Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrified Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrified Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
The Model Three, Tesla's long-awaited mass-market electrical vehicle, launches Friday to what will no doubt be significant fanfare. The unveiling isn't only a coming-of-age party for the nascent car manufacturer; it feels like a significant moment in EV history, too. “It is the car that has been promised to us since the inception of this industry,” says Terry O’Day, who goes up marketing at the electrical charging company EVgo. “It’s the moment that we demonstrate a mass-produced vehicle that is affordably priced and has features that don’t require consumers to compromise in any way.”
That's a lot of pressure for the relatively petite carmaker. What if it doesn't live up to expectations?
The response to that question almost doesn't matter. At least not for the general public. If the Model three does well, it's a win for the electrified vehicle market. And if the worst happens—say, a factory grinds to a halt and creates gigantic production delays—future EVs can coast off Tesla’s cultural cache. This is the company that managed to make electrical vehicles cool. (Reminisce when Tyler the Creator bought a Tesla ?)
Teslamania
Why the Tesla Model S Couldn’t Ace Its Latest Crash Test
Tesla’s Super-Battery Could Help Lift an Aircraft Carrier 1,500 Feet
Tesla’s Electrical Cars Aren’t as Green as You Might Think
So, in a sense, no matter the outcome, Tesla has already succeeded by pushing EVs into the public consciousness—and onto the market. The less sexy, but cheaper, Chevrolet Bolt is on the roads. So is the fully electrified BMW i3, which will be followed by fully electrical Minis and X3s in the next three years or so. Volvo’s making an electrical pivot come 2019. Battery technology resumes to improve at a surprising rate, and Bloomberg Fresh Energy Finance predicts the number of electrified cars on the road will overtake internal combustion ones by 2038.
You can thank policy for at least part the sunny electrified outlook. There are aggressive emissions regulations in China and Europe. Countries like France, the UK, Norway, India, Germany, and the Netherlands plan to ban gasoline and diesel engines by 2040—or sooner.
So it doesn’t matter if Tesla’s newest car misses production goals or has quality hiccups. The tech looks to be on track eventual dominance anyway.
Despite the relatively rapid latest ascent of EVs, there's no question that hybrid and electrified vehicles face challenges. The Toyota Prius reached American shores in 2000, but they and their hybrid and battery electrical cousins made up fewer than three percent of US car sales in 2016. Fewer than 15,000 Toyota Prius Primes have sold in the country this year so far.
What's the holdup? There's not a ton of electrical enthusiasm. “Policy is still the driver,” says Alissa Kendall, a civil and environmental engineer who studies transportation and the environment at UC Davis. “Without policies in place, electrified vehicles are unlikely to be sold.”
Those policies exist—though the best ones are in German, French, Czech, and Chinese. After a spate of diesel scandals ( hello, Volkswagen ), carmakers selling in the European Union turned to electrical to meet greenhouse-gas emission standards. Those standards might get a lot more aggressive: If an EU parliamentary proposal gets through, it will challenge countries to halve their two thousand fifteen carbon dioxide output by 2025.
Chinese drivers purchase half the world’s electrified vehicles, in large part because the government is putting on the pressure . Officials require that EVs make up twelve percent of manufacturers’ sales by 2020. It also offers generous EV incentives, including big violates on vehicle registration fees. Automakers are responding: Ford says seventy percent of the vehicles it will sell in China by two thousand twenty five will be electrified.
Even in truck-happy America—the gas-chugging Ford F-150 pickup is the best-selling car here—generous federal tax credits and state programs thrust carmakers to develop more EVs by 2025. (Fourteen states require automakers sell zero emission vehicles, or they aren’t permitted to sell in the state at all.) Attempts by the Trump administration to roll back Obama-era emissions standards have been met by fierce legal chest thumping from the likes of California , whose car purchases alone makes up twelve percent of American sales. That will make the regulations difficult to thwart , no matter how well the Model three moves off the line.
Automakers have responded. Just look at the flurry of electrical news in the weeks before the Model three launch, efforts to steal a decibel or two of thunder: Volvo’s shift to electrical ; VW’s announcement that its EV will go for $8,000 less ; BMW's pledge to manufacture electrified Minis in the UK. There are now fifteen battery electrical vehicles on the fairly electric-unfriendly American market alone.
Tesla competitors are “fully ready to market capable electrified vehicles at a loss,” says Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of General Motors.
And battery technology is getting better at an impressively rapid clip. In 2010, battery storage went for $1,000 per kilowatt-hour; in 2016, it was $273 per kilowatt-hour. “I can tell you that back in 2000, when we looked forward to two thousand seventeen or 2020, we never would have imagined that battery technology would have gotten this good,” says Kendall. “We’re outpacing what we thought it would achieve.”
