Tesla sales plunge 40% in Europe as Chinese EV rival BYD's triple

Tesla cars were a very good prospect until pretty much this year. Most people are fine with everything being on a big dumb screen instead of having proper buttons (even though it's a usability and safety nightmare) and once you get past that, they're comfortable and practical - and well-priced compared to the non-Chinese competition.

But now, Elon outed himself as an actual Nazi, and took away proper indicators and gear selectors.

Tesla also has a big unneeded tv in the car

I used to think the same, before I bought a (non-Tesla) EV myself. It's very convenient to have some entertainment other than your phone during charging stops.

Tesla also has a big unneeded tv in the car.

Ehh, have you ever seen a BYD? All their models are essentially "Tesla but more obnoxious".

I’ve read a number of European reviews of the byd dolphin and most I’ve seen have compared it unfavorably to European EVs

So you're saying Trumps decisions are exactly the ones of a saboteur, but you don't believe he is one, because he is incompetent?

How "competent" do you have to be to be able to do, what someone tells you to do?

Maybe, but it does feel as someone in the UK that Trump seems more like a new, clear and present danger to our way of life than the Chinese.

Patriotism...

Username is Ernstrommel.

Are you wearing your kampfbinde right now?

The word you are looking for is nationalism. Völkisch is the flavor you are probably after.

Removed by Moderator — Modlog

This is how modern "competition" works in every industry. China is just following the standard model of taking losses in order to monopolize the market. Why do you think so many companies in the US (Uber being the most obvious one) are just taking losses for years and years?

I feel like people don't understand modern economics and the complete lack of competition. So when our media says "China is bad. Look at them cheating!" people believe it.

China isn't cheating or "going to crumble because of this" like all the YouTube click bait videos say. This is literally just how the global markets work.

Is it good? Fuck no. But it's not unique to China at all. And their 5 year planned economic systems are much more prepared for a global collapse than ours are. At least in meeting the material needs of its citizens. The US has all but gutted any of its social safetynets for when this all goes to hell.

TSLA is not the stock market. It's a cult. The valuation of that company follows no rules of Commerce.

What specifically is Tesla doing better than the other choices?

There are a lot of better cars than Tesla. I'm personally a big fan of the Vauxhall Mokka-e, but I'd also much rather buy a Hyundai Kona electric than any Tesla.

A lot of engineers are obsessed with touchscreen everything because sci-fi from the 70s to 90s was obsessed with that shit, so they became obsessed with it.

What does "properly" mean in this context? In my experience, every android auto -supporting car is way worse than Tesla.

It connects to your phone in the sense that you can:

• Make phone calls
• Receive and send texts (no Whatsapp/signal/telegram or any other kind of app based messaging)
• Listen to audio, if you manually start the playback on the phone
• Use your phone hotspot to stream from the built-in Spotify or other streaming services, if you don't want to pay a $120/year subscription

But it can't do basic mirroring like most cars on the market can do.

In this way, if you want to have traffic info or speed camera alerts, you're forced to pay for Tesla premium subscription, as there's no other way to show a third party navigation app on the big screen (except ugly hacks like using the web browser for navigation, which is a safety hazard)

are we just ignoring the glaring fact that these are rolling internet connected computers with cameras and who the heck knows how many other sensors, inside and outside?

I wouldn't want such a "car" from a European company even. but I guess ignorance is bliss, and we have nothing to hide.

Ok but one way to make an EV charge faster and cost less is to put in a smaller battery.

Toyota: am l a joke to you

I would rather have a European EV than a Chinese EV. But in the end of the day I will have to settle for Japanese.

I've test driven some of those you listed and no, they're not better.

I'm pissed that Canada followed the US's stupid protectionist tariffs on BYD cars.

American car manufacturers spent years lobbying against fuel efficiency and EV uptake and now that they've put themselves at a disadvantage they need the government to artificially prop them up so they don't go under. I say let the fuckers rot in the grave they created.

Why not?

Toyota has clearly made a massive bet against BEVs and on hybrids and FCEVs.

Because the Japanese government 25 years ago encouraged Japanese manufacturers to develop Hydrogen cars, that never went anywhere.
Only Nissan had an early effort on BEV with the leaf, but it was underwhelming, always the battery was too small, because they thought it was more important to keep the price down, and sell it as a secondary city car, than make an actually useful battery electric car.

For all their faults, Tesla did show the way, that it was possible to make good battery electric cars, instead of the flimsy comedic electric toy cars that were common at the time Tesla introduced the model S.

However the Hydrogen car may actually still be the future, that future is just not yet, because the price and loss of energy making hydrogen are too high, so hydrogen is not a good option until we have huge amounts of surplus energy from renewable sources that are otherwise wasted. At that point hydrogen may make a comeback as an excellent buffer to even out the difference in production to consumption of renewable energy.
But on the other hand, batteries may be so widespread at that point, that we may just use huge batteries to do the same.

In my household we have a 7.5 kWh battery that charges from our solar panels, that can last us ½ a day, easily enough to last the night over during summer. Imagine if we used a cheap used 100 kWh battery from a car instead. That would be enough to last us a whole week! At such a point the variance of renewables will be easily compensated by battery parks.

Hydrogen will however be superior for planes. Because hydrogen cells are lighter for the same energy than batteries, and the hydrogen can even be used directly in a jet engine with no harmful emissions. But we are probably still more than a decade away from that becoming main stream, although there are already examples of using it.

So all in all Toyota arrived this year with their first attractive BEV. And they will absolutely be a major player soon.

Tesla’s high failure rate is primarily due to rust

This is not true, although it is a common point of failure for Electric vehicles, it is not the primary fault, slack in the steering is.
Rust on the brakes is a very well known issue for all electric cars. Problem for Tesla is that the first security check coincide with the last service check under warranty.
Regulation regarding rust on the brake discs is very clear, and trivial to fix. So why wasn't it fixed?
There was also a common issue with suspension.

No matter what or why a 30% failure rate is insane. The best cars (from VW) have only just above 2% failure rate!!

Either way on an EV, you need to use your brakes on occasion

This is true, and has been widely publicized here in all newspapers, so mostly any owner of an electric car should know that.
But more obviously the Tesla service should absolutely have known, and fixed the issue before the mandatory safety check.
Again no other car is even close to as bad as Tesla.

Europe will not win because European elites are unimaginative idiots who can not see a future that does not involve sucking up to Americans.

von der Leyen basically caved to Trump in a trade deal despite having a very good hand.

Hey, Tesla is a champion in some categories.

Like you're statistically more likely to die burning to death in a Tesla Cybertruck than a Ford Pinto. That's a record that has been held for 45 years.

I want to like chinese EVs so much, but they put in so many novelties that look like points of failure in 10 years

I just want the electric equivalent of like a miata; reasonably cheap, fun to drive, and trivial to maintain for decades.

So now criticizing Chinese cars gets downvotes on lemmy?