First Quarter EV Sales

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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Not every EV manufacturers has not report yet.

Total deliveries Q1 2024: 386,810
Total production Q1 2024: 433,371

https://electrek.co/2024/04/01/byd-ev-sales-rise-q1-enough-stay-ahead-tesla/
In the first three months of the year, BYD sold 300,114 fully electric vehicles, up 13.4% over Q1 2023.

BYD’s electric vehicle production also rose 9%, with 291,730 EVs built in Q1. Meanwhile, plug-in hybrid sales were up 14.5%, with 324,284 PHEVS sold.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/other/chinese-ev-makers-byd-nio-li-auto-see-jump-in-sales-as-investors-await-tesla-s-numbers/ar-BB1kTf9A
Li Auto reported 28,984 deliveries for March and 80,400 in the first quarter, increases of 39% and 53%, respectively. Nio delivered 11,866 vehicles in March, up 14% from last year, and 30,053 in the first quarter, in line with estimates the company revised last week. XPeng, after reporting a smaller-than-expected Q4 loss last month, said that it delivered 9,026 vehicles in March and 21,821 in the first three months of 2024, year-over-year increases of 29% and 20%, respectively.

  • First quarter EV sales up 88% compared to the previous year
    Sounds great but Kia sold very few EVs in 2023.
    EV9-4007
    EV6-4059
    Niro-7475-down from 2023 and include plug-in hybrids

https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America/US/2023/04/Q1%202023%20Sales%20Final.pdf

Ford’s EV sales grew 41.0 percent in the first quarter on sales of 10,866 electric vehicles. F-150 Lightning sales totaled 4,291 pickups with production capacity actions on track to hit an annual production run rate of 150,000 this year. Sales by Ford Pro of the E-Transit, America’s best-selling electric van last year, climbed 62.7 percent. Reflecting downtime at the plant for changes to increase production, Mustang Mach-E sales were down.

I believe the rapid increase in EV & battery technology is one of the factors in slowing the adoption of EVs.
Solid state batteries have more range and faster charging time. Solid state batteries are also denser which means "the electrolyte takes up less space and battery cells can be smaller. But some companies are working on other strategies, as well, that can make batteries still smaller and lighter and are less prone to catch on fire.
800v architecture has faster charging time also. And they are lighter too.
Normally a person keeps a vehicle for years. And EVs so far have depreciated at least as fast as IC vehicles. So I expect many potential buyers are waiting for the new developments to become prevalent in new EV vehicles.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/23/cars/solid-state-battery-tech-promises-to-radically-change-evs/index.html

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Doesn’t the newest Tesla model (Cybertruck) support 800V charging? I’m pretty sure I’ve read that it does in a few places.

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Maybe. Or it might be as simple as significant subsidy cuts in Europe (mostly in Germany, the largest auto market) and the market moving past first adopters into more mainstream consumers, who are not as eager to convert to EV’s but might be moved into PHEV’s. EV sales seem to still be growing…they’re just not growing as fast as they would if they were following an S-curve.

The hope, based on a few markets, was that once adoption rates passed a modest threshold (5-10% of new sales) EV’s would quickly move to displace nearly all ICE sales. That happened in a few early countries (hi, Norway!). But if that was just an artifact of those few countries having enormously large subsidies, rather than something innate to EV’s and consumer adoption, then we won’t see that replicated in very many other markets.

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Only people who follow the tech of EVs even know what a solid state battery is.

What they are is mostly non-existent.
When I google for who is the leader in solid state batteries the answer is Toyota.

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So people are waiting until 2027/2028 to get a new EV with a new (untested) battery that has an installed base of ~zero charging stations that can charge them faster than current batteries/chargers?
Anyone who is following battery tech knows that Toyota has had several announced deadlines come and go on solid state batteries…and is still pushing hydrogen.

Mike

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In total for the quarter GM sold 16,425 EVs compared with the first quarter last year when it sold 20,670 EVs, 19,700 of which were the Bolt and Bolt EUV. During much of this quarter, GM had halted sales of its highly anticipated Chevrolet Blazer EV to fix software problems. As a result, GM sold 600 Blazer EVs since launching the EV in late summer last year…

Elizabeth Krear, vice president of electric vehicle practice at J.D. Power, said in an industry analysis last month that EV shopper interest declined for a fifth consecutive month. Most cited a lack of charging station availability as the top reason for rejecting EVs.