There's still one elephant in the garage: the charger network. There are only about 6,000 chargers worldwide now, however Tesla pledges to get to Ten,000 by the end of the year. (Teslas can use other brands of chargers , but need adapters to do so.) While the Model three gets an exceptional range per charge (around two hundred fifteen miles), range anxiety persists. “That shouldn't hold back the market, but it does, because people are people,” says Costa Samaras, who studies alternative energy at Carnegie Mellon University. “We are not rational. Most people could very likely use a 200-mile EV for about ninety five percent of their trips.”
Ultimately success boils down to two things. Very first, it's a matter of keeping electrics cheap and economical, even without government support. In Norway, for example, where forty percent of cars sold last year were electrified, charging is cheaper than gas, in part because gasoline and diesel aren't powerfully subsidized. One “In Nordic countries, you have the economic effect where they become cheaper the more you drive them,” says Niklas Jakobsson, who studies electrified vehicle driver behavior at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The 2nd part is simply getting people into these vehicles. For his research, Jakobsson observes how families adapt to electrified vehicles in countries like Sweden and Germany. A significant portion, he says, just want the car to work like, well, a car. “You have this group that doesn’t want the hassle,” he says. “If the car is more ubiquitous, and they see it on the road, I think that will be very good.”
Tesla has certainly tackled both parts of the problem. The Model three is affordable and stylish. But will that make it ubiquitous? It remains to be seen. But it does seem electrified vehicles, more generally, are here to stay.
1 UPDATE Two:20 PM ET 07/28/17: This story has been updated to clarify electrical vehicle sales in Norway
The Tesla Model three Launches the Electrified Vehicle Market, WIRED
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrical Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrical Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
The Model Three, Tesla's long-awaited mass-market electrified vehicle, launches Friday to what will no doubt be significant fanfare. The unveiling isn't only a coming-of-age party for the nascent car manufacturer; it feels like a significant moment in EV history, too. “It is the car that has been promised to us since the inception of this industry,” says Terry O’Day, who goes up marketing at the electrified charging company EVgo. “It’s the moment that we demonstrate a mass-produced vehicle that is affordably priced and has features that don’t require consumers to compromise in any way.”
That's a lot of pressure for the relatively petite carmaker. What if it doesn't live up to expectations?
The reaction to that question almost doesn't matter. At least not for the general public. If the Model three does well, it's a win for the electrical vehicle market. And if the worst happens—say, a factory grinds to a halt and creates gigantic production delays—future EVs can coast off Tesla’s cultural cache. This is the company that managed to make electrical vehicles cool. (Reminisce when Tyler the Creator bought a Tesla ?)
Teslamania
Why the Tesla Model S Couldn’t Ace Its Latest Crash Test
Tesla’s Super-Battery Could Help Lift an Aircraft Carrier 1,500 Feet
Tesla’s Electrified Cars Aren’t as Green as You Might Think
So, in a sense, no matter the outcome, Tesla has already succeeded by pushing EVs into the public consciousness—and onto the market. The less sexy, but cheaper, Chevrolet Bolt is on the roads. So is the fully electrical BMW i3, which will be followed by fully electrified Minis and X3s in the next three years or so. Volvo’s making an electrical pivot come 2019. Battery technology proceeds to improve at a surprising rate, and Bloomberg Fresh Energy Finance predicts the number of electrical cars on the road will overtake internal combustion ones by 2038.
You can thank policy for at least part the sunny electrical outlook. There are aggressive emissions regulations in China and Europe. Countries like France, the UK, Norway, India, Germany, and the Netherlands plan to ban gasoline and diesel engines by 2040—or sooner.
So it doesn’t matter if Tesla’s newest car misses production goals or has quality hiccups. The tech looks to be on track eventual dominance anyway.
Despite the relatively rapid latest ascent of EVs, there's no question that hybrid and electrical vehicles face challenges. The Toyota Prius reached American shores in 2000, but they and their hybrid and battery electrical cousins made up fewer than three percent of US car sales in 2016. Fewer than 15,000 Toyota Prius Primes have sold in the country this year so far.
What's the holdup? There's not a ton of electrified enthusiasm. “Policy is still the driver,” says Alissa Kendall, a civil and environmental engineer who studies transportation and the environment at UC Davis. “Without policies in place, electrical vehicles are unlikely to be sold.”
Those policies exist—though the best ones are in German, French, Czech, and Chinese. After a spate of diesel scandals ( hello, Volkswagen ), carmakers selling in the European Union turned to electrified to meet greenhouse-gas emission standards. Those standards might get a lot more aggressive: If an EU parliamentary proposal gets through, it will challenge countries to halve their two thousand fifteen carbon dioxide output by 2025.
