Elon Musk’s brand sold 12,130 new cars across the EU last month, down from 18,430 in November 2024
Tesla continued a run of weak sales in the EU in November, with new car registrations of Elon Musk’s brand down a third, while Chinese carmakers’ sales soared.
Tesla sold 12,130 new cars across the EU last month, down from 18,430 in November 2024, shrinking its market share from 2.1% to 1.4%, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (Acea), a lobby group.
The Chinese carmaker BYD recorded by far the fastest sales growth, with registrations across Europe almost tripling year on year up to November, to 42,500. Chinese state-owned SAIC, the owner of the MG brand, recorded sales increases of 26% to push sales to 217,000.
There are no competitive Japanese EVs. European EVs are basically only available as premium brands outside of Europe.
I see plenty of Nissan Leafs on the roads. Sweden, EU.
The leaf is uncompetitive in the US at least because it still uses chademo charging, which is really outdated and will disappear
Gonna have to agree there.
Years ago, I thought Toyota would pivot and become a forerunner in the EV revolution. They already put electric motors in their cars, they had hybrid versions of nearly everything they made a decade ago already!
Now it’s been over a decade since Tesla made EVs an actual thing you could drive in the public’s eyes… and the only electric Toyota that’s not a van, that I can buy right now, is still the bZ4X which was kinda uninspiring when it came out… let alone now.
At least earlier European electric cars (Volvo, BMW, Audi mostly) have started depreciating enough that they’re in my ballpark now. I don’t want to pay 30k EUR for a car that costs 30k EUR new, but I’ll pay 30k EUR for a car that was 80k just 2-3 years ago. It’s just one of my quirks, I want to get as much car as possible for as little money as possible, and to make up for it, I’ll do my own repairs on formerly expensive, complex European automobiles.
Toyota went all in on hybrids and hydrogen. Which isn’t available outside of California.
There are many advantages to hybrids over EVs, especially plug-in hybrids. In many scenarios PHEVs are not only more convenient/viable than EVs, they’re cleaner than EVs over the vehicle’s lifespan too. Think: shorter daily trips, mostly runs on electricity but with a smaller battery, in a scenario where electricity production comes from combustion.
For a majority of the world hybrids simply make way more sense, and that will continue to be the case for a decade at least. While I personally would prefer an EV for myself, I’m glad that Toyota is prioritising hybrids.
There are some unfortunate facts to consider.
Why do you need Toyota specifically to make EVs?
I don’t. I’m gonna keep buying European cars. I was replying to the person who said Japanese manufacturers are no longer competitive when it comes to EVs, then you came in and implied it’s better that they focus on hybrids instead of EVs.
Toyota made a huge mistake going all in on hybrid cars.
Hybrids are not a bad transitional technology, and Toyota’s hybrids are better than anyone else’s. Their much bigger strategic mistake was sinking hundreds of millions into developing hydrogen-powered cars that nobody wanted, at the neglect of building up EV expertise.
The problem with hydrogen isn’t that no one wants the cars, it’s that it fundamentally makes no sense.
And it never will.
I thought they gambled on the hydrogen car?
Yeah they did, and lost their shirts.
Not true. They had record sales on their hybrids.
And still do. They’re also about to release their solid state batteries, leapfrogging over lithium ion packs, which seems like the way to go considering people want more than 200-300 miles of range out of their vehicles.