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The US auto industry under its pro-oil policy incentives is in for a disastrous long-term outlook in exchange for short-term prosperity. At best, it’ll be a si

The US auto industry under its pro-oil policy incentives is in for a disastrous long-term outlook in exchange for short-term prosperity. At best, it’ll be a situation where the US market is segregated from the rest of the world: US auto consumers will be buying inferior vehicles from the rest of world that are more expensive to buy and own, since they will only be viable in the US market and will only be built in the US, Canada, and Mexico. At worst, the US is setting itself for horrendous energy policy issues moving forward. Sure, the US produces a lot of gas and oil and will for a long time, but any sort of price shock will be leaving the US and its car-dependent economy destabilized while Europe and Asia power forward with an ever-decreasing dependence on oil and gas. The US’ endless energy wars will continue to serve as incredibly expensive endeavors that other countries don’t even need to engage in. Just look at the number of nuclear power plant projects in progress in China. Comparatively few people in China depend on oil to get to work and travel long distances, and the amount that do is plummeting.

jfengel 3mo ago
It is remarkable that a US company had an enormous lead in BEVs for a decade. Then they just kinda stopped innovating, and slid backwards.
- aetherspawn 3mo ago
  Having owned a Model 3 I would argue that it’s basically “done” at this point, pending software updates for better FSD. It already charges in 20-30 min at Tesla chargers and has a practical range of around 600 kms, so super fast charging is a bit of a straw man. Their big downfall is they lack an advertising department willing to spend $1B on pro-electric propaganda to debunk all the Trump/big oil propaganda. IMO EVs have addressed all the main product concerns, and the last ones are buyer stupidity.
  - asdff 3mo ago
    I can’t own one because I can’t install a fast charger at my place.
    - Grombobulous 3mo ago
      Most people don’t need a fast charger to own an EV. Most people would actually be just fine on a household outlet.
      - asdff 3mo ago
        Sounds terrible if that is your only car.
        medler 3mo ago
        What is terrible about charging at home from a regular outlet? As long as you average <50-60 miles a day, like most people, you basically never have to go to fast chargers (or gas stations). It’s amazing.
        stavros 3mo ago
        I have a standard plug (not even three phase) and charge 30 kWh in ten hours (overnight). That's around 90 miles, which is plenty. If I'm going on a long trip, I just make sure I start charging from > 50% the previous day, and I'm good. It's trivial to manage the state of charge when you have a charger at home and a planned trip coming up.
        medler 3mo ago
        In the U.S. our standard outlets are 120V, so you only get about 1kW or so out of them. Plenty for most people, but annoying if you need >50 miles of range a day, or if you want to boil water in an electric kettle. The situation is much better in Europe, and most of the rest of the world, where you have 220+V
        Grombobulous 3mo ago
        Not really. The average person in America drives about 37 miles a day. EVs gain about 3-5 miles per hour on a household 120V charger. You sleep for about 8 hours and are probably home away from work and errands for an about 12 hours. Do the math: 3 miles per hour for 12 hours is 36 miles. And even if you don’t keep up with your pace, the weekend can act as additional time to charge. Or if you drive more on the weekend, you can basically decide that you’re going to go to a fast charger every 2-4 weeks just like a gas car (or maybe even less frequently than a gas car). Let’s say you drive 50 miles a day but you’re only able to charge up 35 miles per day at home. If your vehicle’s range is 250 miles that means you need to go to a fast charger every 15 days including a little room for reserve power. Also, all of this is even less of a concern if you live in a country with 240V power.
  - reverius42 3mo ago
    I am very skeptical that your Model 3 has a "practical range" of 372 miles. EPA range for the long range model is 342 miles, and I would expect usable range to be considerably less (since you probably want to start charging at around 10% remaining, and you probably want to stop charging at 80-90%). 0% - 100% is kind of not "practical" as it would require you to fully deplete the battery, and then wait for the slow charging at the margins (90 to 100% tends to be pretty slow).