Chinese drivers purchase half the world’s electrical vehicles, in large part because the government is putting on the pressure . Officials require that EVs make up twelve percent of manufacturers’ sales by 2020. It also offers generous EV incentives, including big cracks on vehicle registration fees. Automakers are responding: Ford says seventy percent of the vehicles it will sell in China by two thousand twenty five will be electrified.
Even in truck-happy America—the gas-chugging Ford F-150 pickup is the best-selling car here—generous federal tax credits and state programs thrust carmakers to develop more EVs by 2025. (Fourteen states require automakers sell zero emission vehicles, or they aren’t permitted to sell in the state at all.) Attempts by the Trump administration to roll back Obama-era emissions standards have been met by fierce legal chest thumping from the likes of California , whose car purchases alone makes up twelve percent of American sales. That will make the regulations difficult to thwart , no matter how well the Model three moves off the line.
Automakers have responded. Just look at the flurry of electrified news in the weeks before the Model three launch, efforts to steal a decibel or two of thunder: Volvo’s shift to electrified ; VW’s announcement that its EV will go for $8,000 less ; BMW's pledge to manufacture electrical Minis in the UK. There are now fifteen battery electrical vehicles on the fairly electric-unfriendly American market alone.
Tesla competitors are “fully ready to market capable electrified vehicles at a loss,” says Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of General Motors.
And battery technology is getting better at an impressively rapid clip. In 2010, battery storage went for $1,000 per kilowatt-hour; in 2016, it was $273 per kilowatt-hour. “I can tell you that back in 2000, when we looked forward to two thousand seventeen or 2020, we never would have imagined that battery technology would have gotten this good,” says Kendall. “We’re outpacing what we thought it would achieve.”
There's still one elephant in the garage: the charger network. There are only about 6,000 chargers worldwide now, tho’ Tesla pledges to get to Ten,000 by the end of the year. (Teslas can use other brands of chargers , but need adapters to do so.) While the Model three gets an incredible range per charge (around two hundred fifteen miles), range anxiety persists. “That shouldn't hold back the market, but it does, because people are people,” says Costa Samaras, who studies alternative energy at Carnegie Mellon University. “We are not rational. Most people could most likely use a 200-mile EV for about ninety five percent of their trips.”
Ultimately success boils down to two things. Very first, it's a matter of keeping electrics cheap and economical, even without government support. In Norway, for example, where forty percent of cars sold last year were electrified, charging is cheaper than gas, in part because gasoline and diesel aren't strenuously subsidized. One “In Nordic countries, you have the economic effect where they become cheaper the more you drive them,” says Niklas Jakobsson, who studies electrical vehicle driver behavior at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The 2nd part is simply getting people into these vehicles. For his research, Jakobsson observes how families adapt to electrified vehicles in countries like Sweden and Germany. A significant portion, he says, just want the car to work like, well, a car. “You have this group that doesn’t want the hassle,” he says. “If the car is more ubiquitous, and they see it on the road, I think that will be very good.”
Tesla has certainly tackled both parts of the problem. The Model three is affordable and stylish. But will that make it ubiquitous? It remains to be seen. But it does seem electrical vehicles, more generally, are here to stay.
1 UPDATE Two:20 PM ET 07/28/17: This story has been updated to clarify electrical vehicle sales in Norway
The Tesla Model three Launches the Electrical Vehicle Market, WIRED
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrified Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrical Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
The Model Three, Tesla's long-awaited mass-market electrical vehicle, launches Friday to what will no doubt be significant fanfare. The unveiling isn't only a coming-of-age party for the nascent car manufacturer; it feels like a significant moment in EV history, too. “It is the car that has been promised to us since the inception of this industry,” says Terry O’Day, who goes up marketing at the electrical charging company EVgo. “It’s the moment that we demonstrate a mass-produced vehicle that is affordably priced and has features that don’t require consumers to compromise in any way.”
That's a lot of pressure for the relatively puny carmaker. What if it doesn't live up to expectations?
The response to that question almost doesn't matter. At least not for the general public. If the Model three does well, it's a win for the electrical vehicle market. And if the worst happens—say, a factory grinds to a halt and creates gigantic production delays—future EVs can coast off Tesla’s cultural cache. This is the company that managed to make electrical vehicles cool. (Reminisce when Tyler the Creator bought a Tesla ?)
Teslamania
Why the Tesla Model S Couldn’t Ace Its Latest Crash Test
Tesla’s Super-Battery Could Help Lift an Aircraft Carrier 1,500 Feet
Tesla’s Electrified Cars Aren’t as Green as You Might Think
So, in a sense, no matter the outcome, Tesla has already succeeded by pushing EVs into the public consciousness—and onto the market. The less sexy, but cheaper, Chevrolet Bolt is on the roads. So is the fully electrified BMW i3, which will be followed by fully electrical Minis and X3s in the next three years or so. Volvo’s making an electrified pivot come 2019. Battery technology resumes to improve at a surprising rate, and Bloomberg Fresh Energy Finance predicts the number of electrified cars on the road will overtake internal combustion ones by 2038.
