This is why Tesla cars never stood a chance in the long term. The hard part of building an electric car is the car, not the electric. Musk was naive to the extreme to believe the major auto manufacturers would sit idly by and let him dominate the market, and they all already have decades experience in building the car part of electric cars. Plus they can sell electric cars as loss leaders and subsidize their production with profits from ICE cars. Musk can only subsidize his losses with government charity.
And it also was inevitable that the existing manufacturers eventually would “Preston Tucker” Musk.
Cars made to be sold in sunny CA. In the real world, where AC and heat are must, E vehicles are still a beautique fad.
” The hard part of building an electric car is the car, not the electric.”
Here’s a video about a guy who is buying a certified used Tesla. He put the $2500 down in early November and was hoping to have the car by Christmas. It’s not going well for him, so far: It isn’t just the quality control of the build that is difficult, there’s also customer service.
These batteries are increasing in density by about 6-7 percent per year
The new batteries which are solid state batteries have been made in the lab and many different groups are scaling up to try to manufacture. They are cheaper, charge very fast, don't heat up and cause fires and don't need to be cooled.
A lot of the cost to make a ice car and repair an ice is the drive train plus a fuel system, exhaust system, and cooling system. Because EV have none of that, they are easier to make than ice cars.
Eventually the EVs will be very cheap and many people who make their living on ice cars and producing the fuel will be displaced
His cars have less than stellar reliability and build quality as well. Though until capacative batteries are perfected electric cars will remain a niche market.
It’s closer than you think by using graphene.
Actually, Tesla made a reasonable (at the time) bet that US government pressure would grow quickly to mandate EVs, and that a larger traditional car company would overpay for his groundwork. His gamble didn’t pay off big, but it hasn’t broken him yet either.