OT: Ford Mustang Mach-E Is Stealing a Big Chunk of EV Buyers from Tesla
"Investment banking company Morgan Stanley reports that Tesla lost 12 percent of the battery-electric vehicle sales market in February compared to the same stretch last year. That's a big enough drop on its own, but according to the firm, the hit is almost entirely credited to sales of Ford's Mustang Mach-E.
In a report published on March 2, Morgan Stanley explained that "BEV sales outgrew the total market by nearly 40 percent" during the period. In essence, EVs are getting more popular, but Tesla isn't the only one reaping the benefits this time around. The report continued to say that the Mach-E "accounted for nearly 100 percent of the loss," meaning Ford's divisive and electric pony car, erm, crossover is proving quite popular.
Although the overall car industry was down an identical 5.4 percent in February 2021, electric cars were up 34 percent, which makes the amount the Mach-E has sliced into Tesla's share even more impressive. Taking 12 percent of what had been an 81 percent market chokehold is a lot, especially when the Mach-E has contended with outrageous dealer mark-ups. Despite that, Ford has reported customers are going for all-wheel drive and increased range, investing in the car's highest specs and completely selling-out the limited First Edition model."
Source: The Drive, Author: Hazel Southwell, 3/3/21
With other automakers bringing EV models to market, in scale, shortly will this endanger Tesla's volumes that are critical to their profitability?
Also, the lucrative regulatory credits that Tesla sells which has padded their financials for years would these be in danger if automakers have their own fleets of electric vehicles allowing them to scale back or eliminate credit purchases from Tesla?
That's not true at all RE: GM only producing EVs by 2025.
They announced they would "aspire" to produce only EVs by 2030 or something like that. Which, I mean, I aspire to be a millionaire by 2030 too.
Yeah, I call BS. In 4 years, GM won't be making gas-powered vehicles?
Very true about the car having less moving parts, but so does my Craftsman drill. However, the battery has a limited life span. I drive a 20yr old TJ that still runs fine. Let me know how that 20yr old Tesla or Mach E is doing with a dead battery.
If "several thousand miles on a single charge" ever does come true, it'll remove one of my major objections to electric vehicles, that being charging time. 400 miles of range in an electric car =/= 400 miles of range in a gas car, because it takes 5 times as long to charge as filling up a gas tank, and the last 15-20% of the charge slows down significantly so it doesn't overcharge the battery and blow it up. So it makes road trips a pain in the ass.
Electrics need about 1000 miles of range before they're good for road trips, so you can go all day without charging. But the infrastructure still has to reach every corner of the country like gas stations do.
Wahoo, that may be the case for you, but I don't think your requirement is necessary for most people. You're not taking increased charging speed into consideration.
If charging speed continues to improve, increased battery range and faster charging effectively eliminates range anxiety.
EV's don't have to exactly replicate ICE to win the market for many people.
True. If they can get charging speed down to something comparable to a gas engine, that would also help. But they're a long way off still.
They are "greener" by any measure that is honestly compared. And I don't think that's what was being said, anyhow.
I charge at night and receive a discount for doing so. Do you think more electricity is used to cool everyones homes in Florida in July or charge electric cars in their garage at 1am on a Tuesday. Also, depending on your driving style, I only charge once a week, not 7 like an air conditioner in Florida.
To the extent that you are doing most of your charging at night there is significant overcapacity in our power grid. The bigger challenge is fast charging during the day. To me the key is using EVs for what they are best at, local driving. Many people have two cars with at least one car never used anywhere near 200 miles on any day of the year. In that application grid availability and charging time are not as big issues.
Also, if we are going to consider life-cycle emissions or overall environmental impact, it is probably worth noting that there are large emissions associated with oil extraction and petroleum production. It is also important to understand that the greenhouse gas intensity of the US power sector keeps going down.
Do we have the capacity in the electric grid? Not today, not even close.
Consider an IC vehicle with a 15 gallon fuel tank. At 44 MJ/kg, that gasoline represents about 2000 MJ of energy, which at 35% engine efficiency means you have access to about 700 MJ of energy for locomotion. Let's say your BEV is 80% efficient, so you put an 875 MJ battery on it to get the same range. If you want to charge that battery from zero to 100% in two hours, that will take about 0.12 MW of power continuously for 2 hours.
Consider California. Google tells me the state has an installed power generation capacity of 80,000 MW if everything is running full out. Let's run the system full out for 24 hours, meaning 12 2-hour charging windows at 0.12 MW apiece. The total installed capacity of the grid in California, running full out, would be able to charge about 8 million vehicles a day. There are about 15 million registered vehicles in California. So even if you used the entire existing electric grid to do nothing other than recharge electric cars, you only have enough power to recharge about half the fleet each day. And as anyone in California can tell you, there's already not enough power even without converting the entire fleet to EVs. If you really go all in on EV's, you're talking doubling the size of the installed grid at minimum. Since the current generation capacity comes from about 1500 power plants, that means you're building another 1500 power plants in California alone. If you want to go full EV by 2035, that's 100 new power plants coming online a year, every year, for the next 15 years. And that's just California.