During a fireside chat last week at the Bank of America 2024 Global Auto Summit, GM CFO Paul Jacobson said the automaker knows EV adoption will always be “choppy” and GM has to remain flexible with gasoline-powered vehicles offerings too.

DB2

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Purely anecdotal but last month we purchased a Honda ice vehicle for that very reason. If and when I see as many charging stations as I do fuel stations, I’ll give another look at an EV.

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I doubt you ever see as many charging stations as fuel stations. here are some reason, in no particular order

  • to start with, we are starting out with many more ICE cars that need to be fueled
  • mostly people will charge EVs at home, thus hiding the chargers from your view
  • lots of chargers will be at work places where you won’t see them either
  • public chargers (mostly) won’t be located on high rent high visibility corner properties like gas stations frequently are…thus less likely to be seen while driving vs seen on an app or the car display. Many are located in the back or side of stores or other businesses.
  • gas stations have large, seen from afar high rise visibility. Their logos and prices are often viewable from a distance whether you are looking for them or not, while EV chargers rarely have any signage higher than 6 or 8 feet high

Mike

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Plus-one to Mike there. Home charging is where it is at with an EV and at that point you almost never charge out-and-about unless on a long road trip. The “there are not enough charging stations” is something that I never hear from friends who actually own an EV. NEVER. This is something people who don’t own EV’s fear without knowing why.

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That’s probably explained by self-selection. People who don’t have an easy way to charge at home and don’t live in an area where charging stations are plentiful at work and “third places” are less likely to be early-adopter EV owners.

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Who knows. The key question is whether this is a supply or demand problem. Probably some combination of the two. Tesla Berlin was shut down for a couple of weeks due to missiles in the Red Sea disrupting shipping and the arson attack. That certainly disrupted production and also probably deliveries as Tesla’s direct sales system requires a fair amount of coordination between production and delivery. Wouldn’t be surprising if the Berlin shut down caused production to be shifted elsewhere and thereby disrupting delivery schedules. Tesla is also no doubt having issues trying to simultaneously ramp up the Highland Model 3 and Cybertruck as well as battery production.

There is almost certainly a demand issue in China as evidenced by BYD selling only 300,114 full electrics in Q1 2024, about 80,000 fewer than Tesla despite aggressively cutting prices. Meanwhile Tesla has been raising prices in the major markets so it is not clear how concerned they are about demand.

The Tesla Bear argument you can hear from mass media. My Tesla Bull argument stems from announcements from CATL and BYD of a 50% decline in battery prices this year, Tesla gearing up to mass produce the new CATL LFP battery in the US this year that can charge 250 miles in 10 minutes in very cold weather, faith that Tesla will figure out the ramping of the Highland and Cybertruck, support from Nvidia that humanoid bots are likely to be a big deal, the continued growth of the energy storage business, and personal experience with the new version of FSD that is frankly pretty amazing.

That and the fact that having driven a Model Y for a couple of months now I can say without doubt that it is the best car I’ve ever owned. It is hard not to invest in a product that seems so much better than the competition.

The BEVs to date have only seriously contended in the luxury car market and have done well. Tesla alone has about 30% of the US luxury car segment. S-curve sales in the broader market shouldn’t be expected until someone can produce a profitable BEV in the mass market price range that can outperform ICEs. That will not likely happen until the Tesla next-generation vehicle.

BTW, with respect to another thread, here is a nice explanation of the unboxed process. It is not an April fools joke. The potential is real. The issue as with all Tesla endeavors will be in the execution.

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Raises hand. I own an EV. There are not enough charging stations. Period.

Yes, I charge in my garage, and that’s great. Usually. On Thursday I am traveling to see a friend in another state, a trip of 166 miles each way. Since my car putatively (but not actually) get 361 miles on a charge it should be enough - but it’s not. The mileage reads are perfect world, not real world, and since I hope to use things like the heater and perhaps radio, and since it may be cold when I start out, I will have to recharge somewhere along the way.

