On 27 Apr 2026 at 13:38, Marco Gaxiola via EV wrote: > [EV manufacturing] is in fact unsustainable till now for most if not all > auto OEMs except for Tesla
The Nissan Leaf was profitable in 2014, 3 years on. If memory serves, it took Honda about that long to make their Accord profitable after they introduced it in 1976. It takes a while to make money on a truly new design. I haven't checked lately, but last time I did, in 2023, since 2018 Renault had been making about as much profit on each EV as they did on the equivalent ICEV. For example, their margin on the Zoe was about the same as their margin on the Clio. Things are changing and EVs will become more profitable, and also more affordable. Dedicated EV platforms are an up front investment, but they adapt to different types and sizes of vehicles, cutting development costs long term. Battery prices per kWh keep falling. And as EV sales percentage rises, economy of scale improves. Once development cost is amortized, there's no reason that an EV shouldn't be cheaper to manufacture than an ICEV. Parts count is lower. Already in China the average price of an EV is lower than that of an ICEV. > I'm not really sure that with Ghosn's commitment to EVs, with just the Leaf > or with Mitsubishi's MiEV on the markets at the time, would've caused a big > difference at all, these all were mostly compliance cars with limited range > and with traditional legacy auto design approach, designed with no customer > in mind, no desire to innovate, etc. Tesla's start-at-the-high-end approach worked fine in the US, where it found rich and upper middle class buyers looking for various combinations of prestige, high-tech goodies, and "green cred." Let's not forget those delightful fart noises. :-\ That was never going to work in price-sensitive Europe. Model S sales were never strong; it was the wrong car at the wrong price. Tesla didn't take off in Europe until they offered a car better suited to European streets, garages, and budgets. Even then, when they first introduced the 3 in Europe, they set the price too high, appreciably more than the euro equivalent of the US dollar price. And it was *still* too large and expensive for some European buyers. I don't think it's fair to say that Nissan/Renault "designed with no customer in mind, no desire to innovate, etc." though that may have been true of the US mainstream automakers. Ghosn had an EU perspective and understood EU customers. The early Nissan Leaf's range may not have been great for the US and its wide open spaces, but Europe is smaller and has an ongoing taste for city cars. Same for its cousin the Renault Zoe. Neither needed extended range for their EU use case as city cars and second cars, though both got vastly improved range after 2017. Renault also had a canny sales scheme. Except in Norway, they sold the car and leased the battery. That made the purchase price comparable to a similar ICEV, and nuked customer concerns about eventual battery replacement costs. VW had a slow start but seems to be finally catching up. I'm not so sure about Stellantis. They have some good ideas, but I don't think their execution is there yet. A friend of mine loves his Fiat Grand Panda EV though. All that said, I think that in future Chinese EVs are more likely to own Europe. Their automakers develop new models quickly and cheaply. And their prices in China vs Europe show us that nobody is going to beat them in an EV price war. David Roden, EVDL moderator & general lackey To reach me, don't reply to this message; I won't get it. Use my offlist address here : http://evdl.org/help/index.html#supt = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = In every country, they make fun of city. In US you make fun of Cleveland. In Russia, we make fun of Cleveland. --Yakov Smirnoff = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ Address messages to [email protected] No other addresses in TO and CC fields HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/ OT: If you use an Android device, please read https://keepandroidopen.org/
