Will electric cars disappear? Are these just a temporary project? Is the real solution in hydrogen? Are electric cars a scam that big families are trying to throw at us? Are electric car sales declining? Will Tesla go bankrupt? There is so much information contamination that I have prepared a presentation for you on these issues, and in this presentation, where electric cars are today and where they will be in the future. I will try to express what needs to be done about electric cars to achieve those goals.
Electric vehicles aren't going anywhere. On the contrary, let's start by saying that they continue to grow very rapidly. I will give you strange information. Let's start from here: electric vehicles are really necessary. Because oil, one of our main energy sources, is a finite resource and is very harmful to the environment. Electricity is an endless resource. Because there is sun there. We can produce as much electricity as we want there. We can also produce nuclear energy. Alternatively, we have other sources such as wind and solar. Electricity is infinite, it seems extremely wise to choose energy production based on an infinite source instead of a finite source. Secondly, fossil fuel vehicles harm the environment. Electric vehicles cause less harm. Rest assured, no production can continue without harming the environment. But electric ones cause much less damage than fossil fuel ones.
One of the main reasons for this is that electric vehicles are much more efficient than fossil fuels. In many countries around the world, we turn to different energy sources. But more importantly, they use the incoming energy more efficiently. In fossil fuel vehicles, only 16 to 25% of the total energy consumed can be transferred to the wheels as power. These cars are heated because of internal combustion, as the name suggests. There are a lot of energy losses and so on. 69% of the energy consumed in electric vehicles is transferred directly to the wheels. More importantly, if there is a regenerative braking system, 17% of this is recovered. The total amount of energy transferred to the wheels is between 86 and 90 percent. So no matter how you look at it, they are 4 times more efficient than fossil fuels in terms of energy consumption. These vehicles consume less energy. Put all the noise aside, as a basic principle, things that consume less energy will beat things that consume more energy in the long run. That's why there is actually no competition between electrics and fossil fuels. It just needs some time.
The other biggest objection is the future of hydrogen, these electric ones are temporary, Toyota is working on hydrogen, it is coming. See, there is a fundamental misunderstanding here. Yes, a hydrogen car is actually better than an electric car. They both use the same engine. But one of them requires large lithium-based batteries, that is, electric ones, and this is not very good for the environment. On the other hand, in hydrogen vehicles, if you can deliver hydrogen to the vehicle, it only emits water and there is no need to store energy. Roughly speaking, both of these cars are electric, one of them gets electricity from the grid, the other converts the hydrogen in it into electricity.
But the problem is that hydrogen does not come from nature in these cars. There is no dissolved hydrogen in nature. What you need to do is first gather some energy. Just like electric cars, this energy can be an alternative energy. It can be natural gas, it can be anything, for example you will separate hydrogen from water by using it, hydrogen is a very unstable element. You'll need very powerful hydrogen tanks to keep it safe. You will then deliver it safely to the gas stations or hydrogen station. Then you will load it into the vehicles. Electric ones are much simpler in this regard. Electricity can be produced anywhere in the world and we can immediately transfer it to the car via cable.
However, special facilities are needed to extract hydrogen. Energy will still be used in these facilities, and delivering hydrogen to vehicles is also a very difficult process. We are already seeing the results of this. Shell, which entered this business with great enthusiasm, is currently closing all its stations. He says because we cannot find customers and this system is too complicated for us. Meanwhile, it also has certain dangers. Because they are protected in very high pressure tanks. Shell says I'm giving up on this business. Meanwhile, hydrogen vehicle sales are also falling apart. When we look at the number of hydrogen fueled vehicles sold all over the world by year, they reached their peak in 2022. Annual sales are 20704, Tesla sold 1800000 vehicles last year. In other words, hydrogen fueled vehicles could only match Tesla's one-week sales figure, and then a very sharp decline began. The decrease in 2023 compared to 2022 seems to be around 30%. One of the main reasons for this is that consumers realized that this is not working. Especially in America, California, although there are many incentives in this regard, they cannot find a place to load hydrogen into the car. A company like Shell is getting out of this business.
