For some time now a lot of car manufacturers have been trying to replicate the success that Tesla has had with their line of EV cars. Model 3 was the catalyst to catapult Tesla into one of the fasted growing car manufacturers in the world. And that prompted every other car company to scramble and get their EV vehicles ready for the consumer market.
Obviously now every car company is hoping to introduce a car that could upstage the Tesla line but so far it has taken a long time for any of the other so called competitors to get their cars to market. Having said that, there is no shortage of pundits and critics heralding every new EV car as the next Tesla killer while Tesla keeps churning out update after update to their already impressive lineup of cars, trucks and hyper cars.
So to name a few we have the most promising of the bunch which is Lucid Air. It has been years in the making and it retails a little over $77,000 to start. Car & Driver magazine has given it 8.5 out of 10 rating and it is poised to take sizable market share once it is widely available. And, therein lies the problem. Tesla already has a wide distribution network, charging stations and infrastructure to out produce any of these up and coming cars. So forgive me if I’m not buying into the hype that any of these new EVs are going to be a Tesla killer.
Volvo has been working on their Polaris line for years now and they are hoping to get into the market as well. Ford, Mercedes, BMW, GM, Porsche and a lot of other traditional car manufacturers are also introducing single line EV cars. But in order for them to beat Tesla at its game they need to be better. A lot better. That is what Elon Musk said in an interview recently, that if you are to compete in a saturated market like automotive you can’t be just slightly better. “You have to be a lot better.” And so far Tesla has been a lot better at everything.
Of course there a lot of critics that have found the assembly quality of the Tesla line not optimum and they are right. All other car companies have decades if not hundreds of years of manufacturing experience to refine their assembly process. Tesla has gotten there under 5 years. So they can only get better.
I’m very interested in seeing how this EV market shapes up and how many will defect from Tesla to the new shiny ride off the assembly line. I venture to say it is going to be like the iPhone. Everyone, has tried to become the next iPhone killer but the shear size of the market share that Apple commands at the moment has made that very hard to achieve.
I’m definitely interested in test driving the new lines and seeing how they compare. But so far they have been not widely available to experience. Will wait with bated breath.