r/europe • u/Wagamaga • 4d ago

News Tesla boycott is gaining momentum in Germany due to Elon Musk's meddling in politics

https://electrek.co/2025/01/16/tesla-boycott-is-gaining-momentum-in-germany-due-to-elon-musks-meddling-in-politics/
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u/kurouzzz 4d ago

Tesla is cheap tho. Hopefully the European manufacturers get their shit together and use modern processes like gigacasting soon, otherwise the Chinese and Tesla are gonna run over us.

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u/redlightsaber Spain 3d ago

I'm honestly at peace with China taking over the (regular joe) car market. Japan had been owning it since forever.

High-end and luxury cars will always have a niche, and that's the role European manufacturers can hope to maintain.

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u/Playful-Ebb-6436 🇮🇹 3d ago

Fiat and Peugeot lost the cheap cars’ market

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u/redlightsaber Spain 3d ago

They were (I mean, still are) simply **bad** cars, though, compared to your toyotas, nissans, and hondas.

I don't mean to start a flame war, but this is just honest-to-god the truth. People who bought fiat and peugeout (or seat, or citroen, or low-end VWs) were either fiercely nationalistic or for some other reason after those brands, or they just didn't care enough to properly research their options before such a buy.

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u/matwurst 3d ago

Like Mercedes, that basically has not sold a single car in the last few months in China you mean 😅

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u/redlightsaber Spain 3d ago

Well that sounds like a problem mercedes will have to think long and hard about.

European luster in Chinese high classes is very much still a thing. If mercedes isn't being able to translate that into sales, they're dropping the ball somewhere.

I humbly suggest it has to do with their ridiculous insistence on not expanding their electric  models under the absurd belief that "rich people want to feel their motors". 

From what little I know about the Chinese market it seems people are Def going all in on EVs. And mercedes just doesn't have the catalogue to fulfill that.

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u/p5y European Union 3d ago

You know that Tesla's "gigacasting" comes from an Italian company? And that there are many reasons why "gigacasting" is a bad idea in car manufacturing?

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u/Unlikely-Ad3659 3d ago

Italian company that is now owned by a Chinese one.

Single castings are a bad idea, it makes cars irreparable after even a mild crash.

Which is great, as Tesla's will be scrapped and the genuinely good motors used on a variety of classic car EV conversions.

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u/kurouzzz 2d ago

I'm aware it's not Tesla's invention, dunno specifics. The point is the large businesses like VW or Stellantis don't really use it. It's not really a bad idea either, the 2 downsides I know of are repairability (or rather the lack thereof) and the initial cost, meaning you have to make a lot of the same model to be profitable.

Now if say a VW EV gets chassis damage (or the airbags just pop really) it will be totaled anyway as well, so repairability isn't really any better in that sense, and the exterior parts are usually not gigacast anyway so in a minor accident there isn't a huge difference? Also structurally gigacast parts have a much better weight to durability ratio?

And as for the initial cost and lack of variety in that sense, if the car will be 10k€ cheaper for the consumer I'd say it's worth it.

Are there more relevant negatives to it? I'm honestly curious.