Along that way, I have now spent over an hour confirming, there are two fast chargers, the one near my friend’s house is 20 miles away, meaning an extra hour of “travel time” (20 min there, 20 min charging, 20 min back) for no good reason except there aren’t enough chargers.

If i had a gas car, or even a hybrid, this would not be an issue. And while there are dozens of level 2 chargers, I do not have the 3-6 hours to sit around waiting for a charge as I am traveling to see him in the morning, have lunch, and come home the same night.

Is this unusual? Sure, but then I usually drive to Philadelphia or NJ for Thanksgiving, depending on which relative’s turn it is, and that’s not much different. So yeah, there may be “chargers”, but there are not nearly enough fast chargers , and having one even 20 minutes on the other side of town is hardly what you’d call convenient.

All of that said, I’m enjoying the car tremendously. Except for this irritation it’s terrific, and I’m having the time of my life driving it. But this is an irritation and I completely understand people’s hesitation over the issue. EV enthusiasts don’t think people should care. They’re wrong.

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Tesla produced many more vehicles in the quarter than they delivered so it’s not a production problem. It could be a transport and delivery problem with Iranian backed terrorists disrupting Red Sea transit.

On uTube I heard that BYD underperformed Tesla. Since they don’t need the Red Sea to deliver in China they have a different problem.

On the lack of charging infrastructure, even god took six days to get the job done. Anyone familiar with The Gorilla Game and the Technology Adoption Life Cycle (TALC) knows that adoption is not a smooth, even, constant escalator ride. Tesla realized from early on that a fueling infrastructure was required so they started building it. Since Tesla is production constrained they don’t need a complete charging infrastructure, just enough to be able to sell all then can produce. You can’t find enough chargers, not a problem, we can’t make enough cars for everybody just yet. The issue needs to be looked at from a different perspective, Crossing The Chasm.

Have EVs crossed the chasm?

  • Yes? Don’t worry about the volatility
  • No? Don’t invest in EVs

The Captain

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I have to admit, I wouldn’t have bought an EV without access to the Tesla supercharger network. My Model Y came with 6 months of free supercharger use so that is what I’ve been using almost solely. It takes about 20 mins per charge, time I use to get 20 min of walking/shopping/exercise. Particularly like wall squats as that reduces blood pressure according to the Brits. I’ve down longer trips using the built-in Tesla navigation. It arranges the route by supercharger stops so is pretty convenient

It might have been a production problem in Europe. Tesla sold 89,000 Shanghai-made cars in March 2024. If, as I believe, Tesla-Shanghai capacity is a million cars/year then this seems like max production despite what one might have heard on the media about a Tesla-Shanghai production slow-down. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of that China production are late deliveries to Europe to make up for Tesla Berlin backlog. Tesla China sales rise 47.5% to 89,064 wholesale units in March: CPCA

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Perhaps - but that’s a little different from the more optimistic projections I had seen about EV adoption following an S-curve. Quite a few commentators were confident that the experience in Norway and a few other markets was a general rule - that once EV adoption reached ~10% or so of new car sales, that it would quickly accelerate up the S-curve until it approached 80% or so. That there was a ‘tipping point’ of EV sales that would push adoption inexorably and rapidly towards near-elimination of ICE’s. You can easily get to 10% with the current crop of EV’s; but if mass adoption requires waiting until there’s a new generation of cars that are cheaper, that would throw the S-curve out the window for those markets. We won’t see those cars at volume (outside of MIC) until at least 2026, and maybe later.

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Just curious, do you live in a cold weather climate ? If so, how has your experience been with your EV in the winter months ?

I am interested in EV’s, but do live in a cold climate ( got a little snow yesterday). I know sales of EV’s are happening in Norway ( a much colder climate than my area ) , but I don’t have any Norwegians I can ask, lol. I’ve seen a few Tesla’s here, but very few. Have not seen even 1 this past winter, even though it was historically warm.