    - aetherspawn 3mo ago
      Practical meaning I don’t plan to ever drive more than 600km per day so if it’s 600km from A->B, and then a 8 hour charge, that’s fine by me… if I want 700km I’ll stop and charge for 5 min at 30% SOC or so
      - stavros 3mo ago
        But the GP is saying a Tesla won't do 600km on one charge, which does sound reasonable. I agree with you about just stopping to charge for a few minutes along the way if I need more, though.
  - ben_w 3mo ago
    Not everyone wants the same thing from a car. Some care most about the price, some about the efficiency, some about the size, some about the comfort, some about the charging speed despite what you say. If Telsa were still innovating, they'd have rounded out their offerings to fill in the gaps that are now getting filled with other brands in the world outside the USA.
    - Grombobulous 3mo ago
      I keep shouting from the rooftops that Tesla’s lack of offerings has them completely hamstrung. Tesla sells more vehicles than Mazda, and both brands are in a similar semi-premium non-luxury segment. Compare lineups between these brands. How does Mazda have 3.5 SUVs and Tesla only has 1.5? (The .5 is counting the CX-70 and CX-90, and the Y and YL as essentially the same car) Mazda is able to offer a sedan and hatchback variant of the 3. They also have a city car in Europe, the Mazda 2. Absolutely nothing in the segment from Tesla. And of course, Mazda has the legendary MX-5, which chugs along selling a very respectable quantity while the Tesla Roadster remains MIA. Where is Tesla’s lineup? For being a being China-focused brand, where is their premium/luxury van? For being a US-focused brand, where is their family 3-row Grand Highlander killer? How did they botch a truck made in Texas?
      - foogazi 3mo ago
        > Tesla sells more vehicles than Mazda Isn’t that all that matters ?
        Grombobulous 3mo ago
        My point is that they don’t have a wide enough breadth of models and that’s holding them back, and the fact that lower volume brands have more models and appeal to a wider range of customers helps demonstrate that.
        ben_w 3mo ago
        > Isn’t that all that matters ? Where the ball is vs. where the ball is heading. Musk (and TSLA shareholders keeping the price where it is) is arguing the ball is heading to robotics and AI; I think we're at least a decade from the robotics+AI vision he's trying to sell the dream of, and in the meantime he may lose the car business by everyone else out-innovating on vehicles with regards to stuff he's either lost interest in, or lost the trust of the best designers an engineers to hire to work on for him.
  - kccqzy 3mo ago
    You think it’s done only because you are not ambitious enough. And neither is Tesla. A Hyundai charges faster than a Tesla. Chinese cars from several brands are getting five-minute charging times. If you think that’s a straw man I don’t know what to say; a buyer wants charging to be as fast as pumping gas, and are you going to blame buyer stupidity for not delivering on that?
    - Grombobulous 3mo ago
      China is even doing 90 second automated robotic battery swap stations.
    - aetherspawn 3mo ago
      But which brands last longer than a Tesla? None. That’s because faster charging wears out the battery. Charging fast is not marvellous, actually it requires a lot of self-control from the manufacturers to limit charging speed for longevity, even though most people won’t understand why.
      - satvikpendem 3mo ago
        No, because Chinese EVs have advanced in battery technology too above Tesla. > CATL also says the battery retains more than 90% of its original capacity after 1,000 ultra-fast charging cycles https://www.evdances.com/blogs/news/hongqi-unveils-ultra-fast-ev-battery https://www.evdances.com/blogs/news/hongqi-unveils-ultra-fas...
        ivewonyoung 3mo ago
        Tesla buys batteries from CATL.
        satvikpendem 2mo ago
        It's not the same batteries. CATL sells its better ones to Chinese EV makers.
    - 3mo ago
  - medler 3mo ago
    I’m convinced super-fast charging will be a game changer, because it will eliminate the ~only remaining downside to EVs. If Tesla had charging tech like BYD the market in the U.S. would look very different
    - tialaramex 3mo ago
      I don't buy it. "Recharging == Fuel" is the wrong way to think about it. Think about your phone. Do you plan how you'll charge that quickly? Do you know where you can get a quick charge at a local mall while ordering coffee? Nope, it just gets charged over night when you're asleep, no problem.
      - medler 3mo ago
