If you look at list of motor vehicle makers then Tesla is not in the top 50 makers in the world.
The global top makers by vehicle production are Toyota and Volkswagen each with over 10 million vehicles per year. The maker ranking about 20th are making about 1.2 million vehicles. Those would be Mitsubishi and BAIC of China.
Tesla made about 250,000 vehicles in 2018 and might make 400,000 in 2019. Optimistically, Tesla could reach 650,000 cars produced in 2020 and 1 million cars in 2021. This would involve maximizing production in Fremont and getting a rapid full ramp-up of the Shanghai factory.
However, Tesla had $21.5 billion in revenue in 2018 and might be about $25 billion in revenue in 2019 Tesla could reach $37-45 billion in sales in 2021.
Ford is making about $148 billion in revenue while selling about 5 to 6 million vehicles per year. Ford dividend payout was higher than their net income.
Ford is projected to have falling sales to about $141 billion in 2021. Vehicle sales have been falling at Ford.
Chevy, Ford and Nissan are all or mostly out of car production. Ford canceled all car models but the Mustang.
They are all shifting to trucks and SUVs and crossover vehicles.
Tesla will be coming out with the model Y crossover (mini-SUV) vehicle in 2020 and a Tesla truck is coming as well.
Telsa is achieving its sales without spending any money on advertising while Ford and GM spend about $4-5 billion per year on advertising.
Toyota is made $272 billion in revenue in 2018.
The Tesla stock channel highlighted the financial weakness of Ford and GM in a video.
Tesla will start using Maxwell battery technology in 2020. Telsa battery domination will start in 2020. They will have significantly longer lasting and higher energy density batteries. This will enable Tesla to use a mix of better prices and higher performance to win electric cars, electric trucks and with electric taxis.
Maxwell batteries could provide a 10-20% cost reduction for Tesla batteries and enable vastly higher battery production efficiency at factories.
This will enable Tesla to produce more battery products to meet demand cars and truck and energy storage. It will also boost profits.
Tesla Will Be Ten Times Better on Robo-Taxi Asset Costs
Electric taxis operational costs will mainly be functions of the longevity of the car and the autonomy. Tesla will have million-mile battery packs and million-mile cars. The main asset will have five times the life of competing services. Tesla will also use post-lease cars which means another 50% reduction in the fleet costs.
Tesla bought Maxwell Technologies for their dry battery technology. Maxwell has already proved 300 Wh/kg energy density is which 20-40% better than current Tesla batteries. Maxwell has a path with 15-25% improvement every 2-3 years. This should lead to 500 Wh/kg by 2027.
Tesla might be able to get 385 Wh/kg in batteries in 2020.
Tesla could reach $50 per kilowatt-hour with 500 Wh/kg. This would mean half the weight in batteries while producing the same level of energy as the best 250 Wh/kg batteries of today. This would mean $4000 instead of $12000 in batteries for an 80 kWh battery pack.
Ford and Many Other Car Companies Are Very Weak
Ford is very weak. They have high debt and are dependent upon trucks and SUVs. Most of the existing car companies do not have competitive electric cars and trucks. The value crossover from combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles is happening. This is where you get better value and performance from an electric vehicle than a combustion engine vehicle.
Comparisons of operating costs for fuel and electricity and maintenance show that electric cars are already better. Total cost of ownership advantages are with electric cars.
Tesla cars are getting better and better range and have superior performance.
SOURCES- Tesla, Wikipedia, Google Finance, Ford, Toyota, Tesla Stock Channel
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
You do have to multiply by a factor of 4 or so to allow for the fact that an Electric vehicle is usually above 80% efficient while an ICV is lucky to get 20%.
Still has a huge gap in energy density though.
Tesla IS a public company.
NASDAQ: TSLA
Tesla sales is growing exponentially while the other car companies sales are declining. Where Tesla is now is not as important as where they will be 10 years from now. And this doesn’t bode well for ICE cars. The other car company will have to switch to EV to survive.
500 Wh/kg = 1.8 MJ/ kg
That is very low compared to a liquid fuel like gasoline (46.4 MJ/kg) or the theoretical maximum for a lithium-air battery (43.1 MJ/kg). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
I use the energy density of lithium burning for the max of lithium air battery. Of course the in practice energy density of a battery will be somewhat less.
I thought that Tesla may just open that intellectual property after it has worked.
Despite capitalism, there has been some open patents, and what appears to be an attitude of sharing.
A public company wouldn’t do that, but the culture of it appears that way.
I would expect Tesla to start working on a European factory for 2021. And at some point, it may make sense to pick up shuttered legacy OEM factories for pennies.
One thing capitalism does really well is drive the cost of goods down if there is not a physical bottleneck of some sort. If and when Tesla shows self driving is possible, all cars will have it within years. Self driving would become like airbags in cars now, just another common feature. Think that Tesla can keep their software monopoly? Does Microsoft still have issues with rampant software piracy in China? As soon as one car maker gets it, other countries will find some way of making any patents, etc… on the self driving features available for their local car producers, somehow.
The post-lease idea won’t last. Elon is right that if they achieve FSD in Tesla Network, all their FSD vehicles become capital goods with MUCH higher prices based on what they can earn in the fleet. A $50k Model Y likely sells for at least $130k and Tesla has zero reason to lease it at a low price for a couple years. 100% of their production would sell out at prices based on what the cars can earn whether to an internal fleet holding or to external investors.
The no option to buy after lease expiration also fits this scenario where Tesla anticipates it’s cars being worth more after the leases expire than they were new and simply doesn’t want to agree to sell them at standard depreciated prices in the lease contract. This situation wouldn’t persist after FSD is proven.