But my mind still fails to comprehend this. It's a $80k cad luxury idiosyncratic vehicle. How's this out-selling civic and corolla, kia and hyundai base models? Have millionaires outnumbered regular folks by that much worldwide? I just don't understand that number if it's talking by units sold (and not revenue or profit). My entire world-view fails to make sense of that factoid.
Toyota RAV4, according to website, starts at 36K CAD.
So that's plus or minus twice the price :-/
Other way of looking at it - even if it were "Only $15k USD difference" in USA, that is an entire car worth of difference (not only in pre-COVID times, when you could buy a new car for $10k! We just bought a $17k Kia Rio 5. Tesla Y is four time the price, and ~2.5 times the price of Corolla or Civic, which again I wouldn't think of as "marginally more expensive". (Edit: And this does not include the money one would presumably need to spend to install chargers etc at home).
Please don't take this the wrong way, but it's a somewhat Hacker-News specific perspective that Tesla isn't luxury, or that $15k USD difference isn't much. Acura RDX starts at $57K CAD, which is 12K CAD less than the Tesla Y, and I'd certainly consider that a luxury car. Other people might not! But that underscores my point that for high earners, "luxury" and "rich" creeps up. (same for me too! I used to think $100k a year was "rich" until I got there and then I conveniently moved up my own personal definition. I don't consider our Honda Odyssey a luxury internally - I consider it a "necessity" or a "practical choice" until I have a "whoa" moment and remember that my parents took five people around in a little Citroen AX and Zastava 101, and that vast majority of people cannot afford a $55k CAD family car - and even we got it used from a 2 year lease because $55k CAD for a car is just a lot lot lot of money)
The price is comparable, the costs of ownership are way lower, and the product is at least twice as good.
There's basically no downside which is why they're selling so well.
Tesla has sold about 5 million vehicles in its entire history. The last time Toyota sold less that 5 million vehicles in a single year was 20 years ago (they do close to a million vehicles a month now [1]). VW Group is not far behind Toyota.
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1 - https://www.investopedia.com/toyota-global-output-hits-recor...
I share your scepticism.
That's not bad for a new car, especially when the general buyer I think mostly considers it a luxury brand.
Also the floor for car prices has gone up. The days of the near $10k new car are over.
> Have millionaires outnumbered regular folks by that much worldwide?
I'm far from a millionaire and a $40-50k car is not unreasonable, my wife's car is in the low $50s. But I have a Kia Forte that was like $25k. A small Kia for $25k! But it was the cheapest car I could find on shortish notice that had lance centering and whatnot.
the media salary in the US is like 55k is a lot, esp. given the prices of everything going up, and given the alternatives.