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US sales of Nissan Leaf in 2016 was 14k. In 2019 it was 12k. If Nissan Leaf was sold out in U.S. it's only because Nissan decided not to make enough of them. O
by kjksf 6y ago
US sales of Nissan Leaf in 2016 was 14k. In 2019 it was 12k.
If Nissan Leaf was sold out in U.S. it's only because Nissan decided not to make enough of them. Or they made exactly the very small amount that people were willing to buy.
Bolt was even worse. They did 23k in 2017 and dropped to 16k in 2019. GM dealers were so desperate to get rid of them that at some point they offered up to $10k cash rebate. At that despite the fact that GM admitted they are loosing money on Bolt even when sold at full price.
20k a year in U.S. market of ~10 million cars is a rounding error. Whatever the reason, no one except Tesla was selling EV cars in US at non-laughable numbers.
In contrast, Tesla sales went from 50k in 2017 to 195k in 2019.
- gamblor956 6y agoLike I said... The problem was that they never made enough of them because they didn't believe the market existed. Note that Tesla is also losing money on the Model 3 (and indeed, all models of Teslas) when using the same accounting practices as other automakers. Tesla only has high margins when using non-standard accounting.
- cptskippy 6y agoEven if they made a million of the Leaf, there was never demand. Now that everyone is point that out to you, you're trying to pivot to saying that Tesla is losing money on their EVs. Even if they are, so what? Tesla's stated goal was to shepherd in the mass adoption of EVs as quickly as possible. They only need to remain in business long enough for every major auto manufacturer to start selling EVs in mass quantities. Once that happens they can just vanish and they'll have won.
- gamblor956 6y agoThe BS about "shepharding" mass adoption was just marketing speak. It's what Toyota said with the Prius, GM with the Cruise, and Nissan with the Leaf. They all grew their respective markets; the difference is that Tesla was the only one to go all in on EVs and make it their only market (and Tesla owes Toyota, GM, and Nissan, for demonstrating the market for green cars and making them trendy with the wealthy segments of the auto-buying population). Moreover, CA and the EU have far more to do with EV adoption that Tesla, by creating the market incentives for consumers to buy EVs and other green vehicles, and the clean car credits that have singlehandedly kept Tesla afloat the past 5 years while they lose money making cars.
- cptskippy 6y agoSerious question, are you a Tesla Short Seller? You have all sorts of excuses to dismiss Tesla's success in the market. Nissan and GM under produced, Nissan adopted Toyota's Prius ugly car strategy, now that EVs are cool the incumbents will out produce Tesla, Tesla is only successful because of everyone else, Tesla only exists because of government handouts, blah blah blah... You are trying to come up with every angle you can to excuse away the the fact that Tesla has been successful making a product people actually wanted and not a compliance vehicle purposefully made unattractive to ensure only a limited audience would purchase it.