World EV/PHEV Sales & Top Brands

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Global plugin vehicle registrations were up 25% in March 2025 compared to March 2024. There were over 1.6 million registrations. More good news is that BEVs pulled further ahead of plugin hybrids, growing 32% YoY to 1.1 million units compared to plugin hybrids growing 14% to some half a million units in the same period.

Tesla Model Y stayed in the lead, its monthly tally, some 88,000 deliveries, was down by 26% YoY.

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Tesla Y & 3 are ranked 1 & 3. But if one adds all the BYD models; its total is more than Tesla.
And BYD has accelerating sales.

In March, #1 BYD is now in full export mode. It got 21% of its sales from overseas markets, a stark contrast to the 10% achieved in the whole of 2024. It scored some 350,000 registrations, and with sales at this level already, one must start to wonder how high the Shenzhen make’s sales could go in the second half of the year!

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OK Tesla has dropped to #2 in sales. But Tesla ain’t going away. They need to focus on new niches in EV market. How about killing the Cybertruck and slapping a small pickup body on a model Y or 3 frame? Since no new engineering on the frame is required that new model likely could come out before the Slate or Telos. More focus upon the automotive portion of Tesla is needed. And Musk needs a lower profile. That last sentence will be hard for Elon. But methinks Tesla can become even more competitive and possibly regain the #1 spot again.

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I think they are done being number 1 unless they demote Musk. It looks like Europe is done with him and his antics have lost him lots of customers. It will be hard to rebrand him while he is always on X spouting off too.

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Ever heard of blinders? CleanTechnica should take them off. :slightly_smiling_face:

The Captain

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Why?

What are they not seeing, specifically?

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I don’t want to speak for the captain, but in general the Tesla bull philosophy is that the big money won’t be in cars themselves, it will be in AI, robotaxis, and robots. And indeed Tesla doesn’t seem to be much interested in cars these days. No new models since the Cybertruck. The Y got the barest of refreshes, and the other models are dated. The lower cost Model 2 was canceled and that’s where the market growth is.

AI, robots, and robotaxis, all sound good, but those technologies are still immature, and there are plenty of other companies working on them, some with clear leads. They might pay off but no guarantees.

I think the pivot away from cars (if that is what is happening) is an unforced error. Tesla has a mountain of cash and with the stock price through the roof generating more should be easy. They could remain focused on cars and their other ventures at the same time. If their new technologies don’t pan out they way they hope, they would still have cars to fall back on.

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I am not sure I would want anything to do with a AI, Robots, or robotaxi’s that Musk would have control over. After seeing how he operates starlink and his bits of insanity, having him in control, or able to take control, of anything in my house would not make me feel comfortable, and I would assume it would make others think twice if they only thought about the consequences.

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If there’s anything that Musk is consistent on, it’s consistently being overly optimistic about the near-future of progress on autonomous driving. I have little doubt that he genuinely felt that the CT was the last car that would ever need to be designed with a steering wheel, and that it would be wasteful to spend any further resources on “conventionally driven” cars. Once you’re the first and only with real fully autonomous cars, nothing else matters and you can sell all you want or need to make.

He doesn’t seem keen on back-up plans or contingency preparation. So if it turns out that we’re actually many years away from real autonomy, not the perennial “end of this year” like he thinks, then Tesla may indeed have a proglem.

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I think it’s a mistake to not build out the vehicle lineup some more and also to not refresh existing models.

But if the ceo wants to go to mars, I’m good with that.

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Everything not autos.

The Captain

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Everything “not autos” may or may not come true. And if they do come true, there is no assurance that it will be Tesla that profits from it.

All the great ideas from the dot-com boom? Lots of them which turned out to be nothing. Lots more which turned out to be something, but somebody else got the business. Remember Pets.com? Gone. Chewy? Nice business.

Webvan was a comer, but it never happened. WalMart and Instacart, still around. Etoys.com went toes up, but there’s a different etoys.com now, it’s still a minor outfit.

Of course it’s possible that some or all of Musk’s dreams will come true, that everybody will start loaning out their cars or that androids will populate the kitchens of millions or whatever. Possibly even in this lifetime, though I doubt it…

(And I’m pretty sure tourist trips to Mars are a very very very long way off, just as a sidebar.)

But speaking of businesses that have leveraged up the mother ship into other allied fields, today I got my first non-Amazon purchase delivered by … an Amazon driver. (Some people have speculated that Amazon may be building out a logistics arm to compete with UPS and FedEx, and I’m here to say “It happened to me today.”)

I bought some solar cable wire from a guy on eBay. It was shipped “untracked”, which changed to “tracked by Zinc” the next morning, and I watched the Amazon driver in the Amazon truck bring it to my front porch a few hours ago. Nowhere on the Amazon app was this trackable, nor announcement that Amazon delivery was in the neighborhood (as happens with things bought from Amazon).