You can thank policy for at least part the sunny electrical outlook. There are aggressive emissions regulations in China and Europe. Countries like France, the UK, Norway, India, Germany, and the Netherlands plan to ban gasoline and diesel engines by 2040—or sooner.
So it doesn’t matter if Tesla’s newest car misses production goals or has quality hiccups. The tech looks to be on track eventual dominance anyway.
Despite the relatively rapid latest ascent of EVs, there's no question that hybrid and electrical vehicles face challenges. The Toyota Prius reached American shores in 2000, but they and their hybrid and battery electrified cousins made up fewer than three percent of US car sales in 2016. Fewer than 15,000 Toyota Prius Primes have sold in the country this year so far.
What's the holdup? There's not a ton of electrified enthusiasm. “Policy is still the driver,” says Alissa Kendall, a civil and environmental engineer who studies transportation and the environment at UC Davis. “Without policies in place, electrical vehicles are unlikely to be sold.”
Those policies exist—though the best ones are in German, French, Czech, and Chinese. After a spate of diesel scandals ( hello, Volkswagen ), carmakers selling in the European Union turned to electrified to meet greenhouse-gas emission standards. Those standards might get a lot more aggressive: If an EU parliamentary proposal gets through, it will challenge countries to halve their two thousand fifteen carbon dioxide output by 2025.
Chinese drivers purchase half the world’s electrical vehicles, in large part because the government is putting on the pressure . Officials require that EVs make up twelve percent of manufacturers’ sales by 2020. It also offers generous EV incentives, including big cracks on vehicle registration fees. Automakers are responding: Ford says seventy percent of the vehicles it will sell in China by two thousand twenty five will be electrified.
Even in truck-happy America—the gas-chugging Ford F-150 pickup is the best-selling car here—generous federal tax credits and state programs shove carmakers to develop more EVs by 2025. (Fourteen states require automakers sell zero emission vehicles, or they aren’t permitted to sell in the state at all.) Attempts by the Trump administration to roll back Obama-era emissions standards have been met by fierce legal chest thumping from the likes of California , whose car purchases alone makes up twelve percent of American sales. That will make the regulations difficult to thwart , no matter how well the Model three moves off the line.
Automakers have responded. Just look at the flurry of electrical news in the weeks before the Model three launch, efforts to steal a decibel or two of thunder: Volvo’s shift to electrical ; VW’s announcement that its EV will go for $8,000 less ; BMW's pledge to manufacture electrical Minis in the UK. There are now fifteen battery electrical vehicles on the fairly electric-unfriendly American market alone.
Tesla competitors are “fully ready to market capable electrical vehicles at a loss,” says Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of General Motors.
And battery technology is getting better at an impressively rapid clip. In 2010, battery storage went for $1,000 per kilowatt-hour; in 2016, it was $273 per kilowatt-hour. “I can tell you that back in 2000, when we looked forward to two thousand seventeen or 2020, we never would have imagined that battery technology would have gotten this good,” says Kendall. “We’re outpacing what we thought it would achieve.”
There's still one elephant in the garage: the charger network. There are only about 6,000 chargers worldwide now, however Tesla pledges to get to Ten,000 by the end of the year. (Teslas can use other brands of chargers , but need adapters to do so.) While the Model three gets an extraordinaire range per charge (around two hundred fifteen miles), range anxiety persists. “That shouldn't hold back the market, but it does, because people are people,” says Costa Samaras, who studies alternative energy at Carnegie Mellon University. “We are not rational. Most people could very likely use a 200-mile EV for about ninety five percent of their trips.”
Ultimately success boils down to two things. Very first, it's a matter of keeping electrics cheap and economical, even without government support. In Norway, for example, where forty percent of cars sold last year were electrified, charging is cheaper than gas, in part because gasoline and diesel aren't powerfully subsidized. One “In Nordic countries, you have the economic effect where they become cheaper the more you drive them,” says Niklas Jakobsson, who studies electrified vehicle driver behavior at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The 2nd part is simply getting people into these vehicles. For his research, Jakobsson observes how families adapt to electrical vehicles in countries like Sweden and Germany. A significant portion, he says, just want the car to work like, well, a car. “You have this group that doesn’t want the hassle,” he says. “If the car is more ubiquitous, and they see it on the road, I think that will be very good.”
Tesla has certainly tackled both parts of the problem. The Model three is affordable and stylish. But will that make it ubiquitous? It remains to be seen. But it does seem electrical vehicles, more generally, are here to stay.
