I’m not saying the should be valued higher. But it is at least notable that a Toyota has been the best selling car every year for the last 20 or so, until last year when it was the Model Y.
Meanwhile Toyota has been caught unsure of if they should build gas, electric, or hydrogen cars. Fortunately, as a fan of Toyota’s cars, it seems like they’ve figured out a good strategy forward. But for every Toyota there is a BlackBerry, IBM, Reebok, or Blockbuster who doesn’t figure out how to adapt to a changing market in time.
You are using a pretty deceptive number when looking at the highest selling car. What is the biggest seller for Toyota? the RAV4, which helpfully counts as "not a car".
I think for Toyota's main market the hybrid model still makes very much sense. EV is still a huge premium. Nice if you live outside the city and can charge your car with your own solar panels. Too clumsy to deal with in the city with the scarce public charge points.
And Toyota is a budget to mid range brand. For high end (the customers where the premium doesn't matter) they have lexus.
Massive amounts of anti-fossil fuel powered car legislation being passed, or being talked about, and Tesla being the clear market leader in the electric vehicle space.
I have no love for Tesla and I won't buy one as long as Elon Musk owns it.
But alas I think most major automakers are massively dropping the ball on EVs. I'm particularly disappointed in Toyota and Honda - I really expected better from them.
Where's the Corolla EV or the Civic EV? How about a nice little hatchback? Nope. Everyone's building crossovers, compact SUVs, fuckin' pickup trucks - it's a complete clownshow.
One thing that’s frustrating is that everyone is converging to a few form factors instead of trying to fill each other’s gaps. There aren’t really any sporty things, and even the F-150 electric is only barely at 150-class specs (the bed is tiny).
Also, the number of boneheaded moves by the legacy car companies is astounding.
Ford just pushed their roadmap out a few years. Stellantis has nothing(?). Chevy dropped the ball by discontinuing their best model and then deciding not to pursue the “people that own cell phones” market segment.
I think the list of top ten global automakers will be very different in ten years. These companies seem likely to be on it (no particular order), based on current lineups of native EV platforms:
Tesla, Rivian, Volvo (polestar), Kia, Mercedes, BMW, Hyundai, and probably Ford, despite the delays.
I’m leaving Genesis and Vinfast off my US-centric list, but they’re certainly contenders.
I suspect, without knowing the actual situation with Chevy, that this is a somewhat oblique reference to some grievance with their approach to Android Auto/CarPlay (or lack there of).
The extra up front cost and greater long term depreciation of a Corolla EV or civic EV is not worth it compared to a gas hybrid car for anyone that drives 10k miles per year, maybe even 15k miles per year.
Toyota’s gas hybrid tech has decades of track record that they will hold their value.
A Corolla or Civic EV implies a relatively cheap, really good quality, reliable car that holds its value. Not literally those bodies on an electric platform, but something that embodies those characteristics in an electric vehicle. I guess I used to have faith that if anyone could crack that problem, it would be the two Japanese giants.
The performance and cost of batteries is still changing fast enough that it doesn't make all that much sense for them to be dipping their toe in the water. They are investing in battery tech and are pretty likely to launch good vehicles when batteries that have good range and charge fast hit some target price point.
The market for electric vehicles that cost quite a bit more than similar size vehicles exists, but it's not like people that are shopping on a budget are going to choose based on performance and prestige, they are going to choose based on price, and conventional vehicles can still be built for lower costs.
The issue is, if you want to make an EV cheap enough to sit in the Civic/Carolla market, it still ends up being useless for most people because you can't afford to equip it with a large battery. Not to mention the only way an EV makes sense is if you can charge it with your own utility power, having to go and sit at a charger for 30+ minutes isn't, and will never be, tenable for most people.
Think about who's buying Civics and Corollas. It's apartment dwellers mostly, and they don't have chargers, nor can they. Maybe their parking lot has chargers, and those will be expensive, and they could use public chargers, which are also expensive, but you're talking basically making the cost 1:1 with a gas car at that point, but less convenient, less range, heavier, and all that assumes you can even sell it in that price bracket. It simply makes no sense for the majority of consumers. You'd have to invert the gas/electric pricing, which, given current trends, isn't likely to happen.
