Last month, BMW sold more electric cars than Tesla for the first time in Europe. BMW led the market for the first time despite slowing EV sales in Germany, France, and Belgium. With EV sales climbing, BMW is narrowing the gap with Tesla in the EU.
According to new data from Jato Dynamics, 1.03 million vehicles were registered in Europe last month, up 2% compared to last year. Despite sales slipping in Germany (-2%), France (-2%), and Belgium (-7%), other EU markets helped drive growth.
Portugal (+19%), Poland (+19%), and Slovakia (+12%) helped boost sales, while the UK (+3%), Italy (+5%), and Spain (+5%) saw modest growth.
In July, SUVs set a new record with 554,000 units registered, up 6% YOY. BMW, Toyota, Mercedes, and Volvo owner Geely were the top growth drivers. Meanwhile, Volkswagen was the volume leader with a 26% share, followed by Hyundai (including Kia) at 12%.
Luxury (F-SUVs) led the growth, with 5,022 models registered, up 32% YOY. Large SUVs were up 23% (27,600), while registrations of mid-size models fell 7% (106,500) last month.
The new BMW i4 M50 xDrive (Source: BMW)
BMW leads EV sales growth, tops Tesla for the first time
According to Jato’s data, European electric vehicle sales fell 6% YOY in July 2024. With 139,300 new models registered last month, the EV market share fell to 13.5% from 14.6% in July 2023.
BMW led EV sales in Europe for the first time last month, with EV sales reaching 14,869, up 35%. Tesla was second with 14,561 models registered, followed by Volkswagen (12,213), Volvo (10,533), and Audi (8,618).
Top-selling EV models in Europe July 2024 (Source: Jato Dynamics)
BMW’s latest models, including the iX1, i4, and i5, saw considerable growth, while the new iX2 notched over 1,300 registrations.
The iX1 and i4 were the sixth and seventh best-selling EVs in Europe last month, with 4,305 (+25%) and 4,198 (+23%) models registered.
Despite registrations slipping 16% YOY, Tesla’s Model Y was still the top-selling EV last month in Europe, with 9,544 units sold.
Top-selling EV brands in Europe July 2024 (Source: Jato Dynamics)
Another highlight from the report is Volvo’s climbing market share. Volvo was the market share winner, gaining 5.5%, followed by BMW at 3.2%. Volvo’s new EX30 was the second best-selling EV in Europe, with 6,573 registrations in July.
Although Tesla’s registrations slipped 16% to 14,561, it still maintains a dominant lead YTD. Tesla has sold 178,700 models in Europe through July, compared to BMW, with 97,525, and VW, with 88,445.
Tesla’s new Model 3 Performance (Photo: Courtesy of Tesla Inc.)
While Tesla is still the clear leader through the first seven months of 2024, BMW, Volvo, and others are gaining market share.
Electrek’s Take
With new models hitting the market, Tesla’s market share was destined to fall. The same is happening in the US, as Tesla’s share slipped below 50% for the first time.
More recently, we learned Tesla is testing a cheaper Model 3 interior in Mexico, starting at around $35,000 (749,000 pesos). Will we see it hit other markets like Europe or the US?
Tesla also launched the Cybertruck, which is not available in Europe. However, the Cybertruck is gaining ground in the US as the fifth best-selling EV in the second quarter.
The Cybertruck topped Ford’s F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T to become America’s top-selling electric pickup in Q2.
Elon wants the US military to start buying Tesla Cybertrucks – and now they are! The Air Force has ordered two Cybertruck testers for target practice to determine how easy they are to blow up, while Jo makes up a whole new conspiracy theory on today’s explosive episode of Quick Charge!
Today’s episode is brought to you by retrospec—makers of sleek, powerful e-bikes and outdoor gear built for everyday adventure. Electrek listeners can get 10% off their next ride until August 14 with the exclusive code ELECTREK10 only at retrospec.com.
An it doesn’t stop there. We’ve also got exciting new home battery backup and V2X options for Tesla owners, and one Texas EV driver that decided to conquer the Texas floodwaters by harnessing the awesome combined powers of electrons and stupidity (it’s pretty awesome).
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Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer project is reportedly over. Bloomberg reports that CEO Elon Musk is killing the project after a mass exodus of talent from the Dojo team to a competing startup.
Dojo was the name of Tesla’s in-house AI chip development to create supercomputers to train its AI models for self-driving.
Tesla hired a bunch of top chip architects and tried to develop better AI accelerator chips to rely less on companies like NVIDIA, AMD, and others.
For the last few years, Peter Bannon, who worked with Keller for years, has been leading Tesla’s chip-making programs, but he is now reportedly also leaving the automaker.
Bloomberg reports that Musk has “ordered the effort to be shut down.”:
Peter Bannon, who was heading up Dojo, is leaving and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has ordered the effort to be shut down, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. The team has lost about 20 workers recently to newly formed DensityAI, and remaining Dojo workers are being reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla, the people said.
DensityAI is a new startup currently in stealth mode, founded by several former Tesla employees, including Venkataramanan.
It reportedly plans to build chips for AI data centers and robots, much like the Dojo program.
The company recently hired 20 former Tesla employees who worked on Dojo.
While the program appeared to be lagging behind for years as Tesla increasingly bought more compute power from NVIDIA, Musk has been claiming progress.
The CEO said in June:
Tesla Dojo AI training computer making progress. We start bringing Dojo 2 online later this year. It takes three major iterations for a new technology to be great. Dojo 2 is good, but Dojo 3 will be great.
During Tesla’s quarterly conference call in late July, the CEO claimed that Dojo 2 will be “operating at scale sometime next year.”
Electrek’s Take
It’s unclear whether the report is accurate or if it’s an extrapolation from the talent exodus to Elon killing Dojo, or if Elon was lying just a few weeks ago.
Alternatively, this development may be so recent that Elon went from being confident in Dojo a few weeks ago to disbanding the team working on it now.
Either way, I think it’s clear that the project has been lagging, and Tesla has been extremely dependent on chip suppliers rather than making its own.
I think Dojo being likely dead is not a big loss for Tesla.
When it comes to chip making, developing its own inference compute for onboard “AI computers” was always the more important project.
Jack Dorsey, co-founder and chief executive officer of Twitter Inc. and Square Inc., listens during the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, Florida, on Friday, June 4, 2021.
Eva Marie Uzcategui | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Block shares jumped in extended trading on Thursday after the fintech company increased its forecast for the year.
Here is how the company did, compared to analysts’ consensus estimates from LSEG.
Earnings per share: 62cents adjusted vs. 69 cents expected
Block doesn’t report a revenue figure, but said gross profit rose 14% from a year earlier to $2.54 billion, beatinganalysts’ estimates of $2.46 billion for the quarter. Gross payment volume increased 10% to $64.25 billion.
Block raised its guidance for full-year gross profit to $10.17 billion, representing 14% growth from a year earlier. In its prior earnings report, Block said gross profit for the year would come in at $9.96 billion.
The company expects full-year adjusted operating income of $2.03 billion, or a 20% margin. For the third quarter, the company expects gross profit to grow 16% from a year ago to $2.6 billion, with an operating margin of 18%.
Square payment volume in the quarter grew 10% from a year earlier.
Block faces growing competition from rivals such as Toast and Fiserv‘s Clover, though its Square business still gained share during the quarter in areas such as retail and food and beverage.
Block shares were down 10% this year as of Thursday’s close, while the Nasdaq is up 10%. Last month, Block was added to the S&P 500.