The question in my mind: Is it a problem with the product or with the owner of the product. I am leaning toward it is EU citizenry problem with Elon. I could be wrong of course.
Musk is anti-union guy and is associated with the president-elect regime.
He is currently having a problem with his Germany Giga factory.
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U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, set to join President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, waded into Germany’s election campaign on Friday, calling the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) the country’s saviour.
Musk, the world’s richest person, has already expressed support for other anti-immigration parties across Europe.
Musk had already voiced support for the AfD last year, when he attacked the German government’s handling of illegal migration.
Last month, Musk called for the sacking of Italian judges who had questioned the legality of government measures to prevent irregular immigration.
Elon quit digging.
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EV sales across the EU seem to be falling. Some countries, particularly Germany, have suspended EV subsidies.
Steve
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Both? EV sales in Europe are down 10% year-to-date.
DB2
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It can also be slowing economy and less enthusiasm for green spending.
Also a long tradition of ICE vehicles. Running out of early adopters?
IMO, not yet. The economy has been good under Biden. Due to “the people’s choice”, there will be a significant change in the economy over the next 2-4 years. Prices may skyrocket due to tariffs and shortages (hmmm, sound familiar?). Too many unknown factors to know for certain, but the expectation overall is for an economic downturn due to yet-another-attempt to impose known-failed economic policies from years ago. People do not want that, but it is how they voted. They get what they wanted. Let’s see where the bouncing ball goes.
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The thread is about sales in Europe. German GDP last quarter was down 0.3% (YoY) and EV sales are down 10%. Where do you think the German economy will go next year?
DB2
Well, it used to be that if the US sneezed the world caught cold. We’re not quite that dominant still, but if we recess I suspect there will be enough effects to be shared widely.
They’re not doing so great to start with, in fact except for the Chinese I can’t think of anyone who is. We are, but the electorate decided we are not, so I have some catching up to do, apparently.
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My comment is in reference to the economy in Europe; yours is about the US economy.
Petrol and diesel cars
In August 2024, petrol car sales dropped by 17.1%, all four key markets recording significant declines: France (‑36.6%), Italy (-18.8%), Spain (-17.4%), and Germany (-7.4%). Petrol cars now represent 33.1% of the market, down from 32.6% in August last year.
The diesel car market saw a decline of 26.4%, resulting in a 11.2% share of the market last August. Double-digit decreases were observed in almost all European markets.
Petrol and diesel cars
In October 2024, petrol car sales dropped by 6.8% overall. France experienced the steepest drop, with registrations plummeting by 32.7%, followed by Italy with a 10.1% decline. Spain recorded a more modest decrease of 1.6%, while Germany was the only major market to show growth, with petrol car registrations increasing by 3.7%.
Petrol cars now account for 30.8% of the market, down from 33.4% in the same month last year. The diesel car market declined by 7.6%, resulting in a 10.9% market share last October. Overall, decreases were observed in almost two-thirds of EU markets.
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There have beens lots of METAR threads about problems in the Chinese economy, their near-deflation, real estate, banks, etc. Do you think they are exaggerated?
Some articles from this week:
China’s Economy Loses Momentum
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/china-s-economy-loses-momentum/ar-AA1vUZSy?ocid=BingNewsVerp
DB2
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To some degree, yes. They’re still projecting an annual growth rate of 4.8% to 5.2%, depending on the source. That is certainly better than most any other developed country is doing, I think. That it’s not 7% or even 8% as they have enjoyed in the past is also true, but 5% is nothing to sneeze at.
Yes, they have problems, big problems in some respects. Their youth unemployment is 17%. That’s huge. In the US, by comparison, it’s 10%, although in some territories (inner city, I presume) it’s said to be 25% or even more.
As for “how is China doing?”, a constant refrain is “I don’t believe their statistics.” OK. I believe my own eyes, and there are numerous articles with (gasp) actual photographs showing all manner of things Chinese: cities, bullet trains, automated factories, electric cars, and more. And I have reports from American writers, including Thomas Friedman, well known columnist and book author, which I gift here for your perusal:
If you don’t want to read the whole thing, read this:
You have to go to China to see it, but because a U.S. congressional delegation, led by Senator Chuck Schumer in October 2023, was the first official visit by U.S. lawmakers since 2019 — and because many U.S. companies that moved their American staffs out of China for Covid never returned them — a lot of people in Washington have missed the country’s staggering manufacturing growth.
