The German concern BMW AG has, for the first time, outpaced the American company Tesla in the sale of electric cars in the European Union.
It’s only a matter of time same happens in the US. Elon has made Tesla brand extremely toxic for anyone other than his fanboys
That’s absolutely a factor but it’s also all the issues that are popping up regarding build quality.
Bad deliveries/customer service, issues with door panels, water leaks, general build quality, etc. There are a lot of things right as well but like you said, he’s tainting the image and further putting negative pressure on the brand.
Sacking the charging network team was the killer. It’s going down.
Investors, you’re getting fleeced now.
The investors are the ones who just voted him a ludicrous pay package. They are getting what they deserve
That’s absolutely a factor but it’s also all the issues that are popping up regarding build quality.
That stuff was always there. It’s all Elong, customers accepted the poor quality to buy an electric car and save the environment. But now there are many better options and Elong is just insulting that very same customer base so he can be an edgelord because he… IDK is sad inside or what ever dumb reason he does what he does.
Reminder that Tesla is still under union blockade in Sweden for refusing to recognize any Swedish unions, and has been flying in strike breakers from other EU countries.
Here’s an article from this week on the situation:
https://arbetet.se/2024/08/22/fackets-stamning-av-tesla-fastnade-i-den-fackliga-postblockaden/
The Mechanics’ Union sued Tesla in June for violating the Swedish Union Reprentation Law, however, the Labor Court has not been able to serve Tesla since they are under blockade by the Postal Workers’ Union. The Labor Court has now contacted Teslas lawyers to get the ball rolling.
Not too much happening on the strike front unfortunately. There was a fun incident where Tesla couldn’t sell cars because the postal workers wouldn’t deliver the license plates to them, and by law it’s only the national postal service that is allowed to deliver license plates. They seem to have worked out a workaround though where Tesla is picking up the plates themselves.
The unions have the cash and support to continue the strike indefinitely, so the end result will either be that Musk takes his weird antiunion ideology blindfold off, or Tesla leaves Sweden.
As much as I would love to invest in a BMW, are they still selling subscriptions to access features like dashboard camera recordings and heated seats? I don’t remember if they walked that back, but I don’t trust them enough to not implement it in the future again if they did.
Yup! Just last week it was revealed that they would be doing their adaptive suspension that way: https://www.motortrend.com/news/bmw-adaptive-suspension-connected-drive-subscription/
SaaS - suspension as a service
They didn’t walk back. In fact they doubled down. Fuck BMW.
And, like many automakers (but not all) they have ties to forced labor:
It appears German and Chinese automakers are the biggest offenders, where companies like Subaru are actively trying to remove it from their supply chains: https://m.subaru.ca/forced-and-child-labour-report
On January 11, Lear sent letters to BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo and VW AG informing them of the banned components. Despite that notification, in April 2024, after the committee explicitly asked both companies whether they ever “directly or indirectly sourced parts from JWD,” Jaguar Land Rover claimed to be unaware of its links to the manufacturer listed on the UFLPA Entity List, and BMW informed the committee that JWD was not on their “supplier list.” However, after repeated questions from the committee, BMW disclosed that at least 8,000 Mini Cooper cars containing JWD components had been shipped to the United States.
I’m not at all suprised at BMW being shady in that way but VW… well yes none of your links actually support lumping them into that category.
VW does happen to have a plant in Xinyang unconnected to human right abuses but seems to be mulling getting rid of it. Long story short the Chinese are going to actively avoid dragging VW into any shady stuff, VW’s whole presence in China is already very unpopular with the shop floor council because China is even more hostile to unions than the US. If VW catches the CCP working against VW guaranteeing its own labour standards in China then they’re just plainly going to leave, and with them all that technology transfer.
…and in case anyone is wondering yes the shop floor council absolutely does have the power to pull VW out of China.
Unfortunately this is only a half truth, as it’s only if you include plug in hybrids, which Tesla obviously doesn’t sell. On the total for July Tesla is only #22 in Europe, when including all types of cars. But they remain #1 on pure EV.
But the BMW i4 is a VERY nice car, and the competition is getting closer to Tesla too.
VW is pretty high too, and also has the Skoda Enyaq that is also nice, and the AUDI Q4. So I’m pretty sure VW combined will surpass Tesla on pure EV within 6 months. Volvo is also doing well, and AFAIK polestar is part of Volvo too.
All in all, it’s very obvious that Tesla has much tougher competition now than they used to, and it seems to me that will increase further in the future.
Stelantis has some way to go, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out soon. Seems to me one of their problems is their batteries are still too small.
But when they figure it out, they will arrive in force, with Fiat, Opel, Citroen, Peugeot, which are all popular cars here in Europe. As it is now, they are all built around the same framework, and that’s not quite good enough IMO.
I wouldn’t be surprised if next year around this time, Tesla has dropped to #4 in Europe on true EV.
I forgot they were all VW, explains why I am not gone on any of them anymore. Whatever trend they are following I am not onboard with their designs.
Also sickening the subscription stuff Audi are doing.
I don’t think Stelantis can really compete against the Koreans who have very generous warranty policies. Stelantis has acquired a very bad reputation in the last decade. Their puretech engines were suffering from degrading timing belts. They issued recalls but then clients were often still billed by Stelantis. This left a very sour taste in the mouths of many car owners. I know many people who will never buy a Stelantis car again
I must admit I’ve not been impressed by Stelantis lately either. But they have a pretty big footprint in the lower end of the market here in Europe. If they can up their EV cars battery and keep prices down, I have no doubt they will be very popular.
Regarding the timing belt, the puretech engine started in the Peugeot 208 I according to wikipedia, the Peugeot 208 is an extremely popular car here, and anecdotally I never heard about the timing belt problem.
Despite that I know Stelantis is generally not the best quality, but they look good, and are cheap, and you get a lot of features/car for the money with the cheaper European sub brands I mentioned.
But Hyundai/KIA is bigger than Stelantis on EV, but their pricing here in EU is a bit expensive now compared to the competition.