The German concern BMW AG has, for the first time, outpaced the American company Tesla in the sale of electric cars in the European Union.
Reminder that Tesla is still under union blockade in Sweden for refusing to recognize any Swedish unions, and has been flying in strike breakers from other EU countries.
Any recent movements or updates?
Here’s an article from this week on the situation:
https://arbetet.se/2024/08/22/fackets-stamning-av-tesla-fastnade-i-den-fackliga-postblockaden/
The Mechanics’ Union sued Tesla in June for violating the Swedish Union Reprentation Law, however, the Labor Court has not been able to serve Tesla since they are under blockade by the Postal Workers’ Union. The Labor Court has now contacted Teslas lawyers to get the ball rolling.
Not too much happening on the strike front unfortunately. There was a fun incident where Tesla couldn’t sell cars because the postal workers wouldn’t deliver the license plates to them, and by law it’s only the national postal service that is allowed to deliver license plates. They seem to have worked out a workaround though where Tesla is picking up the plates themselves.
The unions have the cash and support to continue the strike indefinitely, so the end result will either be that Musk takes his weird antiunion ideology blindfold off, or Tesla leaves Sweden.
I just got my BMW i5. The car is provided by my employer. But I would buy it myself. It is well thought out, has a usable dashboard l, head up und so much convenient stuff.
Also, the build quality is great. Compared to the garbage provided by tesla it is a different world
It’s something I’ve been considering getting but the one thing that really gets me about it is it’s essentially an ICE car with its engine swapped out for a battery and electric motor. It’s so big and heavy.
I haven’t gotten to test drive one yet, so maybe it doesn’t feel as bad when driving. I know not really the same class (though surprisingly close in cost) but I’ve been leaning towards the mach e GT (one thing Tesla got right is their supercharger network and Ford can take advantage of that).
I’m also half hoping they come out with a sedan built from the ground up as an EV. I considered the i4, but at that price there’s a lot of great cars that would probably be better.
Did your company buy them or lease? I don’t think I can bring myself to actually buy an EV. I’m still not sure how the battery will be in 10+ years.
We are leasing our cars.
Regarding the feel: The car does feel surprisingly light. Besides his 2.2 metric tons.
At least here in Europe, the Tesla superchargers work with the car.
Not sure if this generation is already available in the US. I am german, so BMW is a natural choice ;).
Currently, BMW is using the same base for combustion and electric cars to safe costs ans be more flexible how to fit the chassis. That may be a reason for the success.
Nor sure how the price in the US is, the list price for my nearly fully equipped i5 is around 90k€. The only thing I am missing is the pneumatic dampeners. They come only with red or blue breaks, and company policy does not allow for “racing looks”.
Yea, that’s more or less the same cost a fully loaded i5 would be in the US. Works out to be about 15k more than the normal 5 series, more or less.
Currently only Ford and Rivian can use Tesla chargers in the US. BMW, Mercedes and a bunch of others have announced partnerships with Tesla late 2023 / early 2024 but they haven’t released the adapters or technically allowed to use it just yet.
I’m absolutely in love with the i7 (the 7 series in general), but the i5 is the closest I’ll get and even then it’s really hard to justify since I really don’t drive a whole lot.
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Bit early to celebrate isn’t it?
Tesla has sold 178,700 models in Europe through July, compared to BMW, with 97,525,
“BMW sold more EVs in Europe than Tesla last month, the first month any company beat Tesla.”
You: “But what about the months before that?!”
I mean… yes? I’m not saying it’s not news, but people are acting like this means BMW is now firmly leading EV sales when car sales are famously volatile month to month for a variety of reasons and it’s not like things have been neck and neck. Tesla is still clearly leading, at least for now.
As I said it’s definitely news worthy, but it seems like people are overreacting.
Another commenter pointed out these numbers also seem to include hybrids as well, so even less significant. Let’s see how things go for the rest of the year.
It’s only a matter of time same happens in the US. Elon has made Tesla brand extremely toxic for anyone other than his fanboys
Not only that but established brands simply have many more production lines that if they switch to fully electrict can outproduce Tesla tenfold.
That’s absolutely a factor but it’s also all the issues that are popping up regarding build quality.
Bad deliveries/customer service, issues with door panels, water leaks, general build quality, etc. There are a lot of things right as well but like you said, he’s tainting the image and further putting negative pressure on the brand.
Sacking the charging network team was the killer. It’s going down.
Investors, you’re getting fleeced now.
The investors are the ones who just voted him a ludicrous pay package. They are getting what they deserve
Yup
That’s absolutely a factor but it’s also all the issues that are popping up regarding build quality.
That stuff was always there. It’s all Elong, customers accepted the poor quality to buy an electric car and save the environment. But now there are many better options and Elong is just insulting that very same customer base so he can be an edgelord because he… IDK is sad inside or what ever dumb reason he does what he does.
Thank God BMW has its National Socialist era behind it
No longer do they live in the clouds serving evil and are much more grounded today.
