Toyota ships more vehicles every quarter than Tesla has shipped over its entire existence. The idea that it has some sort of supply chain that others envy is laughable. What is going to be fun to watch over the rest of the decade is how quickly Tesla fades into the background as the rest of the industry slowly pivots to EV. Once three or four of the major manufacturers reach the point that more than 50% of their sales are EV I expect Tesla to quietly disappear in a merger with some EV also-ran that needs to play catch-up (the name may stick around, but the company will be absorbed by the acquirer.)
I meant the battery supply chain, which no one can touch Tesla on. Tesla already owns mining rights on a lot of lithium. Other car companies are going to have to go to Tesla for some of their EV needs.
When people make the mistake of analyzing Tesla as a car company it always makes me smile, because it leaves me feeling secure that my (albeit small) position on Tesla is sound.
It's been said by others ad nauseum, but I'll say it again:
I wondered about the claim in the first sentence, but it is true. Toyota and it's subsidiaries produced ~9.5million vehicles in 2020, or ~2.4million per quarter. Tesla's total vehicle sales since it's foundation are ~1.4million. To be fair to Tesla, they have expanded quite a bit in the last few years, producing 0.5million vehicles in 2020. Even with that expansion, their rate of output is only 5% of Toyota's.
Probably because neither the market nor the real supply chain was ready. Ford sells more F-150s per year than Tesla sells across all models. When the F-150 Lightning takes off and ramps up production you can expect the consequences to be felt across the entire Ford lineup and for things to start moving quickly. (As others have noted, Toyota bought into hydrogen and its hybrids so it is not going to be an EV leader any time soon, but other majors are moving fast and will soon leave Tesla behind.)
Because the "best" electric car company in the world is barely eeking out a profit from selling a million cars a year, and even then only through regulatory credits, Bitcoin shenanigans, and outright fraud with FSD.
That said, I am bullish long term on EVs and hope to convert my primary car to an EV next year.
When there will be money and the profit in BEV, be sure they will be part of it. By the way Toyota has advanced the research with solid state batteries the most
I once had a private conversation with a Ford exec who was basically in-charge of the EV team. He thought it will be hard for them to ever catch up to Telsa, if at all.
They just have so much damn money because of their stock is so inflated.
Telsa will have to majorly mess up to lose its head start on the other companies.
The biggest bottle neck that is getting batteries made.
Tesla's inflated stock makes it easy to acquire companies, but Tesla lacks cash flow so it is hard to acquire debt and enter into long-term contracts. Few companies are going to accept $150M in today's Tesla stock as collateral for an agreement to purchase $30M in parts every year for five years unless you give them the stock today so they can unload it. The idea that Tesla has some magic beans when it comes to batteries seems to be driven more by Tesla fanboys than by people in the biz (quick reality check: Tesla's batteries are made by Panasonic and not Tesla, oh and last month Panasonic dumped the entire hoard of Tesla stock they had been holding.) Tesla has some useful long-term agreements with Panasonic but they seem to have far less battery IP than you are suggesting.
Yes, batteries are a limiting factor, but there are a lot of companies out there not named Tesla that know a hell of a lot about lithium battery cells and unlike Tesla some of these companies actually produce batteries.
The reality is other automakers can't put out EVs right this minute, even if they wanted to. There aren't enough batteries.
Tesla will likely continue to ramp up production while the other automakers struggle to get any going on the scale they need or want.
And the Telsa battery packs that they use (Panasonic or not) are way more advanced than many other companies can produce at scale right now, or likely in 2-3 years from now.
Other automakers _are_ putting out EVs. Right this minute. I have a choice of several nice EVs here in Europe and Tesla is not at the top of my list if I were in the market. So far you are making a lot of unfounded claims and assumptions regarding the struggles of other automakers, but what I can see is that those automakers are just starting to ramp up production and while they 'struggle' they are collectively selling more EVs than Tesla. The VW group alone appears to have sold as many EVs last year as Tesla. The model 3 may be the best selling model of EV, but others are closing the gap and as purchasers start to value novelty less and features and build quality more the Tesla offerings are going to seem less impressive.
