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?
So Tesla has lost 12% market share... to a market that has grown 34%. Sell!
That was the very first thing the pseudo-statistician in me thought about when I read the first line. They didn't "lose" anything. Lol
I get what you're saying but that is still really bad news for Tesla. Tesla still loses money on every car it sells. They need to keep expanding and they need to continue to be the cool choice. To be clear, when i say Tesla needs I mean the stock needs. The OPs last comment is critical here. Tesla is only profitable because certain states require auto companies to buy credits if their vehicle sales don't meet certain standards. Guess who has an excess of credits? Tesla. They sell their extra credits to other auto companies. That is literally their only profitable business (and now maybe bitcoin, i guess). So, if other companies are able to grow their EV sales they won't need to buy credits which means Tesla is no longer viable without some sort of change: sales growth, profit margin growth, expense decrease. The fact that they aren't growing nearly as quickly as the overall EV market is a bad sign. Tesla makes a great product and I'm not questioning that Musk is a visionary but I could see a path to $0 for Tesla. There are not many 1/2 trillion dollar companies that have such a clear path to $0. All that said, I've never owned or shorted TSLA. The fundamentals suck but I don't get in the way of momentum and memes.
Tesla sells as many cars as they can make. Once they get more capacity, they will be able to make and sell more vehicles
Their production is also probably being effected by the chip shortage.
This is a misconception I see repeated all over the internet. For 2020 they stated that their production capacity was 650k and they ended up making less that 500k cars. And their production wasn't shut down 25% of the year due to COVID either.
Also, Model S and X sales are a downward sales trend, unless production capabilities are going down also.
Everyone's production is affected by the chip shortage. And Tesla needing more manufacturing capacity is a big problem for Tesla because manufacturing is their single greatest weakness.
The bull case for TSLA involves increasing car production and quite a bit of vertical integration. They plan to make and produce batteries and chips for their own vehicles and can sell to other manufacturers. With their current infrastructure in place, they will never go to $0.
That being said, I am very optimistic on Ford and GM's prospects. Conventional wisdom holds they are well behind Tesla in the EV game, but both have some very exciting technology and plans. The Mach-E itself is SICK. With many more in the pipeline. I think a lot of Tesla's wow factor was in being first to market.
I would agree but there are many many Tesla diehards now; if they replace the drive motors 3 times and the window trim comes off in their hand it's still just fine because it's a Tesla and fast. They aren't making a rational decision about their cars; but are more like the MG enthusiast who thinks calibrating his carbs every weekend is part of the english charm. There's nothing wrong with that; but it would take alot to pry them away from Elon's toys. The big question is if there are enough to keep Tesla afloat and if not, if Tesla can get more people purchasing the car.
Was gonna say this sounds like cap.
Loss of market share is still significant, even if the market has overall grown, but still pretty remarkable for Tesla to do as well as they're doing without the benefit of the federal tax credit compared to other manufacturers. If they get the $7k tax credit this year, it'll be big for them.
I'd rephrase it slightly:
Tesla market cap approaching $600B and in 2020 they sold 500k cars. Nearly every large auto manufacturer in the world is coming for the EV market, so even if the market continues to boom and Tesla retains a reasonable to dominant share -- Tesla's production / revenue / profits do not come close to justifying it's valuation = SELL
**A little wordy, does not have the same ring as OP
So Tesla has lost 12% market share... to a market that has grown 34%. Sell!
$TSLA has shit the bed not because of market share but because of valuation and buying $1.5B of cryptocurrency. Analysts hammered them for that last one. Rightfully so.
I wish the Mach-E looked more like a traditional Mustang.
Interesting, you made me go and check it out, it does have a more sleek, BMW look, except for the front grill.
Agreed. It looks like a focus.
I think it has an eerie resemblance to the Mazda 3 Hatchback
It’s never going to be as low because the battery raises the floor several inches. And if it is a 2 door coupe then it limits the marketability. I’m sure you’ll get your wish and there will be a 2 door Mustang EV someday.
And that is Ford's EV problem. The Tesla S & 3 are both very low cars. Even the Y is pretty low compared to traditional crossovers.
Ford can't do this, because they are stuffing batteries in Focus/ Escape platforms.
Couple of corrections: Tesla Y is 1" taller than Mach-E (64" vs 63"). The S and 3 are sedans and not comparable (Ford is adamant that the Mach-E is an SUV, a direct competitor to the Y). Additionally, there is zero truth to your last statement. The Mach-E is on a dedicated, BEV-only platform. Nothing in your post is correct.
From Wikipedia:
The Mustang Mach-E is built on the Global Electrified 1 (GE1) platform which is a heavily reworked version of the C2 platform that is used on the fourth generation Focus and third generation Kuga/fourth generation Escape.
Again, Ford will sell some of these things to people in Michigan (just like they sold Focuses and Escapes), but they are reworking ICE platforms and not using dedicated EV platforms. If they were, where the hell are they making it? Which factories were shut down to focus solely on EV production?
Here's the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang_Mach-E#:~:text=The%20Mustang%20Mach%2DE%20is,sizes%20and%20three%20power%20outputs.
