{"id":25464,"date":"2022-06-26T12:03:58","date_gmt":"2022-06-26T16:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=25464"},"modified":"2022-06-26T12:03:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T16:03:58","slug":"vw-tesla-ev-dominance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=25464","title":{"rendered":"Tesla and\u00a0VW duke it out for EV dominance"},"content":{"rendered":"

McDonalds versus Burger King. Apple versus Microsoft. Coca-Cola versus Pepsi. The business world is riddled with rivalries. A new one may be taking shape as Volkswagen tries to unseat Tesla as the leading maker of electric cars.<\/span><\/p>\n

VW<\/a> is in a \u201cgood second position\u201d behind Tesla<\/a> on EVs and making progress on battery<\/a> production, charging infrastructure and software, Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess said Wednesday at a tech conference in Berlin. \u201cWe think we can close the gap a little bit in the next months,\u201d he said. Europe\u2019s biggest automaker could overtake its US rival as soon as 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts predicted last week.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk<\/a> disputed this\u00a0Tuesday during the Qatar Economic Forum,\u00a0telling\u00a0Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait that he \u201cwould not agree\u201d with the\u00a0forecast.\u00a0He\u00a0instead praised\u00a0Chinese carmakers before saying that at Tesla, \u201cwe don\u2019t really think about other competitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not so sure about that. Many of Tesla\u2019s competitors long laughed it off as an upstart on feeble financial footing\u00a0before their electric about-faces, so it must feel good to still be miles ahead\u00a0when it comes to\u00a0selling battery-powered cars. But Musk himself has acknowledged VW is rapidly electrifying, and has praised Diess for doing so.\u00a0He\u2019s clearly paying close attention.<\/p>\n

Tesla delivered more than 936,000 EVs worldwide last year, while VW sold some 453,000 fully electric cars<\/a>. Musk has\u00a0christened\u00a0new factories this year in Austin, Texas, and near Berlin \u2014\u00a0the latter is basically in VW\u2019s backyard \u2014\u00a0and Tesla is\u00a0on track to produce more than 1.5 million vehicles this year, Musk\u00a0said in April.<\/p>\n

Still, the Germans are pushing hard to catch up. VW has earmarked some \u20ac52 billion ($55 billion)\u00a0through 2026 to develop and produce electric cars. This includes setting up a new \u20ac2 billion EV\u00a0factory\u00a0in Germany and plans to build up six battery factories across Europe, several of which will involve partnerships. It\u2019s also making a bold move to gain market share in the US, where it\u2019s\u00a0reviving the defunct brand Scout with rugged electric SUV and pickup models.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s noteworthy that\u00a0Tesla\u2019s Austin and Berlin plants\u00a0have been experiencing\u00a0teething problems, losing \u201cbillions of dollars\u201d as they try to ramp up, Musk said in a May 31\u00a0video interview\u00a0released Wednesday. During the Qatar event, Musk detailed his decision to cut costs by dismissing about 10% of Tesla\u2019s salaried employees over the next three months, or about 3.5% of its global workforce.\u00a0VW and Tesla have also\u00a0suffered from\u00a0Covid-related lockdowns at their\u00a0factories in China<\/a>, but recent remarks from Musk and Diess suggest the situation is improving.<\/p>\n

Tesla still trumps VW on Wall Street. Even after the recent rout, the US carmaker is valued at around $734 billion \u2014\u00a0more than eight\u00a0times VW\u2019s market capitalization. The Germans do have an ace up their sleeve\u00a0making\u00a0slick sports cars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

VW is\u00a0sticking to plans\u00a0to list its Porsche<\/a> unit in the fourth quarter, CFO Arno Antlitz told my colleague Elisabeth Behrmann on Wednesday at a Bloomberg-organized finance conference in Frankfurt. The Porsche listing is poised to be one of Germany\u2019s biggest-ever IPOs and could value the business at as much as \u20ac90 billion. Porsche is a highly profitable brand and is far along in its electric transformation, with its Taycan<\/a> EV already outselling the legendary 911.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bold move charging ahead with the share sale given that\u00a0IPOs globally have slowed dramatically this year. Investors are shying away from risks because of the war in Ukraine, rising interest rates and runaway inflation. Swiss firm ABB on Monday postponed the $750 million listing of its EV charging business until the market improves.<\/p>\n

Antlitz pitched Porsche as a safe haven for investors eager to sidestep the drop in tech and EV stocks, arguing the brand has proven resilient in the face of disruptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still capital out there and there\u2019s a lot of skepticism about investing capital in technology companies, in new ventures,\u201d he said. Porsche, on the other hand, \u201cis very solid.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McDonalds versus Burger King. Apple versus Microsoft. Coca-Cola versus Pepsi. The business world is riddled with rivalries. A new one may be taking shape as Volkswagen tries to unseat Tesla as the leading maker of electric cars. VW is in a \u201cgood second position\u201d behind Tesla on EVs and making progress on battery production, charging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}