In 2022 every fourth car sold (including petrol/diesel) was a Tesla.
https://elbil.no/om-elbil/elbilstatistikk/
https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/hver-fjerde-nybil-var-en-tesl...
Well, gee, no wonder that people were buying them left and right when the tax discount was about 16-20k NOK per car on average!
And that is just buying the car - Norway subsidizes electric mobility in many other ways so even today registering a new electric is cheaper than a gasoline car, despite the gas powered vehicles normally costing about 50% less.
So, please, when waving this sort of argument about, don't "forget" to put it in context.
Norway is a special case because of government policies, not because Tesla did anything particularly great there. They were just the only ones on the market at the time so people essentially had to buy a Tesla if they wanted to benefit from the generous subsidies because there simply wasn't anything else available. Today the situation is different, though.
Model Y is the most sold car model in the world in 2023.
Not quite, the Toyota Corolla and RAV-4 both outsold it
If the government discounts cars by 25% - that's one thing. But let's not forget too that the greater part of the cost of running a car (the fuel) is mainly made up by tax on the fuel - it itself is an artificial price.
Nothing about transport is reflective of the underlying reality. Its simply a governmental chess board, and could be shifted at any time by new legislation, eg if a tax is introduced to add 50% tax on the electricity used for cars.
Regardless of the worthiness of this or that cause - its most interesting that none of this the free market in action. Its also licensing, government grants, taxes... in all honesty what is the difference between this and communism - where the government overtly controls the actions of the masses?
I agree. It should start with stopping all fossil fuel subsidies, 7 trillions/year and growing. And ethanol subsides, subsidizing ethanol production on 40m acres, just in US.
And have fossil fuel companies pay for their own military to protect their 6 million assets and 16 million transportation flows[2]. It should be determined by the companies themselves (free market) if these are worth protection, instead of having Govts protect these worldwide. Solar, on the other hand, will not require there protections, it does not depend on the exploration, extraction, shipping, processing, burning, waste output of any fuel. Solar is distributed, on every roof and field, nearly impossible for anyone to invade and destroy.
[1] Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Reached $7 Trillion in 2022, an All-Time High: https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuel-subsidies-2022
[2] https://github.com/Lkruitwagen/global-fossil-fuel-supply-cha...
That may be true in Europe, but not here in the US. In the US, the federal gasoline tax is currently about $.18 per gallon, and state taxes range from about $.09 to $.58 per gallon[1] (with the median around $0.27). The average price of gasoline in the US has been around $3.00 per gallon[2] ($0.79 per liter), so the total tax would range from about 9% to 25% of the cost, depending on the state.
The price of gas in most European countries is much higher, with Norway paying over twice the US average (US $7.87 / US gallon).[3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...
[2] https://www.finder.com/gas-prices
[3] https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/Europe/
OPs point had nothing to do with wether the government subsidised EVs or not.
The original argument was not that they were "leader" but that somehow people were buying Teslas for their quality or being better than everything else.
Second, they are still the leader. The quality arguments are clearly nitpicky since people seem to be buying them in droves anyway.
When Tesla introduced the Model S there were no other electric sedans on the market.
Tesla introduced the Model X in 2015, it’s now 2023 and you still have to wait almost 2 years more if you want Volvo’s competitor to the Model X. Even with all the amazing subsidies Volvo is still a decade late to the party!
While Tesla probably played a role in EV adoption, I think you are overstating it by a lot. If the main factor wasn't economic we would see these same stats in every other country where a Tesla can be bought.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ...
And every country has been massively subsidizing ICEs since their creation, both explicitly and implicitly (by failing to price in the enormous externalities, engaging in nasty geopolitics up to and including war for oil, tolerance for enormous human atrocities and authoritarian regimes, etc).
Economics certainly matters, but there still have to be vehicles people want to actually buy and can perform as they wish. For me BEVs haven't hit that yet even though I could afford one. Like, there's been a surprisingly slow rollout when it comes to trucks, I think the Cybertruck is the first one I'd consider a real useful (in theory) truck with a minimum of a 6.5' bed. Except build quality is apparently pants, there is all the Tesla spying, and they downgraded the max range option from 500 (paper, which they also apparently lied about) miles (which even on paper would be like 300-350 miles in winter which would be a good useful range), and other problems. Even if the US Government offered me 50% subsidies or something ludicrous for a BEV truck it wouldn't matter if there's literally nothing I want to buy. I think building cars that were actively good vs what came before mattered, as does the charging network. Even if Tesla has run into awful scaling problems and founder-syndrome as happens so often that doesn't IMO negate that.
I think my comment above was indeed a bit snarky and is rightfully getting downvoted.
https://bilmagasinet.no/bilaret-2013-ble-historisk-godt/
The Leafs were small and had a very short range. They were no replacement for petrol or diesel cars for families. Unlike Tesla S and X.
If you happened to be unaware all of these Tesla-skeptics ( atleast this latest round of skeptics ) are being buoyed by this Reuters report about major problems Tesla owners have faced off late. One describing a new owner's experience with his spanking new Tesla : "The vehicle’s front-right suspension had collapsed, and parts of the car loudly scraped the road as it came to a stop."
Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-musk-steering-suspension/