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These estimates about when electric vehicles are going to take off all seem naively conservative. The total world wide vehicle market is just under 70 million

These estimates about when electric vehicles are going to take off all seem naively conservative. The total world wide vehicle market is just under 70 million units a year. Tesla alone has guided for sales of 400k vehicles this year. If they roughly double their output on average each year they will be close to 20% of the total worldwide output in 5 years.

benrbray 7y ago
Sure, but that ignores other factors like safety, infrastructure, and winning over public opinion. In my opinion, there's also the question of whether we really want to further cement America's dependence on cars. We could be investing this money / effort into laying down bullet trains, expanding public transportation, and reforming zoning laws to make future cities more human-friendly.
- pmorici 7y ago
  The top three safest cars ever tested by the NHTSA are all Electric. Tesla alone has been doubling the number of deployed charging stations every year and there are a handful of other entrants building out networks as well. Every home owner with a garage has the infrastructure needed to charge an electric car (aka: a wall outlet). I've not yet met a single person who after riding in a Tesla Model 3 doesn't want one.
  - mavhc 7y ago
    Here in uk about 20% of garages aren't built straight onto the house, which was annoying when I was searching for a house to buy.
    - arethuza 7y ago
      When we were looking at houses a couple of years ago in the UK one thing that I always noticed is that almost nobody seems to use their garage to hold cars - 1 house out of the 20 or so we looked at had a car in it - the rest were full of miscellaneous stuff.
    - rypskar 7y ago
      Isn't it possible to get electricity to a detached garage in the uk? My garage is 10 meters from my house, but I do still have two circuits from the house to the garage
      - mavhc 7y ago
        Probably, but expensive to have to have a trench dug. It does seem rare for people to use their garages for cars. Half the time they're too small to get a car in and a human out though.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >The top three safest cars ever tested by the NHTSA are all Electric Because the people making electric cars know the buyer demographics and know those people have enough money to justify paying a premium for that thereby making it a marketable feature. Nobody is wasting the money putting tree-trunk A-pillars and foot thick doors in a Chevy Aveo competitor because protection against something that's less than a once in a lifetime event for most people let alone the vehicle is not high on the priority list of those buyers.
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  That would be nice, but America is unusually rural for a developed country, and that affects the culture even in the cities in a big way.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  I doubt you would be able to restrict personal transport again. Anyone with relatives outside the immediate vicinity probably wouldn't want to rely on public transportation. And even if so, let's be honest, having your own vehicle gives you many opportunities and public transport is often inconvenient.
  - GVIrish 7y ago
    It wouldn't be that personal vehicle ownership would be banned, it would just be drastically reduced. In its place there'd be far better public transportation options, maybe better fractional car usage options, bicycles rideshares, etc. Many people would still need cars, but instead of every family needing two cars, many could just have one. Then even for the people with cars, they might not drive as many miles on average with the new options open to them. Obviously it would be easier to reduce car ownership in denser areas so that's where the bulk of the shift would happen.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Changing cities happens on a timeline of decades. We need to get rid of ICEs running on fossil fuel completely until maybe 2040, 2050 at the latest. That is, if we manage a linear GHG emission reduction starting yesterday. Electric cars are the only option that can be rolled out fast enough. Of course we should start the transformation away from car dependence at the same time, just don't expect meaningful effects until after ICEs are already obsolete.
rapsey 7y ago
Exponential increase of output from a single manufacturer for 5 years is naively optimistic to put it mildly. Scaling manufacture (ignoring if demand even exists) is very difficult and expensive.
- marvin 7y ago
  They've been able to do it up until now, with >50% CAGR per year since 2010-ish. The question is whether you can naively extrapolate this mathematical growth when approaching established manufacturers in volume. Tesla has up until now been an excellent example that a billion-dollar revenue business can be built much faster than 100 years ago.
sveme 7y ago
That would require a doubling of production capacity each year. Currently they have two factories (?), next they'll need to have four, then eight... The whole company would have to scale accordingly. That's just not feasible. And I don't believe there has even been a hardware company in the world with exponential growth over an extended period of time.
- pmorici 7y ago
  The factories haven't been operating at 100% capacity. The US factory in Fremont for example is in the process of putting in a new line to produce the Model Y, demand for which should be similar to the Model 3. That alone will enable them to close to double output. Then there is the China factory that is opening in a month or two they built that in ~9 months and they are planning to break ground on a factory in Europe next year.
  - rgbrenner 7y ago
    Toyota needs 50 factories + joint ventures + contract facilities to deliver 10m cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_manufacturing_facilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_manufacturing_f... You just said Tesla will deliver 13m in 5 years..
    - emptysands 7y ago
      Less parts should also mean a more productive manufacturing process.
      - pwagland 7y ago
        I like Tesla more than most, I have one myself… however you can't be suggesting that three factories will outproduce 50? That would be some massive gains in efficiency! It seems unlikely that the factories are currently operating at about 10% efficiency.
        7y ago
rgbrenner 7y ago
That's naively optimistic. Take a look through the number of vehicles manufactured by Toyota: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_vehicles Each one of those represents a market segment that Toyota serves. Where is Tesla's equivalent: minivan, yaris, rav4, tacoma, etc? You don't really expect some soccer mom who buys a 30k minivan to buy a model X for 80k+? And I guess, the construction worker can pile his materials in the front trunk on the X too? I mean we only have 4 cars to pick from here.. And consider all of the places worldwide that Toyota sells to.. from rich countries to poor countries. They rely on infrastructure that is available globally to everyone, no matter your living situation. Even if you live in a poor country with little infrastructure and intermittent electricity, you can still get gas for your Toyota. You might find this comparison silly... but you just said Tesla will produce 13m vehicles in 5 years.. making them 20% larger than Toyota, the worlds largest manufacturer.
- pmorici 7y ago
  Sure is, you can haggle about whether it will be in 5 years, 8 years or somewhere in between but I think Tesla growing as big as Toyota is almost inevitable. In 5 years Tesla will be producing at least 7 models including 2 cars (S & 3) , 2 crossover/SUVs (X & Y), 1 sports car (roadster), 1 pick-up truck, 1 semi-truck.
  - clouddrover 7y ago
    I don't think Tesla will get as big as Toyota. Toyota is the second highest selling car company, and they're a close second to Volkswagen. Volkswagen Group will be the biggest electric car company in a few years because they're spending the most money on it: https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/vws-91b-spend-evs-outpaces-investment-rivals https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/vws-91b-spend-evs-out... Volkswagen's current and soon to be released battery electrics are the VW e-Up!, VW e-Golf (though this is being discontinued), VW ID.3, SEAT Mii Electric, SEAT el-Born, Skoda Citigo iV, Skoda Vision iV, Audi e-tron, and the Porsche Taycan. Future Volkswagen battery electrics are the VW ID Crozz, VW ID Roomz, VW ID Buzz, Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo, Porsche Macan electric, Audi e-tron GT, and the Audi e-tron Q4. Volkwagen's roadmap is bigger and broader than Tesla's can be simply because Volkswagen operates at a larger scale.
vkou 7y ago
And in 35 years, they will sell more cars than there are grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches. Curves that look exponential turn out to be sigmoidal. Expecting them to grow to a bigger manufacturer than Toyota in five years is laughably unrealistic.
navigatesol 7y ago
>Tesla alone has guided for sales of 400k vehicles this year. Which they are unlikely to achieve this year. We can now finally see the year-over-year numbers (the ones that Tesla were telling us were 100s of % growth, due to new model launch a year ago), and those numbers might be down (ie no growth). But as an industry, EVs will keep taking market share. They just make sense.