It is its own platform with its own name (GE-1). That platform shares a few individual components with C2 but it is NOT stuffing batteries into Escapes/Focuses and making compromised "compliance EVs" as Ford (and others) have in the past. It's a complete mischaracterization to say otherwise. The batteries-in-the-floor and 'frunk' layout is identical to Tesla's and has not been compromised by some tenuous, insignificant link to C2. It uses the same window switches as an F-150, too - is that worth calling out in a way that delegitimatizes the vehicle? The Tesla Y and Mach-E are incredibly similar dimensionally (again, Y is taller by the way) and from a basic layout perspective. Just take the 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery' compliment and don't bash a Michigan-based automaker who has presented the best-yet challenger to Tesla. Cumong man.
Also, I'm not sure what the final assembly location has to do with anything? It's made in Mexico after the plant was shut down in 2019 after making the Fiesta. Does that somehow imply inferiority as well? Teslas are great and have changed the industry for the better; take the W and stop tearing down other products when they actually are great as well!
It looks like crap and silly to throw a mustang logo on it.
I love my Tesla Model 3, but when it comes time to buy a new car, I will buy the best available, whether it be Ford, Tesla, or something else.
I guess I'm just glad more people are buying electric cars. They pollute less and are a blast to drive.
My concern with electric cars is, do we have the capacity in our existing grids to power them all? I'm not sure the answer to that is affirmative.
Exactly, not sure how much more "greener" EV's are. Gonna take a shit ton more electricity to power and how many miles can they go before needing more juice on a long trip?
Without getting into the question of the ability to scale with the electrical grid, EVs are currently way, way greener per mile than gas-powered cars.
That only shows emissions per mile driven. Doesn't include things like mining and refining toxic-ass metals like lithium and cadmium and nickel in addition to other metals needed for high torque permanent magnet motors. I would imagine the overall equation is no where near as clear cut.
But in terms of CO2, there's definitely a difference per mile driven.
It's an interesting article. The one thing I can't tell from either this graph or the two articles it draws from is how they compute the average emissions from the electrical grids these cars charge from. With gas and diesel we know (generally) the emissions from the vehicle because we know what gets released burning those fuels and they are generally fungible (i.e. gas you guy in Chicago is not demonstrably different than gas you buy in Florida). But with EV, the grid you're charging from in Los Angeles gets its power from different sources than you do in Boston or Houston, and those sources of electricity could have demonstrably different emission footprints.
I agree generally that a move to more EV or Hybrid cars is best for the planet, but as we saw with Texas I don't think a lot of people know where their electricity comes from and the attendant costs of its production.
It's a valid question RE: differences in carbon intensity based on grid. The MIT group says they base the calculation on the EPA's regional eGRID summary tables, so presumably the figure they use for the translation from electricity consumed to carbon emitted is based on a weighted average of these regional figures.
https://www.carboncounter.com/downloads/data_methods_note_20210112.pdf
https://www.epa.gov/egrid/egrid-2019-summary-tables
Thanks for the links.
It's interesting stuff. I do think there will be issues scaling up and that'll narrow the emissions gap, but its worthwhile.
They're also more flexible. Electricity is a very versatile technology. The batteries can change, and the power generation can change, without changing the infrastructure and interface between the car and energy source. That means that even if they're not as green as we'd like them to be now, we can make them greener in the future without having to rebuild our entire vehicle-energy infrastructure again.
Carbon greener and pollutant greener:
I can see various business cases for EVs being useful some day. But right now they are rich people's toys and city cars for those who don't travel any distance by car.
Anyone who thinks we're going to stop selling ICE cars in 10 or 20 years has to be a teenager though. I can't imagine how long my 9 hour drive to Michigan would take in a Tesla. 2 days?
No.
You can get about a 240 mile charge in 25 minutes on a Supercharger (which are everywhere). If you start full, you can go ~750 miles with a super charging time of <1 hour.
I've examined the maps. I can make it between charging stations on the route to Michigan. Barely, given I would be very cautious when there is no "next gas station". I have 1 choice pretty much each potential stop too.
So, on a holiday weekend, how many 25 minutes deep do you think a person would be at each station? I remember when I lived out west there would be 25 Tesla's waiting for 2 charging stations on I-5. Probably better here, but who knows?
Like I said. it would take two days. And that's with a Tesla, rather than a electric car with a speedometer. Not optional on any car I own.
Why would I put myself through all this when I can stop at almost any exit and fill up in 5 minutes? And pay half as much for my car?
Range and costs I are the reasons I don't have an EV, but my hybrid pays for itself as much as any car can (no car can actually do that!). I'm getting 52mpg in a Camry hybrid - a car comfortable enough for an (ahem) older gentleman with a long commute. My previous Fusion hybrid got 42mpg. The savings in cost (and emissions) are worth a few thousand dollars over the 5-7 years that most people keep a car, especially those of us with a long commute. The concerns with battery life are also overblown these days.
So, for now, use the gasser on long trips where a recharge would be needed. But keep an EV (or hybrid) as a daily commuter. Earth will thank you...
