bolt.
None of the Japanese automakers that used to dominate the California market have anything on this list. Seven of the 12 models are by US automakers, including the top three:
| Top EV Models in California, 2023 | ||
| 1 | Tesla Model Y | 132,636 |
| 2 | Tesla Model 3 | 82,786 |
| 3 | Chevrolet Bolt | 19,041 |
| 4 | Volkswagen ID.4 | 12,280 |
| 5 | Ford Mustang Mach-E | 11,311 |
| 6 | Tesla Model X | 10,448 |
| 7 | Hyundai Ioniq 5 | 9,632 |
| 8 | BMW i4 | 8,695 |
| 9 | Rivian R1S | 6,665 |
| 10 | Tesla Model S | 4,718 |
| 11 | BMW iX | 4,603 |
| 12 | 15 Kia EV6 | 4,148 |
The share of EVs in California – it jumped to 21.4% in 2023, up from 5.8% in 2020 — experienced two big accelerations: in 2018 when Model 3 production got scaled up; and in 2021, when the Model Y production reached scale:
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Can the good times continue for Tesla? With more competition their models look increasingly stale. The Cyber truck seems like a huge misfire for the company. And they still retain the hgue risk of their CEO being a right wing nut job.
Without government incentives it will only get harder. Then there are body styles that look the same for last decade (Model S) or so – that’s getting old too.
Cyber Truck might actually appeal to a significant group of pickup buyers. Most like to sit high and never haul anything, so idk why Tesla is getting so much bad press for hauling or uphill climb performance, when most pickup drivers never see that environment to begin with. I’ve heard that you cannot resell it as of now, kind of like Ferrari does? Not sure if that is true or not.
Possibly. It just seems like it will be overpriced and under deliver on range. Don’t get me started on repair costs for accidents.
As for performance, going off road and towing are marketing plays. Even if people won’t do it, the vehicle becomes a part of their identity, a symbol of who they are and what they represent. For certain men, a truck is the only acceptable vehicle. F-150s have four doors and luxury features because they are now family cars. Regardless of practical use cases.
So I would argue it’s important that the Cyber truck be capable of doing truck stuff. And in that regard it seems like a flop-a-roo.
It’s marketing is based on futurism and the cult of Elon Musk. Nobody else would consider such a polarizing design, let alone find a way to practically and cheaply produce it. Once the halo wears off, this thing will be like the model X. An over engineered product failure.
I guess it fits the same mold as the GM Hummer EV. Big, expensive and gaudy.
I’m a Tesla fan and MY owner and stockholder. While Cybertruck is a technological advancement in many ways, it is kind of a dud for real truck stuff. I think they were hoping that battery density would be further along by now. What I would say is the CT factory line can exist for 10+ years and for sure in 3-5 years cheaper ,. Lighter, denser batteries could make CT a true beast. Not to mention Tesla will likely be able to bring down the price to $35-50k as supply and demand balance out.
CT Range sucks. Charging time sucks. (No good for road trips) Non folding rear wall to bed sucks. No 4×4 diff lock sucks.
If you think Elon is right wing, listen to him speak for an hour instead of reading stories that spin his cryptic tweets out of context.
For every nutjob with a hate crush on Musk there’s one with a love crush on him, so that should balance out.
That proportion is changing, as Musk more and more brazenly reveals his ugliness.
History will probably treat Musk the way it treats Henry Ford: a driven visionary who did some good things and some awful things.
It’s kind of amazing that Nissan didn’t make the list despite excellent tech. A testament to how ugly the Leaf started out?
Low range, terrible charging, Nissan’s general reputation for low reliability… and sure, the cars don’t look very good.
What’s to be amazed about? The leaf has only disadvantages compared to the Chevy Bolt.
“The leaf has only disadvantages compared to the Chevy Bolt.”
Except for that whole spontaneous combustion thing.
CT reminds me of Canyonero (The Simpsons)😂
“And they still retain the hgue risk of their CEO being a right wing nut job.”
There are so many valid criticisms of Musk that it is strange to me this is commonly stated. I suppose these days a classic liberal like Bill Clinton would be considered “right wing”.
I saw a study from about 10 years ago that showed that, using the same poll questions across several decades, the gap between the Right and Left had increased entirely due to a shift further left by the Left. In fact, the Right had moved to the left on a few questions. I imagine this trend has only increased.
The opposite seems much more likely given the Right’s candidates.
I live in the Bay Area where most people consider anyone slightly to the right of Bernie Sanders “right wing”. I kid you not but not a week goes by when I don’t hear someone refer to Nancy Pelosi, Willie Brown or the late Dianne Feinstein as “conservative” or “on the right” so it makes since that the same people will call a single pot smoking guy who has been divorced three times and supported Obama, Clinton and Biden a “right winger”. P.S. I dislike 99.99% of all politicians on both sides of the aisle, but as America changes it is getting harder to fit everyone into a right or left wing box that lines up with ALL the RNC and DNC talking points (another “new” right winger my friends in the Bay Area hate is Bill Maher)…
I wonder, is it more people becoming polarized, or fewer people not wanting to go speak up against what they believe to be the loudest in crowd around them.
Larry, being conservative and telling the truth is far more admirable than deranged leftists calling anyone whose opinion they don’t like a right-wing nut Job.
Looks who calling names…
Seriously, they have best sellers such as the Model Y and the recently refurbished Model 3 and the Cybertruck with over 2 million in reservations and you think the line is “increasingly stale”. Musk may be a lot of things but he isn’t a right wing nut job.
I saw my first Cybertruck in the wild. It’s um, it’s um, well… You cannot miss it, that’s for sure. You recognize it from a mile away. It seems a little lower than the ICE 4×4 Crew Cabs. It was pulling into a parking lot right in front of me. So I saw it briefly from the front, the side, the rear. It’s clean-looking or maybe simple-looking, in a sense that it’s not cluttered with any kind of decoration or molding or whatever. It’s like ALL business ALL the time. Instead of these gaudy grills that F-150s have, it has this slightly rounded stainless steel panel. I would consider the truck handsome, not pretty. It has some strange appeal.
I’m not a truck buyer, but I like trucks, the current generation of 4×4 crew cabs, the way they look. Rivian found a way to be part of it (nice truck, I see lots of them). But the Cybertruck is an entirely different animal. If I were a truck buyer, I could give it serious thought.
Musk invites Alex Jones back onto Twitter and engages with him. Musk is actively boosting right wing conspiracy theories on his platform he overpaid for. He actively demonstrates he’s a right wing nut job on a daily basis.
The nut job promotes free speech on a daily basis.
I seriously doubt that Musk is any kind of a nut job… He’s pretty darned brilliant if you ask me!
Just saw my first cyber truck here in Florida. It is a grotesquely giant vehicle. Not my taste in looks, maybe because I’ve been raised to believe an F150 is what a truck is supposed to look like. Up close, the cyber truck looks military. Like it was designed for the army by the air force.
It’s an idiotic vehicle.
A- and B-pillars are so massive the line of sight is horrific. The steering wheel, while not like that ridiculously aircraft-styled one without a top to it (they had that one in a different vehicle), is almost as useless.
The bed is much shorter than you’d typically want for such a large vehicle because of mechanicals (tonneau cover?) that intrude into the bed from the cab. The bed-sides make it difficult/impossible to just heft things over.
Range is seriously compromised when towing. The list goes on.
They’ll still get fanboy sales I’m sure, but anyone looking to buy a real truck to do hauling, towing, and other truck things will look elsewhere because it’s just not a practical vehicle to be used as a truck.
“…but anyone looking to buy a real truck to do hauling, towing, and other truck things…”
That’s less than 1% of new-truck buyers. Trucks are primarily a personal vehicle today, a lifestyle choice. People buy a truck because they want a truck to commute to work with, and to take the family or date out to dinner, or to go hunting, not because they need a truck to tow a trailer with an excavator across the country. That is the first thing you need to understand about the car business in America. Full-size trucks were the best-selling vehicle type in America, true mass-market products, now surpassed only by compact SUVs.
@Kent were you “raised to believe” a truck should look like a ($1,275) 1975 Ford F-150 or a ($154,495) 2023 Ford F-150 Lariat Shelby Centennial Edition?
I saw my first cyber also on Sunday. Cruising down the interstate tucked in close behind an 18 wheeler. It will flop here in Florida. Trucks tow big boats and big campers. You fish on the ocean needing 28 feet plus and twin engines. Super long trailer with a large fork. Writing off your toys is a big thing. Lots of hobby business just so you can get the big luxury family truck. Made even more possible with lots of illegal immigrants.
Tesla’s have a huge market share but the top 5% have money to burn and they are no longer burning it on Tesla.
I’m not anti-EV, but I also think that the path forward toward mass adoption is hybrids: they introduce the mass market to electric mobility without the potential (consumer facing) downside risks.
BMW 330e, X5 50e, Wrangler and Grand Cherokee 4xE, and new Prius are all great examples of well implemented solutions.
I think we’d get more bang for the buck with hybrid vehicles that get ~50 miles pure electric than full on EVs at this point in time.
Yes, I’m aware of the added cost/complexity; But if the goal is getting people to drive electric cars as fast as possible, this is the way.
Hybrids are good. But they’re an expensive and very complex technology, combining everything an ICE vehicle has with everything an EV has.
The beauty of an EV is the simplicity of its powertrain. Hybrids are the opposite — the most complex powertrain ever invented for a passenger vehicle. But automakers are now mastering this tech, and it’s reliable.
To get the fuel economy (ours, biggest car we’ve ever owned, gets 45-50 mpg when I drive it, less when my wife drives), they have a relatively small Atkinson-cycle engine that lacks torque but is more efficient than an Otto-cycle engine, plus a small electric motor. The result is relaxed (meaning, sluggish) performance, compared to even a low-end EV such as the Bolt.
And they’re more expensive to make than either regular ICE vehicles or EVs.
I’ve had a couple of experiences lately that make me glad my EV isn’t my only vehicle. If I was in the market for a new vehicle, I would probably buy a PHEV from Toyota or Lexus for their quality control.
If I was in the market for a new vehicle I would check the insurance cost against what I currently pay. So many here complain about their auto insurance spiking, but ours haven’t budged for over 5 years. I have to think it’s because our newest car is a 2013 so we don’t have all the expensive sensors, moulded panels, etc. The insurance sticker shock on a new vehicle will be enormous for us.
One saving grace for that complexity is that the more durable electric drivetrain takes much of the strain off the ICE powertrain, from engine to brakes, starter, transmission, etc. Our Prius has been bulletproof, despite being a salvage. Now we’re on a PHEV Chrysler. Nice so far, with hardly any gas used, but I do worry about having twice as much stuff to break. And it not being a Toyota.
When a hybrid breaks, it is a pain to have it repaired. Normal mechanics are not trained to perform repair on electric systems. Also, the cost of replacing battery is enormous if the OEM battery is available at all. Added risk of battery fire is a great concern. Who would like to leave their car in the attached garage while worrying about potentially burning down the house.
EV repair is costly because when battery needs service, the shop has to allocate a very large area to prevent fire hazard from spreading.
Really hope safer batteries are available soon. The current battery tech is not safe enough in my opinion.
Realistically, how often do hybrid drivetrains require repair? …Compared to mechanical things they have in common with ICE vehicles. Seems like most issues reported with new vehicles relate to infotainment systems.
EVs are/can be epitome of simplicity.
I have EVs for last 10 years and didn’t need any maintenance other than tire rotation/changes.
We need simpler and cheaper EVs but car oems may not make them as they make more money on expensive cars.
Fortunately, ICE technology is over 100 years old, and with good quality control in production and reasonable operation and scheduled maintenance, an ICE or hybrid car can be very reliable. Hence, Toyota finishing ahead of Tesla in every reliability ranking I’ve ever seen.
Toyota is at or near the top of most quality surveys.
Hybrids are definitely not “more expensive to make” than EVs. We know this because Toyota’s been selling millions of hybrids for decades at $2x,xxx price range, and making a good profit at it.
No one has sold comparable EVs in north america in the $2x,xxx price range for good profit.
2024 base Camry LE: $26,420 MSRP
2024 base Camry LE Hybrid: $28,855 MSRP
I know because we’re on our second hybrid, and they cost a couple of thousand dollars more than the equivalent ICE-only version of the same model.
Toyota can hit these price points and make a profit because of their huge production volume. Everybody else has to divide up those fixed startup costs over far fewer units.
Recent CR data shows the most reliable cars are not EV’s regardless of what they theoretically could be. Maybe in the future, but not now.
Hybrid tech was mastered well over a decade ago (for your average car). performance can be very high, but your run of the mill car is not designed around that. Reliability is based on the manufacturers design and QC as certain manufacturers hybrids are more reliable than others ICE’s or EV’s
But why has Tesla’s shares dropped 20% in the last 3 months? Used Tesla’s for sale are sitting on lots almost double the time of ICE vehicles. Perhaps the lure of EV wears off and owners dump their EVs.
Tesla’s stock was overvalued in late 2022 at $110 a share. It’s hugely overvalued now that it’s $193 LOL.
Your used vehicle comment and conclusion is just more anti-EV BS. It never ends, does it?
Looks like there’s another Rob here now. I’ve changed my handle to avoid confusion.
Wolf, if you’re so inclined, I made the “It’s an idiotic vehicle.” comment still awaiting approval.
Tesla’s high PE and overvaluation is starting to come into focus. And their margins are under pressure from increased competition. This has no real bearing on the future of TESLA as a whole or the future of EVs. It’s their stock price coming back to reality. I’m not sure why you want to link the two.
I could make the opposite argument for GM right now.
Only from what a local Toyota dealer had told us a couple of years ago, so no idea if it’s true. We asked about the number of Teslas in the lot and he told us that people were buying the cheapest models new and getting the federal and state rebates then turning around and right away trading them in for something else. For the record, I don’t have anything against EVs. I don’t own one but I definitely see the appeal to having one. The ability to power your house with a truck for three days is beyond cool.
“We asked about the number of Teslas in the lot and he told us that people were buying the cheapest models new and getting the federal and state rebates then turning around and right away trading them in for something else.”
1. This is a Toyota dealer’s salesman-bullshit. Toyota doesn’t have new EVs to sell, and Toyota dealers who want to sell EVs, can only sell used EVs, and they buy used EVs to make money on used EVs. That’s how a dealership works. If they cannot sell a trade on their lot, they will wholesale it to someone who can.
2. So a new-car Toyota salesman would tell you the worst bullshit to tout and sell you their new ICE vehicles.
3. Toyota is getting crushed by Tesla in California, which is what this article was about.
4. Toyota sales in the US have been on a downtrend since 2015.
5. The Tesla Model Y became the #2 US bestseller behind the F-series, and blew away all Toyota models. Toyota dealers are getting hit hard by the competition from Tesla. So they lie to you about it.
6. “…then turning around and right away trading them in for something else”
There was a period when people were Tesla-flipping because they could make $20k a pop that way, get in line and buy one new at sticker and then turn around and sell it at $20k over sticker, because there was such huge demand and limited supply (during the shortages), that many people who wanted a new Tesla couldn’t get one. Tesla-flipping died when Tesla ramped up production and cut prices. Lots of Tesla-flippers lost lots of money overnight.
7. Since 2019, Teslas were no longer eligible for the $7,500 tax rebate (which was limited to the first 200,000 vehicles per manufacturer). And the new tax credit didn’t arrive until 2023. Which tells you again that your dealer LIED to you.
So yes, your Toyota sales handed you a wheelbarrow full of lies and bullshit, and you then came around here to dump it.
I listened to the Tesla conference call.
They have broken ground for the line in Texas where they will work out how to build the ‘mass market’ compact ($25-30K). It will be built in Giga Mexico.
The moonshot is still AI, full self driving (and robo taxi) which recently replaced hundreds of thousands of lines of human written code with AI written code and is being road tested within the company.
Essentially the same AI control functionality will be used to control its Optimus humanoid robots, the other side of the AI moonshot.
Musk certainly does not think small; 98 reusable rocket launches in 2023, Mars before 2030 , Starlink worldwide phone communication (2 launches yesterday), Neuralink, and X. People love to tear him down and bet against him but it just seems to energize him.
Musk also said he has good people running all of his companies if he has to go back to his home planet.
I aslo listened to conference call I shorted Tesla when it was at 240s. I closed my short position after earning call.
I have been riding evs teslas for last 10 years and love eV.
Tesla cars are good but much better competition out there and I drive one.
Tesla share prices are very over valued.
A lot of promises are by Elon musk but none seem to be coming to fruition.
Competition is doing much better and I’d say it’d be fierce over time.
I won’t be surprised if tesla share price goes below 100.
I’d re enter short again after it sucks in more tesla cult followers.
Jon,
Which EV do you drive and why do you prefer it over the Tesla choices?
I have Hyundai ioniq5
Ford Mach 3.
I used to have tesla Model S and Model 3.
Both were good cars but had lot of small finishing issues rattling…
I find Hyundai ioniq5 much better than Teslas.
But I like teslas and may buy next generation tesla Model Y.
If you drive a better EV than a Tesla please tell us what it is. I like Rivian, but lets see if they survive. Same with Lucid, but with even more of a survival worry. It is fun to use the word “cult”, isn’t it?
It sounds like there is no excuse for subsidizing electric cars anymore. They can compete on their own merits.
Yes, I abhor government incentives for EVs. It’s a complete distortion of the market and waste of taxpayer money. It’s just stupid policy to use taxpayer money to subsidize an already booming industry.
Agreed. At the beginning, it may have made sense to push enough people who were on the fence to adopt them, enough to create a critical mass such that other people saw them, knew people with them, and so on that they weren’t frightened.
But at this point, we shouldn’t be giving out $7,500 free dollars.
In some places, it’s even worse. NJ doesn’t collect sales tax, as an example, so depending on the car, it’s more like $10,000 or more in free money.
In what way does a government not collecting a tax constitute “free money”? My home state (Florida) does not levy an income tax. Is that money in my paycheck “free money”? Or maybe it’s all the government’s money and I’m just allowed to keep some?
True, but the government’s goal is to reduce the impact of cars on global warming, not to support the industry. It’s to get rid of ICE cars and trucks ASAP. It’s why I drive a Tesla.
There’s plenty of good arguments that EV adoption is good for society as a whole.
If we take the above as given, there’s the chicken-and-egg dilemma holding back EV mass adoption right now, and government is the player with both mandate & ability to incentivize over that hurdle.
of course, government being so political & inefficient often does incentives poorly. So far they’ve been paying people to buy the chicken (purchase subsidies).
Perhaps it would be wiser for them to concentrate on “the egg” (charging infrastructure). Some possibilities:
– install chargers on the national highway system
– subsidies / rebates for home & apartment charging systems
– include EV charging requirements in zoning laws, exactly the same way zoning laws currently require 5 empty parking stalls be allocated for every single doghouse or lemonade stand a developer wants to construct.
Possible it could cost the same, but it ought to equalize the benefits of these subsidies, instead of concentrating them in the upper-class people who can afford new $60,000 EVs anyways.
As is, you can’t get the credit anymore with a single income of $150k or family income of $300k, so upper class people can no longer get these credits.
Amazing story for Tesla with the rapid rise of their product line . A fantastic engineering and marketing feat with a tremendous product .
I wonder if Tesla and other EV makers are going to come clean and give a more accurate picture of the true efficiency of EV’s? While the EPA is punishing the emissions cheating of ICE vehicles, they promote the cheating of EV’s: ”
In a recent Wall Street Journal Opinion piece, the authors have shed light on a government rule that allows carmakers to arbitrarily multiply the efficiency of electric cars by 6.67.”
All ICE vehicle makers have lied about their MPG. They got into trouble and settled with the government, and with class-action plaintiffs, and they’re still lying about their MPG, but maybe less blatantly. Lying about MPG is standard practice in the auto industry ever since the MGP disclosures and CAFE standards were introduced decades ago. Go google around a little. It only hits your funny bone when EV makers do that?
