The erosion of Tesla’s EV market share is now underway

Electric car sales in the US reach new heights as “legacy” brands bolster Tesla’s market share, Polestar knows it can’t do it alone and a former Audi chairman has pleaded guilty in this eighth year since Dieselgate. That and more in this edition of The morning shift for Tuesday, May 16, 2023.

1st gear: winners and losers

It’s reasonable to expect electric vehicle sales to continue to grow year-over-year, if not quarter-over-quarter. Sales of battery electric cars in the US rose to seven percent of all new cars sold in the first three months of 2023, per Experian by way of Automotive news. That is a lot better than the 4.6 percent of the first quarter of 2022.

The more interesting development is that while just over seven out of every 10 EVs sold around this time last year were Teslas, that’s now six out of 10. GM, Ford, Rivian and even Volkswagen have stepped in to divide that bit of the market among themselves:

New [Chevrolet] Bolt registrations rose to 19,947 in the first quarter, compared to 477 last year, data from Experian showed. The subcompact hatchback twins are Chevrolet’s only EV models for sale.

The Ford brand ranked third for EV registrations with 13,362, an 82 percent increase, the quarterly data showed. The EV share rose in the first quarter from 4.6 percent a year earlier to 5.2 percent.

Mustang Mach-E registrations fell 12 percent in the quarter to 6,110. Some production of the Mustang Mach-E was lost due to factory upgrades, Ford said. F-150 Lightning registrations jumped from just 53 a year earlier to 5,652, and e-Transit van registrations jumped from 348 to 1,600, data from Experian showed.

Volkswagen registrations for its ID4 rose 244 percent to 10,053 for fourth place on the EV brand list. VW’s market share more than doubled to 3.9 percent from the same quarter last year.

Pour one for the Bolt, an actually reasonable electric car that Americans are waking up to just in time for GM to give it up.

The story iIt’s less encouraging for Hyundai and Kia, which have actually declined in ownership of the EV market, perhaps in part due to the lack of federal tax incentives on the Ionic 5 And Kia EV6. In fact, Rivian moved 7,134 of its high-priced trucks and SUVs — slightly less than Hyundai’s 8,064 units and notably better than Kia’s 6,064. At the back came Toyota, which could only muster 1,570 registrations for the BZ4X. Who wants to bet on how much further the rest of the industry will bite into Tesla’s large slice of the pie this time next year?

2nd gear: Polestar needs a helping hand

I’ll pass it on to Polestar, one of the few EV manufacturers that seems to really take the whole low-carbon thing to heart. The thing is, Polestar is a small fish (sort of) in a big pond, and even with Geely’s support, he can’t bring about change on his own. The costs are too high. You know what would help? Partnerships and, by extension, economies of scale. A Polestar executive reflected on this Reuters’ Automotive Conference this week:

“If we work with partners and say that this is how we decarbonise the supply chain…we can make an impact…we would love to work together,” Dennis Nobelius said during a speech at the Reuters Automotive Conference in Munich.

Polestar, whose cars are produced by Volvo, last week lowered its production guidance for 2023, saying it would cut workforce by 10% in a challenging environment for the industry.

The automaker and Rivian, a rival EV maker, backed a study that said in February the auto industry will exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius track by at least 75% by 2050, calling for collaboration to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles (EVs).

Automakers, partners and suppliers need to join forces on everything from traceability in the supply chain to greening the power grid and tracking battery status to create cross-industry standards, Nobelius said Tuesday.

Being able to switch quickly in line with new technologies was also key to success in the EV market, Nobelius said, taking battery cell technology as an example.

“We should have the ability to change cell chemistry every two years based on competition,” he said.

Pretty much since the first day Polestar was spun off as its own brand, it seemed Geely allowed it to exist as a strange, vanity experiment free to lose as much money as it wanted, so long as it served as an ambitious guide to Volvo. But it turns out Polestar is like everyone elsesubjected to the same internal pressure.

3rd gear: Today in Dieselgate

We learned some weeks ago that former Audi chairman Rupert Stadler was to plead guilty –is for his role in Dieselgate. On Tuesday morning in Munich, he did just that. Through Reuters:

The former CEO has been on trial for fraud since 2020 for his role in the scandal after parent group Volkswagen and Audi admitted in 2015 to using pirated software to cheat emissions tests. Stadler had previously dismissed the allegations.

Stadler’s attorney Ulrike Thole-Grolle read a statement to the court, saying the defendant was unaware that vehicles had been tampered with and buyers harmed, but he acknowledged that it was a possibility and accepted that.