If the Covid had never happened, and my job hadn't gone remote, it's very likely I would had close to that. Truck (paid for) for truck things, commute car (electric in 2022-3) and SUV (wife-travel vehicle ICE).
Very sensible setup that covers all the bases. I figured the Bolt would come down in price, and it has. I hate going to Sam's every week to fill that car up.
Without that commute, I can't see an electric making any sense. (Except for the truck. Price it normal, and put an actual full length bed on it, and I'd buy one of those in 5 years).
But, it still can burn dinosaurs so no good. /s
Wait.. where are you getting 750miles? The longest range I've seen is for the Model S Long Range and that's 402 miles.
250 is damned good. If I had the scratch I'd buy a Tesla for type of driving I do because I like the acceleration and the 4wd ability (though I hate the model 3 interior). But I've never seen 750.
I think he's saying my trip would be 750 miles, which is close. I think it's 670 or so. And so he thinks I could top off 3 times @ 25 minutes a pop, or possibly twice?, on my trip to Michigan, and so only add 1 hour to my trip.
This ignores the inconvenient facts of:
1. Tesla hasn't conveniently placed each charging station 250 miles apart on my trip
2. I have range anxiety on my ICE thanks to Michigan winters already, so no way I skip any of the 5 whole charging stations immediately on my route there.
3. Each station is very likely to have a wait time, because there is only 5 on a major N/S interstate.
4. I wouldn't own a Tesla at all due to pricing. I suspect VW and GM charging locations are even less friendly.
5. My Mom is NOT going to let me charge at her house for free so +1 charge.
So maybe it wouldn't take two days. Call me guilty of exaggerating a bit perhaps. But it would be massively inconvenient. And more expensive. Why would I do that?
I can't imagine how long my 9 hour drive to Michigan would take in a Tesla. 2 days?
Tesla specifically - my BIL has one and went up north last summer to Traverse City/Petoskey area from Detroit. He got up around Gaylord and grabbed some dinner to eat in his car and watched Netflix on Tesla's screen for 30 minutes and finished the drive. The charging network and fast charging options make the longer road trips a little slower, but you're not sitting around for 4 hours waiting on the charge. That is, so long as there isn't a line for the chargers (different problem). Cross country road trips would be a bit more of a problem if you were trying to cover a lot of miles as fast as possible, but if you've got the time to charge for 45 minutes instead of a 5 minute fill up, then it's fine.
Not to mention that the auto-pilot capabilities are becoming increasingly useful on longer drives. Yes you will spend more time filling up, but with the auto-pilot features you can literally be on an app or doing something else for hours while driving = makes for a much more enjoyable roadtrip even if you aren't going to set any new speed records
Aside from the improvement in battery charging, the US government is still offering significant tax rebates (upto $7500) when you buy a EV car. That alone drops the price of an EV down to the point where it is comparable with any other vehicle.....
*Credits are not currently available on GM or Tesla models.
**May be subject to change if Congress does anything about it.
***Who the hells knows if they will.
Congress is going about this all wrong, because it's Congress and grandstanding for votes is more important than getting the policy right.
If they want everyone to adopt electric cars, they need to make charging stations as ubiquitous and universal as gas stations. The worst thing would be to have eight or ten proprietary networks clogging up the country. Tesla superchargers can't charge a Mustang Mach-E, and Tesla did that on purpose. But gas cars would've had a really hard time catching on, if I had a Ford and that meant I could only go to Shell stations, and then had to switch to Exxon because I bought a Jeep. People need to know they can go anywhere and charge. That's what Congress needs to get cracking on, instead of extending tax credits or mandating fuel economy.
Not on Tesla, Nissan, or GM as far as I know. They've used up their credits. I'm not actually sure Nissan hit their max yet. I know they were close at one time.
Probably about 10 hours
I think the 280ish miles a Tesla gets per charge is plenty for the average person.
I actually work for Ford and they (as well as GM) are going all in on EV. GM will be producing only EV vehicles by 2025 and Ford shortly after that. What you need to understand is that your concern is not really a factor. Charging your car battery is essentially the same has charging any electronic device. But given the fact that the Mach E can go 400 miles between charges, you wont need to be charging your battery every night
First, I was fortunate enough to get to drive a Mach-E for a day (I had one of the pre-production builds as a test drive) and all I can say is....... Wow....
Pro -
Great acceleration....
Quiet as heck (although there is a internal app that will 'simulate' the ICE sound for those who wish)
Con -
For "pure" mustang fans, the body design does venture away from the classic look. I am partial to this camp, but not a game breaker
The Center Console screen kinda sticks out, it is not integrated
There is a GT version coming out next year
As for zipping cross country, the current battery capacity is 400 miles (the same as an expected full tank of gas) and there is upcoming tech that will significantly increase that mileage within the next few years (we are talking several thousands of miles on a single charge)
In addition, Ford has put an app within the Sync screen in the Mach E that will highlight where current charging stations are so like gas stations, you could plan your trip accordingly.
Furthermore, with a EV engine there are very few moving parts, thus will last much longer than an ICS engine
I am an old fart and grew up on trucks with 405 engines that roared when ever you punched it, but the EV industry is coming and coming fast.