Tesla has disrupted the automotive world by pointing out that electric cars can be high-performance, desirable machines. Elon Musk even said that his main goal was to let other car companies follow Tesla’s path before becoming the most valuable car company in the world. We do not know if Musk still has the same motto, but European EV sales figures show that his wish has been fulfilled. More so, it reveals that the disruptor may have been disrupted.
It was with this question that Matthias Schmidt, of Schmidt Automotive Research, shared the above image in a tweet.
As you can see, by October 2019, Tesla began to dominate the EV market in Europe. Up to that point, the highest EV volumes had come from Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, the three companies that Carlos Ghosn was trying to hold together with an alliance that had almost become a merger.
From then on, Tesla sales in the Old Continent peaked in December 2019 and January 2020, when sales took place until March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began hitting Europe. Sales then began to decline.
Tesla was surpassed between August and September by the alliance and also by the Volkswagen group. The VW ID.3 was launched in early September and sales of the German carmaker and Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi continued to rise.
Tesla ended 2020 with about 96,000 cars sold in Europe, a number that was close to what Hyundai and Kia offered, at about 95,000 units. Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi sold about 135,000 cars, and the Volkswagen Group sold 175,000 electric cars last year.
In the image we can see that one reason for the pressure of traditional car manufacturers to sell motor vehicles was due to the requirement to reach 95 g CO2 per kilometer. As mentioned in a previous article, the Volkswagen Group started selling the ID.3 before the software was fully developed to try and avoid a fine. Although it sold many EVs, the effort was not enough to avoid the penalty.
You can see that the graphical data of 18 European markets (the one before the EU enlargement in 2004), Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, and if you have doubts due to Brexit, the UK also shows. We asked Schmidt the reason for that.
We also asked the author of the graphic question what he thought was the reason why Tesla’s sales were declining when those of oldest car manufacturers selling cars rose. A Tesla supporter claims it was due to issues, but other commentators said the company would not lower prices if it could sell the same car elsewhere for more money.
If the disruption is disrupted in Europe, it could be something related to the COVID-19 pandemic or limited to 2020. Would the same happen if Giga Berlin delivered cars? Wouldn’t Tesla need an ID.3-size EV – slightly smaller than the Model Y – to succeed in Europe?
All traditional car manufacturers that have sold more cars than Tesla have European plants for these cars. At this point, we can only debate the reasons and guess what will happen after Tesla started manufacturing cars in Germany. Make your commitment.