Important Innovations

  54% of 2020 Cars Sold in Norway Are Electric                                           Source:  Norway Electric Cars VW - not Tesla - Is the Leader Electric battery vehicles were the #1 car category sold in Norway in 2020 .  EVs hit a record 54% of Norwegian vehicle sales.  Norway is leading the world in its efforts to make gas powered vehicles obsolete.  And in Norway, Volkswagen has scored a big win.  For 2020, it beat out Tesla as the #1 electric vehicle brand. VW's luxury brand Audi and its e-tron electric vehicles were the #1 EV seller. Norway's Zero Emissions Goals By 2025, Norway wants every new car and van sold to be emissions free.  Norwegian officials says the record EV sales in 2020 put the nation ahead of schedule for its zero emissions goals.  The EV sales numbers are historic and very impressive.  EV market share went from 42% in 2019 to 54% in 2020.  If you add hybrid vehicles to the fully electric car mix, the market share soars to 83%.   Norway' Electric

  Hitting Financial and Sales Targets                                                  Source:  Tesla Rolling Out Full Self-Driving Software With Caution Tesla, the world's largest electric vehicle automaker, and CEO/founder Elon Musk are on a roll.  The company just recorded its 5th quarterly profit and it sold and delivered 139,300 vehicles in Q3 2020.  That puts it on target for selling 500,000 vehicles for the year 2020.  That is a milestone that CEO Musk has been pushing hard to achieve.  Meanwhile, Musk has just started a high stakes rollout of his Full Self-Driving (FSD) software for autonomous driving Teslas. FSD's High Stakes Beta Testing Musk has started limited beta testing of his software architecture re-write of FSD with a small group of selected Tesla customers. This new version of FSD provides more advanced autonomous perception capabilities of stop signs, traffic lights and a higher degree of driver assist on city streets.  It also has another new feature - Navi

  2020 To Be Record Year For EVs in Europe                                                  Source:  Audi New Analysis In the first half of 2020, electric vehicles comprised 8% of car sales in Europe.  According to a new analysis by NGO Transport and Environment, EV's are on track to triple their market share for all of 2020 in Europe.  This is very significant growth despite the COVID pandemic clobbering overall vehicle sales.  The actual number of EV's sold in Europe is expected to double to 1 million for the year 2020. European Regulations and Incentives In the broader picture, several factors are helping to increase electric vehicle sales.  The European Union is tightening car emission standards and will continue to ratchet-up standards to reach its 2030 EU climate goals on carbon emissions.  Plus, Germany and France have put attractive EV purchase incentives into place. Overall, electric and plug-in hybrid EV's will account for 10% of European car sales in 2020.  The b

   Q3 2020 Sales Beat Estimates                                             Source:  Tesla  Targeting 500,000 Vehicle Sales for 2020 In the third quarter of 2020, Tesla delivered a record number of global sales, smashing analysts' estimates.  Tesla sold 139,300 vehicles bypassing its all time high of 112,000 in Q4 2019.  Analysts had projected 129,950 in Q3 2020 sales.  The big sales came from Model 3 and Model Y. Full Year Sales Target Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes the company can sell 500,000 vehicles for the full year.  To do so, that will require a blowout 4th quarter of 181,650 global sales to reach the goal.  During his recent Battery Day, Musk predicted 30% to 40% growth for Tesla over 2019.

US EV Market On the Rise Source:  Tesla Model 3 EV's in US Beating Out Another Auto Category The sale of electric vehicles in the US is at a very early stage, representing 1.6% of the 17 million "light" vehicles sold in 2019.  But, for the first time, EV's are outperforming a segment of the automotive market.  Specifically, EV's are outpacing vehicles with standard shifts which represent 1.1% of automotive sales. Sales of standard shift models have dropped .5% in the past year.  By contract, sales of the world's most popular EV, the Tesla Model 3, are up 1% in the US in 2019. It's the beginning of a shift by Americans to zero emission, green, electric vehicles to save the environment from carbon emissions. Tesla's Roadster Electric Sportscar In Q1 2020, the electric car segment in the US is composed of 16 models.  That is scheduled to significantly grow  this year.  And, EV's are expected to outperform another category in 2020 -- conve

Top Electric Car Seller Renault Zoe Source:  Renault  Electric Vehicles Going Mainstream in Germany Germany is Europe's biggest auto market.  Since the beginning of 2019, it's been pulling ahead of Norway as the biggest market for electric vehicles.  Now for the first time, Germany is poised to end 2019 as the regional leader in electric car sales on an annual basis. In 2019 through November, 57,533 new electric cars were sold in Germany.  By contrast, 56,893 electric cars were sold in Norway.  Since 2010, Norway has led Europe in the sales of electric cars. European EV Incentive Push Across Europe, governments are rolling out incentives to sell electric vehicles and push for green energy, cutting carbon dioxide emissions.  In Germany, Daimler, BMW, VW are launching a major EV push with new models in 2020 and through the decade. In Germany alone, 150 new electric cars will be available by 2023.  German automakers will have invested approximately $49 billi