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One way studies in science are 'faked' is by p-hacking. It turns out if you wiggle variables around enough, you can often find statistically significant data th

One way studies in science are 'faked' is by p-hacking. It turns out if you wiggle variables around enough, you can often find statistically significant data that isn't really relevant, but sounds like it could viably be. 538 has an excellent (and highly relevant) p-hacking demo based on real world data. [1] You want to "prove" that this party or that being in power has a statistically significant effect on the economy. It almost certainly doesn't, but if you tweak your sample enough you can "prove" that it does, in a way that sounds completely justifiable. So this study limited itself exclusively to people intending to buy an EV and within the next year. The fun thing about p-hacking is that it sounds reasonable. For instance on that page limit the data to Democrat presidents, employment, exclude recessions, and you can prove that having a Democrat president is good for the economy. And that data selection even sounds reasonable. But it's not. Musk not being fond of the political establishment is not exactly breaking news. Yet Tesla continues to dominate EV sales worldwide and domestically to the point that sales figures are broken down into "Tesla" and then "everybody else." And as others have mentioned Toyota dominating in this sample is quite indicative of the fact that they ended up surveying something besides EV favorability. [1] - https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p-hacking/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p-hacking/

throwaway5752 2y ago
Tesla continues to dominate EV sales worldwide and domestically to the point that sales figures are broken down into "Tesla" and then "everybody else." That is false. BYD and Tesla both sold 1.7M last year if you are talking only EVs (BEV in BYD breakouts) which doesn't count BYD's 2.5M plugin hybrids. Teslas growth rate was flat and BYD's was a bit less than 50%. Let me know if I've made any mistakes there, though.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  Wow yeah BYD went to the Moon in the final quarters, which I hadn't checked! Somehow I suspect this article wasn't talking about China though, which is clearly where Tesla really needs to step it up!
  - rpy 2y ago
    Heaps of BYD EVs on the road here in Australia, and Tesla sales are plummeting here now too.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Tesla's also a relatively small part of the market in the EU (varies, but generally on the order of 15-20% of the BEV market). The US is really the only large market where they're very dominant, and (and this should be concerning for them), it is the least _mature_ of the three big markets; many EVs were not launched in the US at all, and most of those which were were designed more for European or Asian tastes than for American (the Nissan Leaf, say, was available in the US, but is not the sort of car which sells well in the US). As that changes, and more EVs with good product market fit show up in the US, you'd expect the US market to evolve more towards the European one (that is, a bunch of manufacturers with 5-25% market shares). That's what normal mature markets for virtually everything, and certainly for cars, look like.

throwaway5752 2y ago

Tesla continues to dominate EV sales worldwide and domestically to the point that sales figures are broken down into "Tesla" and then "everybody else." That is false. BYD and Tesla both sold 1.7M last year if you are talking only EVs (BEV in BYD breakouts) which doesn't count BYD's 2.5M plugin hybrids. Teslas growth rate was flat and BYD's was a bit less than 50%. Let me know if I've made any mistakes there, though.

somenameforme 2y ago
Wow yeah BYD went to the Moon in the final quarters, which I hadn't checked! Somehow I suspect this article wasn't talking about China though, which is clearly where Tesla really needs to step it up!
- rpy 2y ago
  Heaps of BYD EVs on the road here in Australia, and Tesla sales are plummeting here now too.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Tesla's also a relatively small part of the market in the EU (varies, but generally on the order of 15-20% of the BEV market). The US is really the only large market where they're very dominant, and (and this should be concerning for them), it is the least _mature_ of the three big markets; many EVs were not launched in the US at all, and most of those which were were designed more for European or Asian tastes than for American (the Nissan Leaf, say, was available in the US, but is not the sort of car which sells well in the US). As that changes, and more EVs with good product market fit show up in the US, you'd expect the US market to evolve more towards the European one (that is, a bunch of manufacturers with 5-25% market shares). That's what normal mature markets for virtually everything, and certainly for cars, look like.