nberry:
I am puzzled. Why buy any EV car today when they all are a work in progress? EV cars are in their infancy and will Improve significantly with each new model.
It seems like present day buyers are getting EV’s just to say the own one.
There market for EV was artificially created by governments with all the subsidies and incentives. Why did you think I ended up getting one? I can afford to pay for gas, I have some of the fastest cars made in my garage, so it's not the performance or the fact that I don't eat to pay for gas that attracts me to buying a EV. My city has this great 'green' car initiative, EV and hybrids gets access to HOV lanes, prime and sometimes free parking spots for cars that need charging, tax rebates, etc. That's the reason I got a EV for city use.
Tesla was first to market with their premium EV to take advantage of that and sold hundreds of thousands of cars.
Mitsubishi was in first with the mass market I-MiEV, Nissan 2nd with the Leaf. but both are aiming for the cheap segment, most people with decent disposable incoming don't really consider them viable daily car yet. But the Tesla has a better interior than either, still not great, but it's better and with no competition in the premium segment, they have the whole market segment to themselves and sold hundreds of thousands of cars.
Due to the nature of how a electric motor works, it has the side benefit of amazing acceleration from rest, which is a hit thing with the Americans as they love drag racing, so that inn turn attracts more people to buy them just for the drag racing ability.
The premium car makers didn't really get into the premium/luxury EV car segment until now, the EV market was just too small. But now that the market is getting big, they are all jumping in to get a slice of the pie. 2020 will b the year to watch, as it will be the real test to see how a Tesla stack up against real competition with the Jaguar i-Pace, Audi e-tron, incoming Audi e-tron GT, incoming Mercedes EQC and Taycan.
The other car makers also have the benefit of watching how a Tesla was being used and adjust their EV car's positioning in the market.
Not every customer needs amazing acceleration, most car buyers don't care if their car can do 2.5 second 0-60 or 6 second 0-60, only a select few cares. Or else everyone will be buying a AMG and not the regular E-class.
Not every customer needs amazing range from the battery pack, some do care and need, but others, like myself, that only uses the car for city trips, then the long range is useless. Just like normal car market, for those that want amazing range, they go for diesel.
Charging however will be the key. People are used to spending 5-10 mins at gas station to refill range. A Tesla needs a nominal 40 mins. The incoming headlines from Tesla are amazing to hear, 250kw charger. But the fine print tells a different story. The charger can only hits 250kw if the car is almost empty and only for the first 20-30% of charge, after that the charge rate drops significantly. So if someone re-charge their car like most people do the driving a normal car, they go fill up around 1/2 empty, then the Tesla charger will not be charging at close to 250kw. Their normal charger is only at 150kw and also split between 2 plugs, in real life that's only 72kw peak per car.
Audi sees that as something they can use against Tesla. The peak charge rate is only 150kw, but the charge curve is a lot more generous. It maintains a nominal charge rate over 100kw up util ~80% of capacity, so if someone goes to charge up their car not close to 0%, the Audi charge up quicker.
But that's all corporate speak, real life experiences will varies, especially with how much power those public charging stations puts out.
Battery life is another key thing. Tesla is first, everyone else examine their pack and improve on theirs. Mainly, cooling. Audi added extra cooling circuits to their pack as compared to the Tesla pack, and so did Porsche, I imagine Mercedes is doing the same thing. Usage also. Tesla pretty much provision the whole pack to be used, charge and discharge the whole thing. Audi reserved a significant portion of their pack as 'spare'. It does't runs the whole pack, it rotates the usage on each cell to make them last longer. There is down side to that as the range is shorter. It's a trade off.
--