Featured Tesla loses the race for mainstream EVs to GM

Not really a fair comparison. The lowest range GM has 3x the range of the earlier Leafs. If you can charge L2 at home, the 250 mile range will meet 98% of people's needs. If you buy a Bolt, they'll install a L2 outlet for free, up to $1500 I think. The con to the Bolt is DC charging speed while traveling. Drive 2-3 hours, charge for an hour, repeat.

 

surely GM will make their ev's more affordable than Tesla ..... right?

 

My TSLA stock is not for sale. False claims about Elon’s companies, practices, and products condemn the foolish to the competition.

Bob Wilson

 

The Model X now starts at $120,990.

 

It's an "X-OUT" to me.

 

The only real competitor Tesla has in the mainstream market is the Wuling HongGuang Mini EV, and that’s only in China. Tesla’s electric vehicles are expensive, but they still sell more than anyone else. For GM or anyone else to truly say they have a mainstream EV, it needs to sell in high enough numbers to verify that.

 

Since "Mainstream" is defined in the dictionary as "having, reflecting, or being compatible with the prevailing attitudes and values of a society or group", the Tesla line hardly meets that criteria outside of a few special cases where subsidies such as free charging and rebates gave them a kickstart. While electric car sales make up as much as to 4% of new car sales by some estimations, only 1% of all cars on the road are fully EV.

I would not consider it mainstream until the average driver knows the difference between a BEV and PHEV, and can intelligently discuss / explain why an 80 kWh battery is necessary (or not) for their lifestyle. As long as the average Joe only knows that EVs catch fire and need new batteries every few years, then it's not "compatible with the prevailing attitudes and values of a society".

 

agreed, tesla is not mainstream yet. but if you look at the title, it is being defined a little differently than the dictionary

 

Yet Tesla outsells the other EVs by a wide margin. Furthermore, Tesla is ramping up two new factories to help meet the demand.

Given the choice of ‘mainstream’ and ‘best selling,’ I’ll take the second option.

Bob Wilson

 

that's why it's mainstream in the context of bev's. but i don't own the car or the stock, so i can look at it objectively

 

That's silly. The winner takes the best selling mainstream product.
Ford sold 726,004 F150 pickups in 2021 despite the supply problems.
Tesla sold only 172,700 model Y. Tesla was in the 17th place.
The Model 3 did better, with 580,000 sold worldwide. There were more Yaris models sold (590,000)

 

Source: US EV Sales Percentages of Total Vehicle Sales By Brand | EVAdoption

Bob Wilson

 

GM has gotten a LOT better over the last few years. And in terms of EV tech, etc...the Volt was a great vehicle. I still see quite a few of them around.

I still like Toyota better though. However, the fact our 2010 Prius liftback burned oil and our 2012 Prius V wagon has a head gasket issue is leaving a bad impression. In fact, the *only* Prius we have that hasn't had an issue is our daughter's 2012 Prius C.

And it's not just me...many, many others have had these and many other issues ( poor EGR design, etc.. ). The Gen3 Prius series has not been good for Toyota's quality profile. Not sure why people are so quick to overlook that. I know most here have moved on from the Gen3 series...especially the 'enthusiasts'...so that may be why. In fact, I am thinking of moving on as well very soon.

 

Tesla sold 936,000 cars in 2021. Mitsubishi, who is not a large car company, sold 1,127,000. Tesla is doing great for their size, and they will sell more when those 2 new factories come online, but have they broken ground on yet newer factories yet?

The larger car companies have been slow to shift to EVs, but they do have the resources to grow those divisions faster than Tesla when they finally decide to make it. Ford, GM, and VW have all decided to do so, and have lined up the battery production to do it.

But if we are keeping it to EVs then. Tesla sold 561,743 in the first have of these year. BYD sold 641,350 in that time.

BYD new-energy vehicle sales up 292% in Jan-July - Chinadaily.com.cn
Tesla TSLA Q1 2022 Vehicle Production and Delivery Numbers
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2022 vehicle delivery and production numbers

Overall, Toyota is doing better than the others, but the gen3 Prius isn't their only example of not doing it right.
In general, modern cars are a lot better than they have been in the past.

 

Agree. However, the Gen3 Prius series is the showcase for poor Toyota quality, in my opinion. However, I will say that most of these problems show up well after Toyota's 'anticipated life' of the vehicle. Not sure Toyota anticipated folks driving their Prius well past their anticipated life.

 

How many goalposts can I fit in an electric chevy? Almost time to move them all again.

There's a zillion races to be run and won, the winner-take-all attitude expressed by the author of the linked article marks the piece as disingenuous clickbait at best.

 

Really, it can help with end-to-end travels as well. Want to go visit friends? Wouldn't it be great to have the exact charger and cable you need at the other end of the trip? Better chance of that being a Tesla than any other home charger at this point.

 

For AC Level 1 and 2 charging, everyone is using the SAE j1772 standard in the US, and every plug in comes with a portable EVSE that works with nearly all standard outlets. Tesla has to supply their cars with a j1772 adapter in order for them to use public Level 2 chargers.

Superchargers are more common, but the number of other fast DC chargers is quickly growing. Even GM is now putting money into them.

When it becomes a condition of getting subsidy access, Tesla will open up their Superchargers to others.

 

Minor correction, the Tesla ‘distribution’ EVSE and portable EVSE use the smaller Tesla plug.

Bob Wilson

 

Which is why they need an adapter to use any other non-Tesla EVSE.

I do like the Tesla plug design, and how they thought ahead on adapters to allow the car supplied EVSE to use nearly every NEMA outlet type out there. It just is not likely a jurisdiction will adopt the standard for general EV use. Tesla has already switched to CCS type 2 in Europe and China's standard there.