Electric Vehicle Thread!

[wco81]

GM and Ford both show greater sales growth of EVs in 2024 than Tesla.

Tesla’s fourth-quarter sales didn’t live up to lofty expectations. One reason might be improving competition.

Ford Motor and General Motors on Friday reported their year-end U.S. delivery figures. They both turned in a solid year of electric-vehicle sales, growing faster than the overall U.S. EV market.

Ford sold 30,176 all-electric cars in the fourth quarter, up about 16% year over. Mustang Mach-E sales led the way up 36%. F-150 Lightning sales lagged down about 10%.

For the full year, EV came in at 97,865 vehicles, up 35%. Hybrid sales amounted to 187,426 vehicles, up 40%. Total U.S. sales came in at 2.1 million vehicles, up 4% year over year.


Ford stock was up 0.7% in midday trading, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively. GM stock rose shortly after the results were released, and Tesla stock is now up nearly 4%.

GM sold about 44,000 all-electric cars —a quarterly record, and up about 126% year over year. For the year, GM sold about 114,000 EVs, up more than 50% compared with 2023. Total U.S. sales came in at 2.7 million vehicles, up about 4% year over year.

Overall, Americans are on pace to buy about 1.3 million all-electric cars in 2024, up 5% to 10% from 2023. Ford and GM did better than the market. That wasn’t the case for Tesla, though it still dominates U.S. EV sales with about 50% market share. Tesla’s regional numbers aren’t available yet, but through September it sold some 471,000 EVs to Americans, down about 5% year over year.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-ev-stock-ford-gm-a3bf755d

Moreover, Ford and GM both reported the highest sales since 2019, the last year before the pandemic.

The unit growth from 2023 to 2024 were all driven by EV sales.

GM said sales were driven by increases in all four of its U.S. brands as well as a roughly 50% increase in sales of electric vehicles to more than 114,400 units.

Despite the notable increase in EV sales, the vehicles only made up 4.2% of the automaker’s overall sales. GM estimated it achieved a 12% EV market share in the U.S. during the fourth quarter.

It was a similar trend at Ford, which reported a notable increase in sales of its “electrified” vehicles, including EVs and hybrids.

Ford on Friday reported 2024 sales of 2.08 million vehicles, up from just under 2 million in 2023. In 2019, the automaker sold 2.42 million vehicles in the U.S. For the fourth quarter, Ford reported an 8.8% year-over-year increase in sales to 530,660 vehicles sold.

That automaker said full-year sales of its vehicles with traditional internal combustion engines increased 0.2% compared to 2023, while sales of electrified vehicles increased 38.3% year over year.

Electrified vehicles, including hybrids and EVs, represented 13.7% of Ford’s total annual sales.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/03/ford-2024-us-sales.html

So considering that GM and Ford both talked about delaying the rollout of EVs, it turns out double-digit sales growth of EVs compared to 2023 accounted for most of the unit volume increase year over year, while ICE vehicle sales remained flat or grew very modestly.

Still, the sales numbers are the best in 5 years, again because of EVs.

 

[fehu]

This
Affordable, small, nice looking (ok it's personal), well built.

Maybe in some years, they will upgrade the batteries to be lighter and faster charging, and then it will be definitive as a city car.

Fiat Grande Panda

All details and specs of the Fiat Grande Panda (2024). Compare price, lease, real-world range and consumption of every electric vehicle.

ev-database.org

 

[Mariner]

Interesting new model there. Not quite sure the styling would be for me (certain of it, in fact!), but it looks a well-designed vehicle.

I wonder what is going on with the strange acceleration situation, though? The relatively slow creep to motorway speed isn't much of an issue on smaller roads and in town, but the lack of instant acceleration seems an odd choice. Given the way electric motors work with immediate high levels of torque, this must surely be a software choice? Seems very odd to me.

Anybody else have any ideas why this might be an issue which wouldn't be related to a design choice?

 

[Albuquerque]

Electric motors are, in a way, built like internal combustion engines -- if you want to produce massive torque reliably, you have to build a far more stout device than something which can live with a lot less torque. In an ICE motor, this is thicker crank mains and journals, a sturdier block with stronger main caps or even a main girdle, along with stronger connecting rods, stronger wristpins, more durable main cap and rod-end and cylinder head bolts (or even studs...)

In an electric motor, this means a very high current delivery and handling capability. High current handling requires far more copper in the windings (and room to hold all those windings), a stronger stator casing to hold it all together and stay firmly attached to the frame, a stronger rotor assembly to connect to the (thicker) axles or single-step gearcase, and of course a stronger gear case. All this amperage in the motor also must keep cool otherwise the overly-expanding rotor can and will grind itself into the stator windings (remember: heat expansion!) The \power delivery TO that motor assembly also needs similar treatment: a battery pack optimized for high amperage output, voltage control systems meant to manage lower outputs (idling down the street) and also support higher throughput (full acceleration), and all the thick copper wiring to carry said amperage. Finally, all that non-motor equipment I just listed also needs additional cooling to make sure it doesn't burn up.

Radical changes in electrical load carrying capacity is very much not so simple as a software change.

 

[Mariner]

But, in the review, she said that you put your foot down and it does nothing for a couple of seconds before kicking in. Not gradually increasing torque as you get with an ICE, but on and off. Of course, I could have misunderstood what she was trying to say on the review.

Ultimately, it's the first time I've ever heard of an electric vehicle being slow off the line, or slow to react. Even the likes of the Leaf were always noted as being nippy around town, even though not quick.

It just seems very strange to me.

 

[Albuquerque]

Maximum torque of any electric motor is at zero RPM, which also equates to maximum power consumption. Limited power delivery due to all the things I listed above would result in feeling unresponsive or even laggy off the line. At the same time, the reviewer's way of explaining things does leave it a bit ambiguous.

I'm still pretty convinced it's an efficiency play. In our Tesla Model Y Performance, it's amazing how gutless the chill mode truly feels after driving it around in performance mode for hours or even days or weeks. Suddenly you're lurching yourself forward while pinning the throttle, your body working to counteract the g-forces which never arrive. It feels lethargic and broken, until you realize it's just limiting power in order to maintain a higher level of efficiency (at your own request, in my example.)