Tesla revolutionized the automotive world by showing that electric cars can be desirable high-performance machines. Elon Musk also said that his main objective is to get other automakers to follow Tesla’s path before becoming the most valuable automaker in the world. We have no idea if Musk still has the same motto, but European EV sales figures show that his wish has been met. More than that, it reveals that the disruptor may have been interrupted.
It was with this question that Matthias Schmidt, from Schmidt Automotive Research, shared the chart above in a tweet.
As you can see, Tesla started to dominate the EV market in Europe in October 2019. Up to that point, the biggest EV volumes came from Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, the three companies that Carlos Ghosn tried to join with an alliance that it almost became a merger.
Thereafter, Tesla sales in the Old Continent increased and peaked in December 2019 and January 2020, when sales stagnated until March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began to hit Europe. Sales then started to decline.
Between August and September, Tesla was surpassed by the alliance and also by the Volkswagen Group. The VW ID.3 was launched in early September and sales continued to grow for the German carmaker and for Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi.
Tesla ended 2020 with about 96,000 cars sold in Europe, a number very close to that presented by Hyundai and Kia, with around 95,000 units. Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi sold around 135,000 EVs, and the Volkswagen Group reached 175,000 electric cars sold last year.
In the graph, we can see that one of the reasons for the impulse of traditional automakers to sell EVs came from the need to reach 95 g of CO2 per kilometer. As we mentioned in a previous article, the Volkswagen Group started selling ID.3 before its software was fully developed to try to avoid a fine. Although he sold many EVs, the effort was not enough to avoid the penalty.
You can see that the graph shows data from 18 European markets (the ones before the EU enlargement in 2004), Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and, if you were in doubt due to Brexit, also from the UK. We asked Schmidt why.
We also asked the chart’s author what he believes was the reason Tesla’s sales declined when those of old car manufacturers selling EVs increased. A Tesla supporter claimed it was due to supply problems, but other commentators said the company would not cut prices if it could sell the same car elsewhere for more money.
If the disruptor was stopped in Europe, could it be something related to the COVID-19 pandemic or limited to 2020. The same would happen with Giga Berlin delivering cars? Wouldn’t Tesla need an ID size EV – something smaller than the Model Y – to succeed in Europe?
All traditional automakers that have sold more EVs than Tesla have European factories for these cars. At that point, all we can do is debate the reasons and guess what will happen after Tesla starts producing cars in Germany. Place your bets.