Profits like Tesla? – “Inconceivable in the next five years”

The period of interim balances has begun again in the auto industry, corporations such as General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Ford and Volkswagen will be presenting their quarterly figures next week. Virtually all will report huge gains despite chip shortages and global crises.

In addition to the profits, the focus is primarily on numbers that provide information about future viability. In particular, the number of electric cars sold. Their sales are growing rapidly around the world, while cars with petrol and diesel engines are being sold less and less.

Tesla is currently the clear leader as the global market leader. Elon Musk's company sold around 908,600 vehicles by the end of September 2022, and experts expect more than 1.3 million for the year as a whole.

The Chinese rival BYD already has 1.17 million vehicles. However, it also includes plug-in hybrids, with electric and combustion engines, which account for around half of sales.

With 366,400 pure electric cars sold since the beginning of the year, the Volkswagen Group is far behind Tesla. Measured by the growth in electric mobility, the increase of 25 percent compared to the previous year appears to be rather moderate. The e-sales figures for BMW (128,200) and Mercedes-Benz (75,400) are even smaller.

In view of these figures, Tesla's lead in software and IT is accompanied by a size advantage in production, says Ferdinand Dudenhöffer from the Center Automotive Research. Tesla leads "almost uncatchable in the important economies of scale, i.e. best cost conditions".

The very high profit margins that Tesla achieves with its electric cars are "inconceivable for the German car companies in the next five years". One reason for the economies of scale is Tesla's narrow model range with four vehicles.

Bloomberg analysts expect the manufacturer to sell 760,000 Model Ys worldwide in 2022. Last year, the car would have been the fourth best-selling car in the world - including a combustion engine. Last year, the Model 3 was already in the top ten.

The list has so far been dominated by Toyota and Honda. German models are not among the global bestsellers.