Auto OEMs Plan To Flood Market With New Electric Car Models Despite Massive Losses

Last month we noted that Tesla really outdid itself in 2Q 2017 by posting a record cash burn of $1.2 billion, or roughly $13 million every single day. Per the chart below, Tesla’s Q2 cash burn was just a continuation of the company’s money-losing trend that goes back at least 6 years and seems to be getting worse with each passing quarter.
But Tesla isn’t alone in burning cash on “EV’s” as pretty much every electric vehicle offered to customers loses money on a per unit basis.
At this point, expensive battery technology still makes them money drains. General Motors Co. loses about $9,000 on every Chevrolet Bolt electric car it sells. Tesla had record sales of its EVs last year — and still lost $675 million on $7 billion in sales. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV loses $20,000 on every electric version of its 500-model subcompact sold in the U. S., Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne said in a speech in Italy on Monday. Battery-powered models should be marketed based on consumer demand and not depend on incentives, he said.
Of course, with statistics like that, it should come as no surprise that auto OEM’s all around the world are tripping over themselves to introduce dozens of new electric models in the coming years. Even Bloomberg was somewhat perplexed to report that OEMs will introduce 50 new electric vehicle models over the next 5 years despite the industry’s staggering cash burn.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Oct 2, 2017.