“Wall Street Journal opinion piece” … 🤣 synonym for reliable anti-EV BS designed for people who’re trying to confirm their own narrative.
I hold no illusion that auto makers aren’t willing to play fast and loose with any rule they can if it means more profits. I just think the government giving them an easy way to make EV’s look better than what they are is just another subsidy, which we all pretty much agree is stupid. Forcing EV makers to give more accurate efficiency numbers means they wouldn’t be able to claim as many carbon credits, etc.
What do you mean by “efficiency numbers”?
As far as efficiency goes, ICE vehicles are only 30% efficient – 70% of the energy you put in an ICE vehicle is turned into waste heat! Current generation TESLA electric motors are 90% efficient. Talk about energy conservation.
Are you seriously claiming that EV manufacturers’ actual kilowatts-per-mile ratings are actually misrepresented by 6.67x?
A tesla 3, for example, is rated at 28kwh/100 miles. According to you, it actually takes 187kwh to drive 100 miles in a Tesla 3.
That seems completely unbelievable. It would require that out of millions of tesla owners over the past 10 years, exactly ZERO of them ever bothered to read their meter even ONCE while charging their cars.
Seems much more likely that the authors of an “opinion piece” have an ideological axe to grind.
No, the article shows that the government allowed EV’s to CLAIM 6.67 times their actual efficiency when calculating their “Average MGP’s”. That means if the testing showed the actual eMPG number to be 50, then the manufacturer could claim 50×6.67 when reporting fleet MPG numbers to the government. The government then used that highly inflated number to determine their carbon “penalty” (or credit). In the case of Tesla, this trickery allows them to sell way more carbon credits than they should legally be allowed.
The information I read indicates that it’s possible this could be brought to court and the government would be forced to remove that 6.67 multiplier. Whether or not all the carbon credits that were fraudulently claimed would have to be repaid is yet to be seen.
Here in Tucson, aka Priusville, I am seeing a lot of new or fairly new Teslas on the road. This started happening, oh, three or four years ago.
As someone who gets around town on a bicycle, I get to see a lot of cars close up. Gotta say that I’m impressed with the Tesla build quality.
What is the basis of your assessment of Tesla build quality?
“J.D. Power and Consumer Reports both rank Tesla at the bottom of the pack when reliability is tested. It’s reported that Tesla vehicles have an average of 171 mechanical issues per 100 vehicles. For reference, the average number for most automakers hovers around 120 problems per 100 vehicles.”
“…and with data from 24 brands and over 300,000 vehicles, Tesla fell near the bottom (19/24) along with Mercedes-Benz, Jeep, Volkswagen, GMC, and Chevrolet.”
It’s in good company, no?
Also:
“Tesla scored a reliability score of 40/100, while electric vehicles overall scored 36/100. … its score matches the average for domestic automakers, the company was able to improve its ranking by four places compared to last year, and none of its vehicles made it to the list of 10 least reliable vehicles in America. A list that notably included the popular Hyundai Kona EV scoring 5/100.”
🤣🤣🤣Read more than just the Google excerpt that fits your anti-EV BS narrative.
I wouldn’t say I’m anti-EV. Honestly, I’m ambivalent, but the build quality is poor. I wouldn’t say comparing it to a modern Merc or VW puts it in good company, hahahaha! These days, I’ll buy any vehicle as long as the manufacturer starts with “Toy” and ends with “ota”! Hahahaha!
We bought our LX450 with around 50k miles on it and sold it a couple years ago with 317k on the clock. Our GX470 had 139K on it when we paid $12.5k for it and sold it with 275K miles. I used to be an early adopter, but I’m too cheap for that nowadays, so I buy cars and drive them into the ground. Once the tech proves itself as being viable for more than 250k miles, I’m in.
I’ll buy a Tesla when my 1995 Toyota Tacoma stops running. Put it on my gravestone.
I manage fleet vehicles for work. 2023 Chevy Silverado 1500 with 2700 miles on it wouldn’t start yesterday. All systems check out fine.
Call the dealer to come get it… service manager states they have been seeing a lot of that issue lately with some programming microchip error whatever. Our F-150’s haven’t been much better.
Tom,
That is nonsense. I have owned a Tesla Model 3 for almost 5 years and the only problem I had was lawyers (rats) 😂chewing on electric wires, which it caused the system error with the sensors. Yes, had to take it for repairs.
I’m happy to hear you’ve had a good experience, but your sample size of one is statistically insignificant. The broad data suggests initial build quality is sub-standard. Frankly, I’ll wait until the technology is better proven.
I wonder if the recent bad EV press related to cold weather charging will affect sales going forward.
I doubt it. It may cause those without home charging options to think twice. After all the story was really about Tesla superchargers breaking down in a deep freeze. Seemed like some people rely exclusively on that network and have an issue if the public chargers experience issues. My wife got an ID.4. 95% of her driving is her work commute and local errands. She uses public chargers mostly because Electrify America is free for three years with a VW. But she mostly charges at home. There’s never been an issue. Range is definitely down in the winter, but she easily covers her commute and errands even during the deepest of deep freezes.
She has done a few road trips and that just requires a little more planning. She drove out to the finger lakes this summer (7 hour one way drive) and had chargers plotted out, including back up options. She was able to find rapid charging and top up easily. That said, one can see that charging is still niche. If vehicle sales take off, I’m not so sure the infrastructure will be able to match it.
ChS,
ICE vehicles often don’t start in really cold weather, and run out of gas when they get stuck on the highway when it snows. And fuel economy is horrible in cold weather. Hybrids aren’t really hybrids when it gets cold because they have to run the ICE to heat the jacket water so that the heater works and keeps the passengers warm. In cold weather, our hybrid’s fuel economy plunges for that reason. But it doesn’t bother anyone. Cold weather is a horror for ice vehicles. That’s why in cold climates, they come with engine heaters that you plug into the electricity outlet in our garage, LOL. Braindead anti-EV BS headlines are really to be enjoyed in the privacy of your own home.
My question wasn’t really if the headline was valid, I own an EV and I understand the benefits and limitations. I’m just curious if the latest headlines will affect sales.
I’ve lived through upper Midwest winters with an ICE vehicle and have experienced all of what you say. I have also experienced range issues, slow recharging, and lack of fast charging infrastructure associated with EVs. Pick your poison I suppose.
I will say recently I was affected by a mountain pass closure due to an avalanche. It required a long, unanticipated reroute in sub zero temperatures. Not much EV charging infrastructure along the way, but plenty of gas stations. The one Tesla charging station along the way was packed. I was very happy that I had taken my ICE vehicle on that trip. I was very happy to not have range anxiety in -3 degree temperatures. I was very happy to not add an additional 45 minute recharge time to the already long drive.
99% of the time it’s a non-issue, but every now and then it is.
