It's interesting. Tesla's in a race, because it has to get better products to market before the established carmakers get there. Once it does that, it has a better reputation than the established carmakers in that price-range / niche, and it's set. Tesla pulled it off with the Roadster, and they pulled it off with the Model S. They may well pull it off with the Model X, though they're now racing with Toyota's RAV-4, which they're supplying powertrains for.
Tesla may not succeed at winning the "race" with the "Bluestar", thanks to Nissan. The first year of the Leaf had some pretty serious flaws (no temperature management for the battery pack resulting in bad performance in cold weather...) but Nissan is catching up fast, and may well have cornered the low-end market by the time Tesla gets to it. Only if Tesla manages to deploy a charging network at wide intervals before Nissan deploys one at smaller intervals will Tesla be able to jump past Nissan in that market sector by having longer range.
What's interesting is that Nissan is the only serious competition to Tesla. Several of the carmakers' executives have openly admitted that they did not make serious attempts to build electric cars until the Roadster came out. So they're rushing what are essentially conversions, and they're going to suffer because of that; they're all several years behind. Some like Toyota and Daimler are trying to catch up by licensing from Tesla, which is certainly not hurting Tesla. Nissan, however, seems to be taking the electric car project seriously; although they seem to be technologically a little behind Tesla, they may well win out over Tesla on the low-end market, unless they make another serious mistake (they've made a couple but they have had time to recover from all of them).
The other "little guys" just lost the race. :-( None of them are ahead of Tesla or Nissan.
Tesla may not succeed at winning the "race" with the "Bluestar", thanks to Nissan. The first year of the Leaf had some pretty serious flaws (no temperature management for the battery pack resulting in bad performance in cold weather...) but Nissan is catching up fast, and may well have cornered the low-end market by the time Tesla gets to it. Only if Tesla manages to deploy a charging network at wide intervals before Nissan deploys one at smaller intervals will Tesla be able to jump past Nissan in that market sector by having longer range.
What's interesting is that Nissan is the only serious competition to Tesla. Several of the carmakers' executives have openly admitted that they did not make serious attempts to build electric cars until the Roadster came out. So they're rushing what are essentially conversions, and they're going to suffer because of that; they're all several years behind. Some like Toyota and Daimler are trying to catch up by licensing from Tesla, which is certainly not hurting Tesla. Nissan, however, seems to be taking the electric car project seriously; although they seem to be technologically a little behind Tesla, they may well win out over Tesla on the low-end market, unless they make another serious mistake (they've made a couple but they have had time to recover from all of them).
The other "little guys" just lost the race. :-( None of them are ahead of Tesla or Nissan.