benrbray 7y ago

Sure, but that ignores other factors like safety, infrastructure, and winning over public opinion. In my opinion, there's also the question of whether we really want to further cement America's dependence on cars. We could be investing this money / effort into laying down bullet trains, expanding public transportation, and reforming zoning laws to make future cities more human-friendly.

pmorici 7y ago
The top three safest cars ever tested by the NHTSA are all Electric. Tesla alone has been doubling the number of deployed charging stations every year and there are a handful of other entrants building out networks as well. Every home owner with a garage has the infrastructure needed to charge an electric car (aka: a wall outlet). I've not yet met a single person who after riding in a Tesla Model 3 doesn't want one.
- mavhc 7y ago
  Here in uk about 20% of garages aren't built straight onto the house, which was annoying when I was searching for a house to buy.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    When we were looking at houses a couple of years ago in the UK one thing that I always noticed is that almost nobody seems to use their garage to hold cars - 1 house out of the 20 or so we looked at had a car in it - the rest were full of miscellaneous stuff.
  - rypskar 7y ago
    Isn't it possible to get electricity to a detached garage in the uk? My garage is 10 meters from my house, but I do still have two circuits from the house to the garage
    - mavhc 7y ago
      Probably, but expensive to have to have a trench dug. It does seem rare for people to use their garages for cars. Half the time they're too small to get a car in and a human out though.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >The top three safest cars ever tested by the NHTSA are all Electric Because the people making electric cars know the buyer demographics and know those people have enough money to justify paying a premium for that thereby making it a marketable feature. Nobody is wasting the money putting tree-trunk A-pillars and foot thick doors in a Chevy Aveo competitor because protection against something that's less than a once in a lifetime event for most people let alone the vehicle is not high on the priority list of those buyers.
SuoDuanDao 7y ago
That would be nice, but America is unusually rural for a developed country, and that affects the culture even in the cities in a big way.
raxxorrax 7y ago
I doubt you would be able to restrict personal transport again. Anyone with relatives outside the immediate vicinity probably wouldn't want to rely on public transportation. And even if so, let's be honest, having your own vehicle gives you many opportunities and public transport is often inconvenient.
- GVIrish 7y ago
  It wouldn't be that personal vehicle ownership would be banned, it would just be drastically reduced. In its place there'd be far better public transportation options, maybe better fractional car usage options, bicycles rideshares, etc. Many people would still need cars, but instead of every family needing two cars, many could just have one. Then even for the people with cars, they might not drive as many miles on average with the new options open to them. Obviously it would be easier to reduce car ownership in denser areas so that's where the bulk of the shift would happen.
adrianN 7y ago
Changing cities happens on a timeline of decades. We need to get rid of ICEs running on fossil fuel completely until maybe 2040, 2050 at the latest. That is, if we manage a linear GHG emission reduction starting yesterday. Electric cars are the only option that can be rolled out fast enough. Of course we should start the transformation away from car dependence at the same time, just don't expect meaningful effects until after ICEs are already obsolete.

