| But 40k is still unaffordable for a non small amount of people. And buying "old" ones cheap has problems "because batteries" (and Tesla might just recently have found a way to solve that). To take over they would need to: - Release a sub 10k car which is focused on in-City only use case but can also handle your grocery shopping and pre-planned inter City treveling to close by cities. - Solve the logistic problem that everyone wants to charge theire car. (Note: I don't mean the whole bs. about power grid crashing, all this are technically problems with existing solutions). - One way to solve that would be batteries with a capacity so large that you only charge once in four days _for the cheap sub 10k version_. - Another would be batteries so small that they are easily exchanged instead of charging. (Tesla did implement that but the way it currently is, is just to unpractical. It would need a industry wide standard solution and a really easy to maintain exchange station.) So could Tesla take over: yes. Will Tesla take over: most likely not, they will just probably become well established for the mid/upper marked segment. Will battery powered electric cars take over: likely but not necessarily. The often overlooked truth is the race is still on and the winner not yet clear as neither batteries not full cells have yet reached a level at which they can widespread replace fossil fueled cars. Also let's not speak about current battery tech and fire... |
The average price of a new car in the US is $37k which gives Tesla access to half the new car market. Used car buyers are meaningless in the metrics as they make car companies no money. Tesla is far far from saturating that part of the market so there's little incentive for them to move to cheaper cars (and dilute the brand in the process). In fact, it's probably better economically for Tesla to let other brands make cheaper electrics, annoy customers due to shortcomings and then swoop in with a superior product down the line (having learned from the mistakes of other companies).