You drove by the Tesla charging station just to check? if you’re not in a Tesla how do you know where they are?
There are horror stories about what happens to ICE vehicles when I-80 (over Donner Pass) closes in the winter due to accidents, and this happens a lot. People running out of gas while waiting and can’t heat the vehicle anymore, and when the traffic begins to move, they cannot move and block the traffic, etc. When a highway closes due to snow it’s always a major issue. And most of the vehicles that cause problems are ICE vehicles.
“You drove by the Tesla charging station just to check?”
I could see it from the road as I drove by, at about 2 mph.
“if you’re not in a Tesla how do you know where they are?”
Fair point, I suppose there could have been more that I didn’t see.
A quick google maps search shows, in fact, there was one I did not see. But I did see about a dozen gas stations.
Look, you are not wrong to say the issues with EV charging are overstated. I agree. BUT, it is also true that it takes a lot longer to charge an EV and there are fewer locations to charge them. You may not care about that inconvenience. I usually don’t either, but about 1% of the time I really do care.
BTW, If someone drives over Donner Pass in the winter without filling their tank, or battery, before hand, they are an idiot.
“If someone drives over Donner Pass in the winter without filling their tank, or battery, before hand, they are an idiot.”
Yes, totally agree. But most problems out there on the road are caused by idiots (not vehicles). Which was my point.
Wolf – it’s not anti-EV. Your bias is showing as bad as those that are anti-EV.
Take your last sentence…..most cars are ICE so it’s no surprise most problems seen on the road are ICE.
Cold isn’t a “horror” for a modern ICE.
EV’s have a fuelling speed deficit to ICE’s. That’s a fact. Running out of fuel also isn’t as recoverable.
It’s also a fact you can refuel an EV at home and ICE’s can’t. Pros cons.
People can decide what works for them, just like they can decide whether a truck, 4wd suv, or rwd 2-dr coupe on fits their winter needs.
I don’t know that we can say fuel economy tanks in the winter. That’s a strong word. Yes the air is more dense and the fuel blends change, but heat is readily available on the majority of ice vehicles because they are inefficient and heat is a waste product of that inefficient combustion. So yes, hard to start and efficiency drops some, but you don’t need to eat up electrons running a resistance heater, like EVs do. I believe thats part of the reason EVs have been slower to adopt in colder climates like outside of California and Florida. It’s another challenge, but they will work through it.
Blake,
You didn’t read my comment, or you don’t understand why a hybrid has good fuel economy (ICE turned off). But when it gets cold, the ICE doesn’t turn off, it idles and it runs, and when it turns off, it’s way too short, and then it comes back on. The reason it does that is to keep the jacket water hot so that the heater works. So re-read my comment.
Most people drive in stop-and-go commuter traffic. The cold degrades fuel economy when you do that. The first couple of miles when the engine is cold are terrible. Heat also degrades fuel economy because you power the A/C with your ICE when you idle. To use a 2-liter engine to power a small A/C is really wasteful.
You edited your comment haha. It’s not even the same as it was originally. So re-reading it isn’t ringing bells. you said ICE fuel economy tanks in the winter and I just don’t agree with that statement. It goes down some due to the air density and fuel blend, but EVs have to rob from the battery to make heat, which adds 0 propulsion and takes serious energy. It’s a big problem in our industry (I help design these vehicles, ICE and EV alike). My friend who drives a volt wears a winter jacket to extend his range….that solution is not a compromise everyone’s wife will make lol. But I’m confident this will get better in time, with creative solutions. My comment was not in regards to hybrids at all.
Blake,
“You edited your comment haha. It’s not even the same as it was originally.”
LOL, You might have read something else. I posted a bunch of comments here. It gets pretty confusing. There were quite a few tank and tanks in this threat. So that might have stuck.
What I said was: “And fuel economy is horrible in cold weather.” And that is still there, proud and standing tall 🤣
BTW, your friend’s Volt is not an EV, it’s a hybrid with an ICE. See my comment about hybrids in the winter.
Here is the “horrible” section of the comment — note the thing about hybrids:
And fuel economy is horrible in cold weather. Hybrids aren’t really hybrids when it gets cold because they have to run the ICE to heat the jacket water so that the heater works and keeps the passengers warm. In cold weather, our hybrid’s fuel economy plunges for that reason. But it doesn’t bother anyone.
When its ran just off the battery capacity and the engine doesn’t have to start….its essentially an EV, and behaves as such.
No a hybrid it’s not an EV and it doesn’t behave like an EV. It behaves like a smooth ICE vehicle. It’s and ICE vehicle with an electric auxiliary motor. The heating in a hybrid is from jacket water, and that only gets hot when the ICE runs, and there is no electric heater in a hybrid, and the AC compressor is driven by a belt attached to a pulley on the ICE. EVs have electric heaters, and they have an electric motor to power the A/C compressor. We’re on our second hybrid. So don’t tell me any stories about what hybrids are.
Another reason hybrids aren’t hybrids in the cold — the cold prevents the battery from being used. So there is less electric motor assistance and less regenerative braking. Until the ice engine heats up the battery enough.
Wolf….I work for GM. A volt uses a resistance heater for heat. I don’t have to argue about it with you lol. It’s a fact
Ok, the Volt did have resistance heating, I stand corrected. But it’s a “plugin hybrid” (PHEV) not a “hybrid.” GM hybrids heat with jacket water, as do Ford hybrids, and I assume all other hybrids.
Turns out, their plugin hybrid (PHEV) siblings have auxiliary electric heaters to heat the vehicle when relying on electric power only.
My son lives in Madison, WI and doesn’t have any trouble with charging or range on his Tesla Model Y in the cold. First, because he charges in a garage (unheated), second because his car pre-conditions/warms the battery prior to use. I think the people in that O’Hare airport drama arrived at the airport with low charge – went on a trip – and came back to find their very cold/low charge vehicles without enough charge to get them home or to another charger. So they all queued up at the only local charger – and some of them ran out of charge waiting. I no longer live in the MidWest, so I have never had trouble in six years of owning a Tesla… but I don’t travel around the Great Lakes in the winter :)
I think one of the key things is heating the cab of the vehicle before it leaves the garage, while electrons are plentiful and can be extracted from the wall outlet. This way you don’t have to dip into the range so much to get the cab heated once you start driving. Maybe they already do this? I don’t own one so not sure.
Tesla doesn’t use resistance heating. Tesla has a heat pump.
and for that, they are smart! However we do know heat pumps come across challenges in exceptionally cold temps
Or Hertz dumping 20,000 Tesla’s from their fleet due to lack of customer acceptance? Biggest complaint is time it takes to charge for a vacationer, many broken chargers/buggy interfaces, and high fees the rental companies charge if you return the EV without charging it first (vs. filling up the tank on a conventional ICE rental that takes a few minutes).