        I agree charging at home/work is best, and ideally we would have ubiquitous slow charging at apartment lots, workplaces, and on the street. But that’s not really realistic right now in the U.S., and more importantly, it isn’t under Tesla’s control. Whereas they could have solved the problem for people with less charging access by making their fast charging faster like BYD has done. With respect to your phone analogy, if I weren’t able to charge my phone at home or at work, I would definitely be interested in being able to fast-charge it at some conveniently located business
        stavros 3mo ago
        I think you're both right. An EV is wonderful if you can charge at home, and a chore if you can't. Fast chargers help, but they're expensive and still not as fast as gas. If you have a wall plug at home, an EV is basically always full. I'm shopping for a flat and one of my non-negotiable requirements is a parking spot with a plug. The one I'm looking at now even has a three-phase plug, which is a nice extra, but not really necessary.
      - satvikpendem 3mo ago
        Yes I do get the fastest charging speed and highest battery capacity phone, which are Chinese now too like OnePlus. Once you know you can depend on your phone for a few days, it's a game changer.
  - Grombobulous 3mo ago
    I think this opinion fails to explain why Tesla is faltering so badly in China. The products aren’t “done.” They’re stagnant. Where is their proper 3 row SUV, not a hacked together half-effort like the YL? Where is their passenger premium van product for China? Remember that this is a company with a huge factory and presence in China, and they were the first mover in that market, but they’re getting eaten alive by competitors. Meanwhile, in Europe, the Volkswagen Group is outselling Tesla in EVs. The #1 EV in Europe is a Skoda, and on top of that Tesla doesn’t make a European style city car. Small sedans like the Model 3 are really not popular in Europe, you need a hatch. And I haven’t even brought up the Cybertruck selling a couple hundred thousand units below company expectations, that is kind of a low blow cherry on top.
    - plqbfbv 3mo ago
      > I think this opinion fails to explain why Tesla is faltering so badly in China. Apparently not so much, the restyle and a consolidated assistance and charging network make people prefer it over the homemade products lately, which keep innovating but you essentially need to re-learn from scratch every time (my original source article is in Italian - https://www.vaielettrico.it/troppa-scelta-poca-fiducia-i-cinesi-confusi-tornano-alla-tesla-model-y/ https://www.vaielettrico.it/troppa-scelta-poca-fiducia-i-cin... ; this is the closest I could find in English: https://paultan.org/2026/01/21/tesla-model-y-again-best-selling-suv-in-china-followed-by-geely-xingyue-l-boyue-l-byd-is-outside-top-five/ https://paultan.org/2026/01/21/tesla-model-y-again-best-sell... ) > They’re stagnant. To some degree, I agree. Esp. on the 800V part which could make charges a bit faster. But I think they're overall stagnant: they pushed a ton of boundaries in the first 10-15y because they had to make something people could buy and use, but now that innovation push has diminished greatly: the cars work for most people, and the range is acceptable and not such a big inconvenience that pushes people to other brands. So no sense in going axial flux motors (that everyone is experimenting with) or bigger battery capacities, or even 48V + Ethernet instead of 12V + CANbus (the CyberTruck has these, but I don't think it has trickled down to the other models). > Meanwhile, in Europe, the Volkswagen Group is outselling Tesla in EVs. The #1 EV in Europe is a Skoda, and on top of that Tesla doesn’t make a European style city car. Small sedans like the Model 3 are really not popular in Europe, you need a hatch. Yes, but the Model Y remains the single unique best-selling car. VW needs to put together a few vehicle models to get to the same numbers. And I think the reason is the same as with China: Tesla has always been EV only, and built assistance and infrastructure for it, while VW doesn't have a very clear direction and makes products which are perhaps slightly mechanically superior, but feel inferior on the software and UX side. A car with hardware equivalent to Tesla (which now has 2 trims and 2 battery picks) costs anyway more than the base Tesla (you need to add a few optionals to the VWs). What Tesla is lacking in Europe are smaller models with ~450-500km range.
  - cadamsdotcom 3mo ago
    For me Tesla's brand is irreparably damaged. That's worth accounting for - I'm likely not alone.
  - Danox 3mo ago
    They cost too much…