This appears to be following the model of AWS, which they built to serve the mother ship, and when extra capacity was available began selling it to others - even competitors with a need for backroom operations.

Now that they have penetration into my city (as of about a year ago) the deliveries are more frequent, they are in the neighborhood almost daily and it appears they are “for hire”, using what they have built for a complimentary, yet stand alone business.

That’s how you do it. And, I point out, deliver on it. Also, I point out, without shouting about it for years before it ever happens.

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Yes, and another UE is the never-taken step to increase PARTS and another one to not help independent shops start servicing them ex-tires & wheels. They can’t/won’t hire or train enough techs to create more & better Service. The UEs are piling up like the Celtics playing the Knicks! :scream:

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Thank you! The traditional and, in theory, the correct way to value an investment is by calculating the discounted present value of all future cash flows.

  • FSD is working
  • New Teslas drive themselves from the factory floor to their parking spot
  • Federal autonomous driving permitting is replacing 50 state statutes
  • Cybercabs are coming, supposedly in less than a month
  • Humanoid robots are coming
  • The new Semi trucks Giga factory is close to completion
  • Energy storage is huge and growing, you can’t have reliable renewables without storage. Nature figured it out and gave us fat cells. Batteries are fat cells.

All the above and more need to be considered in the DCF valuation method. Tony Seba has shown that most growth forecasts underestimate their rate of growth.

The Captain

EDIT: After posting I read all the other replies, a GIGA MOUNTAIN of negativity!

No wonder that most growth forecasts underestimate their rate of growth.

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Can you elaborate on this? I think each state can still regulate such.

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That is not impressive, sorry. Very short distance, controlled environment. Waymos are taking paying riders within an hour of leaving the factory, by themselves.

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I had a weird experience a few years ago (and posted about it here, of course). I ordered something on Amazon, a very usual occurrence as I place hundreds of orders each year there. A few days later I receive a package from WalMart, in a WalMart box, delivered by WalMart, and sold by WalMart, with my delivery address. Inside that package was the item I ordered from Amazon. After a bit of further investigation, it appeared that I ordered from a third-party on Amazon (back then, it wasn’t as clear as it is today, and even today it isn’t always so clear) and they simply ordered the item at WalMart to be shipped to me. Apparently the price difference made it worth it for them to do so (in other words, whatever the costs to the seller were from WalMart were less than what Amazon paid the for the sale via the Amazon site). Or, possibly, they simply ran out of the item and were willing to eat any extra cost but still keep the customer (me) happy. Anyway, it was some generic item (I don’t even remember what it was, maybe toilet paper or paper towels or dishwasher tablets or the like) and it was identical, so I didn’t care who shipped it to me. But it was indeed VERY confusing and a little odd at the time.

I don’t think it would be even possible to track it on the amazon site. That’s because they track things via order number. And there was no amazon order number! A similar thing happens with amazon registry purchases, but in that case, they have a way to “share” orders numbers between the account that ordered it (the one giving the gift) and the account that set up the registry. And different fields in the order are available for each. For example, the delivery address is not shown to the account that placed the order, just a description set up by the creator of the registry (for example “:couple_with_heart: Bob and Mary’s new apartment”).

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I have noticed down at my hardware store they have the same Items that I can get on Amazon. Same as in everything the same. I am starting to wonder if they buy it off of Amazon and then just jack up the price. It wouldn’t surprise me.

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Yep
The Tesla EV is a viable business. Why not try to improve sales with new models such as a small pickup body on a model Y or 3 skateboard frame. IMO a no brainer.

Perhaps Tesla could sell enough of those EV small pickups to regain #1 spot on world EV sales.

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That’s my understanding as well, however there has been some talk of regulating it on the federal level, which would make some sense. But since nobody has Level 5 autonomy, that’s not currently a pain point for Tesla.

The pain point for Tesla in regards to their robotaxi (which currently uses a safety drier in the vehicle, although that will likely change to remote) will be ride hailing for hire, which is still regulated on a local level. Tesla still needs to go out and get all the ride hailing permits in each jurisdiction. This can be done. Uber did it (in most places anyway). But it took a number of years with some lawsuits and protectionist legislation along the way.

As far as I know, Tesla has permits in California to transport non-paying employees using human drivers, and permits to pick up passengers in Austin (Texas doesn’t require a special permit for a autonomous vehicles). That’s it.

Because Tesla does not appear to be seriously engaged in the ride hailing permit process, it suggests that Tesla does not have confidence the robotaxi will be ready for commercial roll out any time soon.

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Impressive is the business of Hollywood. How many jobs have been replaced? That’s positive free cashflow which impresses investors!

Discounted present value of all future cash flows. :slightly_smiling_face:

The Captain

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Funny thing, we plan for retirement but we could die tomorrow. Why bother planning for retirement? It might never come.

How is your straw-man farm coming along? :imp:

The Captain

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