Tesla seen pulling away from GM for US electric car lead
MORE than a dozen automakers are jostling to lead the US electriccar race, but Bloomberg New Energy Finance sees a clear winner separating from the pack: Tesla Inc.
The auto maker led by Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk will emerge as ‘ the stand- out’ in total cumulative deliveries through 2021, reaching nearly 709,000 vehicles, according to BNEF’s Long-Term Electric Vehicle Outlook released Thursday. Tesla is projected to pull away from current leader General Motors, which may slip behind Volkswagen’s aggregate sales of plug-in hybrid and fully electric autos in four years’ time.
The report reinforces the optimism among some analysts that Tesla will be able to distance itself from established auto makers and dominate many of the world’s biggest markets for battery-powered vehicles. It also underscores the level of competition the company will face from established automakers, even before accounting for this week’s announcement by Volvo Car Group that all new models will have hybrid or fully electric powertrains from 2019.
“If they can stick to the Model 3 time-line, they’re going to be at the front edge of this for a while,” BNEF analyst Colin McKerracher said of Tesla in a phone interview.
Executing a smooth introduction of the Model 3 as demand for the Model S sedan and Model X sport utility vehicle appear to have plateaued has sapped from Tesla’s stock surge this year. The shares fell as much as five per cent Thursday after a 7.5 per cent plunge last Wednesday, the steepest one- day drop in more than a year.
While BNEF expects Tesla, VW and GM will lead the EV charge in 2021, the research group owned by Bloomberg LP predicts at least three other automakers will have also surpassed the 200,000 cumulative sales mark in the US by that year. After crossing that threshold, buyers are no longer eligible for the full federal US$ 7,500 tax credit toward purchases of vehicles from those manufacturers.
Hitting the 200,000 unit milestone would portend more sustainable demand for electric vehicles. Though BNEF does expect some impact from the federal tax credit phase- out, industry sales could be even higher because the analysts’ short-term forecasts are based only on electrified models disclosed to date.
Product introduction schedules for 2020 and 2021 are still taking shape. BNEF made its forecasts before Volvo said last Wednesday it’ll have five electric models in its lineup by 2021.
“Tesla will face intense competition by next decade from legacy OEMs who are expanding their electric options,” Brian Johnson, an analyst at Barclays Plc, wrote in a note to clients Wednesday. “We’ve long argued that Tesla as an EV company is not truly disruptive, in that legacy OEMs will eventually wake up and offer fully electric vehicles by the early 2020s.”
The prediction BNEF settled on that Volkswagen could climb to the No. 2 spot by 2021 was the “the most contentious” of the research group’s projections, McKerracher said. The German automaker doesn’t yet have the same presence in the US market as other electric- focused auto makers, though the opportunity is there for the company to rank among the leaders based on all the vehicle launches it’s announced.