1 UPDATE Two:20 PM ET 07/28/17: This story has been updated to clarify electrical vehicle sales in Norway
The Tesla Model three Launches the Electrified Vehicle Market, WIRED
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrified Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrified Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
The Model Trio, Tesla's long-awaited mass-market electrified vehicle, launches Friday to what will no doubt be significant fanfare. The unveiling isn't only a coming-of-age party for the nascent car manufacturer; it feels like a significant moment in EV history, too. “It is the car that has been promised to us since the inception of this industry,” says Terry O’Day, who goes up marketing at the electrical charging company EVgo. “It’s the moment that we demonstrate a mass-produced vehicle that is affordably priced and has features that don’t require consumers to compromise in any way.”
That's a lot of pressure for the relatively puny carmaker. What if it doesn't live up to expectations?
The response to that question almost doesn't matter. At least not for the general public. If the Model three does well, it's a win for the electrical vehicle market. And if the worst happens—say, a factory grinds to a halt and creates gigantic production delays—future EVs can coast off Tesla’s cultural cache. This is the company that managed to make electrified vehicles cool. (Recall when Tyler the Creator bought a Tesla ?)
Teslamania
Why the Tesla Model S Couldn’t Ace Its Latest Crash Test
Tesla’s Super-Battery Could Help Lift an Aircraft Carrier 1,500 Feet
Tesla’s Electrical Cars Aren’t as Green as You Might Think
So, in a sense, no matter the outcome, Tesla has already succeeded by pushing EVs into the public consciousness—and onto the market. The less sexy, but cheaper, Chevrolet Bolt is on the roads. So is the fully electrified BMW i3, which will be followed by fully electrified Minis and X3s in the next three years or so. Volvo’s making an electrical pivot come 2019. Battery technology resumes to improve at a surprising rate, and Bloomberg Fresh Energy Finance predicts the number of electrified cars on the road will overtake internal combustion ones by 2038.
You can thank policy for at least part the sunny electrical outlook. There are aggressive emissions regulations in China and Europe. Countries like France, the UK, Norway, India, Germany, and the Netherlands plan to ban gasoline and diesel engines by 2040—or sooner.
So it doesn’t matter if Tesla’s newest car misses production goals or has quality hiccups. The tech looks to be on track eventual dominance anyway.
Despite the relatively rapid latest ascent of EVs, there's no question that hybrid and electrified vehicles face challenges. The Toyota Prius reached American shores in 2000, but they and their hybrid and battery electrified cousins made up fewer than three percent of US car sales in 2016. Fewer than 15,000 Toyota Prius Primes have sold in the country this year so far.
What's the holdup? There's not a ton of electrical enthusiasm. “Policy is still the driver,” says Alissa Kendall, a civil and environmental engineer who studies transportation and the environment at UC Davis. “Without policies in place, electrical vehicles are unlikely to be sold.”
Those policies exist—though the best ones are in German, French, Czech, and Chinese. After a spate of diesel scandals ( hello, Volkswagen ), carmakers selling in the European Union turned to electrified to meet greenhouse-gas emission standards. Those standards might get a lot more aggressive: If an EU parliamentary proposal gets through, it will challenge countries to halve their two thousand fifteen carbon dioxide output by 2025.
Chinese drivers purchase half the world’s electrical vehicles, in large part because the government is putting on the pressure . Officials require that EVs make up twelve percent of manufacturers’ sales by 2020. It also offers generous EV incentives, including big cracks on vehicle registration fees. Automakers are responding: Ford says seventy percent of the vehicles it will sell in China by two thousand twenty five will be electrified.
Even in truck-happy America—the gas-chugging Ford F-150 pickup is the best-selling car here—generous federal tax credits and state programs thrust carmakers to develop more EVs by 2025. (Fourteen states require automakers sell zero emission vehicles, or they aren’t permitted to sell in the state at all.) Attempts by the Trump administration to roll back Obama-era emissions standards have been met by fierce legal chest thumping from the likes of California , whose car purchases alone makes up twelve percent of American sales. That will make the regulations difficult to thwart , no matter how well the Model three moves off the line.
Automakers have responded. Just look at the flurry of electrical news in the weeks before the Model three launch, efforts to steal a decibel or two of thunder: Volvo’s shift to electrified ; VW’s announcement that its EV will go for $8,000 less ; BMW's pledge to manufacture electrified Minis in the UK. There are now fifteen battery electrified vehicles on the fairly electric-unfriendly American market alone.
Tesla competitors are “fully ready to market capable electrified vehicles at a loss,” says Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of General Motors.
And battery technology is getting better at an impressively rapid clip. In 2010, battery storage went for $1,000 per kilowatt-hour; in 2016, it was $273 per kilowatt-hour. “I can tell you that back in 2000, when we looked forward to two thousand seventeen or 2020, we never would have imagined that battery technology would have gotten this good,” says Kendall. “We’re outpacing what we thought it would achieve.”
