They make good cars, they deserve to sell.
But imho the king of EVs in Europe by the end of the decade are going to be Volkswagen and Stellantis.
No foreign car company really stands a chance in the European market imho (besides Toyota of course).
But imho the king of EVs in Europe by the end of the decade are going to be Volkswagen and Stellantis.
No foreign car company really stands a chance in the European market imho (besides Toyota of course).
Renault has actually better products than Stellantis and far fewer of the problems.
Tesla cop's a lot of crap. Most of it about is how they perform relative to Elon's promises. That's an awfully high bar, as no car a consumer can buy can come close to what Elon been promising for Tesla. Despite missing that bar by miles, the reality is they are probably the best EV you can buy right now, but they priced accordingly, at a premium (albeit not a huge one).
My primary concern about Tesla is whether it will exist in it's current form in 5 or 10 years time. You can't trust a word it's CEO says, it's meme stock whose share price must tank to a fraction of it's current value and it's corporate vision seems to be more focused humanoid robots than cars. It's competitors will catch up.
I'm told Tesla's are hard to repair, but their support is stellar where I live. A man who only works on Tesls's fixed the tail light my wife smashed while it was parked at home, and upgraded a few other things, all for free. Their charging network is second to none. While all that continues, I recon they deserve to sell a lot of cars. I hope it continues.
They’re facing the classic innovator’s dilemma. It will be incredibly difficult for them to build great EVs while the bulk of the money they make is through selling ICE vehicles, and more importantly, they’re culturally ICE prioritizing companies.
Current VW Models can compete with Tesla on equal footing. By sales VW is the defacto winner of the European EV Market.
>they’re culturally ICE prioritizing companies.
VW has been developing the MEB Platform since a decade. It has not developed a new ICE Platform in that time. How are they culturally "prioritizing" ICE, when they have completely abandoned ICE development on a platform level?
Going back to ICE would be a total disaster for VW, the company is completely all in on electrification.
Volkswagen sells the most EVs in Europe. In fact, Volkswagen's EV market share in Europe is currently the highest it's ever been:
https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Line/All-time-by-Q...
Volkswagen owns many brands (VW, Audi, Porsche, Skoda, Cupra, etc.). Their sales are split across many brands and models.
I was thinking specifically about the VW brand itself.
VW seem to have been consciously moving attention away from the VW brand for a while. In particular, brands like SEAT and Skoda, which a few decades ago were primarily local brands, are now promoted Europe-wide.
Also, VW sold half a million EVs in H1 2025, Tesla sold 730k, so even globally they are closer than you think and VW will likely pass Tesla at current growth rates by halfway 2027.
Also, FYI, Europeans haven't been building ICEs for some time. The last (non sports car) serious ICE developed in Europe was the Mercedes Benz OM654 diesel engine.
The whole "electric cars in Europe" thing is a fascinating example of what the media finds interesting vs reality. If you got caught up in the media coverage, you'd probably think it was Tesla vs BYD. Here is the reality: https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Bar/All-time-by-Ye... (you can definitely see the impact of the Swasticar Problem in 2025).
In the past decade, Tesla has spent maybe a year in the lead. It is currently the smallest player in the top eight. BYD is not even _in_ the top eight. It is not even the best-selling Chinese manufacturer; that'd be Geely (which does just scrape into the top eight).
(Minor caveat on these numbers: IMO Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi is not a _proper_ auto group, and should probably be split out.)
From the media's point of view, the trouble is that "VW is selling a lot of cars" is a _boring_ narrative; that is what one expects to happen. "Two foreign companies are jockeying for position in the market" is a somewhat more interesting one, even if neither actually sells very many cars.
Some people still need a reason to carry a 1 Ton battery with them all the time. /s
Volkswagen is en route to become garbage.
Ever driven a Chinese car? European generics don't hold a candle against them. And European cars can no longer claim a premium for higher standards - Chinese cars come with both reasonably good quality and more importantly in this climate, value for money. The only hard part currently is spare parts availability but that's very easy for the Chinese to rectify.
There are few important reasons:
1. VW and Stellantis combine a huge array of relevant (in EU) brands including (by memory) Jeep, Maserati, Audi, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Porsche, Lancia, Seat, Cupra, Lancia, Skoda, Volkswagen, Opel, Peugeot, Citroen, Lamborghini.
2. VW and Stellantis have already all the network made of service, parts, dealerships.
3. All markets are different, and as you can imagine European brands know how to build cars for that market.
4. Both companies are gigantic and well diversified across the globe with their supply chains and plenty of deals with Chinese ev and battery makers. Even if the Chinese end up dominating the European market, they will still have to build here and do it in a JV.
If they manage to fix their SW bugs, at a competitive price, maybe.