Here’s what Noah Smith, who writes about manufacturing, [posted] the other day, using data from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization:
In 2000, “the United States and its allies in Asia, Europe and Latin America accounted for the overwhelming majority of global industrial production, with China at just 6 percent even after two decades of rapid growth.” By 2030, Smith wrote, the U.N. agency predicts “China will account for 45 percent of all global manufacturing, single-handedly matching or outmatching the U.S. and all of its allies.
Two salient points: The US had it’s “Sputnik” moment, realizing that we needed a response if we were not to lose the race to space to the Soviets, and we got NASA - entirely government funded and one which put us in the technological lead for the next 75 years.
Second, the article talks about China’s “Dark Factories”. Not dark because they’re closed, but dark because they’re so automated there are no humans present at all, and so no reason to turn on the lights (except the occasional janitor or maintenance worker.)
China is very real. It has problems, to be sure, but they’re generally to good kind of problems, not the Somalia kind of problems, or even the Flint, Michigan kind of problems.
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And the other side of the market:
In August 2024, registrations of battery-electric (BEV) cars dropped by 43.9% to 92,627 units (compared to 165,204 the same period last year), with their total market share slipping to 14.4% from 21% a year before. This was driven by the spectacular drop in the two biggest markets for BEV cars: Germany (-68.8%) and France (-33.1%). From January to August, 902,011 new battery-electric cars were registered, representing 12.6% of the market.
Musk saying EV-hostile policies of the incoming administration are not a problem for Tesla are, imho, delusional, if not an outright lie.
Steve
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I don’t think this is sufficient. In a free society, it might be sufficient, but in a repressive society how can you possibly know if only the “good” photos are allowed to be taken? Or maybe only the “good” and “mediocre” photos are allowed, but the really “bad” stuff is not allowed? For example, I’ve probably seen hundreds of photos of “Chinese ghost cities” but I can’t recall ever seeing a photo of the interior of those buildings.
Of course nobody can deny that China isn’t a manufacturing juggernaut. Nobody else even comes close to what they can do in manufacturing. And there is also quite a bit of evidence that China is also becoming an R&D power, and a design powerhouse. Some of their tech is astounding and some of their car designs, for example, are terrific.
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It is fairly clear there is not much to see inside the buildings that are abandoned. Why? The buildings are TALL, but very narrow/thin. There is not enough space available–given the physical profile of the building–for much more than a moderate internal structure to support it. If the buildings were both deep AND wide PLUS tall (i.e. not a relatively thin spire), then looking inside might be worth considering.
Oh no question, that’s why I also look to eyewitness accounts, including for instance, the Thomas Friedman column I linked. Even then you don’t know that they weren’t “guided” away from unpleasant things, so nothing is perfect. Nor am I trying to convince anyone that it’s a workers’ paradise or any such nonsense. Just that it’s clearly also not the opposite of that with naked urchins running in the street and starvation on a mass scale because, you know, “communists.”
I have several Facebook friends, some who departed the Fool at the 2.0 change, with relatives in China who report from time to time, others where I see pictures of houses and developments, and yes, “60 Minutes” videos of never-occupied malls and apartment complexes. But I also see maps and videos of actual bullet trains (unlike in the US), stories of EVs being produced with an efficiency that makes Detroit shudder, and I see the daily *(OK, not daily but frequent) stuff that ends up in my Amazon boxes all cheerily stamped “Made In China”. I have an iPhone and a Mac and iPads, I have a TiVo, I have a whole workshop full of Ryobi tools, an electric lawnmower, and a bunch of other stuff. Somebody - somewhere in China. Is making a lot of stuff, and unless they’re ball-and-chained to a desk, they’re being paid. Maybe not enough, but paid nonetheless.
