As per a recent report from KBA, Tesla was literally crushed in Germany by electric vehicles from Renault, Volkswagen and Hyundai group. The competition in the EV niche is getting ugly and across the spectrum, and that translates into Tesla’s share of the electric vehicle market plunging to 8.7 percent year to date, compared to 18.4 percent in 2019.
And Germany is not a freak coincidence, as Tesla is confronted with the same situation globally. Due to the government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis, auto sales in Germany this year were dismal, but not for electric vehicles. While the overall new vehicle market dropped by a whopping 30 percent in Germany this year, to 1,526 million units sold in the first 7 months of 2020, EV sales saw a 65 percent increase.
To put things into perspective, EV sales in Germany in 2019 skyrocketed 88 percent compared to the previous year. More than 61,000 EVs were sold year to date in Germany, which translates into 4 percent of total new vehicle sales, compared to last year’s less than 1 percent. However, Tesla was the big loser in the EV bonanza, as its market plunged to 8.7 percent from 18.4 percent last year, with sales dropping to 5,306 from 6816 over the same period year-to-year.
Here’s a chart showing the big 3 EV automakers who are currently fighting for supremacy in Germany:
Tesla is currently working at building a new assembly plant in Germany, but this will take time, and it’s very probable that other major EV manufacturers like Toyota, that currently don’t sell EVs in Germany will start offering them to the EU market.
Tesla is confronted with the same situation globally, as automotive giants have woken up to Elon Musk’s business model and they are starting to offer lots of EV models across the spectrum. It’s going to be very tough for Tesla to compete with manufacturers like VAG, BMW of Daimler on service, price, quality and reliability, those mundane factors that regular consumers demand from their products.