KEY POINTS
Tesla new car sales in Europe fell 27.9% year-on-year. in May.
The U.S. EV maker has sustained brand and reputational damage in part due to CEO Elon Musk’s incendiary rhetoric and political activity.
Chinese manufacturers, meanwhile, maintained their strong momentum in Europe’s new car market last month.
Unrelated but I remember last year noticing that what used to be a Tesla dealership was turned into a BYD dealership in my country and couldn’t help but feeling how it was so representative of the situation
It brings me a great sense of joy knowing Leon did this all to himself
Not just him, but others in different ways. The German car manufacturing lobby, for example, has also slept on their market control and oligopoly, missed important developments, and is now complaining that the “Chinese are not playing fair”, after they lobbied politics and manipulated data to stifle the move to EVs (e.g. the big VW diesel emissions fraud scandal as probably the biggest story there).
Are the Chinese “playing fair”? Well, they are not playing more crooked than what we already had, at least. And they provide something necessary (affordable EVs) for the current transition, and that transition was already direly needed yesterday. (Although of course, more broadly, favouring transit and reducing car-centered infrastructure is even more important, EVs are still a part of the equation.)
favouring transit
China is largely dominating the electric bus market too. I doubt Europe particularly wants to bootstrap a lithium mining and refining industry to compete though. The Chinese companies are that vertically integrated.
“We shall stop buying cars from that fascist by buying cars from this other fascist.” High IQ move right there.
If both are fascist, similar quality and one is cheaper. The choice is no longer very hard
I would even argue that the Chinese ones are becoming better. It’s not like the parts or the assembly quality of American made stuff is better than chinese.
There are non-fascist sources of EVs.
Please name them.
You gonna tell me Renault is fascist?