Apparently every major car brand has to go through its fascist phase
Where as Tesla still has its ahead of it?
Thanks!
Euronews has been bought by Orbán last year
Jesus.
Most of the electric cars I see in carshares in Sweden are Nissans and Volkwagens.
I can’t wait for the Honda E to come to North America.
What a shame, they could have made a really big splash on the EV market if they released back then for ~25k. Perfect small car for the European market. Now the ID3 is here so they probably missed their chance.
Aw beans… :(
Aptera if you need something to hope for.
Yeah it’s a shame because the design was super cool. They were fairly expensive though and you can get basically any other hatchback with much higher range for a fraction of the cost.
As much as I would love to invest in a BMW, are they still selling subscriptions to access features like dashboard camera recordings and heated seats? I don’t remember if they walked that back, but I don’t trust them enough to not implement it in the future again if they did.
Yup! Just last week it was revealed that they would be doing their adaptive suspension that way: https://www.motortrend.com/news/bmw-adaptive-suspension-connected-drive-subscription/
SaaS - suspension as a service
Tell louis rossmann I said hi
I was too tired and lazy to look up and link his vid when I commented. I’m updating the comment now.
Better than Seats as a Service I suppose.
They didn’t walk back. In fact they doubled down. Fuck BMW.
And, like many automakers (but not all) they have ties to forced labor:
It appears German and Chinese automakers are the biggest offenders, where companies like Subaru are actively trying to remove it from their supply chains: https://m.subaru.ca/forced-and-child-labour-report
On January 11, Lear sent letters to BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo and VW AG informing them of the banned components. Despite that notification, in April 2024, after the committee explicitly asked both companies whether they ever “directly or indirectly sourced parts from JWD,” Jaguar Land Rover claimed to be unaware of its links to the manufacturer listed on the UFLPA Entity List, and BMW informed the committee that JWD was not on their “supplier list.” However, after repeated questions from the committee, BMW disclosed that at least 8,000 Mini Cooper cars containing JWD components had been shipped to the United States.
I’m not at all suprised at BMW being shady in that way but VW… well yes none of your links actually support lumping them into that category.
VW does happen to have a plant in Xinyang unconnected to human right abuses but seems to be mulling getting rid of it. Long story short the Chinese are going to actively avoid dragging VW into any shady stuff, VW’s whole presence in China is already very unpopular with the shop floor council because China is even more hostile to unions than the US. If VW catches the CCP working against VW guaranteeing its own labour standards in China then they’re just plainly going to leave, and with them all that technology transfer.
…and in case anyone is wondering yes the shop floor council absolutely does have the power to pull VW out of China.
Unfortunately this is only a half truth, as it’s only if you include plug in hybrids, which Tesla obviously doesn’t sell. On the total for July Tesla is only #22 in Europe, when including all types of cars. But they remain #1 on pure EV.
But the BMW i4 is a VERY nice car, and the competition is getting closer to Tesla too.
VW is pretty high too, and also has the Skoda Enyaq that is also nice, and the AUDI Q4. So I’m pretty sure VW combined will surpass Tesla on pure EV within 6 months. Volvo is also doing well, and AFAIK polestar is part of Volvo too.All in all, it’s very obvious that Tesla has much tougher competition now than they used to, and it seems to me that will increase further in the future.
Stelantis has some way to go, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out soon. Seems to me one of their problems is their batteries are still too small.
But when they figure it out, they will arrive in force, with Fiat, Opel, Citroen, Peugeot, which are all popular cars here in Europe. As it is now, they are all built around the same framework, and that’s not quite good enough IMO.I wouldn’t be surprised if next year around this time, Tesla has dropped to #4 in Europe on true EV.
I forgot they were all VW, explains why I am not gone on any of them anymore. Whatever trend they are following I am not onboard with their designs.
Also sickening the subscription stuff Audi are doing.
Oh boy are they doing it too? I fear that may be a thing that will spread.
idk man, the ID.3 is nice
Meh, back and sides look well. Sharp design is nice but looks a bit high and too sloped at the front.
I don’t think Stelantis can really compete against the Koreans who have very generous warranty policies. Stelantis has acquired a very bad reputation in the last decade. Their puretech engines were suffering from degrading timing belts. They issued recalls but then clients were often still billed by Stelantis. This left a very sour taste in the mouths of many car owners. I know many people who will never buy a Stelantis car again
I must admit I’ve not been impressed by Stelantis lately either. But they have a pretty big footprint in the lower end of the market here in Europe. If they can up their EV cars battery and keep prices down, I have no doubt they will be very popular.
Regarding the timing belt, the puretech engine started in the Peugeot 208 I according to wikipedia, the Peugeot 208 is an extremely popular car here, and anecdotally I never heard about the timing belt problem.
Despite that I know Stelantis is generally not the best quality, but they look good, and are cheap, and you get a lot of features/car for the money with the cheaper European sub brands I mentioned.
But Hyundai/KIA is bigger than Stelantis on EV, but their pricing here in EU is a bit expensive now compared to the competition.
