Tesla in the driving seat
With its affordable, mass-market Model 3, Elon Musk’s company is changing the automotive industry
Last week an epoch was reached in the automobile industry when the first 50 of Tesla’s massmarket electric cars, the Model 3, were delivered to happy customers. Unlike the luxury models that Tesla has been making, the Model 3 is its play for a much broader market. It will come in two versions, but it’s the entry-level US$35,000 (R462,000) model that is the most exciting. Its cost is about that of a midsized luxury car, yet it still does 354 km on a “tank” of charge. It has a clever supercharger feature that gives you a range of
210 km with just a 30-minute charge. It will do 0-100 km in 5.1 seconds and has a top speed of 210 km/h.
It’s a revolution — so much so that Tesla, which is not yet 15 years old and has never made a profit, was valued in April at more than motor industry behemoth Ford, which has produced 350m cars in its 114-year history. A share price surge took Tesla to $49bn, overtaking Ford at $46bn.
But Tesla’s Model 3 is about to do to the traditional petrol-engine motor industry what the Model T Ford did to horse-drawn carriages in 1908. It’s a dramatic shift in car technology, at an affordable price and with autonomous driving software already built in. It’s the future of the automotive industry.
Volvo has already announced all of its cars will be electric or hybrid from 2019, while Audi is planning five electric models.
“We believe we will eventually look back at the launch of the Model 3 and compare it to the iphone, which proved to be the catalyst for the shift to mobile computing,” says analyst Gene Munster, who is known for his predictions about Apple, Google and Amazon. “Over the next 10 years, the Model 3’s value, in combination with its technology, has the potential to change the world and accelerate the adoption of electric and autonomous vehicles.”
Instead of keys, the Model 3 can be unlocked with a smartphone and Bluetooth. Instead of the speedometer, fuel gauge and dashboard indicators it has a 15-inch touch-screen tablet with readings for speed, cabin climate and online mapping. Instead of using petrol, it is electric, which means I could install solar panels and, hopefully, a Tesla Powerwall and go very green.
I could live with that. In fact, I desperately want my next car to be a Tesla Model 3. I had planned to upgrade this year and am now considering putting down the $1,000 deposit to take my place in the Model 3 queue.
Unfortunately there are 500,000 people ahead of me. Fortunately, delivery is expected towards the end of next year. By then there will be greater adoption of charging stations. And Musk is preparing his company for “six months of manufacturing hell” to meet his target of 20,000 vehicles a month by December.
Pretoria’s most successful son has already tweeted that the car will ship to SA, and presumably import duties and other taxes will be added to the final price.
But electric cars are the future, and it’s worth waiting for.
I desperately want my next car to be a Tesla Model 3 and am considering putting down the $1,000 deposit