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Comment on Chinese Carmaker Overtakes Tesla as World’s Most Popular EV Maker

I admit what Tesla has done is very impressive, and they actually ARE as big as the rest of top 10 combined on electric cars her (Denmark). But the competition has arrived, and it is very unlikely that Tesla can maintain such a huge market share, and the margins will probably never come close again to what they were, again because there is more competition now.

In the energy market, Tesla presented the stupid solar roof tile idea, and they had the power wall which I’m not sure if exist anymore. Here nobody uses that, when we bought our solar solution with battery, Tesla didn’t even appear in internet searches as an option. Tesla has done some energy things for the past 15 years, including selling a battery park for mass storage in Australia, but it seems none of the projects are very successful, and Tesla is far from a market leader in any aspect of energy AFAIK.

Elon Musk himself has stated that without AI, Tesla would be almost worthless.
independent.co.uk/…/elon-musk-tesla-self-driving-…

I’m guessing by almost worthless, he means it would be valued as other car makers, and that would decrease the value to a fraction of what it is today. Unfortunately for Musk, Tesla AI is in fact basically worthless without the false promises. Because Tesla is at best #4, and in high tech generally, being #4 means your margins have to be very low.

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NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Just double replying here in case you did read my other reply and just didn’t reply. I made a big oopsie with the energy profit by mixing up lines with service and other. The profit was 381 million, not almost a billion. My bad.

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- Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The energy business, primarily commercial, has actually been doing really well. It was stalled during covid in favor of vehicles, but it’s ramping now. They have done much more than just Australia, and they’ve actually been very successful. You just don’t hear about it the same as it’s less flashy than cars or AI. They also sell AI driven software to help optimize power grids power arbitrage, which is successful recurring recenue software tack on as well.

Their new facility that’s ramping right now will put out 40gwh a year which is more batteries than some legacy auto manufacturers are using, and they are building a second in China that’s going to start producing in 2024. That’s over a million cars worth of batteries being sold at commercial margins. As the business ramps its going to be as or more profitable than cars excluding a future where FSD is successful.

They’re also getting into the power business in Texas and I’d expect to see that to expand, and their virtual power plant product is also growing and will be a big thing in the future. I’m actually excited about VPP from any and all providers as it’s really going to add security to the power grid while helping out the home owners. A Vermont power company wants to get a home battery in 100% of their customers homes over the next few years.

So keep an eye on all this if it interests you at all, it’s going to be big, and as I said, people are going to start accounting for it. They made almost a billion profit on that on Q3

As for the AI, analysts really weren’t accounting for it and they weren’t accounting for energy either. You can say they are all crazy for having given tesla those valuations without it if you want, but im just telling you what was really happening. A few like Cathie Woods were, but most weren’t.

And like my edit about car payments. I wouldn’t ever expect the same margins on the 3/y again, but do expect margins and prices to go up as interest rates come down. People buy cars based off the car payment, and those are the same today as when margins were higher and Tesla still sold around 1.8 million vehicles this year at those same payments. If payments become cheaper because interest rates come down, prices will go up somewhat at all manufacturers as there will be more demand for cheaper payments. Those other manufacturers are suffering more than Tesla due to the interest rates and they desperately need them to go down to help with their profitability. The longer this drags on, the worse they’re going to be as ICE restriction start coming into play in various countries.

Also, the competition is coming and teslas market share going down is old and tiring to hear. Tesla isn’t competing against other EV makers, their competing against ICE sales. Their total market share is increasing. The story is always going to be their EV market share is decreasing because if you are at 100% and someone sells 1 car, you’re decreasing. If their total market share is decreasing in a region, then that might be a real problem.

The real competition is going to be the Chinese EV makers. That I feel is legit. But Ford, GM, Stellantis, Toyota etc, it’s the same story and they’re still struggling and even cutting back plans. They talk a big talk, but the jury is still out on that one.

I don’t think Tesla AI is worthless without FSD either, but clearly dramatically less without. They do use AI for power as I mentioned, and they’ve diversified their FSD computer into the bot, which is a long shot, but it puts their eggs in 2 baskets instead of 1 which could prevent a complete disaster if FSD fails. The bot is easier to solve than FSD so it’s not out of the question.

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- Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Thank you, that’s a very interesting and thorough response. 👍 From what you write, it all sounds very impressive, question is then why Musk would call Tesla basically worthless without AI?
  
  Also, the competition is coming and teslas market share going down is old and tiring to hear.
  
  Well I wrote the competition has already arrived, and yes Tesla may increase market share total, because the total EV market is increasing market share. What I meant is that they can’t sustain their current market share and margins in the EV market. So they will not become as big as the rest of top 10 combined. Tesla may be able to hold their market share for the total market, maybe even increase it a bit. But I strongly suspect even that will go down when the competition is nearer completing the transition period, and compete at full strength. Tesla had a 10 year head start, but in 10 years that won’t matter as much.
  
  The real competition is going to be the Chinese EV makers.
  
  The competition from China is already real, and Chinese cars dominate China with BYD having 7 out of 10 top selling cars in China and Tesla only 2, and China is now the biggest market in the world. China is expanding quickly to other markets. We have many Chinese brands in Europe now, that all arrived very recently. But European and American makers like for instance VW and Ford, are also improving rapidly. Then of course there is Hyundai/KIA which is the world 3rd largest maker, that makes some very good EV offerings here.
  One of the reasons I think Tesla may lose in the long run, is that they are a very long time about making new models. Maybe it’s just Musk who promises results unrealistically soon. But the delays are sometimes up to 5 years delivering what he claims they can do now!
  