There's still one elephant in the garage: the charger network. There are only about 6,000 chargers worldwide now, tho’ Tesla pledges to get to Ten,000 by the end of the year. (Teslas can use other brands of chargers , but need adapters to do so.) While the Model three gets an amazing range per charge (around two hundred fifteen miles), range anxiety persists. “That shouldn't hold back the market, but it does, because people are people,” says Costa Samaras, who studies alternative energy at Carnegie Mellon University. “We are not rational. Most people could very likely use a 200-mile EV for about ninety five percent of their trips.”
Ultimately success boils down to two things. Very first, it's a matter of keeping electrics cheap and economical, even without government support. In Norway, for example, where forty percent of cars sold last year were electrical, charging is cheaper than gas, in part because gasoline and diesel aren't powerfully subsidized. One “In Nordic countries, you have the economic effect where they become cheaper the more you drive them,” says Niklas Jakobsson, who studies electrical vehicle driver behavior at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The 2nd part is simply getting people into these vehicles. For his research, Jakobsson observes how families adapt to electrified vehicles in countries like Sweden and Germany. A significant portion, he says, just want the car to work like, well, a car. “You have this group that doesn’t want the hassle,” he says. “If the car is more ubiquitous, and they see it on the road, I think that will be very good.”
Tesla has certainly tackled both parts of the problem. The Model three is affordable and stylish. But will that make it ubiquitous? It remains to be seen. But it does seem electrical vehicles, more generally, are here to stay.
1 UPDATE Two:20 PM ET 07/28/17: This story has been updated to clarify electrical vehicle sales in Norway
The Tesla Model three Launches the Electrified Vehicle Market, WIRED
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrical Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrified Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
The Model Trio, Tesla's long-awaited mass-market electrified vehicle, launches Friday to what will no doubt be significant fanfare. The unveiling isn't only a coming-of-age party for the nascent car manufacturer; it feels like a significant moment in EV history, too. “It is the car that has been promised to us since the inception of this industry,” says Terry O’Day, who goes up marketing at the electrical charging company EVgo. “It’s the moment that we demonstrate a mass-produced vehicle that is affordably priced and has features that don’t require consumers to compromise in any way.”
That's a lot of pressure for the relatively puny carmaker. What if it doesn't live up to expectations?
The reaction to that question almost doesn't matter. At least not for the general public. If the Model three does well, it's a win for the electrified vehicle market. And if the worst happens—say, a factory grinds to a halt and creates gigantic production delays—future EVs can coast off Tesla’s cultural cache. This is the company that managed to make electrified vehicles cool. (Reminisce when Tyler the Creator bought a Tesla ?)
Teslamania
Why the Tesla Model S Couldn’t Ace Its Latest Crash Test
Tesla’s Super-Battery Could Help Lift an Aircraft Carrier 1,500 Feet
Tesla’s Electrical Cars Aren’t as Green as You Might Think
So, in a sense, no matter the outcome, Tesla has already succeeded by pushing EVs into the public consciousness—and onto the market. The less sexy, but cheaper, Chevrolet Bolt is on the roads. So is the fully electrified BMW i3, which will be followed by fully electrical Minis and X3s in the next three years or so. Volvo’s making an electrical pivot come 2019. Battery technology resumes to improve at a surprising rate, and Bloomberg Fresh Energy Finance predicts the number of electrical cars on the road will overtake internal combustion ones by 2038.
You can thank policy for at least part the sunny electrical outlook. There are aggressive emissions regulations in China and Europe. Countries like France, the UK, Norway, India, Germany, and the Netherlands plan to ban gasoline and diesel engines by 2040—or sooner.
So it doesn’t matter if Tesla’s newest car misses production goals or has quality hiccups. The tech looks to be on track eventual dominance anyway.
Despite the relatively rapid latest ascent of EVs, there's no question that hybrid and electrified vehicles face challenges. The Toyota Prius reached American shores in 2000, but they and their hybrid and battery electrical cousins made up fewer than three percent of US car sales in 2016. Fewer than 15,000 Toyota Prius Primes have sold in the country this year so far.
What's the holdup? There's not a ton of electrified enthusiasm. “Policy is still the driver,” says Alissa Kendall, a civil and environmental engineer who studies transportation and the environment at UC Davis. “Without policies in place, electrical vehicles are unlikely to be sold.”
Those policies exist—though the best ones are in German, French, Czech, and Chinese. After a spate of diesel scandals ( hello, Volkswagen ), carmakers selling in the European Union turned to electrical to meet greenhouse-gas emission standards. Those standards might get a lot more aggressive: If an EU parliamentary proposal gets through, it will challenge countries to halve their two thousand fifteen carbon dioxide output by 2025.
