Written By Kelly Deochand

Edited By Taylan Dalkan

The race to mass-market electric cars, which are both sustainable and reliable, is believed to had truly started in 2017 due to “The Tesla Effect” [1] and every year since has been ground-breaking. Tesla is the rumored reason for the big three car companies accelerating their research and release of electric vehicles as Tesla continually took customers away and pushed them towards electric vehicles. With conspiracies about the prices of EVs, the crushing of the first mass-market EVs, and even suppressing battery chemistries, there is a lot of history that lead mass-market EVs to where they are today [2]. Car companies are now headed towards intensive battery research in hopes of founding self-sustaining electric cars in the future.

The first mass-market electric vehicle was released in 1996 by GM. This was the EV1, and just over 1000 vehicles were made for lease only after a new California law required car companies to sell a certain number of EVs [3]. However, shortly after their release, these cars were pulled from leasers and destroyed by GM. With only a few in existence today at museums and universities, these cars still inspire conspiracies about the government and big oil’s involvement with electric vehicle advancement. The movie “Who Killed the Electric Car” further examines these conspiracies, but most believe that the idea was launched prematurely, and the cars were pulled for safety reasons.

While all the big car manufacturers are designing and releasing entry-level electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, they are not hitting target sales and not nearly selling as well as other car models. Despite these car companies, such as GM and Volkswagen, having the advantage of manufacturing infrastructure to mass-produce these cars, they struggled to meet output goals due to a shortage in computer chips [4]. Tesla, a company with less manufacturing infrastructure, while still selling less than the big three, made considerable sales and these numbers grow yearly. Tesla’s main company goal is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy [5], and with such a small outreach compared to the more well-known car companies, they were able to take enough business away to make that goal a near reachable reality. Tesla has a superior command of technology compared to its competitors, so when a chip shortage was affecting distribution, Tesla simply took available ones and rewrote software capable of suiting the new chip’s needs. In the past, Tesla’s independence had been a setback in terms of production, but in this case, it gave them an advantage as other carmakers could not as simply make that change [4].

Another unique aspect of Tesla’s strategy was to initially work on luxury EVs, which makes sense considering they were new to production and the technology is expensive, hence the target customers could afford the vehicles. This gave Tesla a head-start to the market over big carmakers, as the big 3’s research was primarily focused around developing the best mass-market vehicle. This ultimately bought Tesla some time to perfect their Model 3, affordable EV, which met the minimum range goal of 200 miles on a full charge. After all, Tesla’s success caused a ripple in the car manufacturing industry, and no matter what company is first to the market with an affordable EV, we will ultimately be closer to an electric vehicle future.

In addition to causing a ripple in the market, Tesla is proof that money talks for large corporations, and supplies encouragement to researchers as they study to discover a self-sustaining vehicle. Sono Motors, a German engineering company, is working to integrate solar panels into all types of vehicles to save energy costs, increase driving range, and decrease the number of times the vehicle would need to be charged [7]. The overall goal of completely switching to electric vehicles looks extremely promising with new innovations and the help of Tesla, lighting a fire under major car manufacturers across the globe.

References

[1] CarOne, "CarOne Blog," 12 December 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.car1.ca/2017/12/12/electric-cars/.

[2] C. Murray, "Design News," 18 June 2012. [Online]. Available: https://www.designnews.com/automotive/conspiracy-behind-ev-market.

[3] P. Corn, "Motor Biscuit," 25 January 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.motorbiscuit.com/a-gm-ev1-narrowly-escaped-the-crusher-and-got-hidden-below-a-building-in-atlanta/.

[4] J. Ewing, "The New York Times," 8 January 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/08/business/teslas-computer-chips-supply-chain.html.

[5] Tesla, "About Tesla," Tesla, [Online]. Available: https://www.tesla.com/about#:~:text=Tesla's%20mission%20is%20to%20accelerate,to%20drive%20than%20gasoline%20cars.

[6] C. Riley, "The Great Electric Car Race is Just Beginning," [Online]. Available: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/08/business/electric-cars-audi-volkswagen-tesla/.

[7] Sono Motors, "Sono Motors," [Online]. Available: https://sonomotors.com/en/solar-integration/.