That's why people realized that hydrogen in automobiles is not a good project. In other areas, hydrogen is a very important energy source. For example, it can be on trucks, planes, ships. But we cannot get anywhere because of this distribution problem of hydrogen in automobiles. Therefore, electric vehicles are better vehicles because they use energy much more efficiently than fossil fuel ones. Among the electric ones, ours are more advantageous than the hydrogen-based ones. Because it is difficult to distribute hydrogen. I hope we've gone well so far. Now let's go into some more detail.
Since electric vehicles are better than both their hydrogen siblings and fossil fuel-powered ones. Sales should increase and move incredibly fast. In fact, they are going well. However, for some reason, news has started to appear in the press one after another about the decline in electric vehicle sales recently. When I explain the numbers to you, you will see that those news are completely empty. For example, Hertz sells 20,000 electric vehicles. Instead, it will return to gasoline cars. So why does something like this happen? Very simple electric vehicles are actually vehicles that require less maintenance. But it is more difficult to re-predict them when they are destroyed by accident. Also, consumers need to get used to using electric cars first. This experience doesn't happen very often with a short-term rental company. So the reason is actually extremely simple. Meanwhile, Hertz announced a terrible balance sheet, its business is doing very poorly. There are also such news that traditional automobile manufacturers are giving up on electricity.
Because there is no demand. For example, the rival of our Tesla Cyber Truck, the Ford F-150 Lightning, is giving up. Because there was no demand. Or GM is giving up on producing certain models and delaying them. Similar news also comes from Europe. So electric car sales are getting worse. Because existing automobile manufacturers cannot sell vehicles. However, the facts behind it are completely different. Electric vehicle sales are increasing in the world and there are two bosses, one is Tesla and the other is Chinese manufacturers. Europe is very afraid of China. Because if cheap electric cars hit the European market, traditional European brands will not be able to sell any vehicles, there will be no situation. That's why incentives were stopped in many countries, especially Germany. This is where automobile lobbies stepped in. They are preventing this work.
There is a similar situation in the United States. There, especially car dealer organizations and those who provide car maintenance services put a lot of pressure on the state. They say stop electric car incentives. Because these cars do not have much maintenance costs. We don't like it. They say don't get into this business. For this reason, brands such as General Motors and Ford are listening to their dealers and trying to delay this work. In fact, what is happening is a delay, an effort to delay, but it still cannot prevent electric car sales. For example, when we look at Europe, a newly published report states that pure electric will be produced in 2023. When it comes to electric, there are many types of this, we focus on pure electric, that is, non-hybrid ones.
We see that the market share in Europe will reach 15% in 2023, which will be a record. Data for 2024 has started to arrive. In Europe, the increase in pure electric products has reached 29%. On the other hand, there is a 5.4% decrease in diesel prices. In oil, they can only increase by 2.8%. When we look at the world market, we see rapid growth in the sales of electric vehicles. There is a growth of 70% in 2018. 18% in 2019, 33% in 2020, 113% in 2021, 59% in 2022 and then 28%. They start from here and say, look, the growth curve in electric cars is slowing down. Yes, when you look at it as a percentage, it is shrinking, but in fact, since the base is growing, there are still serious increases in total electric vehicle sales in absolute value compared to the previous year. But now that the base has grown, it starts to grow as a percentage compared to the previous year. It is useful to solve such basic rules of mathematics.
But apart from that, there are other slowing factors waiting for electric cars. We actually call this the adaptation curve. The basic idea here is; When a new technology comes out, not all of society adapts to it. People rightly say that there is a lot of information, some correct and some incorrect, such as where will I charge it, where will the second-hand ones be, how the performance of these cars is, and whether their batteries die very quickly. That's why we call a small group of innovators. First they buy the cars, then a group called early adopters comes. Parabolic growth begins as early adopters jump into the early crowd.
