I keep seeing headlines of “Tesla-killer” blah blah blah, and every one of them completely misses the point of what Tesla’s been able to accomplish.
The big one that everyone’s obviously aware of is that they made an EV when no one else had made a commercially-viable EV before. Right? Obvious.
The second one is that they made the Supercharger network, which right now, completely changes the value proposition of “Tesla” vs. “Any other EV”.
The one that folks miss is that the Model 3 wasn’t just a commercially-viable EV. It’s an *astonishing* car. Yes, you can nitpick that certain things aren’t as awesome as they could be. But my point isn’t “Teslas are great!” it’s that they’re *defensible*, because there isn’t an apparent way “in” as a competitor.
Do you need a faster car than the 100DL? Absolutely not in daily use. Teslas are (to date) awful track cars, but that’s a niche application we can safely ignore.
Do you need a *nicer* car than the Model S or X? Not really, unless you have extremely specific tastes or special needs.
You might want a cheaper car than the 3, sure. But that’s coming over time, and right now, no one can make a *significantly* cheaper car that competes with the 3. The Bolt is wonderful, but it’s only incrementally cheaper, and without Superchargers, lacks a major ingredient in Tesla’s success.
And that’s the point. The Bolt isn’t a Tesla-killer because it’s only incrementally cheaper. The Lucid Air isn’t a Tesla-killer because it may be incrementally faster, but who cares? Faraday Future is dead. Porsche’s Mission-E or whatever looks great, but no Superchargers means limited utility means that if you’re cross-shopping the Tesla and the Mission-E, you have to REALLY REALLY REALLY want the Mission-E, and it has to be an emotional, rather than pragmatic decision.
For someone to be a Tesla-killer, they need to build a better car than one of the best cars on the market, AND build a giant infrastructure project. No startup can do that. No established car company is going to take that big a risk.
I’m looking forward to massively expanded EV availability in the next decade. But the articles that keep trying to crown a new Tesla-killer? Forget it.