1. Source?
2. Toyota is behind. Check what the Chinese and Germans are doing. Though you can't really do that since most of those cars aren't sold in the US.
2. Toyota is behind. Check what the Chinese and Germans are doing. Though you can't really do that since most of those cars aren't sold in the US.
Volkswagen had a market share of ICE cars of ~20%, for EVs it's now closer to 1%. EVs are way easier to build and a lot of Chinese companies are doing it successfully. They are offering cheaper EVs. They are selling in Mideast/Asia and now start to enter Europe as well.
None of these cars is particularly bad - while I'd still take the Korean EVs before anything else today, the Chinese are coming. German manufacturers only produce premium level cars few people can afford and they produce them badly. ID.3 is too expensive for its segment and too much of the car just doesnt work well.
The specs and price gap between a Renault Zoe (Inexpensive, with consequently low acceleration, top speed, handling and range, but absolutely a joy to use in a city or on short trips - perfect balance of price/specs) and a Tesla M3/MY is quite wide and should allow some other manufacturers to wedge themselves into a rather popular segment, with profit.
And yet... there's hardly anything better than a Zoe, they immediately approach or pass the price of a Tesla (looking at you Volkswagen, Cupra, Audi, Mercedes, etc) while being worse by an impressive margin (paltry top speeds, uncomfortable ranges, rather primitive features, etc). You start getting cars something favorably comparable with a baseline Tesla M3 RWD when you add a good 20k to its price, it's ridiculous. And apparently they're hardly breaking even on those, while Tesla has a decent profit margin, what's wrong with them?
I'm also hoping China and Korea will upend this market because established EU/US manufacturers surely won't.
And practically, even on the German Autobahn, a top speed difference of 220 to the rare 250 km/h plus doesn't show. One traffic jam, or even just enougj traffic, and everybody ends up next to each other anyways.
Power is nice, because cars simply a nicer to drive. Plus you can pull better, which is also important. Going back in time so, 150-180 bhp was considered top knotch performance, the Audi A3 gained a lot of his reputation in the early 2000s due to two models, just below the S3, having that power output.
I din't know, all the engine size, top speed, power and acceleration discussions feel like me playing top trump (the card game for children were you compare numbers for e.g. cars), and less than an adult objevtively evaluating cars. Not that car evaluations and buying decissions need to be objevtive so, mine aren't. But up talking one model / brand by down talking others, based on purely subjective criteria, is childish. It does allow for great marketing campaigns so.
I do live in Germany too and routinely drive above 140 where allowed on the autobahn - it's a pleasure. So yes it does actually impact me, in a very real way.
Additionally:
- Top speed of 220+ means you accelerate from 130 to 160 easily, so you can safely pass the slowpoke ahead while not becoming an obstacle to faster traffic. A top speed of 160 means it'll take you a whole lot longer.
- A car with a top speed of 150 is at its limit at 150. Brakes are sized for that, wheels are chosen with that in mind, you better be going in a straight line, it's gonna be uncomfortably noisy, etc. You have very little margin for anything. One designed to reach 220 or 250 is basically in the middle of its comfort zone at 150, with ample safety margins on every metric and a more comfortable ride.
--Edit: I'd like to add a reference to the lower tier cars to my reply. I quoted the Zoe because my partner has it, so I'm quite familiar using it and it's really really fun in the city, it's perfect. I'm lamenting the big gap between Zoe and Tesla with nothing worth buying in between and the fact that I'm being asked 15-25k EUR extra compared to the Zoe, with hardly more car, which is an awful bargain as you reach the Tesla price with half assed specs. I may not care so much about speed and power (I do, that's another story) but I do care to get something worth my money, and all these other cars aren't.
Top speed has nothing to do with acceleration, a car can be limited at, say, 180 and still accelerate and be speced for 250. Heck, all German premium brands are, for the most part, limited at 250. Theoretically they can all go faster. Sure, there is a floor, but in practical terms it is much less relevant than people think. Also, it only matters in Germamy on select roads, everywhere else speed limits are much, much lower than car top speeds anyway.
And breaksbare sized fornmore than speed, they are sized relative to engine power and car weight. Speed is simply a function engine power, transmission and weight.
While loving to go fast, going fast in a staight line on a road made to do so is the opposite of dangerous or risky. Saying that, I am in total favor of a speed limit, 130 propably won't work in Germany, so. In general, we need one. And we have them any way most of the time, the percentage of unlimited km of roads is way smaller than people think. Once we have them, maybe we can have more realistic discussion about cars and mobility, at the moment everybody drols over their 300+ bhp "race cars". And brands sell on that image. That doesn't help switching to EVs, nor does it help cutting emissions.
Porsche can afford to give their customers Dacia levels of digitalization because they're premium sports cars that sell anyway, but the Asians are coming after the other German brands and will steamroll them if they don't start getting their act together.
>What stands out most is Tesla's integrated central control unit, or "full self-driving computer." Also known as Hardware 3, this little piece of tech is the company's biggest weapon in the burgeoning EV market. It could end the auto industry supply chain as we know it. One stunned engineer from a major Japanese automaker examined the computer and declared, "We cannot do it."
are all everywhere for Tesla, like they are for Apple. I've seen entire sites dissect the Apple Watch or Apple mobile cameras, or Teslas.
Their competitors are very comparable yet you have to hand it to Tesla, their behind the scenes PR game is through the roof.
Still digitalisation so, sure. And still linked to EVs, traditional car journalism still caters to a crowd of ICE fanatics, but overall much more a thing of marketing than engineering. For Tesla, the risk still is Musk. But they seem to be doing a good job of distancing themselves enough from his recent antics to not be hurt by them, while staying close enough to benefit from his personal brand.
Yea, I can't help to notice that my 13 year old, who on the whole knows and cares nothing about cars, thinks that Teslas are the coolest cars ever, has already decided that their first car will be a Tesla and wants our next car to be a Tesla. Brands like Merceds, BMW, Porsche etc. mean very little to them.
So pardon me if I lend more credence to the notion that tech companies outstrip car companies when it comes to technology.
If I need to get an eye-surgery and the equipment runs on Android, I'd rather go for the one running on Android 4 for 10 years already, than the one running on Android 13 for 6 months now...