- Gud 3mo ago
  Let’s not overstate Tesla’s lead. BYD were breathing down their neck after a few years.
- rsynnott 3mo ago
  At least in Europe, they were only the top seller for about 18 months (overtaking Nissan, then being overtaken by VW AG). Don’t think they were ever in the lead in Asia. That they had an ‘enormous lead’ in the US was more down to the paucity of options there than anything else.
epistasis 3mo ago
US automakers are already unable to compete globally even within the ever shrinking ICE share. Protectionism makes industries weak and uncompetitive, ultimately hurting the economy of the nation doing the protectionism. The proper strategy to become competitive is to provide a small amount of protectionism so that the industry does not die, but to ruthlessly cull underperforming companies so that only the strongest survive. The continual bailouts of companies, keeping old and incompetent executives at the helm, has destroyed the US car industry. Capitalism requires killing the underperforming companies. Until we let that happen, or at a minimum cull leadership and boards, nothing will get better. The rot is at the top.
- cineticdaffodil 3mo ago
  The rot is that a empire selling security can subsidize any economic policy indefinitely and is completely decoupled from anything resembling a free market forever.
  - epistasis 3mo ago
    I would quibble with the "forever" there. Eventually empires have bad leaders, and Trump is showing how a bad leader can disassemble an economic empire in just a few short years. One can do tremendous damage from the inside, especially when the populace has been cowed by broad misinformation and the checks and balances have been removed by single party rule.
Animats 3mo ago
> At best, it’ll be a situation where the US market is segregated from the rest of the world: US auto consumers will be buying inferior vehicles from the rest of world that are more expensive to buy and own. That's where we are now. Here's BYD's main model lineup.[1] Ford's CEO brought a few into the US, paying the insane tariffs, and has his executives driving them to see what the rest of the world is doing. [1] https://www.byd.international/models https://www.byd.international/models
cineticdaffodil 3mo ago
Nothing you wrote there makes sense, there is just no chain of causality in it.
- Grombobulous 3mo ago
  Can you explain further? I’d be happy to see some of my specific ideas challenged.
  - cineticdaffodil 3mo ago
    The whole economic landscape of the us is artifical. As in what survives and thrives does not need to provide any value, but need only have political connections, to remove competition and be good enough to supress all alternatives. The oil and gas industry survives and dictates policy not because its very influential- its simply the economic backbone of the empire via the petrodollar. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar And the people life in de-concentrated large scale villages instead of cities, because the empire is in no need to tax economic activities such as moving large distances via driving a car efficiently. So the government, cursed with the ressource curse of beeing able to sell security outside of the us- pacifies the population with economic presents, which are often just frozzen in time retro trinkets. One can not derive any political and economic lessons from such a strange diorama. There is no incentive
- fugalfervor 3mo ago
  You didn't take the time to point out what was wrong with what they said, and why. So please do so if you don't want people to just ignore your comment.
testing22321 3mo ago
And Canadians will soon stop buying the inferior US vehicles (and Mexico already has), because Chinese EVs are now allowed in at only 6% tariff. BYD are taking over.
- slaw 3mo ago
  Chinese made vehicles are limited to 49000/year only. 2.5% of Canadian market.
  - testing22321 3mo ago
    For now. The quota increases every year. And it’s very likely that If the orange idiot keeps threatening 50% tariffs on Canadian goods Ike he is now every two weeks then Canada will just drop the quota and open the floodgates.
    - slaw 3mo ago
      Quota will be 70,000 vehicles per year in 2030. That's almost nothing.
      - Grombobulous 3mo ago
        I thought I read that this exact thing happened when Honda and Toyota arrived in the US: they started selling in Canada first. This has happened over and over, really. See also: Hyundai and Kia.
Freedom2 3mo ago
In what way are US vehicles inferior? I've been told from many in the country that Americans make the hardiest, most rugged vehicles in the world, and everybody is clambering to get them.