Now, you can quibble that not everyone needs to recharge a vehicle from 0 to 100% charge every night, and that's fair. But you also can't run the grid full out all the time, and you still need that power to do other things besides charge vehicles. So the order of magnitude of the challenge is still about right.
First, we are not talking about turning over the entire fleet tomorrow. Even if the only cars you can buy in the US in 2035 are EVs, it will still be well into the 2040s before we are close to 100% EV.
Second, the average driver drives about 13,500 mikes per year. Assuming you are looking at. 250 miles per charge (which I think is low given your other assumptions), that would mean refueling once a week, in other words 3.5 less times the amount of electricity you assumed. Not an order of magnitude, but nonetheless pretty different.
it is a huge challenge, but remember, while you are expanding your electricity capacity, you are reducing the capacity used for oil/gas exploration and refining. That is over $400 billion per year.
In JFW dream land we'd have a huge fleet of new EV's and a bunch of solar, wind, and Gen 3+ reactors to power them. Take that cabon emissions.
I continue to expect the car makers to come up with an efficient and economical alternator type system that self regenerates, greatly reducing the issue with charge stations. I'm an extreme novice, however. Maybe that isn't plausible. It just seemed the market focus accelerated so quickly that I assumed there was an imminent breakthrough in that area.
I've had mine for over 2 years and love it too. I'll prob stick with Tesla but am open. I also just paid $550 for an oil change and 60k service on my wife's Volvo. Hopefully going electric for her soon as well.
What exactly is involved with 60k service should be your first question, because an oil change should be $40.
LOL at oil changes costing $40 anymore. It was also time for new spark plugs and air filter. This wasn't even from the dealer. That would have been close to a grand. Sure, my Tesla can/will have some problems, but I'm damn happy not dealing with oil pumps, water pumps, radiators, seals, gaskets, and whatever other shit they make up that costs a fortune every time you take the car in for an oil change.
My oil change 3 days ago was $36.50, knowing an honest mechanic is almost better than sex.
$60 for my car and $70 or $80 for my truck (more oil). That's with the Tire Rotation, etc. AND at a dealership. I'm sure it would be less if I went somewhere else, I'm just too lazy to find a new mom and pop every time I move.
Have you taken it on a long road trip? How does that work for "fueling"? With charging stations not nearly as ubiquitous as traditional gas stations, I imagine you have to be a little more strategic with planning your route to make sure you fill up at the right times.
Tesla has a pretty robust charging structure and it helps plan it out for you because it knows where the chargers are and your remaining capacity
This would screw Tesla, which would be unfortunate because they've done good work with the supercharging network... but:
I wish the Feds would mandate a charger style so that it would make it easier for EV's to be adopted. Maybe they have and I don't know it; I know very little about that side of EV's.
Every car they sold for years was federally subsidized and they can still sell carbon credits because of federal policy, so I wouldn't weep too hard for them if they had to open up their charging network to non-Tesla cars. Which I do think should happen.
It's great that one can plan out a trip using an app to find charging stations, but it's still not as convenient as just looking at the road signs to see what gas stations are at the next exit. EVs are gonna need that kind of simplicity too.
"With other automakers bringing EV models to market, in scale, shortly will this endanger Tesla's volumes that are critical to their profitability?"
Yes, and this should be no surprise to anyone. Which is why I've never understood the meteoric rise in Tesla's valuation, which has been decreasing the last few weeks. Their market share will continue to drop. Even with a growing market, I don't understand how long-term that valuation will hold up.
It's a meme stock bolstered by hype in a market getting lots of attention.
I've wondered this. Tesla's P/E is crazy. It shows that investing is not always rational. It seems to be due to some mix of 1) belief that Musk is a genius; 2) belief that e-vehicles are the future and they are first in the door; and 3) the feel-good factor of investing in a company whose product is perceived as environmentally friendly.
It’s the fact that there is tons of capital sloshing around, but not enough to justify a $15 minimum wage or healthcare for everyone. Just enough to over capitalize Tesla and start-ups whose business plan is to pre-chew gum for you.
You do realize most of Tesla's stock sold originally for $40. Even if the stock is at $1000 Tesla doesn't get any more capital out of it. That's not how it works.
Musk IS a genius. 50 years from now that guy's name will be synonymous with Ford and Vanderbilt and Rockefeller and the other great capitalists.
But the barrier to entry into electric car market (for other car companies) once Tesla proved there was a market for EVs in the luxury/near-lux market is very low. Wait until GM starts pushing out their trucks and SUVs and some of the other luxury makes start producing sub-$75k electrics with an actual speedometer.
Tesla's stock valuation has kept me out of stocks in my 401k for a long time. No way am I trusting people who think that company is worth near a trillion dollars with my money.
Yes, I am keenly aware that the market has managed to stay irrational much longer than it has any reason to be.
It shows that investing is not always rational.
If everyone has access to perfect information and makes perfectly rational decisions based on that perfect information (that no 1 person knows ahead of time) then the market will function correctly... Which is not a thing. Weird crap happens all the time because of 100 different things.
