[adventured]

Using one example to represent the industry is the issue in your premise. This list nicely proves my point:

How many EVs is Volkswagen selling per year?

How many EVs is Subaru selling per year?

How many EVs is Fiat selling per year?

How many EVs is Ferrari selling per year?

How many EVs is Daimler selling per year?

How many EVs is Ford selling per year?

How many EVs is PSA selling per year?

How many EVs is Hyundai Kia selling per year?

How many EVs is Mazda selling per year?

How many EVs is Suzuki selling per year?

Tesla is in fact still embarrassing the auto industry and selling EVs by an order of magnitude beyond what nearly all of the major auto companies are. The above listed companies are selling millions of fossil-fuel vehicles and should be heckled aggressively for it.

The fact that so few major automakers are selling EVs at all, demonstrates that what I've said is correct.

But hey, all these fossil-fuel makers have great plans for the future. One day soon.

The question is: how come those companies aren't being bankrupted for the horrific products they're producing by the millions? Where's the FUD attack on those corporations (which would actually be useful in dramatically improving the world)? Priorities are entirely screwed up when its the EV maker getting smacked around for not selling enough EVs.

[jacquesm]

VW: 350 e-Golfs / week

Nissan has delivered 300K leafs (why did you leave them out?).

Chevvy sells about 20K volts / year.

Lots more data here: https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/

The companies you list are selling millions of fossil-fuel vehicles because that's their business: selling cars. And as long as they can continue to do so profitably they will do so.

And whether or not Ferrari makes fossil fuel cars or not is immaterial, the numbers aren't there.

Fiat has an electric car but they are not turning a profit on it (it is priced very low, and they still can't sell them).

So does Renault, they too make electric cars, and have been doing so for quite a while.

[nopriorarrests]

>Tesla is in fact still embarrassing the auto industry and >selling EVs by an order of magnitude beyond what nearly >all of the major auto companies are.

Um, no.

"November was another good month for GM’s Chevy Bolt EV US sales. The electric vehicle hit a new record with almost 3,000 units sold in one month – bringing the total to over 20,000 units to date". [0]

Of course total Tesla sales are higher than 20K units, but if we are talking about EV cars in mass segment, Tesla is being outsold at this moment.

[0] https://electrek.co/2017/12/01/chevy-bolt-ev-us-sales-record...

[maxerickson]

Multiple automakers have good enough electric drivetrains to really shorten the time Tesla has to fix their production volume and fit & finish issues. If they don't execute this year their decade of brand building is not going to amount to a whole lot (maybe they have until midway through next year?).

The other automakers aren't pairing the drivetrains with big expensive batteries, so they aren't selling them with big expensive batteries, but there's also only so much consumer demand for $45,000+ electric vehicles.

[Fins]

And how many EVs would Tesla be selling without heavy subsidies and a Musk effect?

Besides, selling a car of Tesla's quality would be embarassing to every company on your list. Well, maybe not Suzuki, but probably to them, too.

[toomuchtodo]

All automakers receive EV subsidies. Why are non-Tesla automakers so bad at building EVs if they receive the same subsidy Tesla does?

[Fins]

Tesla's are the largest, though, since they have largest batteries.

Tesla builds EVs, that's the only thing they sort of can do (of course they can't actually build them at profit, but that's a problem for Tesla's shareholders). Others will build EVs when they can be profitably sold, because it isn't their only business.

[toomuchtodo]

> Others will build EVs when they can be profitably sold, because it isn't their only business.

Tesla's margins are the highest in the industry for their vehicles. Legacy automakers don't want to innovate and cannablize their own business, which is why they cannot succeed.

If you want to sell like Tesla does, and get the level of subsidies they do, sell vehicles that people want and will pay for. There's a reason people would rather wait years for a Model 3 then buy a Bolt, i3, or other half-attempt at an EV by a legacy automaker.

[Fins]

If their margins are so high, why are they losing money hand over fist?

People want to buy a Tesla for the same reason many want to buy an Apple or Bose product -- great marketing, not any kind of intrinsic value. And besides, "legacy" automakers (you know, those guys who actually were first to make an electric vehicle, hybrid, fuel cell, hydrogen etc., ones who have driver assistance systems that do not try to actively kill their users, etc. etc.)already have cars people want to buy. Unless you're talking about some edge cases (doesn't Norway tax regular cars so much that Tesla is actually a good value?) making EVs for them isn't currently a very profitable strategy. Not that it were profitable for Tesla either, of course.

It would also be interesting to learn what is it that Tesla actually innovated, apart from marketing (and even there, Apple or Bose has been selling flash over substance for years and years before Tesla)? Batteries? No, they are completely off the shelf. Do they have some magical mystery motors? No... Some exotic body construction maybe? Nope, aluminum cars have been around for quite a while, too. Some incredible self-driving software? No, better not even go there.

It will be interesting to see what happens in a couple of years when VWs electric factory comes online.

[adventured]

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...

Tesla in fact ranks with Acura on quality, above Volvo, and just below Volkswagen and Ford.

The low rating on Mercedes should be pretty embarrassing for them, they're merely one quality notch above Tesla and comparable to Ford.

[jacquesm]

Those rankings are pretty fishy. Acura is just a rebadged Honda and they rate completely different. Also Kia and Hyundai rate higher than Mercedes, Porsche and Volkswagen, which is completely against my experience with those brands.

FWIW it has Tesla scoring near the bottom of the pack with 37 points out of a possible 100, with the lowest entrant scoring 26 points.

Volvo is surprisingly low on that ranking, I know they are now owned by Geely but their brand still has 'super reliable' as an image here in Europe which again contradicts the ratings.

I'm not sure what the inputs were and what definition of reliability they have but I'm definitely interested in finding out more.

The FAQ is here:

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...

And I suspect that one reason more expensive vehicles drop like a stone on the report is because they are more complex and so there is simply more that can break, on top of that a person that pays $100K for their car is more likely to be dissatisfied when something isn't working perfectly.

You'll never hear a Kia owner complain about some detailing, but if you paid $85K for a Tesla then you would expect a certain level of quality and you'd be more likely to go back to the dealer for that reason alone if what was delivered wasn't perfect. So this report is as much about expectations and brands as it is about actual reliability.

My own - super simple - method of determining vehicle reliability is to look at second hand car website and to sort by descending mileage in yearly cohorts. That very quickly shows which cars are solid and which aren't. Yes, it is 'survivorship bias', but you can discount for that by weighing by the original number of vehicles sold of a particular model.

[Fins]

So to put it another words, every large automotive conglomerate has multiple brands that are greatly more reliable than Tesla.

Not sure about Kia, but their parents at Hyundai definitely do have better build quality than Tesla. I would imagine that someone buying a new one would complain to the dealership if they tried to shove a car with body gaps as bad as Tesla's ton them... And on a Hyundai less than half the price of Model S you get stuff like cooled seats that Tesla doesn't even offer currently (luxury car, right!) and that didn't work worth crap when they did offer them...

[bluGill]

That is owner satisfaction, which means nothing. It is common for that list to have a car to have a significantly different rating depending on what the logo on the hood it. If the car has the GM brand it will be rated lower than if it has the Toyota brand, even though the car is EXACTLY the some other than the brand.

[jacquesm]

That explains the Honda/Acura difference. I could not make sense of that.