It’s an interesting idea, and many people don’t believe it will succeed. However, Musk has shown the ability to do what most people consider impossible, or at least highly unlikely.
Heading into its second decade as a company, Tesla might look like it’s on cruise control. After proving electric-car doubters wrong in 2008 by building a screaming-fast sports car, the Roadster, it proved them even wronger in 2012 by building the wildly popular – and surprisingly practical – Model S sedan.
A hit with critics and rich techies alike, the Model S has rapidly become one of the world’s most coveted – and, in some markets, best-selling – luxury cars. Demand is building in Europe and Asia. A second high-end model, the Model X SUV, will hit the market next year.
If Tesla’s goal were simply to become a world-beating luxury automaker, crafting pricey toys for the environmentally conscious elite, it would already have succeeded.
But Elon Musk’s aim all along has been to build an electric car for the masses.
Specifically, the company’s plan is a $35,000 “third-generation” electric sedan with competitive performance and a 200-mile-plus range – all by the year 2017.
By 2020, Tesla hopes to be shipping 500,000 cars a year. That’s more than 10 times its current output. And it will probably have to do it without the federal subsidies that have helped make its cars more affordable so far.
If Tesla pulls it off, it will secure its place among the world’s great car companies while helping to push electric cars into the mainstream. If Tesla falls short, it will remain a glitzy sideshow while established players like Nissan and BMW figure out the future of the car, electric or otherwise.
The enduring problem with electric cars is that batteries cost far more than internal combustion engines relative to the power they provide. Before Tesla, the prevailing approach was to keep electric cars as affordable as possible by skimping on performance and range.
The result: $35,000 plug-ins that drove like $12,000 econo-boxes. Musk turned that equation on its head by casting price concerns aside and building the best cars he could – the Model S costs $80,000, and it outperforms the best gas-guzzlers in its class.
Elon Musk’s answer: Build a Gigafactory.
The Gigafactory is Tesla’s name for the massive, all-in-one battery factory it’s planning to build somewhere in the American West, starting in the next few weeks. It will be the largest factory of its kind, capable of producing more lithium-ion batteries each year than were produced in the whole world in 2013.
See full story on nzherald.co.nz
Image courtesy of nzherald.co.nz
You can also read Tesla’s next move on Car Interstate Transport.
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