Musk has been legitimately impressive when it comes to his ethos and some products, but he's such an ass that he kneecaps his businesses by just being himself. Too often he acts like a child playing with toys (really freaking cool toys) and for what purpose, I can't tell. I don't think it's a package deal either, the good with the bad. I think if he weren't such an ass his companies would be doing just as well, if not better (not necessarily stock price wise).
Meanwhile the market reaction will be nothing, even if Tesla went down 1% ($60), but it won’t, and Ford could go up 10% (it won’t) but that’s only $1.
I tend to agree and don't own the stock, but the thinking is that Tesla can/ will have:
- Cybertruck and steal F150 share
- $25K, 250 mile range car for the masses (a hot hatch, maybe)
- FSD will be recurring subscription in the future
- Fleet vehicles (ubers, taxis...)
- Semi-trucks (Self driving or super efficient)
As a former OTR truck driver, semis make zero sense, unless the marketing pictures are nothing like what gets produced. The ones in the yard, at the warehouse facilities and short haul, fine. In fact, quite a few are already electric/non-diesel and have been for 50 years.
Long haul, never going to happen. Most long haul is team driving. 20 hours on the road, and the other 4 hours is spent parking, loading/unloading, or faking the logs and driving too. When are you charging the thing?
I thought everyone already accepted self-driving was basically not a thing in the real world?
Correct! Unless battery energy density increases 10x an electric semi will haul 2X more batteries than freight.
Totally disagree with you, Carpetbagger. Where did you get the notion that self-driving is "not a thing"?
Long-haul is perhaps the best opportunity for autonomous vehicles - driving basically in a straight line over a long distance.
There's all kinds of tech being developed for vehicles to interact/communicate with all kinds of things - not just other vehicles - like lights, signs, hell any type of signal/information that needs to be shared. This is happening, and will definitely continue to happen.
Once autonomous technology is fully implemented, it seems totally logical to have caravans of EV's, with a systematic structure for re-charging. Additionally, battery range and charging speed are rapidly improving.
It's basically the same as a train, with the added ability to deliver end-to-end.
Honestly, this seems inevitable to me. Either the technology works well enough to utilize existing highways/lanes, or there will be dedicated autonomous highways/lanes.
I certainly can't predict what share of long-haul trucking autonomous will become (or the time frame) - but it seems clear we're heading in that direction.
If it's basically the same thing as a train, why not just use a train? Cheaper!
The whole purpose of semis vs trains is that they aren't tied to one set schedule and route. If you put semis on a set schedule and route, which is required to make "self-driving" work, you may as well use a train.
Self-driving is not a real-world thing.
Hydrogen is probably a better solution for long haul trucks.
Good point, DC. Though I suspect we'll see both EV and hydrogen trucks.
"cybertruck and steal F150 share,"
I will take whatever you are drinking but NOT when I am my laptop choosing stocks to buy.
Have you even seen a photo of the Cybertruck. There is not one F150 driver on the face of the planet who is likely to find the Cybertruck appealing. And I drive an electric Honda so I am not some redneck making that call.
Yup. The Cybertruck will cannibalize existing Tesla sales and that's about it. F-150, Silverado, and Ram owners, if they do buy electric and don't stay loyal, are going to go for something that looks like a pickup truck. Like a Rivian.
I’m generally curious how old you are. Every time EV threads go up you make multiple comments about them and how there is range issues or people that drive pickups won’t want them.
Don’t you work for Ford?
Used to. Now working for a supplier.
Don't forget that Tesla sells alot of solar panel and they also sell $1B of energy credits that are pure profit.
Currently, Tesla led the way, but there are many more companies jumping in on this market, so yes, Tesla's "market share" will decline, but it will be interesting how much production they will be selling.
Here is a list of other companies that are either producing (or will be producing) EV within the next couple of years
GM
Ford
Apple (Through Foxxconn)
Nio (China's Tesla)
Lucid Motors
Youngstown
Rivian motors (backed by Amazon - already has the PO to produce EV delivery trucks they are advertising)
So yes, the market will get crowded but it will be a growing market as well.
Oh yeah, don't forget about Nikola... /s
I suggest you sell your Tesla stock before 2025.
Volvo and the Euroboys are coming for Elon.
Two things are going to be the end of Tesla.
1. Terrible quality, in particular build quality.
2. Competition from Companies that actually understand what is involved in building a passenger vehicle. Tesla is going to need to figure out how to be profitable as a niche manufacturer when the onslaught of competition arrives. Particularly VW.
actually the biggest threat is a liquidity event..... they are still hemorrhaging cash like no one's business.
Elon is a brilliant guy, no doubt. one of his top qualities is self-promotion.
Until gas is above $4 or $5/gallon, for good, I don't believe demand for EV's will exceed traditional combustion engine vehicles. Government will continue to try driving demand with tax incentives and more corporate handouts, but that only goes so far. Until the consumer wants them, more than they want traditional powered vehicles, they'll remain a ancillary piece of the market.
IMO
While your points are completely true, unfortunately many Americans (especially in CA) see a Tesla as a status symbol and would never by a "Detroit" vehicle even if it is a better vehicle.
Louis Vuitton didn't put Samsonite out of business.