jfengel 3mo ago

It is remarkable that a US company had an enormous lead in BEVs for a decade. Then they just kinda stopped innovating, and slid backwards.

aetherspawn 3mo ago
Having owned a Model 3 I would argue that it’s basically “done” at this point, pending software updates for better FSD. It already charges in 20-30 min at Tesla chargers and has a practical range of around 600 kms, so super fast charging is a bit of a straw man. Their big downfall is they lack an advertising department willing to spend $1B on pro-electric propaganda to debunk all the Trump/big oil propaganda. IMO EVs have addressed all the main product concerns, and the last ones are buyer stupidity.
- asdff 3mo ago
  I can’t own one because I can’t install a fast charger at my place.
  - Grombobulous 3mo ago
    Most people don’t need a fast charger to own an EV. Most people would actually be just fine on a household outlet.
    - asdff 3mo ago
      Sounds terrible if that is your only car.
      - medler 3mo ago
        What is terrible about charging at home from a regular outlet? As long as you average <50-60 miles a day, like most people, you basically never have to go to fast chargers (or gas stations). It’s amazing.
        stavros 3mo ago
        I have a standard plug (not even three phase) and charge 30 kWh in ten hours (overnight). That's around 90 miles, which is plenty. If I'm going on a long trip, I just make sure I start charging from > 50% the previous day, and I'm good. It's trivial to manage the state of charge when you have a charger at home and a planned trip coming up.
        medler 3mo ago
        In the U.S. our standard outlets are 120V, so you only get about 1kW or so out of them. Plenty for most people, but annoying if you need >50 miles of range a day, or if you want to boil water in an electric kettle. The situation is much better in Europe, and most of the rest of the world, where you have 220+V
      - Grombobulous 3mo ago
        Not really. The average person in America drives about 37 miles a day. EVs gain about 3-5 miles per hour on a household 120V charger. You sleep for about 8 hours and are probably home away from work and errands for an about 12 hours. Do the math: 3 miles per hour for 12 hours is 36 miles. And even if you don’t keep up with your pace, the weekend can act as additional time to charge. Or if you drive more on the weekend, you can basically decide that you’re going to go to a fast charger every 2-4 weeks just like a gas car (or maybe even less frequently than a gas car). Let’s say you drive 50 miles a day but you’re only able to charge up 35 miles per day at home. If your vehicle’s range is 250 miles that means you need to go to a fast charger every 15 days including a little room for reserve power. Also, all of this is even less of a concern if you live in a country with 240V power.
- reverius42 3mo ago
  I am very skeptical that your Model 3 has a "practical range" of 372 miles. EPA range for the long range model is 342 miles, and I would expect usable range to be considerably less (since you probably want to start charging at around 10% remaining, and you probably want to stop charging at 80-90%). 0% - 100% is kind of not "practical" as it would require you to fully deplete the battery, and then wait for the slow charging at the margins (90 to 100% tends to be pretty slow).
  - aetherspawn 3mo ago
    Practical meaning I don’t plan to ever drive more than 600km per day so if it’s 600km from A->B, and then a 8 hour charge, that’s fine by me… if I want 700km I’ll stop and charge for 5 min at 30% SOC or so
    - stavros 3mo ago
      But the GP is saying a Tesla won't do 600km on one charge, which does sound reasonable. I agree with you about just stopping to charge for a few minutes along the way if I need more, though.
- ben_w 3mo ago
  Not everyone wants the same thing from a car. Some care most about the price, some about the efficiency, some about the size, some about the comfort, some about the charging speed despite what you say. If Telsa were still innovating, they'd have rounded out their offerings to fill in the gaps that are now getting filled with other brands in the world outside the USA.
  - Grombobulous 3mo ago
