VW Says Tesla Has Just TWO Years Left At The Top

Jun. 18, 2022 6:09 AM ET byJared Rosenholtz Electric Vehicles /10 Comments

A new global EV leader will likely emerge soon.

It's easy to forget based on the company's limited market share here in the United States, but Volkswagen Group is one of the world's largest automakers,coming in second only to Toyota. Despite not even coming close to Toyota in global sales, Tesla is currently theworld's most valuable automakerbased on its lead in the electric vehicle space (and other factors). Tesla may own the largest slice of the EV piece right now, but a new study from Bloomberg claims that the US company's lead will only last another two years.

The report by Bloomberg Intelligence predicts Tesla's top EV sales spot will remain in place for at least another 18 months as "legacy" automakers struggle to reach meaningful sales numbers in 2022 and 2023. With rising battery costs and a lack of production capacity, there's no much financial incentive for any of these companies to even attempt catching up with Tesla. Any except one... Volkswagen.

Volkswagen is currently on track to overtake Tesla in global EV production by 2024 with Chinese company BYD trailing far behind in third place. This volume not only includes core products like theVolkswagen ID.4and upcomingID. Buzz, but also products from the group's other brands like Audi and Porsche. Despite a wave of new EVs coming from America and Asia, those automakers won't challenge for a top three spot until the latter half of the decade.

"Looking ahead, automakers in Europe, China and elsewhere will continue to challenge Tesla via an impending wave of new models, though profit incentives are limited amid rising battery costs and a lack of scale. That may change in 2025-26 as more brands achieve critical mass on new-generation models with proprietary software. There are a number of challenging external factors to consider and bold BEV ambitions have done little to prevent crisis-level valuation multiples, stoked by recession fears, rising interest rates, supply-chain constraints and inflation," says Michael Dean, Senior European Automotive Industry Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

VW may see more success in Europe and China, but here in the US market, Tesla will likely maintain its stranglehold on EV sales for several years. This advantage may start to wane as American automakers launch electric pickups (the best-selling vehicle class) before theTesla Cybertruckhits production.

"Ford is set to spin the electric vehicle narrative away from Tesla with the F-150 Lightning getting an early - and year-long - jump on the competition and making Ford the first automaker to ramp up production of a full-size battery-only pickup truck. General Motors and Tesla won't compete in the space before 2023 and Rivian's small scale makes it unthreatening," says Kevin Tynan, Senior North American Automotive Industry Analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence.