In 2021, worldwide, Tesla had 21% of the purely electric market and 14% of the plug-in market, down from the previous year's 23% and 16%, respectively.

Source: https://insideevs.com/news/564800/world-top-oem-sales-2021/

> If youre outselling everyone else _combined_ that suggests a clear current market winner.

I mean, if you assume the US is the only market which exists, then, yeah, okay? Tesla is third or fourth in Europe and in China, both of which are larger BEV markets than the US, though.

The electric car market has been slower to develop in the US than in Europe and China for a variety of reasons (fuel's cheaper in the US for tax reasons, the average drive is much longer, consumer taste is more oriented towards large SUVs and trucks), but develop it has, and US consumers should soon have about as much choice of electric cards as consumers in other markets.

Fair. Good point.

In Europe, Tesla is now at only 5% of total EV sales, and in a not entirely unrelated news the US gov is proposing to exclude EU made cars from the 7500$ EV subsidy.

Tesla is only targeting the “luxury car” market. They don’t stray from Lexus’s or BMW’s footprint and haven’t touched the others lucrative SUV business. That’s a very small niche in the grand scheme of vehicles.

And they’re dodging the largest vehicle market entirely: fleet vehicles. At least a few years ago F-150s outsold all cars. Sprinter vans can’t be produced fast enough to meet demands. These dwarf family vehicles.

Their accomplishment was seeing a market problem and then killing it. Manufacturers were only targeting “city” vehicles or crunchy granola people with hybrids and EVs. Tesla made EVs freaking cool.

Seeing that as evidence that they’re the primary source for all EV innovation, though, doesn’t line up. They have a market targeted and are focused on delivering there. There is work going on with EV fleet vehicles, semis, etc. and they’re not involved.

It’s been about 10 years now, and they’re only making what an “old car company” would consider 1 platform with no sign of expanding. I think they’ll continue to dominate that space, but there’s a lot of innovation required to get outside of that footprint.

Those are US figures. The North American EV market is about one third the size of the European market.

Here are some current European sales percentages:

https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Line/All-time-by-Y...

Tesla comes in 4th.

But it's trending up, and they cost 10k more than the most similar VW model (and the difference is worth). But Tesla is totally the Apple of cars where VW is the Samsung.

I think you're looking at the wrong line. Tesla was at 30.77% in 2019, 13.28% in 2020, 13.78% in 2021, and so far in 2022 Tesla is 11.95% of the European EV market.

I was looking at the trend over years, Tesla was high, then low, then it's trending up again. VW is trending down. Nissan was #1 by a massive margin and it's going down into oblivion almost

Eh, no. Tesla has trended down in market share over the five years since 2017.

Ooops, sorry, switched the greens with Hyundai/Kia

And its probably fair to attribute the difference to better governance in the EU, so the top down approach that worked for Tesla wasn't as necessary.

Still useful to have someone targetting Silicon Valley nerds that would otherwise own a Prius and a Porsche though.

Eh, I'm not sure that's true, really. Europe has been a bit more proactive (and consistent) in encouraging electric cars than the US has, but I think a lot of it comes down to market differences:

- Fuel in Europe is on the order of 2x the price vs the US (largely due to low tax on petrol in the US)

- Average European journey in nearly all countries is much shorter than average journey in the US (things are closer together, less cultural tolerance for very long commutes)

- Differing consumer preferences in cars (the US _loves_ large SUVs and pickup trucks, which pose greater challenges to electrification than, say, hatchbacks)

- Electric cars are or at least were a cultural/political issue in the US in a way they're not in Europe. It would be deeply weird to be ideologically opposed to, specifically, electric cars in Europe, but that's quite common in the US.

All of this makes Europe an easier-to-address and safer market for the manufacturers than the US, so they targeted the US _first_. That doesn't mean they weren't interested in the US too. For instance, VW sensibly never released its eUp or eGolf in the US, because there's a tiny market for cars like that there. It also won't release its i3, but it will release its i4, which suits US consumer preferences better.

Incidentally, I think the US does have some _advantages_ as a market for electric cars, too. In particular, it's much more common to have a driveway or garage in the US than in Europe, and this makes at-home charging much easier.

So, "it's a bit more lopsided than that", "things can change quickly obviously", and "non-Tesla electric vehicle sales are growing at a similar rate and potentially might outpace Tesla later this year", but Tesla is "the clear market winner"?

If you want to buy an EV today you are looking at months and months of waiting for the car to be produced and delivered. Sales numbers right now reflect production capacity more than demand for a specific brand or model. Tesla is ahead on production capacity.

Electric car-shaped vehicles are a rounding error comapared to sales of all other types of electric vehicles.

Putting rechargeable batteries into a car form-factor is like strapping a jetpack to a horse. Not the transportation mode of the future.