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Your global figures for Ford and GM look wrong to me... but otherwise, I agree: If Tesla continues to grow at these rates, yes, eventually they will catch up wi
by cs702 6y ago
Your global figures for Ford and GM look wrong to me... but otherwise, I agree: If Tesla continues to grow at these rates, yes, eventually they will catch up with leading car manufacturers, all the way up to VW, currently the world's largest.
Tesla's online manufacturing capacity at quarter-end was ~1.05M EVs/year (~600K/year in California, ~450K/year in Shanghai), which works out to a run-rate of 262K/quarter, vs. 180K deliveries in Q1.
The two gigafactories already in construction, Berlin and Texas, look likely to come online within ~12 months. They should add at least 1M more EVs/year in manufacturing capacity, bringing the max possible quarterly run-rate to 500-600K/quarter.
The four gigafactories already in development look like to come online within 2-3 years, and should add at least 2M EVs/year in manufacturing capacity, bringing the max possible quarterly run-rate to 1M+/quarter.
To catch up with VW, Tesla would have to add 10-20 additional gigafactories beyond the 2 already in construction and the 4 in development. And of course, they would have to find buyers for all those EVs, most of which would have to be low price-tag, entry-level, mass-market vehicles, like Toyota's RAV4 and Corolla, and VW's Tiguan and Jetta.
It's possible for Tesla and Musk to overtake the likes of VW in volume -- if anyone can, it's them. But it's not certain that they'll be able to do it. Success is far from guaranteed, given that all automakers are going 100% electric now.
- dagw 6y agoIt's possible for Tesla and Musk to overtake the likes of VW in volume -- if anyone can, it's them. But it's not certain that they'll be able to do it. It's not certain they'll want to. Much better to stay a higher end brand and focus on "fun" and exciting high end cars people (and other car makers) aspire to, rather than trying to out compete Toyota and VW in making Corolas and Polos.
- cs702 6y agoMaybe. Scale become more and more important in the long run for sustaining market-leading, cost-efficient innovation. Whoever has the greatest scale in EVs will likely have the best and cheapest (per-unit) batteries, cameras, sensors, software, etc.
- dangus 6y agoDon’t forget that the VW group and Toyota very much compete in the luxury market. Porsche, Audi, Bugatti, and Lamborghini are all part of the VW group. VW is majority owned by the Porsche-Piëch family. Toyota has Lexus. Selling only luxury cars sounds appealing in terms of profit margin, but the automotive industry has a lot of complex systems with high development costs where economies of scale come into play.
- dagw 6y agoSure, but the big difference in my mind is that they both started in mass market segment and then eventually added separate luxury brands to their portfolio. Tesla started pretty high end and are trying to move down into the mass market.