GM and Honda are at it again with the hydrogen units. GM is pushing the product towards industrial uses (hydrogen powered generators, etc..). Honda looking to try to employ the tech in CA in passenger vehicles. Or so says Automotive News.
The problem with renting a Tesla is that there is a big learning curve if you have never driven a Tesla, and if you have never driven an EV. You don’t know how to use the route planning system that includes the Tesla super chargers along the route at the right intervals, you don’t know anything, you sit in the airport parking garage and are trying to figure out how to turn on the lights and the windshield wipers, and don’t have hours to figure out how the system works, and so you cannot use the Tesla properly.
Hertz went bankrupt in 2020 and tried to screw stockholders on top of it. The same failed management still runs it. Since it emerged from bankruptcy, its shares have done nothing but drop. They’re now down to $8.60. That company is the worst shit. I don’t know why anyone pays attention to what these people concoct. Because it fits your narrative?
I think there’s a learning curve and an infrastructure inconvenience/challenge. That’s going to steadily get better but I would agree both pose a challenge to the everyday driver who’s never owned an EV and would rather pay the gas money vs deal with the inconvenience. People are lazy, and fuel is not that expensive when compared to the overall price and hassle of getting a rental to begin with, in my opinion.
No. It was a news article…. relevant to the EV discussion.
People often rent cars to use as lab rats to see if it’s something they can live with on a permanent basis. Cheaper to spend a few hundred bucks vs. 10’s of thousands to get the experience. Rental data shows that many Hertz customers don’t care to rent them for reasons stated. Another thing cited in the article was resale value plummeting (they likely don’t get the fleet discounts that Toyota or GM provide so they ride the same curve as any Joe will). Some manufacturers offer guaranteed buybacks to the big rental companies. Tesla likely does not.
So, it’s not a narrative. It’s published as fact by the leading automobile industry rag.
No, Hertiz did not sell 20000 Teslas. They sold 20000 EVs of which about 2 percent were Teslas. You might research a little bit before making such a statement.
“Tesla makes up about 80% of Hertz’s EV fleet, and, altogether, EVs make up about 11% of Hertz’s total rental fleet.”
My guess is you are going to see BEV sales tank this year. Tesla did massive price cuts last year to move metal. So everyone that wanted one, bought one. Now, the rental car companies aren’t buying anymore. Not only that, they are dumping their inventory of BEVs. So that demand is gone. And really, how many BEVs would have been sold without government subsidies? Well there aren’t as many of those. Lastly, now that other car companies are producing BEVs, they don’t have to subsidize Tesla anymore.
It’s the same braindead idiotic anti-EV BS year-after-year. And now look where these EV sales are. Don’t you people get tired of posting the same garbage year after year every time you see EV in the headline?
Price cuts is exactly what Americans need the most. New vehicles are way too expensive, and average people cannot even afford them anymore. The oligopolistic legacy automakers are now getting ruffled up by Tesla, and that’s a good thing. You should be hailing those price cuts by Tesla!!!
EV is the only way to go. Hybrids are just a more complicated and ultimately costly maintenance and manufacturing adventure that will go away in the long run. That is to say, go away for most people, not all.
Toyota continues on its Kodak Moment strategy. Perhaps they will see the light but I doubt it. I can’t think of a more nonsensical idea for the masses than hydrogen power. Talk about infrastructure build out constraints. I fully expect Toyota to announce a “new” power system that will run on a combination of corn cobs and wheat straw as they simply do not understand the difference between green energy and sustainable or renewable energy.
EV is not the only way to go. its just another tool to serve a purpose. In fact there are several ways to go. It’s actually crazy to think ICE and EV won’t coexist for a significant amount of time, while the growing pains of all electric are worked out. EVs are great for certain people, and ICE vehicles are great for certain people. That’s why it’s awesome they will make and sell us both! Personally I would love to own one of each, id have it all! This mindset of one or the other, is actually completely unnecessary
Watch the data. It will probably prove you wrong. Maybe not in the very short term, but long term, I think you’ll be proven wrong. The trend is up, and the things you mention (like subsidies) are quickly becoming irrelevant.
Tom,
That is nonsense. I have owned a Tesla Model 3 for almost 5 years and the only problem I had was lawyers (rats) 😂chewing on electric wires, which it caused the system error with the sensors. Yes, had to take it for repairs.
Toyota has turned off a lot of loyal customers with “Market Adjustments”. Yes, many automakers did the same thing, but $10,000-$15,000 over MSRP for a Camry ?? Fuhgeddaboudit.
Not to mention the Toyota dealership experience is the worst.
I just bought a brand new Corolla for my sister. It was $100 under MSRP. No complaints at all with the dealership.
Ever been to a Chevy dealership? I went to one to try a Bolt. They let me drive around the block, and would not let me on the freeway.
California BEV sales are mooning because Cali has an abundance of solar and high electricity rates. Add extra panels to charge an EV and you’ve locked in your home electric bill and EV bill. System paid in full within 4-5 years and then it’s free electricity for your house AND cars (yes this means you’ll never buy gas ever again) for the next 15+ years. You’ve got to be incredibly stooopid to not install solar and buy EVs if you own a home in Cali. It’s like throwing $600-$800 out the window of your house and your car every month. Sunny states have this major advantage over gloomy ones.
You are right that California has a serious advantage for EVs vs other areas. Sunny, warm, dense urban environments, high paying jobs, etc. all things that make EVs very appealing. However does Arizona see the same uptick? Part of what benefits California is they are more tech oriented and more prone to adopt this type of thing earlier, I feel. And they tend to care more about the environment (e.g. CARB)
EVs are packed into the parking lots in the ski areas. All kinds of EVs, and it’s over 7,000 feet, and it gets very cold up there. And people who live up there (part time?) have EVs. EVs are very popular in the Sierra Nevada.
What about Wyoming though? Driving one up some elevation into the cold is different to me than a cold vast region like Wyoming, ND, Maine, UP of Michigan, northern Wisconsin, etc. these areas will be slower to adopt, I believe. Infrastructure and climate is a big part of it. Elevation actually helps with EVs because you can capture energy on the way back down the hill, so to me elevation isn’t a huge factor. Same with stop and go traffic, that benefits EVs.
Musk had a vision, he executed it. He produces the best EV and he showed us, common people, that EVs are cool and are high performance cars.
It is also clear that Tesla must remain an innovative company in order to succeed.
The competition is lagging behind, because they never really believed in EVs. Look at VW: “We produce the cleanest diesel.” Yeah, right. Just why should they ever consider building a top notch EV?
Likewise Ford did a $7B stock buyback a month or two ago and cut back on EV Lighting production. GM quit making the Bolt.
Makes me wonder if most or all of US ICE hasn’t decided to maximize ICE profit and die slowly.
