I think the point is that Tesla has the potential to grow its sales much faster than Toyota or VW. Tesla will probably never be a brand like VW or Toyota. If they succeed they are more likely to be like BMW. And to put this into perspective, they have sold as many cars as Rolls-Royce would in 100 years.*
Good point, Tesla doesn't need to be the next Toyota to be successful. I still think they have a long way to go to even get into BMW range. 300000 cars takes BMW (including Brilliance) only 39 days.
100% agree what you said about sales, especially because of Tesla's own dealerships which let them avoid entrenched distribution channels.
Toyota use more outsourcing producing a lower % of their cars than Tesla.
So, comparing things on a man hour basis might be more meaningful. Toyota is 12x as large though they both do more than just manufacture cars. Still it's probably about the equivalent of 3-4 months worth of Toyota's production capacity.
PS: Yea, modern batteries are a horrible pain to manufacture.
> Toyota use more outsourcing producing a lower % of their cars than Tesla.
You can't just wave your hands and outsource parts manufacturing. Developing, and maintaining your supply chain is incredibly challenging.
Tesla's attempts at doing so resulted in delays, shortages, and them blaming everything on their suppliers - rather then on their failure in being a good partner with them.
Tesla also happens to run on dead dinosaurs, at least in the US...
Arguably less efficient since it has to be converted into electricity first. About 64% of electricity in 2016 was generated using coal or natural gas in the US. [0]
Whether it’s coal or natural gas, it’s still more efficient to run an electric car on those fuels, generated at scale, then a petrol internal combustion engine.
96 percent of new generation coming online this year is renewables. Your electric car gets cleaned every year, your gasonline car does not.
The e-Golf has a range of 125 miles (200 km). The standard model 3 has a range of 220 miles. The upgrade has a range of 310 miles. The model S and Y have even longer ranges. Now, if VW had a charging network, that would be less of an issue, but they also don't have that yet.
The e-up has a range of 99 miles. That might impress VW who says:
"One charge, 99 miles. The e-up!’s impressive range makes it perfect for day to day driving."
But it's less than half of the standard Tesla Model 3. It's simply not enough. What is that after a couple of years or in cold weather. 80 miles? You will be driving around with constant range anxiety, even if you are just in the city.
It will be interesting to see the long-tail on Tesla production and sales. If they can get through their ramp up difficulties on Model 3 and get to making a profit per vehicle sold they might have incredible staying power over the long term, and they'll only get better at production over time.
Their strategy of branding their cars primarily as the model (i.e. S, X, 3) vs 2018 Tesla Model S makes them fairly timeless.
This doesn't break out US sales vs foreign, but if we assume 2/3 of the vehicles are sold in the US, that means they just hit their 200,000 car limit for the tax credit, or are just about to.
If they are clever they'll try to make car 200,000 roll out just after April 1, to push it into Q2, giving them six months more of the credit.
But it definitely means that a lot of Model 3 buyers are gonna get screwed as they push the delivery of the cheap model 3 out to 2019, as those are the people who were most likely counting on the $7,500 when they pre-ordered.
Toyota produces that many cars every 11 days. VW is about the same. Not electric cars of course, but I don't have numbers for these.