A All talk about Tesla and the wonderful electric cars, but the trend is going in the opposite direction: heavy fuel-guzzling cars are in demand. The Ford Motor Company, which is about the same as Tesla on the stock market, sold just 73,104 so-called F-Series pick-up trucks in April this year. This is the best result for this vehicle class since 2000.
The result is all the more apparent because the company suffered heavy losses in other models: the off-road SUVs and even more so in the very normal sedans, whose sales plummeted by 15 percent.
The sales figures of the model range reflect a big trend in the American car trade: people want large, spacious cars, emissions are secondary. The everyday life in the car dealerships looks like this: About 42 percent of the sold Fords are pick up trucks or heavier transport vehicles, 34 percent belong to the SUV class and only the rest of 24 percent are classic sedans from Focus on the Fiesta to the Mustang.
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Ford is not alone: By far the best selling vehicle of the auto giant General Motors is the pickup truck Silverado. From this model, the company sold 135,500 vehicles in the first three months of the highly praised electric car Bolt the company were brought in this period only 4300 to the man and the woman.
Tesla delivered just under 9,000 pieces of the three-model in the first quarter and 30,000 cars out of all three models. The company was very proud of the success of the Model 3 and said that if the sales continued to develop, the model would surpass the Ford T. This was the first car that left Henry Ford from 1908 from the assembly line.
Almost ten liters average consumption
Today, Tesla is recording handsome growth at a low level and the pickup trucks are enjoying good growth at a high level. Fat cars have a problem: they tend to consume more fuel than small cars and therefore blow up more greenhouse gases.
Since 2008, the fuel consumption of the American vehicle fleet has fallen. But in 2014, the trend ended suddenly. The American average vehicle consumes 9.41 liters per 100 kilometers since then, according to scientists Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle from the University of Michigan in long-term screening.
Apart from the fact that the American clientele finds big cars apparently cool and practical, the scientists have identified three factors that at least correlate with the trend towards big cars: low unemployment, average income and gasoline price. Sivak believes the low gasoline price was the main factor. Today it hardly costs more to fill a fat pickup with fuel than it had cost a small car to fill up a few years ago. The propensity for big cars eats up the efficiency gains in consumption.
The sales figures are even significantly distorted by state intervention. Washington and several states, with conditions and sales incentives, encourage the purchase of lower-consumption cars, electric and hybrid vehicles. For pure electric cars, the federal government offers a tax credit in the amount of $ 7,500, many states give additional tax rebate up to $ 3,000.
Tesla as emission rights dealer
And not enough. The only product with which Tesla has so far made a profit are emission certificates. The State of California, based in Tesla, has invented the Zero Emission Vehicle Credit program, which requires all major automakers to require that roughly two percent of all vehicles sold in California be emissions-free.
About a dozen states have followed suit. The principle goes like this: For every clean car, there is a credit depending on the performance of the battery and other eco-criteria. For a sold Tesla there are particularly high credits. Car producers who can not follow this requirement can get the credits from a producer who has more than enough of it.
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The only candidate with notorious surpluses is Tesla, who writes at least in this area profits. In the second quarter of the previous year, the company sold $ 100 million in margin credits, with $ 50 million in first quarter revenues this year.
The state promotion of fuel-efficient cars goes even further in an indirect way: The federal government has prescribed the car industry consumption standards for their sold vehicle fleets. If a manufacturer threatens to miss the standards, he can make the clean cars of his model range particularly cheap. That’s exactly what happens.
Emissions will hardly go down
The state subsidy programs are well founded, even if they have failed their effect: America wanted, so far, at least, reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases. After all, America’s motorists produce a quarter of the country’s greenhouse emissions. But the desired success has been missing. And there is no chance for improvement: President Donald Trump has instructed his Federal Environment Agency to take legal action against the consumption standards of his predecessor Barack Obama.
Only the slowly rising gasoline price could advance electric cars. And of course Tesla, the automaker of the already legendary entrepreneur Elon Musk. He has presented new numbers on Wednesday evening, showing that Tesla burns more money than experts calculated. The company wrote a $ 710 million loss on revenues of $ 3.4 billion.