The only large competition Tesla currently has is out of China and they will have to build factories in Mexico in order to get into the U.S. EV market.
Tesla has effectively a monopoly in U.S. EV sales for at least a few years. Then the ‘mass market car’ at $25-30K will begin eating into the low end of ICE in the U.S..
And, Musk says AI self driving is worth more than all of the rest. What happen if humanoid robots can do most work?????
The EU will have to slow Chinese EV imports or their automobile industries will be decimated. The Chinese already make good low end EVs that compete strongly with European ICE low end.
Musk is having union trouble in the EU but no worse than other EU car makers. If the EU doesn’t shield itself from China Giga Berlin can focus on high end high margin EVs. The EU is so economically lame… I guess it is caused by trying to integrate all of those cultures and languages in order to stop European wars.
In the U.S. Tesla is threatened by the UAW in CA but I don’t think the Nevada or Texas plants are seriously threatened and certainly Mexico isn’t likely to be threatened.
Tesla has low debt and a loyal shareholder base. I think they are in the catbird seat.
To really build out much beyond where they are now, there will probably have to be subsidies to build and operate public fast chargers. Tesla sort of fooled people on the economics of operating fast chargers ( less than one hour) as a business.
My wife’s utility ( wastewater) looked in to the economics of building fast chargers to use electricity generated from their co-gen facility ( nutural gas to electricity). The problem is when you add up all the costs for these high current units ( like a Tesla Supercharger) including the land, asphalt, transformers and utility connection fees these chargers can cost $200,000 each in up front capital costs.
The problem is they can only service at most one customer per hour per charger ( and most only run a 25% utilization rate) . So unless the customer is paying some sort of ridiculous price for electricity the revenue per hour for such a high investment is very meager.
I explained this to restaurant owner friend of mine recently. Imagine you were given the ability to purchase a new automated restaurant that consisted of 5 robots that could do all the cooking, cleaning and service. But could only serve one customer per hour for a total investment of $1,000,000. That is the same as a 5 unit Supercharger station al-in. The cost of a mid price restaurant meal is about the same as an EV charge $15-$20 and the margins are about the same.
So I asked him if that would be a good business and he started laughing.
My analysis is backed up by a study done recently by Mckinsey which also determined ( using a different methodology) that public fast chargers were not an economic private business unless subsidies are involved. Yes I know Tesla does it, but they have a multi-billion dollar valuation from which to subsidize it.
An no, the cost of land, copper wire, giant breakers, transformers and asphalt is not getting cheaper and will not be going down over time.
Hubert’s Curve,
The build out will take a long long time like whale oil to coal and coal to oil.
The length of build out time will depend upon the amount of pain/cost societies experience from pollution (don’t forget all of our other wastes) and warming. PAIN is the BIG motivator.
My guess is that Elon will be harvesting asteroids before we are well begun.
Hubberts Curve,
This is beyond BS, dressed up as logical and decorated with fake numbers.
1. The problems cited by your wife’s utility are concocted by a regulated cost-plus “utility.” Utilities are incapable of understanding anything except their regulatory regime and how to profit from it. Utilities should never own EV chargers. It’s like a utility owning your refrigerator and telling you what to put in it, and when to use it. Utilities should stick to providing the services they were designed to provide.
2. Your numbers are totally bogus. Your assumption that Tesla etc. needs to own the land to put the chargers on are bogus. They can lease the land just fine. It’s just a small area for a few superchargers, four parking slots for four supercharges. They can make a deal with the landlord, giving the landlord an extra revenue stream for a few parking slots that would produce no revenue stream otherwise. Etc. etc. Landlords themselves have jumped on it. These huge retail parking lots are ideal for it… and customers can go shopping while the vehicle charges.
3. Leave the EV charger math up to people (such as a highly profitable Tesla) that understand the business and know how to do it profitably. Other EV makers are now making deals with the Tesla to use their system because it works, and Tesla is doing those deals because it will create additional revenues. Don’t try to tell Tesla that their business will never work – that’s just stupid.
Dude what do you think it costs to build a gas station….$5?
This isn’t rocket science. It’s a high voltage electrical outlet. Yes there’s copper. It also took copper to get electricity to your house, did you decide to just stay off grid??
People overcomplicate things. Charge stations will continue to get built and electricity will continue to be cheap enough to outweigh the operating costs of a gas car. The math is not that hard.
The big difference is that a gas station averages 300-500 customers per day and big ones like Costco many times that. Plus the average sale per customer is much higher than the cost of the charge on an Ev.
This is compared to the theoretical max of 8 customers a day per charger ( if people charge 24 hours a day).
Hubberts Curve,
Why don’t you let the engineers at Tesla make money with their charging network — obviously, they figured it out without your help years ago. You’re trying to tell Tesla that their very profitable business isn’t working. That’s just silly.
One day, if EVs are the norm, they will find a way to supply power to many, many vehicles at once. Electricity is not terrible hard to create and distribute, we have been doing it for a long, long time. The EV game has just begun. It won’t happen tomorrow. But to pretend it’s not feasible ….well that has already been debunked. It’s just mass market and efficiency challenges now. Big things start small and take time.
Here in the Coachella Valleyn Teslas are as common, if not more common, than any of the majors. With that said, I wonder if Musk’s recent racists comments will hurt sales with liberals and progressives, a natural demographic that is more likely to support the conversion to EVs. In fact, there was a Tesla Model 3 parked at the grocery store the other day with a bumper sticker that said: I bought this before I knew about Musk. Time will tell.
Maybe Musk is trying to get the other side of the population to buy EVs? He has become a hero in those circles.
Wolf,
Most respectfully, I think that Musk SERIOUSLY believes in freedom of speech in this coming age of AI generated influence.
I hypothesy this because he was very early in understanding the power of AIs, a founder of open AI.
He has stated that he is very worried about the power of AI, called it an existential threat.
Early on he said that he started Neuralink in order to create man/machine interface (an android) able to deal with or control machine intelligences. Neuralink put a chip in a brain yesterday.
X has cost Musk a lot of money so far but it could give him one of the biggest voices on the planet eventually. A huge voice would be very valuable and influential!!!
Musk seems to be about five steps beyond everybody.
These are strange times, indeed.
Let them compete. Remove the EV subsidies. Let China EV makers into the US market. Competition will be good for Tesla. It will be good for battery progress which is the main problem with EV’s.
Until batteries evolve to where they deliver 700 mile range, I’m not interested. EV’s will get there, but only if competition is allowed. The effort now in the US is to regulate competition out of the picture.
Every EV sold, means more gasoline supply for me.
One day I will buy an EV – assuming I dont expire first. But for now, I’m not sold. I still have my CT reservation, but probably wont be forced to make a decision for a year or more. Maybe by then Tesla will have fixed their 4680 problems and that battery will be able to deliver what was promised from it 3 years ago.
1. Tesla is already competing with Chinese EV makers on their soil. And doing pretty well against them. But they’re very tough, and they’re a lot of them. Competition is good. Tesla is learning in China.
2. I never owned a vehicle that had a 700 mile range. Why would I even want to drive that far? That’s what planes are for. 350-mile range is already pretty good for gasoline vehicles.
More competition is good in USA.
BYD SeaGull model costs about $11K with 200 miles range which is good enough for 80% of the drivers out there.
If BYD comes to USA, it’d be very difficult for other companies to sell their cars competitively.
I doubt BYD will be allowed in the U.S. anytime soon though I think they could build a factory in Mexico and get in that way.
Musk said the Chinese ev car companies are very tough competitors. Europe has a tough decision to make as to whether to restrain them or not.
The article is strictly about California. It would be more interesting if we could see EV sales for the entire country, or by region (West, Midwest, South, Northeast). California is an aberration in many ways, when compared to the rest of America. California is a liberal-progressive-Democrat state with three major cities falling apart (San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles) and a huge increase in crime. It also has one of the highest state income tax rates in the nation. No wonder people are moving out in record numbers. Perhaps they are driving out in their EVs, but because of EVs limited range, can only get as far as Nevada and Arizona, much to the benefit of the rest of the country.
“It would be more interesting if we could see EV sales for the entire country,”
https://wolfstreet.com/2023/12/07/tesla-model-y-is-2-us-bestseller-in-2023-through-q3-behind-perennial-1-ford-f-150-and-ahead-of-toyota-rav4/
https://wolfstreet.com/2024/01/04/ugly-charts-of-auto-sales-by-gm-toyota-ford-stellantis-oh-my-got-crushed-by-hyundai-kias-record-sales-tesla-has-arrived/
Howdy Folks, I have to admit, EVs have come a long way since 1895. They should catch on for most cities in time…..Doubt country folk will ever purchase one……..
Oops, this country folk has two of them. Both Teslas as there is nothing else like the Tesla, or I should say, the Tesla system which consists of the charging system, the Tesla app as well as the brilliantly conceived mapping and information system on board that only Tesla has and the equally brilliant over the air updates that only Tesla has. I check the others out there a couple times a month and nobody is getting even close to Tesla.
I have non Tesla EV and it has over the air update. Most EVs have this feature I guess.
It will be slower to adopt in the country. However most country folk own two vehicles within a given household, at least, already. Having an EV and ICE is the perfect combo. Cheap short trips and everyday commutes, but a gas vehicle on hand for the long trips or towing a camper, etc.
Howdy City Slickers, the country folk I am talkin about dont have electricity yet.
Reading the comments and Wolf’s attempts to maintain a semblance of sanity among the comments, I believe he should close the EV articles to comments. Usually I learn a lot from the comments. Not this time.
Yes, I decided already to close the comments at the next EV article, and maybe at all EV articles. Total anti-EV BS overload. I’ve had it. On an article like this that spells out how an EV maker is now #2 in CA, and is on track to be #1, and how the top two models in CA are EVs, we’re still getting dozens of comments (most of which I delete) about how EVs will never work because of yada-yada-yada. I wasted hours on this. I hate those BS comments on articles about the biggest thing to hit auto industry in my lifetime. And the auto industry is a big part of what this site is about. It’s not a platform to spread anti-EV BS.
I understand your frustration, but I don’t think it is a waste of time, exposing the nonsense of the anti-EV brigade. It would be sad to never have comments on EV articles, maybe one per quarter can be open to comments?
Howdy Escierto. I had no idea EVs have been around for over a century. Personally, I found that as good information to know…….
Went to cali with wife, rented a Tesla 3…didn’t even know how to start it …a little help from YouTube and I was off. I hated it, then I thought it was ok, then I thought it was pretty good, by the end of the weekend me and the skeptical wife agreed it was the best car we have ever driven. It’s faster than anything on the road, quiet, smooth, great tech and easy to use (after you tube video)….I bought one while commuting to Thanksgiving dinner …have had it for 60 days…it’s great, fun, fast, easy. Only complaints- range on road trips not as advertised (knock or 20%) and home charging expense and pain of install. Car is totally worth it
Also, had bunch of family members drive it at a wedding around new years…everyone (all ages) said it was the best car they have driven.
Fast is not compatible with high range, nor is high-speed (highway) driving. We have a Leaf that I usually drive in Eco mode; that gets much better range than if I drive it with quick acceleration but definitely not as fun.
TSLA has a P/E ratio that could be arguable for a high-growth Stock with a briliant product pipeline. As their own CEO reported in the latest earnings call, there’ll be no growth but he’s confident his “humanoid Robots” will walk the earth in 2030 – of course with TSLA’s autopilot software.
Good luck with that.
Hi Wolf,
This is mostly to you and I don’t expect you to publish it and I would be real surprised if it got thru the filter but that would be ok if it happened
I enjoy reading the anti-ev bias because it further confirms for me where and why the right wing of this country is on many issues.
I have recently been having coffee with a number of religious conservatives (who for some reason like to talk/argue with me) and I think a lot of the ev-bias here matches what is in the conservative right. Mostly they don’t think there is a problem with our environment.
Perhaps these religious conservatives are talking to me because they do realize that they have a political problem. They are not bad guys. They were all hard workers, successful, and a couple of them made many trips overseas for their companies. Pillars of their communities really. But, they still can’t believe we have a pollution problem in this world. They also hate a lot of the change like LGBT and BLM protests. They have held the line for a long time and they have a hard time bending.
I like reading the EV views that disagree with mine but I know it is a lot of work for you. Thanks!
You too can find an axe and grind it, thus becoming known and loved. If that’s a commenter’s thing, all you can do is delete it. You’d think that people would understand that they have little substance to contribute to most topics, and restrain their posting to things they think they know something about. But they don’t, and the bold print/acronyms/Red Print of Doom, etc., comes out. It’s been entertaining and I hope the comments are retained. Just delete the jerks and watch the systolic. The vast majority of car buyers will form their initial ideas by taking a look at their neighbors driveway and go from there. Specs and tech are lagniappe to the converted. In a responsive market the vendors develop and sell what sells best for adequate profit. They’re going to individually fix the inevitable development issues or go out of business as individuals. The move to EVs is inevitable. Raging at the dying of the ICE light doesn’t stop the light from dying. Wouldn’t want to fly in a piston powered airliner either. Please keep the comments and dump the blindsayers. They’re not going anywhere and may inadvertently educate themselves while they’re kvetching about inconsequential stuff.
Steve McQueen stars in Bullitt Ev!
EV’s are 1/2 of the puzzle. The other is reliable carbon free baseload power generation – aka next generation nuclear power.