Chinese drivers purchase half the world’s electrified vehicles, in large part because the government is putting on the pressure . Officials require that EVs make up twelve percent of manufacturers’ sales by 2020. It also offers generous EV incentives, including big cracks on vehicle registration fees. Automakers are responding: Ford says seventy percent of the vehicles it will sell in China by two thousand twenty five will be electrified.
Even in truck-happy America—the gas-chugging Ford F-150 pickup is the best-selling car here—generous federal tax credits and state programs thrust carmakers to develop more EVs by 2025. (Fourteen states require automakers sell zero emission vehicles, or they aren’t permitted to sell in the state at all.) Attempts by the Trump administration to roll back Obama-era emissions standards have been met by fierce legal chest thumping from the likes of California , whose car purchases alone makes up twelve percent of American sales. That will make the regulations difficult to thwart , no matter how well the Model three moves off the line.
Automakers have responded. Just look at the flurry of electrified news in the weeks before the Model three launch, efforts to steal a decibel or two of thunder: Volvo’s shift to electrified ; VW’s announcement that its EV will go for $8,000 less ; BMW's pledge to manufacture electrical Minis in the UK. There are now fifteen battery electrified vehicles on the fairly electric-unfriendly American market alone.
Tesla competitors are “fully ready to market capable electrical vehicles at a loss,” says Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of General Motors.
And battery technology is getting better at an impressively rapid clip. In 2010, battery storage went for $1,000 per kilowatt-hour; in 2016, it was $273 per kilowatt-hour. “I can tell you that back in 2000, when we looked forward to two thousand seventeen or 2020, we never would have imagined that battery technology would have gotten this good,” says Kendall. “We’re outpacing what we thought it would achieve.”
There's still one elephant in the garage: the charger network. There are only about 6,000 chargers worldwide now, however Tesla pledges to get to Ten,000 by the end of the year. (Teslas can use other brands of chargers , but need adapters to do so.) While the Model three gets an awesome range per charge (around two hundred fifteen miles), range anxiety persists. “That shouldn't hold back the market, but it does, because people are people,” says Costa Samaras, who studies alternative energy at Carnegie Mellon University. “We are not rational. Most people could most likely use a 200-mile EV for about ninety five percent of their trips.”
Ultimately success boils down to two things. Very first, it's a matter of keeping electrics cheap and economical, even without government support. In Norway, for example, where forty percent of cars sold last year were electrical, charging is cheaper than gas, in part because gasoline and diesel aren't strenuously subsidized. One “In Nordic countries, you have the economic effect where they become cheaper the more you drive them,” says Niklas Jakobsson, who studies electrical vehicle driver behavior at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The 2nd part is simply getting people into these vehicles. For his research, Jakobsson observes how families adapt to electrical vehicles in countries like Sweden and Germany. A significant portion, he says, just want the car to work like, well, a car. “You have this group that doesn’t want the hassle,” he says. “If the car is more ubiquitous, and they see it on the road, I think that will be very good.”
Tesla has certainly tackled both parts of the problem. The Model three is affordable and stylish. But will that make it ubiquitous? It remains to be seen. But it does seem electrical vehicles, more generally, are here to stay.
1 UPDATE Two:20 PM ET 07/28/17: This story has been updated to clarify electrified vehicle sales in Norway
The Tesla Model three Launches the Electrified Vehicle Market, WIRED
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrified Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
Tesla’s Model three Is Making Electrical Vehicles Successful Even Before Its Launch
The Model Three, Tesla's long-awaited mass-market electrified vehicle, launches Friday to what will no doubt be significant fanfare. The unveiling isn't only a coming-of-age party for the nascent car manufacturer; it feels like a significant moment in EV history, too. “It is the car that has been promised to us since the inception of this industry,” says Terry O’Day, who goes up marketing at the electrical charging company EVgo. “It’s the moment that we demonstrate a mass-produced vehicle that is affordably priced and has features that don’t require consumers to compromise in any way.”
That's a lot of pressure for the relatively puny carmaker. What if it doesn't live up to expectations?
The response to that question almost doesn't matter. At least not for the general public. If the Model three does well, it's a win for the electrical vehicle market. And if the worst happens—say, a factory grinds to a halt and creates gigantic production delays—future EVs can coast off Tesla’s cultural cache. This is the company that managed to make electrified vehicles cool. (Recall when Tyler the Creator bought a Tesla ?)
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So, in a sense, no matter the outcome, Tesla has already succeeded by pushing EVs into the public consciousness—and onto the market. The less sexy, but cheaper, Chevrolet Bolt is on the roads. So is the fully electrified BMW i3, which will be followed by fully electrical Minis and X3s in the next three years or so. Volvo’s making an electrified pivot come 2019. Battery technology resumes to improve at a surprising rate, and Bloomberg Fresh Energy Finance predicts the number of electrical cars on the road will overtake internal combustion ones by 2038.