    I keep shouting from the rooftops that Tesla’s lack of offerings has them completely hamstrung. Tesla sells more vehicles than Mazda, and both brands are in a similar semi-premium non-luxury segment. Compare lineups between these brands. How does Mazda have 3.5 SUVs and Tesla only has 1.5? (The .5 is counting the CX-70 and CX-90, and the Y and YL as essentially the same car) Mazda is able to offer a sedan and hatchback variant of the 3. They also have a city car in Europe, the Mazda 2. Absolutely nothing in the segment from Tesla. And of course, Mazda has the legendary MX-5, which chugs along selling a very respectable quantity while the Tesla Roadster remains MIA. Where is Tesla’s lineup? For being a being China-focused brand, where is their premium/luxury van? For being a US-focused brand, where is their family 3-row Grand Highlander killer? How did they botch a truck made in Texas?
    - foogazi 3mo ago
      > Tesla sells more vehicles than Mazda Isn’t that all that matters ?
      - Grombobulous 3mo ago
        My point is that they don’t have a wide enough breadth of models and that’s holding them back, and the fact that lower volume brands have more models and appeal to a wider range of customers helps demonstrate that.
      - ben_w 3mo ago
        > Isn’t that all that matters ? Where the ball is vs. where the ball is heading. Musk (and TSLA shareholders keeping the price where it is) is arguing the ball is heading to robotics and AI; I think we're at least a decade from the robotics+AI vision he's trying to sell the dream of, and in the meantime he may lose the car business by everyone else out-innovating on vehicles with regards to stuff he's either lost interest in, or lost the trust of the best designers an engineers to hire to work on for him.
- kccqzy 3mo ago
  You think it’s done only because you are not ambitious enough. And neither is Tesla. A Hyundai charges faster than a Tesla. Chinese cars from several brands are getting five-minute charging times. If you think that’s a straw man I don’t know what to say; a buyer wants charging to be as fast as pumping gas, and are you going to blame buyer stupidity for not delivering on that?
  - Grombobulous 3mo ago
    China is even doing 90 second automated robotic battery swap stations.
  - aetherspawn 3mo ago
    But which brands last longer than a Tesla? None. That’s because faster charging wears out the battery. Charging fast is not marvellous, actually it requires a lot of self-control from the manufacturers to limit charging speed for longevity, even though most people won’t understand why.
    - satvikpendem 3mo ago
      No, because Chinese EVs have advanced in battery technology too above Tesla. > CATL also says the battery retains more than 90% of its original capacity after 1,000 ultra-fast charging cycles https://www.evdances.com/blogs/news/hongqi-unveils-ultra-fast-ev-battery https://www.evdances.com/blogs/news/hongqi-unveils-ultra-fas...
      - ivewonyoung 3mo ago
        Tesla buys batteries from CATL.
        satvikpendem 2mo ago
        It's not the same batteries. CATL sells its better ones to Chinese EV makers.
  - 3mo ago
- medler 3mo ago
  I’m convinced super-fast charging will be a game changer, because it will eliminate the ~only remaining downside to EVs. If Tesla had charging tech like BYD the market in the U.S. would look very different
  - tialaramex 3mo ago
    I don't buy it. "Recharging == Fuel" is the wrong way to think about it. Think about your phone. Do you plan how you'll charge that quickly? Do you know where you can get a quick charge at a local mall while ordering coffee? Nope, it just gets charged over night when you're asleep, no problem.
    - medler 3mo ago
      I agree charging at home/work is best, and ideally we would have ubiquitous slow charging at apartment lots, workplaces, and on the street. But that’s not really realistic right now in the U.S., and more importantly, it isn’t under Tesla’s control. Whereas they could have solved the problem for people with less charging access by making their fast charging faster like BYD has done. With respect to your phone analogy, if I weren’t able to charge my phone at home or at work, I would definitely be interested in being able to fast-charge it at some conveniently located business
      - stavros 3mo ago