“I understand that more care was needed on my part,” said the lawyer on behalf of Stadler.

When asked by the judge if the words were his own, Stadler replied, “Yes”.

The statement was widely expected after the judge said earlier this month that Stadler would receive a suspended prison sentence of 1.5 to 2 years and a fine of €1.1 million if he confessed to negligent fraud. The verdict is expected in June.

In March, The protector reported that an estimated 13 million diesel vehicles exceeding legal emission limits – not all of them represented by Volkswagen Group – remained on roads across Europe. Until they disappear from traffic, neither will Dieselgate.

4th gear: Volkswagen is out

A lane has been opened for the German automaker to leave Russia. The sale of Volkswagen’s assets in the country to Avilon, a dealer group, has reportedly been approved by Russian regulators. By Financial times:

Russian authorities have approved the sale of Volkswagen’s local assets to Avilon, one of the country’s largest car dealers.

The value of the sale to Avilon, the country’s main supplier of cars to the country’s security services, will not exceed €125 million, state news agency Interfax reported on Tuesday.

VW’s fixed assets in Russia, including buildings and equipment, were valued at Rbs 111.3 billion (€1.5 billion) in 2022, according to the company’s disclosures.

Last year, Russia introduced strict criteria for Western companies to leave the country following President Vladimir Putin’s decision to go to war with Ukraine. Measures include selling at a discount of at least 50 percent and making a “voluntary donation” to Russia’s war chest.

Lawyers involved in recent corporate exits say meeting these criteria is necessary, but not sufficient, as the state foreign investment commission decides each deal on a case-by-case basis and occasionally adds additional requirements. But in the west, more than a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, political pressure is mounting on Western consumer groups to stop doing business in or with Russia.

If you’re a car manufacturer doing business in Russia hoping to make a clean break after the invasion of Ukraine, you really can’t get out without forfeiting something. Renault had to sell its stake in AvtoVAZ for a ruble, finally. However, it’s unclear if the French manufacturer had to donate to the government – other than, you know, giving it a full infrastructure for car production for free. Volkswagen couldn’t move as fast as its funds were frozen due to an ongoing lawsuit with its local partner, GAZ, until recently.

5th gear: Sergio, the patriot

Stellantis chairman John Elkann has sent his longtime colleague, Sergio Marchionne, some love in the latest edition of the late auto exec’s biography, per Bloomberg:

“Sergio was a patriot in the highest sense of the word,” said 47-year-old Elkann in an interview for the latest edition of the biography of the late Marchionne, who led the Italian automaker from 2004 until his death in 2018. from Fiat executive officer, Marchionne and Elkann saved Fiat from near bankruptcy and combined it with American manufacturer Chrysler, turning two struggling regional players into one of the world’s largest automakers.

“Our fight was always for Italy, never against Italy,” said Elkann at the Agnelli Foundation headquarters in Turin, where the villa of his great-great-grandfather Giovanni Agnelli, who founded Fiat in 1899 with a group of investors, is located.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Elkann’s reflection is that today Stellantis has realized Marchionne’s vision, which basically amounted to aggressive, rapid and unprecedented consolidation:

Elkann emphasizes that without the current strategy – which dates back to Marchionne and envisions building a global leader strong enough to survive the disruption of electrification – the company’s domestic plants would have been at existential risk.

“Stellantis is the evolution of Sergio’s vision: the need for automotive mergers to avoid duplication of costly investments required for new technologies,” Elkann said in an interview for the book in late February. “Without the creation of Stellantis, all the investments we are making in Italy – from the Mirafiori electrical hub to the battery factory in Termoli – would not have been possible.”

It’s hard to argue with the suggestion that Marchionne wouldn’t be happy with the progress of the company he left behind. He wanted to buy Opel and Vauxhall for after all, they came under the control of Peugeot. How big will Stellantis be in five or ten years? What will it not possess?

Reverse: decades of ‘danger zone’

On this day in 1986 — 37 years ago — Top gun released to theaters. I still haven’t seen it, or Independent thinking person. I’m not proud of this, only movies are so long. Our friend Andy wouldn’t be proud of me.

Neutral: Rad Summer

Amazingly, I’ve never been to a Radwood, despite the fact that it’s perfect car event to me, someone who embodies the 90s in almost everything they do and enjoy. I will be at the Philly next month and looking forward to it. When I see a car from Sega rallymy year will be made.