Parabolic growth means growth far beyond current levels. So, for example, in 2030, I am talking about 70 - 80 out of every 100 cars sold being pure electric. This requires such parabolic growth. But this period is generally difficult to get through. Because they are innovators and early adopters, they are enthusiasts like me and a new technology excites them. He doesn't care much about some of the problems of the new technology, such as the high price. They say there is a charging problem, but they say we will get through it somehow, etc. But convincing the early crowd and the late crowd is only possible by solving these problems. Speaking of problems, customer experience will improve, for example, you will be able to charge your car anywhere, and perhaps most importantly, costs will decrease. In other words, the prices of electric vehicles will become more economical than fossil fuel vehicles. Then things change radically.
If you look at the graphs showing the market share of vehicles in different price ranges, for example, vehicles priced at $75,000 and above, these are figures specific to the American market, but I guess we can adapt them everywhere. They sell very little, these are small niche products. The real growth is in the 25000 dollar vehicles, the business is gone. The main big market is there, electric cars are currently priced between 40-50000 dollars. Of course, they can only come here with government incentives and support, and that's why we experienced a certain leap forward. For the upward bounce to go away, these cars need to get cheaper. Because people in the world have a certain purchasing power. So will electric cars become cheaper?
For example, when we look at the United States, we see that Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y have started to be sold at prices equivalent to fossil fuel vehicles in their segments. In fact, thanks to incentives in some states, for example, a Tesla model 3 can be sold at prices even lower than a Toyota Corolla. So, we have partially reached this point. But sometimes this is possible with incentives, and sometimes Tesla's profit concessions are also possible. Tesla is the only company that makes a profit in electric cars. By the way, it is useful to remind him. That's why Tesla says we should produce more economical cars. So, when we look at it in this context, I think Cyber Truck is a diversion, it is a very nice car and has a great marketing benefit for Tesla. It will definitely reach certain numbers. The pickup truck market in America is a very large market. But I think better results could have been achieved if they had focused on the cheaper Model 2 instead of focusing on that.
Now let's look at the European market in this context. When we look at the European market, we encounter interesting data. The total share of segments a and b in internal combustion engines is 41%, meaning these are the cheap segments. When you include C, they take almost 85% of the automobile market in total. However, when it comes to electric cars, we see that there are more expensive vehicles such as the d and e segments, while the a and b segments remain much smaller. European companies have not been able to scale electric cars yet. They also have competition from China. However, they are having a hard time scaling it. That's why they sell some fancy vehicles that are more luxurious and have massage seats. But actually the main reason is the fear of scale, and since there is no scaling and they do not allow the entry of the Chinese, electric cars are not growing as fast as we expected. But how long can this last? There is an end to this. Remember, electric cars consume less energy than fossil fuel cars. Don't forget this basic principle.
If you look at the graphs showing the economical cars that will be released in the coming period, there are four different models that will be available economically in Europe in 2024. A model from Renault is coming in 2025. There are some models in 2026. 2026 - 2027 was mentioned for Tesla, but it seems that Tesla will actually launch its cheaper model from 2025. Volkswagen ID also comes into effect in 2027. On the other hand, the Chinese are also working hard there. So the price will go back and we will reach more economical cars. Some of these economical cars will be low-range city cars. Some of them will probably have reasonable ranges thanks to technological innovations, and we will reach electric cars that will not take you very long distances but will take you a long distance in intercity travel, maybe during holidays.
The main reason for the high cost of electric cars is their batteries. In fact, battery costs are rapidly decreasing, and when the cost of a battery that can store 1 kW hour of electricity drops below 100 dollars, the prices of electric cars become the same as gasoline cars. Moreover, electric cars have less maintenance and lower energy costs. That's why a big advantage comes into play here. Now there is such a false rumor here again. Aren't their batteries garbage? Isn't this the new cost in the future? Not really, actually Tesla gives you an 8-year battery warranty, for example. Already and so far there are very few people having problems with the Tesla battery. So these batteries are more durable than you think, and then they actually go into recycling. So they can use it again. That's why we don't have that problem.