        I think you're both right. An EV is wonderful if you can charge at home, and a chore if you can't. Fast chargers help, but they're expensive and still not as fast as gas. If you have a wall plug at home, an EV is basically always full. I'm shopping for a flat and one of my non-negotiable requirements is a parking spot with a plug. The one I'm looking at now even has a three-phase plug, which is a nice extra, but not really necessary.
    - satvikpendem 3mo ago
      Yes I do get the fastest charging speed and highest battery capacity phone, which are Chinese now too like OnePlus. Once you know you can depend on your phone for a few days, it's a game changer.
- Grombobulous 3mo ago
  I think this opinion fails to explain why Tesla is faltering so badly in China. The products aren’t “done.” They’re stagnant. Where is their proper 3 row SUV, not a hacked together half-effort like the YL? Where is their passenger premium van product for China? Remember that this is a company with a huge factory and presence in China, and they were the first mover in that market, but they’re getting eaten alive by competitors. Meanwhile, in Europe, the Volkswagen Group is outselling Tesla in EVs. The #1 EV in Europe is a Skoda, and on top of that Tesla doesn’t make a European style city car. Small sedans like the Model 3 are really not popular in Europe, you need a hatch. And I haven’t even brought up the Cybertruck selling a couple hundred thousand units below company expectations, that is kind of a low blow cherry on top.
  - plqbfbv 3mo ago
    > I think this opinion fails to explain why Tesla is faltering so badly in China. Apparently not so much, the restyle and a consolidated assistance and charging network make people prefer it over the homemade products lately, which keep innovating but you essentially need to re-learn from scratch every time (my original source article is in Italian - https://www.vaielettrico.it/troppa-scelta-poca-fiducia-i-cinesi-confusi-tornano-alla-tesla-model-y/ https://www.vaielettrico.it/troppa-scelta-poca-fiducia-i-cin... ; this is the closest I could find in English: https://paultan.org/2026/01/21/tesla-model-y-again-best-selling-suv-in-china-followed-by-geely-xingyue-l-boyue-l-byd-is-outside-top-five/ https://paultan.org/2026/01/21/tesla-model-y-again-best-sell... ) > They’re stagnant. To some degree, I agree. Esp. on the 800V part which could make charges a bit faster. But I think they're overall stagnant: they pushed a ton of boundaries in the first 10-15y because they had to make something people could buy and use, but now that innovation push has diminished greatly: the cars work for most people, and the range is acceptable and not such a big inconvenience that pushes people to other brands. So no sense in going axial flux motors (that everyone is experimenting with) or bigger battery capacities, or even 48V + Ethernet instead of 12V + CANbus (the CyberTruck has these, but I don't think it has trickled down to the other models). > Meanwhile, in Europe, the Volkswagen Group is outselling Tesla in EVs. The #1 EV in Europe is a Skoda, and on top of that Tesla doesn’t make a European style city car. Small sedans like the Model 3 are really not popular in Europe, you need a hatch. Yes, but the Model Y remains the single unique best-selling car. VW needs to put together a few vehicle models to get to the same numbers. And I think the reason is the same as with China: Tesla has always been EV only, and built assistance and infrastructure for it, while VW doesn't have a very clear direction and makes products which are perhaps slightly mechanically superior, but feel inferior on the software and UX side. A car with hardware equivalent to Tesla (which now has 2 trims and 2 battery picks) costs anyway more than the base Tesla (you need to add a few optionals to the VWs). What Tesla is lacking in Europe are smaller models with ~450-500km range.
- cadamsdotcom 3mo ago
  For me Tesla's brand is irreparably damaged. That's worth accounting for - I'm likely not alone.
- Danox 3mo ago
  They cost too much…
Gud 3mo ago
Let’s not overstate Tesla’s lead. BYD were breathing down their neck after a few years.
rsynnott 3mo ago
At least in Europe, they were only the top seller for about 18 months (overtaking Nissan, then being overtaken by VW AG). Don’t think they were ever in the lead in Asia. That they had an ‘enormous lead’ in the US was more down to the paucity of options there than anything else.