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  - NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Thanks! I appreciate the reasoned discussion here as well
    
    why Musk would call Tesla basically worthless without AI?
    
    He says a lot of things and that’s definitely a hyperbolic statement. He seems to think the company is going to be worth 10+ trillion dollars with FSD and Bots solved, so maybe under a trillion plus the hit they’d suffer from failure is basically worthless?
    
    So they will not become as big as the rest of top 10 combined
    
    If Tesla actually comes out and makes 20 million vehicles sometimes in the 2030’s and can get reasonably high profits, I don’t think it’s as far fetched as one might think especially after you take the energy side into account. They don’t have to do the 10 on cars alone, as energy grows. And remember, Tesla is legitimately making high profits on these cars, even at these lower prices. Other auto manufactures haven’t figured this out even on ICE cars (not trucks) where margins are comparatively low, so there’s no reason to believe Tesla can’t keep higher margins than them with volume. If Tesla lowers their prices to be more competitive, others will have to follow, and because they can keep lowering their car prices due to better margins, they can drive the others to 0 or below (except for lower volume luxury makers like Porsche with crazy high margins anyway). As long as Tesla continues to lead on the engineering side with things like their 48v architecture, they’ll maintain higher margins.
    
    In reality though the only way they can ever reach their 20 mil goal though is going to be some huge manufacturing breakthrough or FSD. So maybe that’s what he actually means as well? No FSD, they can’t make their 20m lofty sale dreams which is somewhat priced in, the company loses its value? Maybe even the infrastructure they build towards that goal starts being idled because they overshoot and start losing more money than expected?
    
    We really need to see the Gen 3 platform to get an idea of the future though. I personally wasn’t too worried about CT delays as it was never going to be a super high volume vehicle and probably never going to be sold outside NA, but when it comes to Gen 3 Tesla is talking the big talk right now on it, but it’s all just speculation until we see it, and how their optimizations are going to impact margins. All we know from Elon is it’s in advanced stages of development, whatever that means. I think they learned their lesson with the CT/Semi though which they revealed at the very early stage.
    
    The competition from China is already real
    
    Sorry you’re right, China is legit there in China and area. The Chinese competition is a legit threat to all auto manufactures. They do still need to get their manufacturing plants set up in other countries though, so in that sense, it’s still coming. Them producing out of the EU and Mexico is going to be a rude wake up call for a lot of people.
    
    Semi unrelated, but I also have really high hopes for Hyundai/Kia. They seem to be taking it more seriously than others, people really like their EVs, but then they do this, which is baffling www.cbc.ca/news/…/kia-canada-car-sales-1.7063216 and they also seem to have a problem with their dealers saying a battery replacement is going to cost $60,000 CAD which is ridiculous. They got some operational things they need to sort out, but I don’t think it has to do with their actual cars.
    
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    Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    If Tesla actually comes out and makes 20 million vehicles sometimes in the 2030’s and can get reasonably high profits, I don’t think it’s as far fetched
    
    Problem for Tesla becoming that big, is not just that others are making decent electric cars now. The problem is that Tesla is no longer the technology leader, which they were by far for about 10 years. But today we have Blade batteries from BYD that are both safer and cheaper than Tesla, The 50% VW owned Yiwei, just released a new car with sodium-ion batteries, which are cheaper more durable and works better at low temperatures, and can charge faster than existing batteries. The engines VW already uses in their ID series are way better engineered than Tesla, resulting in both more compact and lower weight than a Tesla with equivalent power. All in all Tesla is losing their technological leadership in key areas like Batteries, charging and engines. The rest is basically a traditional car, except the computer AI which Tesla is also behind on.
    
    It’s naive to think other EV makers can’t build cars as cheap as Tesla, Tesla had a very strong head start, and traditional car makers have had a very serious disruptions in their development and some supply chains, which they are only just now beginning to manage about as well as the old ways.
    
    But something is happening in the industry, that I’m not quite aware of what is. But 10 years ago, we could buy a new car here for 75K DKK, adjusted for inflation that would be about 87K today. But the cheapest car available today is 139K, so it’s 50% more expensive to buy the cheapest car today, than what was possible 10 years ago??? To be fair it’s one model series higher.
    Obviously for a time, it was the chip shortage, that meant the cheapest cars were the first to get axed dur to the shortage. But the shortage is over, so why haven’t the cheap cars come back? This is something that has happened across all makers of the cheapest available cars! More expensive cars have gone up too, but not as much.
    
    My point of mentioning this, is that you shouldn’t discard the competition from traditional car makers, they are all in this to make money. The money is moving more towards EV, so car makers too are moving more towards EV. They are far from in full force yet, as they ICE production is still the majority of their revenue and profits. But maybe the reason the cheap cars haven’t come back, is that they want to make us used to pay more, and make EV more attractive?
    
    I claim that currently, traditional car makers could make and sell ICE cars that are at least a third cheaper than what is currently available, and still make a profit on them. But for some reason they choose not to. So don’t be too sure they can’t make EV cheaper and more competitive too, but they do what makes them the most money. And when VW sell an ID7 it’s very likely at the cost of a VW ICE car.
    So just like you say Tesla competes with ICE mostly, so do traditional car makers, except they are also competing against their own products. How the bean counters value this I don’t know, but I bet they try to prevent to much disruption, because disruption cost money, and they try to prevent competing to much against themselves.
    
    In a few years the tilt will be more clearly towards EV, and that will change the economic models for traditional car makers, and that’s when traditional carmakers will be all in to compete in EV markets.
    Most have already arrived, and they’ve come to stay, but they are not in full force yet. Except the Chinese that have car makers that like Tesla started with electric and only make electric.
    
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