Too little and too late. Draconian measures are necessary to push automakers into compliance and to push consumers to buy. It's expensive unless we want to sell out to China completely, but necessary and in the end, affordable.
US made cars had the reputation of being low quality, too big, too heavy and too inefficient for european cities.
Tesla was somewhat different. People bought Teslas not for their promised "self driving" capabilities (I know no Tesla driver that took those promises at face value or got the FSD option FWIW), but one motivation was to "stick it" to snobbish arrogant european manufacturers wanting to develop "clean" ICEs with "green fuels" or other non-sensical crimes against thermodynamics like H2-cars.
Now, Tesla (and the US in general) has a brand toxicity problem, and it is worsening. People I know that would consider a Tesla some years ago now drive electric VWs or BWMs or KIAs, often times much more expensive cars than the comparable Tesla 3 / Y model.
This trend will probably continue the next years, and I don't see a way for Tesla to repair the brand image.
Electric car sales were 20% of all sales, so 26% increase is hardly a "surge". Going from a low base this is supposed to be higher.
I think what we are seeing is that electric car interest isn't as strong as governments hoped for. I used to own an electric car now I'm back to a hybrid.
Q4 sales in the US will be interesting because of the removal of the tax credits and the increasing electricity prices that AI is causing. Low prices of fuel in the US means that it's not exactly cheaper to run an electric car in the US.
Question - anyone here have one of those “most popular” VWs? The article says they’re called id.3 id.5 and id.7. I’ve ridden in an e-Golf (California compliance car basically), but not the newer ones. The e-Golf did not impress, so I’m curious if the new ones are any good; range, noise, fit and finish, basically.
I don't know anything about Tesla cars or how good they are, and I don't know anything about BYD cars or how good they are. But I can say that 4 door BYD cars are advertised around here for less then £20,000. While 4 door Teslas appear to start around £40,000. That's a pretty big difference when considering a first time electric car.
Stripped down Model Y is coming, was unearthed just a day or two before.
Still going to be far more expensive for being overall larger, higher range, better tech. There's no real ways for Tesla to cut cost without building smaller car (all while Americans are demanding larger model lol).
To me the article sounds like "The guys we hate have decline" - (from 100k sold to 95k sold) "but the sales of the guys we love surge 26%" (from 10 to 12.6k)
A friend of mine is in the process of getting a car. He insists on having an EV, but never a Tesla as long as Elon is benefiting from it. So he's going for an VW ID3 instead. Many people must be thinking like this as well.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 41.0 ms ] threadTesla was somewhat different. People bought Teslas not for their promised "self driving" capabilities (I know no Tesla driver that took those promises at face value or got the FSD option FWIW), but one motivation was to "stick it" to snobbish arrogant european manufacturers wanting to develop "clean" ICEs with "green fuels" or other non-sensical crimes against thermodynamics like H2-cars.
Now, Tesla (and the US in general) has a brand toxicity problem, and it is worsening. People I know that would consider a Tesla some years ago now drive electric VWs or BWMs or KIAs, often times much more expensive cars than the comparable Tesla 3 / Y model.
This trend will probably continue the next years, and I don't see a way for Tesla to repair the brand image.
I think what we are seeing is that electric car interest isn't as strong as governments hoped for. I used to own an electric car now I'm back to a hybrid.
Q4 sales in the US will be interesting because of the removal of the tax credits and the increasing electricity prices that AI is causing. Low prices of fuel in the US means that it's not exactly cheaper to run an electric car in the US.
As companies embrace tax-exemptions for company cars and people who get them are limited to choose EV only.
Free Government Regulated Capitalism.
We need it. Let the thermal engine models die.
Still going to be far more expensive for being overall larger, higher range, better tech. There's no real ways for Tesla to cut cost without building smaller car (all while Americans are demanding larger model lol).
https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2025-half-year-euro...
This gives a much much more nuanced look, and it doesn't look as completely clear cut as the headline implies.
For example: Spain saw an increase of 83.9% and France a decline of 6.9%
... And then you see that Denmark bought as many EVs as spain, although Spain has 10x population.
https://youtu.be/lw4ZjhOukwU