The German concern BMW AG has, for the first time, outpaced the American company Tesla in the sale of electric cars in the European Union.
The German concern BMW AG has, for the first time, outpaced the American company Tesla in the sale of electric cars in the European Union.
Unfortunately this is only a half truth, as it’s only if you include plug in hybrids, which Tesla obviously doesn’t sell. On the total for July Tesla is only #22 in Europe, when including all types of cars. But they remain #1 on pure EV.
But the BMW i4 is a VERY nice car, and the competition is getting closer to Tesla too.
VW is pretty high too, and also has the Skoda Enyaq that is also nice, and the AUDI Q4. So I’m pretty sure VW combined will surpass Tesla on pure EV within 6 months. Volvo is also doing well, and AFAIK polestar is part of Volvo too.
All in all, it’s very obvious that Tesla has much tougher competition now than they used to, and it seems to me that will increase further in the future.
Stelantis has some way to go, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out soon. Seems to me one of their problems is their batteries are still too small.
But when they figure it out, they will arrive in force, with Fiat, Opel, Citroen, Peugeot, which are all popular cars here in Europe. As it is now, they are all built around the same framework, and that’s not quite good enough IMO.
I wouldn’t be surprised if next year around this time, Tesla has dropped to #4 in Europe on true EV.
I don’t think Stelantis can really compete against the Koreans who have very generous warranty policies. Stelantis has acquired a very bad reputation in the last decade. Their puretech engines were suffering from degrading timing belts. They issued recalls but then clients were often still billed by Stelantis. This left a very sour taste in the mouths of many car owners. I know many people who will never buy a Stelantis car again
I must admit I’ve not been impressed by Stelantis lately either. But they have a pretty big footprint in the lower end of the market here in Europe. If they can up their EV cars battery and keep prices down, I have no doubt they will be very popular.
Regarding the timing belt, the puretech engine started in the Peugeot 208 I according to wikipedia, the Peugeot 208 is an extremely popular car here, and anecdotally I never heard about the timing belt problem.
Despite that I know Stelantis is generally not the best quality, but they look good, and are cheap, and you get a lot of features/car for the money with the cheaper European sub brands I mentioned.
But Hyundai/KIA is bigger than Stelantis on EV, but their pricing here in EU is a bit expensive now compared to the competition.