Are Tesla Cars Overhyped?
By Vincen Mathai
(MBA cohort 2017)
Do you want to see the e-Cars that we had
before Tesla?
The most famous electric car in the 1990s is
the EV-1 from GM, which was shelved within a
few years. Ambivalence from GM under political
pressure led to the model getting discontinued very
soon after despite getting many rave reviews and
having an ad campaign that won an Emmy award.
The model had 70 to 100 miles per charge.
Photo Credit: Provided by author
Then we had Nissan Leaf by the year 2011. The
range overall remained the same from what we
saw a decade ago. Though this car model broke
the Guinness World Record for the most electric
cars sold in a year, the reaction from mainstream
people was lukewarm.
Then the Tesla Model S happened in 2012.
The vehicle has a range of 240-310 miles per
charge. Besides it being the first time an electric car
was made that can pass off as any other fossil fuel
based vehicle, unlike those of the past that looks
like something the Jetsons would drive.
• This model has cumulative sales of around 78000
until now.
• Also the Model S is the first electric vehicle model
12
AGSM
to reach the 1 billion electric miles milestone.
• From $25 a share, Tesla stock price has more
than quadrupled to over $100 per share.
• Despite Tesla models’ prices being more than
double the prices of it nearest competitors, it has
sold more electric cars than its rivals
These are the successes that no electric car model
ever had until now. Tesla’s sales growth hasn’t
stagnated till now and the scope of development is
still present. Looking at the unattractive and weakly
spec-ed electric cars in the pre-Tesla era, there is
no doubt in saying that Tesla do rightfully deserve
the hype.Tesla Model S and Model X made the
electric car “cool” and “mainstream”, at least in
the USA. The many electric car ventures by BMW,
Nissan and GM until now were nothing more than
lip service to the environmentally savvy people. For
these big firms, electric cars are nothing more than
1% of the total car sales, and therefore is never
their main priority. Whereas at Tesla, the employees
“Eat, breathe, sleep electric car”.
For Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla Motors), there is
nothing more important than electric cars and
therefore it is of utmost priority for him to develop
electric cars. They didn’t take a petrol car and stick
an electric engine in it, they made a true electric
car from the ground up. Everything about the car
displays the bleeding ed