You _think_ you aren't competing with Tesla, but
you will be. Your customers will compare the
virtues of your car to the Tesla, and you must
offer something that the Tesla does not. Nothing
you have said would lure a customer towards your
concept EV and away from buying a Tesla. Teslas
have insane performance, and they cost less than
$120k, and they have 200+ miles of range.
Folks simply _must_ have range. That is why Tesla
sells, because it has _unbelievable_ range.
People won't pay big bucks for an EV that doesn't
have similar range to a Tesla. (It is impossible
to talk a person out of range they can buy elsewhere at the same price.)
Folks new to EVs think "I'll just put a bigger
battery pack into the car, and that will easily
take care of aerodynamic drag problems which will
cure my range issues." It doesn't, unfortunately.
A bigger pack takes more room, which you don't
have to give. You end up with a battery with a driver's seat.
If there a better battery technology becomes
available, Tesla will offer it as a retrofit.
(The offer an upgrade on the battery pack if you
bought a Roadster, for example.)
You think, "I'll just give up range." and offer a
car that has 50 miles of range, but stellar
performance. The trouble is, your performance
really can't do much better than a Tesla, at
least on ordinary pavement. Tesla is up against
the traction limit of ordinary pavement. You
really can't get much faster acceleration than
0-60 mph in 2.8 seconds on the street. Your tires won't grip any better.
I understand your desire to make a big bucks,
high performance EV, but Tesla has simply beat
you to the punch. Tesla beat _everyone_ to the
punch. They will continue to beat everyone to the punch.
Bill D.
At 10:19 AM 1/14/2016, Jack Wendel wrote:
Bill wrote:Â
If you are going to sell them after you build
one of your own, it is going to be very
difficult to beat the Tesla on performance, safety, and value/dollar.
The assumption that I plan to compete with Tesla
out of the gate is simply crazy. Tesla has a
HUGE head start over me. If it were possible for
me to compete either of the following would have to be true:Â
1) Tesla engineers are all idiots.Â
2) I am smarter than all the Tesla engineers combined.Â
3) Tesla hasn't learned a thing in all the years
they have been in development and production.Â
Since we can safely assume 1 and 3 are not true,
thanks for the compliment Bill! ;^)Â
You want a convertible, cut the top off of a
Tesla. Do it very nicely and neatly of course,
but that would be your best option. Sell that
customized model of a Tesla, using the same
business model as van conversions, stretch limos, and bulletproof cars use.
That would be great if I wanted to be in the
business of converting  cars. I don't. Someone
else can do that if they want to.Â
Â
One thing that you are not taking into account
is that all OEM EVs are _very_ aerodynamic. (No
exceptions.) This is directly related to range,
the cost of the battery pack, the weight of the
battery pack, and the cost of the car. A car
with crappy range simply won't sell. Likewise, a
car with a heavy (and expensive) battery pack to
make up for a bad Cd will take a performance hit
because of the extra weight, and won't sell either.Â
Your assumptions are based on your perspective
of value. Obviously nothing wrong with that and
it's probably quite similar  to others on this
list. No offense, but no one on this list would
be a target customer of mine exactly for that
reason. My target customers have a COMPLETELY different perspective of value.Â
Â
ICE cars really don't have to be aerodynamic to
sell well. Poor aero doesn't impact the purchase
price, or the weight of the vehicle, and doesn't
alter the performance appreciably. All that
really changes is the EPA estimated mileage. The
customer doesn't care mostly because he doesn't think that far ahead.Â
Same with my target audience. All they care
about is that the car is an "EV" and that they
can  CLAIM to care about the environment.Â
Â
Thus, if you want a "classic" or "sporty" or
some other styling, you can't sacrifice
aerodynamic drag to achieve it. You must
carefully style the car to achieve the desired
look, while being very very aerodynamic. Not
easy to do, but you must to build an EV that
will actually sell. To sell, it must have range
and performance and be competitive in cost.
That, in turn, requires that it have a low Cd.
Thus, a Mustang or a Corvette won't work. Awful Cd.
Again, different value system. My range will
come from better battery technology. It's not
there yet (nowhere close) but I want to have my
cars built and tested before that happens. I
cannot wait for that to happen before I pull the trigger on this project.Â
Â
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