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The Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX electric work vehicle concept.
David Becker/fake images
Mercedes-Benz Group
more than doubled battery electric vehicle sales last year. That’s just a start. The company and its European peers want to sell a lot more.
tesla
had better pay attention.
On Tuesday, Mercedes (ticker: MBG.Germany) Announced 2022 sales volumes. The company delivered 2,043,900 vehicles to retail customers, down 1% year-over-year. That’s not a surprise, as supply chain problems have constrained global car production for years.
Most notably, Mercedes posted strong growth in electric vehicles. Sold 117,800 battery electric vehicles in 2022, up 124% from the 42,400 EV units sold in 2021. Sales of battery electric vehicles accounted for nearly 6% of total vehicle sales to retail customers, up from 2% in 2021.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Mercedes’ most aggressive goal is to sell only EVs by 2030, says Citigroup analyst Martin Wilkie. That implies an average annual growth of around 40% over the eight years.
Other European automakers are also pointing to big growth in electric vehicles.
volkswagen
(VOW3.Germany),
stellantis
(STLA), and
bmw
(BMW.Germany) sold around 900,000 battery electric vehicles in 2022. (Final sales data for the full year are not yet available.) Depending on each company’s management goals, that number could reach 10 million units by 2030. That implies average annual growth of about 35% for those three between now and the end of the decade.
The only automaker that has increased EV sales from a large sales base, of course, is Tesla (TSLA). Delivered 1.31 million units in 2022, up 40% compared to 2021 deliveries of about 936,000 units.
Tesla, and all automakers, will need more models and different price points to hit aggressive targets. The average EV in the US costs about $65,000. Most new cars sold in the United States cost around $35,000. The average price of all new cars is in the $45,000 range. Electric vehicles still need to become cheaper to achieve greater penetration of new car sales.
Looking ahead, investors will be watching closely how EV prices and EV market share develop, and to see if traditional automakers and Tesla can sell all the EVs they expect.
Mercedes shares were up 0.6% in overseas trading on Tuesday, while Tesla shares were down 1.7% in recent trading. He
Y
they rose 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