Now will that always be the case? Very likely not, eventually we'll have cheap power, eventually enough people will be driving EV's that gasoline loses its scale advantage. Until then, the EV market will stay mid-high end, and that means crossovers/suv's/trucks/etc.
Some people view that as dreadfully bad, myself, I'm happy that EV's are being developed and sold. By the time the world is ready for them, they're going to be very, very good, and that's the point which I'll be buying one. That is assuming I don't nab myself a late 90's ford ranger with a blown motor and build my own EV first.
Americans in the majority prefer pickup trucks, SUVs and crossovers. Ford entirely quit making sedans and hatchbacks a few years ago, at least for North America.
Tesla primarily sells into coastal cities where the driving conditions and use cases are ideal for an EV sedan. That said, most of the people I know with a Tesla also have an ICE SUV or truck.
The world is a lot bigger than the US. And valuation is not actual value but more whatever the current overhyped investor thinks it's going to bring in the future.
Tesla combines Model 3 and Model Y sales when they report results, so we don't actually know that. According to estimates*, and my own eyes, more Model 3s are sold than Model Ys.
* 2021 is the last year for which Wikipedia has estimates for both vehicles. The Model 3 sold over 1m, the Model Y around 400k.
Right but some countries (incl China) have explicit registration data so these estimates are not a shot in the dark. From Jose Pontes' article where the Wikipedia Y estimates came from, there were 530k 3s sold and 1.2M Ys sold
I owned a Tesla and could write a Master's dissertation on it. Interestingly, me buying the Tesla car was my life's shittiest investment but the Tesla shares I bought around that time (mid 2019) were my best investment.
I drove a Volvo after that, until landing in a very dangerous accident recently (the Volvo literally saved my life). Now I'm driving a rental Honda (which was my starter car on which I learnt to drive). Both beat Tesla by a mile.
Yeah Volvo is great at safety. And reliability too. I owned a 10 year old one that cost me a couple thousand, drove it for years without notable maintenance except the usual oil change and it kept going <3
So much better than my Skoda where half the dashboard fell apart and the gearbox suddenly just "crashed"
If I ever own a car again it'll be a Volvo :) won't be an EV for sure because I always buy old cars, i just hate spending a lot on a car. It's not important in my life and the past 6 years I haven't even owned one and rented one only once.
In my experience driving them. I like manual buttons and safety. Granted, the Tesla was the first car I bought and it was an amazing car in and of itself, but the ICE experience was far better. The software side sucks (I don't know why people keep praising Tesla for it).
Valuation is based on future, not past performance. Toyota is looking a bit stale and weak lately. They are loosing market share. Amongst others to BYD and Tesla in a market that Tesla single handedly created. And Toyota's portion of that is so pathetic it's barely worth talking about.
It's gotten so bad that Toyota is currently actually outsourcing EVs to BYD at the same time that company is grabbing market share from them. Not a great look if you have to ask your fastest growing competitor to please build a product for you.
Tesla is of course taking a few big bets that may or may not pay off. Many people are rightfully somewhat skeptical about all that but it is a bit disingenuous to portray them as just a car company given their growing number of "definitely not a car" type products and services. E.g. battery storage is bringing in quite a bit of revenue now for them and is one of the things that is rapidly growing. And of course the whole robots, AI, and FSD angle has lots of potential. Regardless of whether you believe Tesla can do that or not.
This article is about OpenAI who is getting quite stellar valuations in that area. Tesla is of course part of that market. Toyota very much isn't.
In short, Tesla might fail or they might succeed. In the same way Toyota might recover or they might not. To be honest, both companies have issues. But I have more confidence in Tesla than Toyota. Toyota seems a company without ambition and vision. Tesla can't be accused of that. Toyota's vision is to do what all their competitors are doing right now but in ten years. Tesla's vision is to do in ten years what nobody is doing right now.
Again, you might not believe in any of that. But you might be wrong. That's the gamble you make in the stock market with either company. And the share price is just a reflection of what people buying shares right now believe.