rapsey 7y ago

Exponential increase of output from a single manufacturer for 5 years is naively optimistic to put it mildly. Scaling manufacture (ignoring if demand even exists) is very difficult and expensive.

marvin 7y ago
They've been able to do it up until now, with >50% CAGR per year since 2010-ish. The question is whether you can naively extrapolate this mathematical growth when approaching established manufacturers in volume. Tesla has up until now been an excellent example that a billion-dollar revenue business can be built much faster than 100 years ago.

sveme 7y ago

That would require a doubling of production capacity each year. Currently they have two factories (?), next they'll need to have four, then eight... The whole company would have to scale accordingly. That's just not feasible. And I don't believe there has even been a hardware company in the world with exponential growth over an extended period of time.

pmorici 7y ago
The factories haven't been operating at 100% capacity. The US factory in Fremont for example is in the process of putting in a new line to produce the Model Y, demand for which should be similar to the Model 3. That alone will enable them to close to double output. Then there is the China factory that is opening in a month or two they built that in ~9 months and they are planning to break ground on a factory in Europe next year.
- rgbrenner 7y ago
  Toyota needs 50 factories + joint ventures + contract facilities to deliver 10m cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_manufacturing_facilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_manufacturing_f... You just said Tesla will deliver 13m in 5 years..
  - emptysands 7y ago
    Less parts should also mean a more productive manufacturing process.
    - pwagland 7y ago
      I like Tesla more than most, I have one myself… however you can't be suggesting that three factories will outproduce 50? That would be some massive gains in efficiency! It seems unlikely that the factories are currently operating at about 10% efficiency.
      - 7y ago

rgbrenner 7y ago

That's naively optimistic. Take a look through the number of vehicles manufactured by Toyota: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_vehicles Each one of those represents a market segment that Toyota serves. Where is Tesla's equivalent: minivan, yaris, rav4, tacoma, etc? You don't really expect some soccer mom who buys a 30k minivan to buy a model X for 80k+? And I guess, the construction worker can pile his materials in the front trunk on the X too? I mean we only have 4 cars to pick from here.. And consider all of the places worldwide that Toyota sells to.. from rich countries to poor countries. They rely on infrastructure that is available globally to everyone, no matter your living situation. Even if you live in a poor country with little infrastructure and intermittent electricity, you can still get gas for your Toyota. You might find this comparison silly... but you just said Tesla will produce 13m vehicles in 5 years.. making them 20% larger than Toyota, the worlds largest manufacturer.

pmorici 7y ago
Sure is, you can haggle about whether it will be in 5 years, 8 years or somewhere in between but I think Tesla growing as big as Toyota is almost inevitable. In 5 years Tesla will be producing at least 7 models including 2 cars (S & 3) , 2 crossover/SUVs (X & Y), 1 sports car (roadster), 1 pick-up truck, 1 semi-truck.
- clouddrover 7y ago
  I don't think Tesla will get as big as Toyota. Toyota is the second highest selling car company, and they're a close second to Volkswagen. Volkswagen Group will be the biggest electric car company in a few years because they're spending the most money on it: https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/vws-91b-spend-evs-outpaces-investment-rivals https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/vws-91b-spend-evs-out... Volkswagen's current and soon to be released battery electrics are the VW e-Up!, VW e-Golf (though this is being discontinued), VW ID.3, SEAT Mii Electric, SEAT el-Born, Skoda Citigo iV, Skoda Vision iV, Audi e-tron, and the Porsche Taycan. Future Volkswagen battery electrics are the VW ID Crozz, VW ID Roomz, VW ID Buzz, Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo, Porsche Macan electric, Audi e-tron GT, and the Audi e-tron Q4. Volkwagen's roadmap is bigger and broader than Tesla's can be simply because Volkswagen operates at a larger scale.

vkou 7y ago

And in 35 years, they will sell more cars than there are grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches. Curves that look exponential turn out to be sigmoidal. Expecting them to grow to a bigger manufacturer than Toyota in five years is laughably unrealistic.

navigatesol 7y ago

>Tesla alone has guided for sales of 400k vehicles this year. Which they are unlikely to achieve this year. We can now finally see the year-over-year numbers (the ones that Tesla were telling us were 100s of % growth, due to new model launch a year ago), and those numbers might be down (ie no growth). But as an industry, EVs will keep taking market share. They just make sense.