I read a figure somewhere that says China graduates more Engineers and Science majors from their universities every year than exist in total in the US.
Hard to convince me that this is some backwater that’s being falsely portrayed as a progressive force in the world. And, to loop this around, using significant government industrial policy to do it, while we flail about making yachts for a few billionaires and watch our core industries drop like clay pigeons.
Maybe Reagan’s “big lie” was the actual lie.
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This isn’t quite phrased correctly. You KNOW for certain that visitors are guided away from many different things. I spent some time in various parts of China on business in the late 90s (I’m sure I posed about it here, well on AOL at first, and later in the 90s on the non-AOL Fool site). While in Hong Kong (pre-Chinese takeover), I could, and did, wander around wherever I wanted to at any time with no constraints on my wandering. But while in Beijing, the “company” assigned a driver to me, and he was with me everywhere I went. I remember when he took me to the Forbidden City, he dropped me off at one side, told me that he will pick me up in 2-3 hours on the other side, watched me enter the site, and then drove away. When I reached the gate on the other side a couple of hours later, he was waiting RIGHT THERE for me. The same applied to business dinners, a company assigned car and driver would bring us there, wait for us to finish, and take us back to our hotel. Basically, there was pretty much always a “minder” with us in China.
It’s illegal to live on the streets in China. If you are caught doing so, you get forcibly sent to a facility that “cures” such anti-social behavior. Heck, I can’t recall a single beggar asking for money in Beijing. So, yes, they don’t have naked, starving people on the streets of China. Probably because those people are “hidden” elsewhere. And it isn’t Communism per se, it’s any repressive form of government that can do so.
Yep. It’s probably true. The downfall of the USA will be at least partially due to the way too common disdain of education. And it’s an insidious malady that is widespread on both sides of the political divide.
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Most of those engineers/science majors are going to be doing grunt-work, not original research. The Chinese educational system is “learn to pass the rote test”. In the US, it is “teach the fundamentals and the student is to figure out how they apply”. That is why the really smart/breakthrough students want to come to the US for their education. The education system in their country is not set up to handle that type of student–and they know it.
I am reminded of the American view of the Japanese at the outset of World War II: “Oh, they’re small and they squint and they’ll never be able to fly airplanes and we will dominate them, because.”
I am also reminded of the view of Blacks at the beginning of World War II “Oh, they’re not smart enough to be able to pilot airplanes, we’ll just use them as truck drivers, because”
I am also reminded of the view of all Asians in the 1950’s: “Oh sure, they can make that cheap stuff and trinkets and such, but they’ll never threaten our big industries like cars and steel, because”
Just keep telling yourself how inferior those “others” are and … they will bury you.
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In the news:
## Don’t Look Now, but China’s AI Is Catching Up Fast ##
Startups use workarounds to challenge OpenAI in some areas despite lack of leading-edge chips
SINGAPORE—Chinese startups show signs of catching up with America’s leading artificial-intelligence models more quickly than many in the industry had expected, despite the restrictions China faces [in buying advanced chips].
DeepSeek, a startup funded by one of China’s most successful hedge-fund managers, released a preview version of its latest large language model in November. It said the program’s abilities compared favorably with OpenAI’s reasoning model called o1, which came out in preview form in September.
Other Chinese companies have made similar claims in recent weeks. Moonshot AI, a startup backed by Chinese internet giants [Alibaba] and Tencent, said it developed a model specializing in math with capabilities close to o1, while Alibaba said one of its own experimental research models outperformed the preview version of the U.S. model on math.
The companies haven’t published papers describing their models, and evaluating the claims is difficult because there isn’t a single agreed-upon test of an AI model’s abilities. Still, some U.S. specialists said they were impressed.
China is “catching up faster,” said Andrew Carr, a former fellow at OpenAI and currently an AI entrepreneur. He said DeepSeek researchers trying to replicate OpenAI’s reasoning model “figured it out within a few months, and frankly many of my colleagues are surprised by that.”
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/china-ai-advances-us-chips-7838fd20
Not bad for those dumb Chinese whose schools only prepare them for the test and not for, you know, actual research.
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