In addition, the chemicals inside the batteries are also changing, and here too, electric cars are moving towards new chemicals that are both lower-cost and more environmentally friendly. So, as you can see, it is developing technologically very quickly. A similar situation actually concerns the charging time of cars. Let's say your electric car has a range of 300 km. So you drove fast, consumed a lot of energy, etc., so you need to charge the car twice on the road. Either we will make the battery very large, which will increase the cost and make the car heavier, or we will keep the battery small and speed up the charging time. In other words, we will find a way to make the car consume less energy and also speed up charging times. There are very ambitious figures.
It is estimated that by 2027, the charging time will be reduced to 4 minutes for a range of 200 miles, or 300 kilometers. We see that Porsche's new models are approaching this point. In other words, the two biggest issues regarding the adaptation of electric cars are the decrease in the price of these cars, and the second problem is the charging problem of these cars, which is a problem that is gradually disappearing. In fact, as electric cars become more efficient and the technology in their batteries changes, their range is gradually extending. For example, Panasonic has a new battery type. They say you can reach a range of nearly 500000 in just 10 minutes. Now this is very interesting. In fact, people who are against or concerned about electric cars say that the technology in electric cars is constantly changing. Why should I go and buy this, I'll wait for the other technology? Well, brother, then you take it as fossil fuel. So, buy something whose technology has never improved and see what happens to it. This is a separate issue.
Stating that they will start producing Tesla Model 2 vehicles in the second half of 2025, Elon Musk says that the production technology of these vehicles will be revolutionary, so we will produce these vehicles profitably and economically. Now, companies should do their part and make electric cars that are more economical, longer range and easier to charge, and let's say that at least Tesla and the Chinese are doing their best. But there is one more problem. Countries also need to get involved in this issue, and we have a model country in front of us, actually Norway.
In Norway, the share of electric cars in sales has reached 80%. Norway is actually an oil-rich country. But he says that petroleum-fueled vehicles harm the environment, and Teslas or other electric vehicles do not work there in the cold, as is thought. There is no problem with that either. When they realized this, they encouraged electric vehicles a lot and the share has reached 80%. Other countries in the world still have a serious adaptation process ahead of them. So what did Norway do to make sales of electric vehicles increase so much?
In fact, the road map is not very complicated, they have defined some tax reductions related to electric vehicles. Then they set targets to achieve zero emissions. Later, they supported increasing the number of charging stations in Norway, and there is no longer any point in buying a fossil fuel vehicle for the average Norwegian. China is a country where electric vehicle sales have a very large share in total sales.
China has also followed a similar road map, and thus, China is now one of the world's largest electric vehicle exporters. It also exists in the battery and battery industries. Producers have a role to play in order for us to move upwards. But on the other hand, states also have roles. Although China is not like Norway, it has come somewhere. The share of electric cars in total vehicle sales has reached 25% by 2023. The European Union, America, Japan and India are far behind.
So there's still a long way to go. But this is a difficult path, both politically. Because you are dealing with big automobile lobbies economically. In fact, this work needs to be encouraged for a long time. But that's where we'll get to eventually. Because cars are better for our world than fossil fuels. Yes, they are not perfect. Other solutions may come into play in the future.
But electric car adoption for the world is a process that will never stop, and as soon as we get to $25000 vehicles, we will move towards the early adopters, the early crowd. Ark Invest, an investment company I follow closely, says here that by 2030, the share of electric vehicles will increase significantly. It is very difficult to know whether we should be so optimistic or whether it will increase further down the line, but there is a fundamental law of nature and the one who consumes less energy wins the game.
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