Ex-post: The final result

PA Consulting was severely wrong, as predicted correctly by the crowd. The forecast plummetted immediately after trading start in 2018, with three years to go. And in fact, Tesla remained #1 with 936,000 cars sold in 2021. Ze Germans do not even make top 3.

The top EV brands in 2021, according to EV-Volumes: [4]

1. Tesla - 936,172
2. BYD - 593,878
3. SAIC-GM-Wuling - 456,123
4. Volkswagen - 319,735
5. BMW - 276,037
6. Mercedes-Benz - 228,144
7. SAIC - 226,963
8. Volvo - 189,115
9. Audi - 171,371
10. Hyundai - 159,343
11. Kia - 158,134

Ex-ante: Are the Germans winning?

By 2021, German carmakers will push Tesla from the throne as the world's number one electric carmaker, says PA Consulting Group's Head of Automotive, Thomas Göttle. Their key rationale is an expected onslaught of new electric models in the next three years.

Boldly, Göttle even forecasts that Elon Musk's company will lose its lead altogether and decline to just position #7 within only three years. At the same time, he expects Merzedes-Benz to ascend steeply from #5 to #1, possibly on the back of an interesting strategy focusing on Daimler's battery production capability. 

The future ranking

This will be the global ranking of electric car manufacturers according to the PA Consulting Group's report.

Source: PA Consulting Group

Sources

1. The CO2 Emissions Challenge - PA Consulting Group
2. German Electric Cars Could Catch Up With Tesla in Just a Few Years - Bloomberg, July 13, 2018
3. Mercedes just revealed how it plans to conquer electric cars - Business Insider, January 30, 2018
4. Global Plug-In Car Sales 6.5 Million In 2021 - InsideEVs.com, February 2, 2022