Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Grumpy_chap

QrizB said:

Grumpy_chap said:

This whole "Tesla could be 20-25% of global automotive sales by 2026" thing.  Ignore the time-frame, but is there any other consumer product where one company has anywhere near that level of dominance? 

Apple with the iPhone has a 15-20% share of the global market with only four(?) models. Samsung has roughly twice the market share but has more models than I care to count.

I am not sure that "smartphones" is a fair comparison - that is a product which Apple had 100% of the market and been going down ever since.  The true market is "mobile phones" and, again, it creates the difference between market share by value and market share by number of units sold.  Many millions of budget mobile phones are sold in the growing economies (where smartphones are unaffordable) but that high number of units does not relate to high value of sales.

The suggestion in the article upthread was that Tesla could sell 25% of global cars by number of units, not just 25% of global EV cars.  Tesla selling 25% of global EV cars is a more realistic prospect.

ABrass said:

Glasses, Diamonds, Microchips, Cloud computing. There's plenty of markets which are dominated by one, or a small number of companies.

I am not sure what you mean by glasses.  Drinking glasses.  Spectacles.  Window panes.  Structural glass.?

Diamonds are restricted because of ownership of the mines, which is down to geography, so an influence outside of free-market economics.

Microchips - according to the following article, no one company is more than around 15%:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266143/global-market-share-of-leading-semiconductor-vendors/

Cloud services are dominated by three companies, but I'd doubt that many would have named Amazon as the largest provider:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/967365/worldwide-cloud-infrastructure-services-market-share-vendor/

Generally, it is entirely true that nature and economics abhors a vacuum and as any technology matures, the dominance of any one provider always tends downwards.

Grumpy_chap

Electric Plane:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-59359263

Doesn't look like it will be regular commercial passenger flights yet though.

QrizB

Grumpy_chap said:

QrizB said:

Grumpy_chap said:

This whole "Tesla could be 20-25% of global automotive sales by 2026" thing.  Ignore the time-frame, but is there any other consumer product where one company has anywhere near that level of dominance? 

Apple with the iPhone has a 15-20% share of the global market with only four(?) models. Samsung has roughly twice the market share but has more models than I care to count.

I am not sure that "smartphones" is a fair comparison - that is a product which Apple had 100% of the market and been going down ever since.

Apple never had 100% of the market and smartphones were around long before the iPhone.

Grumpy_chap

QrizB said:

Grumpy_chap said:

QrizB said:

Grumpy_chap said:

This whole "Tesla could be 20-25% of global automotive sales by 2026" thing.  Ignore the time-frame, but is there any other consumer product where one company has anywhere near that level of dominance? 

Apple with the iPhone has a 15-20% share of the global market with only four(?) models. Samsung has roughly twice the market share but has more models than I care to count.

I am not sure that "smartphones" is a fair comparison - that is a product which Apple had 100% of the market and been going down ever since.

Apple never had 100% of the market and smartphones were around long before the iPhone.

I forgot all about Blackberry...

QrizB

Grumpy_chap said:

QrizB said:

Apple never had 100% of the market and smartphones were around long before the iPhone.

I forgot all about Blackberry...

... and Windows Mobile. The original iPhone was 2007; Windows Mobile had been on smartphones since 2002 (as Pocket PC 2002, then WinMo 2003, 2003SE, 5 and 6).

I had three WinMo smartphones before my first Android and I still have fond memories of my 2006 iPaq rw6800!

CKhalvashi

Grumpy_chap said:

QrizB said:

Grumpy_chap said:

QrizB said:

Grumpy_chap said:

This whole "Tesla could be 20-25% of global automotive sales by 2026" thing.  Ignore the time-frame, but is there any other consumer product where one company has anywhere near that level of dominance? 

Apple with the iPhone has a 15-20% share of the global market with only four(?) models. Samsung has roughly twice the market share but has more models than I care to count.

I am not sure that "smartphones" is a fair comparison - that is a product which Apple had 100% of the market and been going down ever since.

Apple never had 100% of the market and smartphones were around long before the iPhone.

I forgot all about Blackberry...

I believe Nokia came up with the original smartphone, but will have to check this.

I had a Blackberry before an iPhone, before settling on Samsung.

Apple as far as I'm aware has been the market leader, but this is an outlier case. The same could be said for Addison Lee who hold a c.10% share of the London market, but this is not replicated with any company globally.

I note AL will be 100% electric before any major tech company with their ID4 order. Focusing on this sector specifically as they are indirect competitors to us (same licenses, different business model).

JKenH

Article from Auto Express (electronic edition so unfortunately no link available). 

Personally I love car technology. When I was car shopping in 2017 Apple CarPlay was a must have and I spent a fortune getting it added to my Merc. Not everyone is like me however and I wonder if the high tech interiors of modern electric cars will be a turn off for some people. Take the Tesla touch screen which is a huge attraction to many but might limit the appeal to a significant section of car buyers (my wife for one). 

My neighbour recently purchased a new Audi and I went round to help her set up CarPlay but found the touch screen really difficult to use. I have heard similar complaints about the current Golf. She can drive the car fine without needing to use the touch screen (she hadn’t even heard of CarPlay) but as more manufacturers abandon physical buttons and switch to cheaper screen controlled functionality for their cars it might reach a stage where  people will reject a car just because of its modern tech. 

It seems Electric cars are the ones leading this type of tech and it may be that it has been a big selling point to date for tech lovers but may reach a point where it works against mass market sales. 

Now before someone points out how quickly smart phones were widely adapted and old push button phones abandoned I must make the point that while smart phones opened up a complete new world the latest button free tech in cars doesn’t actually add a great deal of functionality that wasn’t previously available using push buttons and in fact makes using controls more difficult. Can anyone say having to use a touchscreen to open the glovebox is progress?

It is being installed to keep manufacturing costs down and perhaps in Tesla’s case to differentiate it from the mainstream.

I actually like to keep my eyes on the road and in my Leaf am very pleased that most functions can be achieved by feel, particularly driving functions like selecting B mode or e-Pedal.

And finally just to drive the point home.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1134233_tesla-phone-key-outage-locks-some-out-of-their-cars-is-this-the-future

orrery

ABrass said:Glasses, Diamonds, Microchips, Cloud computing. There's plenty of markets which are dominated by one, or a small number of companies.

But not in such complex markets where style is so important and the product is so visible. There can only be so many Teslas on the road before people will aspire to have something different.

JKenH

orrery said:

ABrass said:Glasses, Diamonds, Microchips, Cloud computing. There's plenty of markets which are dominated by one, or a small number of companies.

But not in such complex markets where style is so important and the product is so visible. There can only be so many Teslas on the road before people will aspire to have something different.

Not everyone will want to be mistaken for an Uber driver.

Martyn1981

orrery said:

ABrass said:Glasses, Diamonds, Microchips, Cloud computing. There's plenty of markets which are dominated by one, or a small number of companies.

But not in such complex markets where style is so important and the product is so visible. There can only be so many Teslas on the road before people will aspire to have something different.

That's true, and they are starting to get quite common already. Once there is enough supply of BEV's, I can see that being a factor in Tesla's future car sales.

But obviously that won't effect the rental, taxi and robo-taxi markets.

Slight digression, but I have to say, seeing so many green stripe number plates around does put a smile on my face.