What to believe now?

K

Kenny Wallace

New Member
EV sales have not fallen, cooled, slowed or slumped. Stop lying in headlines.

Oh wow the whole time I thought it indeed slowed down, what haha. So basically it says Electric vehicle sales continued to grow over the past year, although the increase was lower than before. In the US, EU, and China, the growth was around 10%, while other countries saw an increase exceeding 40%. But I've read many other articles saying otherwise. What to believe now?

Check this out
https://electrek.co/2024/09/10/ev-s...ed-slowed-or-slumped-stop-lying-in-headlines/
 
Just follow the quarterly reports of companies you have stock in. For example, Tesla will report their sales around Oct 2d.

Bob Wilson
 
Yes, EV (incl hybrids) sales are certainly not declining as compared to their ICE counterparts. But pure electric BEVs do seem to have slowed (Qtr 1) as per this graph (from this article). However Hybrid EVs are definitely taking up the slack.
upload_2024-9-15_7-12-1.webp

It is Tesla that is making the BEV sales look bad. Since they are still by far the highest volume BEV manufacturer (outside of China) any slow down with them affect the overall BEV numbers.

upload_2024-9-15_7-15-0.webp
I think going forward, we will see EV sales, particularly hybrids, pick up a lot.
 
I have been following BEV sales since 2018 when we bought two of the electric cars in the profile picture. At that time Inside EV's was tracking BEV and PHEV sales, mainly in articles written by Mark Kane based on automakers reports. I was and still am mostly interested in BEV sales so I started my own spreadsheet, just for my own fun and information, and have been keeping it up as best as I can with reported numbers from Mr. Kane's articles. Also along with other seemingly non-biased websites like GoodCarBadCar https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2024-u-s-auto-sales-figures-by-model-all-vehicle-ranked/ .

Part of my challenge is that some automakers US sales numbers are reported monthly (Toyota, Honda, Ford, Hyundai/Kia/Genesis, Volvo etc listed in the current Good Car Bar Car tally), some are only listed quarterly (Tesla, VW, GM, BMW, Mercedes, etc.), Tesla does not split US sales out by specific model, Rivian only reports total sales and does not split out US sales and some do not report BEV (or PHEV for that matter) sales separately for models that offer more than one options between BEV, PHEV, HEV, or ICE. The Kia Niro, Hyundai Kona, and Mini E are good examples of this.

For some of those earlier years the US government did report a total for each vehicle model (BEV and PHEV) by registration, and Mark Kane does still report on this as well, but only on most of the top automakers. From what I have seen, some numbers reported by one source are different from others. Probably because they have to do some estimating and thus different sources have different numbers. As a result of all of this my spreadsheet is no more than a sophisticated wild guess, however, I press on just for fun or until it is not fun anymore.

All that said I feel like the most important number to me is not the percentage of new car sales in any specific month, quarter, or even year. To me the most important number is how many BEV's are on the road. Anecdotally I am seeing BEV's than ever more in my neighborhood, and in my travels. Fortunately there is a US Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) website for this. Since the last time I checked a few weeks ago, the website was updated to include 2023 registration counts by state and fuel type
https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicle-registration
While not as exciting or current as the latest speculation on new car sales trends, this data shows that BEV as a cumulative number of registrations has been steadily increasing year over year from 2016 through 2023. Also of interest, maybe only to me, is what percentage of the US light duty vehicle fleet is using each powertrain. Based on my math adding the individual fuel type columns, BEV's as a percentage of the US light duty fleet is also steadily rising. I have pasted a screenshot of my spreadsheet summary below.

upload_2024-9-15_17-57-10.webp
 

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andyG59 said:
To me the most important number is how many BEV's are on the road. Anecdotally I am seeing BEV's than ever more in my neighborhood, and in my travels.
Click to expand...
I think this is a huge point, and I have seen that here, too. Makes sense since BEVs cost less to drive than ICE cars. We only have 2 BEVs now, no ICE car. But before when we had both a BEV and an ICE car, the BEV got driven the most. And before that when we had a truck and a small SUV, the latter got driven the most, because it was so much cheaper on gas.
 
With two EVs:
  • 70,000 mi - 2017 BMW i3-REx (technically a PHEV with 106 mi EV range)
  • 140,000 mi - 2019 Tesla Model 3
Mine don't break and easy to work on. No ICE to worry and waste time and money on.

Bob Wilson
 
insightman said:
Wait, your i3-REx has an ICE from a BMW scooter (but they didn't make it did they?)
Click to expand...
The ICE only runs every 60-90 days to keep it operational. Over last year, one tank top off, less than the 2.3 gallons it holds. One unplanned 'extension' with less than 5 miles to home charger. It erred on the side of caution.