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I suspect those commentators also assumed that the big automakers would be quickly able to make cheap and profitable EVs once the electric market was established. That’s a necessary step for the mass market S-curve. The legacy automakers don’t know how to do this. It appears no one knows how to do this other than Tesla and perhaps those Chinese companies trying their hardest to copy Tesla manufacturing methods. The test comes in 2026 with the ramping of the Tesla next generation car.

2026 will be a very interesting automotive year that will determine the fates of Tesla and the western Legacy automakers. Tesla will have their lineup of the $25K car, updated versions of the 3 and Y, and the Cybertruck all at advanced stages of ramping. They will have an FSD that is Level 4 ready and even if not authorized for self-driving will demonstrably make driving safer if used as an advanced driver assist. I’m guessing Tesla insurance will give discounts to those who use FSD and the other insurance companies will follow suit. At that point, Tesla will likely license FSD to companies like Ford who I am betting is designing its future BEVs in a manner compatible with FSD. Farley is no fool and probably realizes Ford can’t do software.

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They are not “perfect world”, they are “EPA specified testing” as the law requires. Many have called for the EPA tests to be modernized to be more in sync with real world driving. Europe is even worse, they seem to have a government body that specifies mileage testing in a way that is even more out of sync with real world driving!

Apparently, and in my experience, for Tesla cars, there is no issue regarding the quantity of charging stations along the way. The car basically plans out the route and tells you exactly when you need to charge and where you need to charge along the route. I’ve done trips of 350 miles (one way) and 640 miles (one way) many times and once just over 2000 miles (round trip), without any issues at all. And nearly every time, the break to charge was VERY welcomed by everyone in the car, to use the bathroom, stretch legs, get a snack, etc. Heck, on a trip a few weeks/months ago, I had to stop EARLY, a non-charging stop because someone needed the bathroom urgently! Now THAT was annoying. Had to stop for 7-8 minutes, and then stop again after another 75 miles to charge. :grinning:

Now, for a non Tesla model, I’ve been told that charging while on a road trip can be somewhat annoying due to lack of sufficient chargers along the way, and worse, inoperable chargers. I’ve also heard grievous complains about those automakers that included 2 years of free charging with purchase, apparently all those people are clogging up the public chargers instead of using their home charger in order to save the money.

In all my years of owning my Tesla, I’ve only encountered an inoperable charger once, the pins on the connector were broken, so I had to move to the next one over.

People should definitely care about charging on the road if they need it! It’s absurd to claim that people shouldn’t care about that. But overall, an EV is far easier (and much more time efficient) to “fuel” up across an entire year for the vast majority of people who use home chargers.

This quarter was really bad news for Tesla. No two ways around it. It’s going to be much more difficult to meet the annual numbers now after such a bad quarter. 2025 looks better IF they can get the low-end model out early enough in the year. But if not, they will show substandard growth for at least 2 years in a row.

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Not really. Most of them just looked at the rapid adoption in a few early countries (like Norway, Iceland, and Sweden) and just assumed that was the natural course of adoption. If those countries all got to >50% EV penetration 3-4 years after they breached 10%, surely that’s just how these things go. They didn’t talk about new models being necessary or having to wait years for them:

We’ll see. I think it’s uncertain whether Tesla will have a $25K car in volume production or a Level 4 ready FSD by that point. They might, of course - they’re certainly working towards it. But Tesla has a spotty track record on bringing products to market on any given time frame or price point. They might think the Model 2 will be ready for high-volume production in 2026 at $25K - but who knows if they end up “digging their own grave” with novel engineering approaches like they did with the Cybertruck, and find themselves coming to market significantly later and at higher prices with a longer ramp than they expected. Similarly, given how incredibly lucrative an actual Level 4 service would be, if they were anywhere close to Level 4 it would be shocking (and corporate malpractice) for them to not be starting the process of getting it reviewed and tested for regulatory purposes as a Level 4 system.

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I appreciate this real life example. Using the heater cuts your EV range more than half.
This raises 2 question in my mind.
1)How about your summer run to your friend? Does running the A/C have the same effect on range as use of the heater?
2)Would you care to reveal the brand & model that you decided to purchase?

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You’re in Michigan, right? Norway is probably warmer.