In this episode of Land of the Giants: The Tesla Shock Wave, Tesla’s share of the EV market is dwindling as more automakers pile into the space. How does the competition stack up?
Despite the clickbaity title, it’s worth a discussion. Can Tesla separate itself from its CEO and remain viable when other automakers ramp up their EV production?
NOTE
This piece does not include any mention of the more recent news that automakers have an agreement to use the Tesla charging interface as the industry standard.
Can Tesla separate itself from its CEO and remain viable when other automakers ramp up their EV production?
I don’t think so. Or maybe I should say, “I hope not.” I hope other EV makers overtake Tesla.
It’s surprising to me that I feel this way. I used to be a huge Tesla fanboy. I drive a Tesla.
But I can’t separate Musk’s actions from his brands. His own name was really the brand, and he has destroyed his personal name brand with his nonsense.
I’m hoping that a non-Tesla EV at a reasonable price comes along. With the auto steering ability of the Tesla. That would be the hardest to give up.
I think BYD, VW and Hyundai may be the only ones other than Tesla NOT losing huge amounts of money on every EV. If you go check the financial break downs for other brands, especially Ford now that they broke out the numbers for EVs they are losing A LOT of money on EVs.
GM is about to discontinue the Bolt which makes up the majority of their EV sales volume if you ignore their Wuling partnership.
Good news! The Bolt will live on.
That is good news! However, I have to mention…
In April, General Motors said it would stop making the Bolts by year end to focus production on two electric trucks — the GMC Sierra EV and the Chevy Silverado EV — despite the Bolts delivering strong sales.
Fucking GM always putting all their eggs in their trucks or SUVs. This is how they got into trouble before they went bankrupt in 2009. This aspect of their business model is unsustainable, and drives customers away (like me). Hopefully a wider variety of EV models (sedans GM…plz) will come along with that.
“The price and release date for the new version have not been disclosed, but the new Bolts will utilize “Ultium” and “Ultifi” technologies, which are GM’s battery platforms and software, respectively.”
So unless they where already working on this expect it to be off the market for 2-4 years given normal auto development lifecycles.
The pack is kind of a major component in an EV.
Everyone else’s CFO didn’t abruptly bail out yesterday, so they’ve got that going for them.
Tesla hasn’t had any technology-leadership anywhere in a long time, they just have a Conman as CEO who was very successful in hyping the value of the company into completely unjustifiable places.
The only thing they are good at, is the Keynesian beauty contest.