Bob Wilson
 
You have to be completely honest with these numbers.
While you can find good lease deals with both ice and ev’s, a lot of dealers were just trying to get some of these ev’s off of the lot with ridiculous low prices.
Making money is still the name of the game and as it stands Tesla is probably the only company here in the US making money selling evs.
 
I'll say the same thing I said in the other similar thread on this forum, it depends on how you word things.

The bottom line to me is this, Total EV marketshare in the U.S.:

  • 2021: 3.2% of new car sales
  • 2022: 5.9% of new car sales
  • 2023: 7.6% of new car sales
  • 2024 (1st half): 7.5% of new car sales (not exact, I had to piece together data I found)

This is the story. Market share growth was rising steadily, and has stagnated right now. I think the Q2 numbers for this year were inflated by the many automakers that put out cheap lease deals to move EVs that were not selling. For automakers, 7.5% of their sales is really low. Everything I have read has indicated that their profits on each ICE vehicle sold is much higher than on an EV. Most companies were investing in EVs because the trend lines were showing a big increase toward EVs. The fact remains though that nobody other than Tesla has developed an EV that was a hit in the marketplace. Companies are in business to make money.
 
Kenny Wallace said:
EV sales have not fallen, cooled, slowed or slumped. Stop lying in headlines.

Oh wow the whole time I thought it indeed slowed down, what haha. So basically it says Electric vehicle sales continued to grow over the past year, although the increase was lower than before. In the US, EU, and China, the growth was around 10%, while other countries saw an increase exceeding 40%. But I've read many other articles saying otherwise. What to believe now?

Check this out
https://electrek.co/2024/09/10/ev-s...ed-slowed-or-slumped-stop-lying-in-headlines/
Click to expand...
When you hear people in the US saying that EV sales have slowed or stagnated they are referring to the US market and yes it really does look like the rate of EV market share growth in the US has slowed quite a bit. Whatever happens in other nations is irrelevant to the claim.
 
I think the Q3 figures will be really informative. GM's Ultium EVs got off to a slow start because of production issues and the Blazer software failure. Those all seem to be resolved now, and the Equinox has been ramping up, creating a lower-priced alternative for those who can't quite afford a Blazer. We know the Cadillac Lyriq has been doing well, and the Ultium-based Honda Prologue is off to a roaring start. If GM has strong numbers (without just stealing sales from Ford, Tesla, Hyundai, etc.), it could boost the overall stats significantly. We'll know in a couple weeks.
 
SouthernDude said:
When you hear people in the US saying that EV sales have slowed or stagnated they are referring to the US market and yes it really does look like the rate of EV market share growth in the US has slowed quite a bit. Whatever happens in other nations is irrelevant to the claim.
Click to expand...
Isn't it curious how none of the smaller EVs available in Europe (and elsewhere?) are ever available in the US? Automakers complain about nobody buying EVs, but then they refuse to offer the smaller, less expensive models they sell elsewhere supposedly because there's no market (in the US) for smaller cars. It's a shame, really.
 
Puppethead said:
Isn't it curious how none of the smaller EVs available in Europe (and elsewhere?) are ever available in the US? Automakers complain about nobody buying EVs, but then they refuse to offer the smaller, less expensive models they sell elsewhere supposedly because there's no market (in the US) for smaller cars. It's a shame, really.
Click to expand...

It's doubly strange because, aside from recall-related interruptions, the Chevy Bolt sold well. Ford's public statements indicate they now think smaller and cheaper is the way to go, but still no timeline for these hypothetical Fords -- or for the return of the Bolt, for that matter. Kia may break the ice with the EV3, if they can keep the price down.
 
Elon occassionally threatens to make a small EV. However, what could he take out other than some metal to make a sub-Model 3 less expensive to produce than the long-in-the-tooth Model 3?
 
insightman said:
Elon occassionally threatens to make a small EV. However, what could he take out other than some metal to make a sub-Model 3 less expensive to produce than the long-in-the-tooth Model 3?
Click to expand...
Remove battery capacity. High 200 to 300+ mile range is overkill for EVs, even if Americans won't accept that.

The base Model 3 with 360 mile range seems to be just under $30,000 (per tesla.com/model3) so it's almost competitive as a lower-cost vehicle. Drop 150 miles range worth of batteries and that could be quite an affordable option. Ford charges about $10,000 for their F-150 Lightning "extended range" option to go from 230 miles to 320 miles range.
 
Have you not seen the $12,995 USD Wink Mark 2 Solar? Street legal for most states except CT, NY, MS, and MT.

winkmk2.webp
 
The Wink is an LSV (low-speed vehicle), limited to 25 mph. Great for getting around a senior retirement community, but not suitable for the tasks for which most EVs are used. The only LSV I'd consider would be the Citroën Ami, but they don't bring those across the Atlantic.

upload_2024-9-20_19-56-0.webp
 
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