You can thank policy for at least part the sunny electrified outlook. There are aggressive emissions regulations in China and Europe. Countries like France, the UK, Norway, India, Germany, and the Netherlands plan to ban gasoline and diesel engines by 2040—or sooner.
So it doesn’t matter if Tesla’s newest car misses production goals or has quality hiccups. The tech looks to be on track eventual dominance anyway.
Despite the relatively rapid latest ascent of EVs, there's no question that hybrid and electrified vehicles face challenges. The Toyota Prius reached American shores in 2000, but they and their hybrid and battery electrical cousins made up fewer than three percent of US car sales in 2016. Fewer than 15,000 Toyota Prius Primes have sold in the country this year so far.
What's the holdup? There's not a ton of electrified enthusiasm. “Policy is still the driver,” says Alissa Kendall, a civil and environmental engineer who studies transportation and the environment at UC Davis. “Without policies in place, electrified vehicles are unlikely to be sold.”
Those policies exist—though the best ones are in German, French, Czech, and Chinese. After a spate of diesel scandals ( hello, Volkswagen ), carmakers selling in the European Union turned to electrified to meet greenhouse-gas emission standards. Those standards might get a lot more aggressive: If an EU parliamentary proposal gets through, it will challenge countries to halve their two thousand fifteen carbon dioxide output by 2025.
Chinese drivers purchase half the world’s electrified vehicles, in large part because the government is putting on the pressure . Officials require that EVs make up twelve percent of manufacturers’ sales by 2020. It also offers generous EV incentives, including big violates on vehicle registration fees. Automakers are responding: Ford says seventy percent of the vehicles it will sell in China by two thousand twenty five will be electrified.
Even in truck-happy America—the gas-chugging Ford F-150 pickup is the best-selling car here—generous federal tax credits and state programs thrust carmakers to develop more EVs by 2025. (Fourteen states require automakers sell zero emission vehicles, or they aren’t permitted to sell in the state at all.) Attempts by the Trump administration to roll back Obama-era emissions standards have been met by fierce legal chest thumping from the likes of California , whose car purchases alone makes up twelve percent of American sales. That will make the regulations difficult to thwart , no matter how well the Model three moves off the line.
Automakers have responded. Just look at the flurry of electrified news in the weeks before the Model three launch, efforts to steal a decibel or two of thunder: Volvo’s shift to electrical ; VW’s announcement that its EV will go for $8,000 less ; BMW's pledge to manufacture electrical Minis in the UK. There are now fifteen battery electrified vehicles on the fairly electric-unfriendly American market alone.
Tesla competitors are “fully ready to market capable electrified vehicles at a loss,” says Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of General Motors.
And battery technology is getting better at an impressively rapid clip. In 2010, battery storage went for $1,000 per kilowatt-hour; in 2016, it was $273 per kilowatt-hour. “I can tell you that back in 2000, when we looked forward to two thousand seventeen or 2020, we never would have imagined that battery technology would have gotten this good,” says Kendall. “We’re outpacing what we thought it would achieve.”
There's still one elephant in the garage: the charger network. There are only about 6,000 chargers worldwide now, tho’ Tesla pledges to get to Ten,000 by the end of the year. (Teslas can use other brands of chargers , but need adapters to do so.) While the Model three gets an astounding range per charge (around two hundred fifteen miles), range anxiety persists. “That shouldn't hold back the market, but it does, because people are people,” says Costa Samaras, who studies alternative energy at Carnegie Mellon University. “We are not rational. Most people could very likely use a 200-mile EV for about ninety five percent of their trips.”
Ultimately success boils down to two things. Very first, it's a matter of keeping electrics cheap and economical, even without government support. In Norway, for example, where forty percent of cars sold last year were electrical, charging is cheaper than gas, in part because gasoline and diesel aren't powerfully subsidized. One “In Nordic countries, you have the economic effect where they become cheaper the more you drive them,” says Niklas Jakobsson, who studies electrical vehicle driver behavior at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The 2nd part is simply getting people into these vehicles. For his research, Jakobsson observes how families adapt to electrified vehicles in countries like Sweden and Germany. A significant portion, he says, just want the car to work like, well, a car. “You have this group that doesn’t want the hassle,” he says. “If the car is more ubiquitous, and they see it on the road, I think that will be very good.”
Tesla has certainly tackled both parts of the problem. The Model three is affordable and stylish. But will that make it ubiquitous? It remains to be seen. But it does seem electrified vehicles, more generally, are here to stay.
1 UPDATE Two:20 PM ET 07/28/17: This story has been updated to clarify electrified vehicle sales in Norway