epistasis 3mo ago

US automakers are already unable to compete globally even within the ever shrinking ICE share. Protectionism makes industries weak and uncompetitive, ultimately hurting the economy of the nation doing the protectionism. The proper strategy to become competitive is to provide a small amount of protectionism so that the industry does not die, but to ruthlessly cull underperforming companies so that only the strongest survive. The continual bailouts of companies, keeping old and incompetent executives at the helm, has destroyed the US car industry. Capitalism requires killing the underperforming companies. Until we let that happen, or at a minimum cull leadership and boards, nothing will get better. The rot is at the top.

cineticdaffodil 3mo ago
The rot is that a empire selling security can subsidize any economic policy indefinitely and is completely decoupled from anything resembling a free market forever.
- epistasis 3mo ago
  I would quibble with the "forever" there. Eventually empires have bad leaders, and Trump is showing how a bad leader can disassemble an economic empire in just a few short years. One can do tremendous damage from the inside, especially when the populace has been cowed by broad misinformation and the checks and balances have been removed by single party rule.

Animats 3mo ago

> At best, it’ll be a situation where the US market is segregated from the rest of the world: US auto consumers will be buying inferior vehicles from the rest of world that are more expensive to buy and own. That's where we are now. Here's BYD's main model lineup.[1] Ford's CEO brought a few into the US, paying the insane tariffs, and has his executives driving them to see what the rest of the world is doing. [1] https://www.byd.international/models https://www.byd.international/models

cineticdaffodil 3mo ago

Nothing you wrote there makes sense, there is just no chain of causality in it.

Grombobulous 3mo ago
Can you explain further? I’d be happy to see some of my specific ideas challenged.
- cineticdaffodil 3mo ago
  The whole economic landscape of the us is artifical. As in what survives and thrives does not need to provide any value, but need only have political connections, to remove competition and be good enough to supress all alternatives. The oil and gas industry survives and dictates policy not because its very influential- its simply the economic backbone of the empire via the petrodollar. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar And the people life in de-concentrated large scale villages instead of cities, because the empire is in no need to tax economic activities such as moving large distances via driving a car efficiently. So the government, cursed with the ressource curse of beeing able to sell security outside of the us- pacifies the population with economic presents, which are often just frozzen in time retro trinkets. One can not derive any political and economic lessons from such a strange diorama. There is no incentive
fugalfervor 3mo ago
You didn't take the time to point out what was wrong with what they said, and why. So please do so if you don't want people to just ignore your comment.

testing22321 3mo ago

And Canadians will soon stop buying the inferior US vehicles (and Mexico already has), because Chinese EVs are now allowed in at only 6% tariff. BYD are taking over.

slaw 3mo ago
Chinese made vehicles are limited to 49000/year only. 2.5% of Canadian market.
- testing22321 3mo ago
  For now. The quota increases every year. And it’s very likely that If the orange idiot keeps threatening 50% tariffs on Canadian goods Ike he is now every two weeks then Canada will just drop the quota and open the floodgates.
  - slaw 3mo ago
    Quota will be 70,000 vehicles per year in 2030. That's almost nothing.
    - Grombobulous 3mo ago
      I thought I read that this exact thing happened when Honda and Toyota arrived in the US: they started selling in Canada first. This has happened over and over, really. See also: Hyundai and Kia.

Freedom2 3mo ago

In what way are US vehicles inferior? I've been told from many in the country that Americans make the hardiest, most rugged vehicles in the world, and everybody is clambering to get them.