How much does loyalty to a major brand — or at least the status of various brands — limit the transition to electric vehicles from Tesla, Dyson, e.Go, etc.? On the other hand, how much does dissatisfaction with conventional automakers drive customers to such automotive newcomers? How much do legacy automotive brands keep the door shut to newcomers like Tesla versus invite the disruptors in?
At the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, we saw Mercedes, Volkswagen, and BMW all show some electric concepts. And most of them are really far-future concepts, the kind you find at auto shows but that never see the light of day. Here are some highlights:
Governments, oil companies, automakers, Tony Seba — they all have an opinion on when EVs will overtake ICE, and then move on to 100% of new car sales. Anywhere in the range 2025 to 2050, take your pick. It is all when, not if. That is a huge shift. It was golf carts 2 years ago.
Well, I must admit, I had almost given up on it. But then I got this message from the Danish electric car union, which had worked very hard to organize this particular attempt to beat the world record of the largest parade of electric vehicles …
If you are a reservation holder of a Tesla Model 3, I guess you would be pretty excited these days following news of the ramp up of production. Unless you live in Denmark. Then you should be worried if you will get your car at all.
What would it take to get a person to buy an electric car? The debate rages about range, environmental issues, performance, size, looks, and repair issues. All important topics, but what’s occurred in just 5 years? In 2011 practically zero EVs were available. Five years later, Nissan has sold a quarter million, Tesla has roughly 200,000 sold and 500,000 ordered, and the Chevy Bolt appears to be selling about 1,000 a month. The Fiat 500E sells in the tens of thousands despite CEO Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Chief Executive, Sergio Marchionne, begging people not to purchase his car. Don’t even mention the EV capital of the world, China.
Puerto Rico has been ravaged and is facing significant loss of human life and harm to human life, among other things. Lack of drinking water, dehydration, food scarcity, and so many other problems are facing the Americans living there. The electric power grid in Puerto Rico is gone.
In a humanitarian effort to help the devastated and still threatened population, one of the companies stepping in to help is Tesla.
Despite its close relationship with Panasonic, Tesla will actually be utilizing Samsung SDI lithium-ion battery cells at the facility in South Australia that’s now under construction, the company has revealed.
Dyson might succeed. They might fail. But at 2.7 billion pounds and with their success points, they are one of the more interesting new entrants.
A record 55,000 new passenger electric cars were registered last month in China, with the market growing 68% compared to the same month last year and pulling the year-to-date (YTD) count to over 282,000 electric cars, up 45% year over year (YoY).
