Tesla, a now world-renowned name that represents so much more than just electric cars. What does the future look like as Tesla takes the wheel of the car market?
A recent report by Cairn Energy Research Advisors estimated that global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) will climb 36% to over 3 million vehicles sold in 2021. There is no question that EVs have become more popular in recent years, but will the trend continue?
Tesla™ is leading the charge with the iconic company name, Tesla, representing the electric car revolution. For a hundred years the electric car was considered to be an impractical and obsolete engineering concept. That is changing in a big way thanks to Tesla.
The green and sustainable energy movement is kicking into high gear out of a need and desire to replace fossil fuels as our global energy source. Tesla is not just an electric car company, but a leader in an ideal for a better future. Read on to find out if Tesla is likely to take over the car market of the future.
Tesla the Legend
Tesla Motors (now Tesla) was named after the early 20th-century electric engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla. Tragically, history had all but forgotten the man most directly responsible for our modern technological lifestyle, when Tesla Motors was founded in his name in 2003.
If you were to ask the average person if they have heard of Nikola Tesla they would likely give you a confused look and say “You mean the electric car company?”
Nikola Tesla was most notably the inventor of the AC induction motor. He won hundreds of patents making possible our modern system of producing and transmitting electricity by alternating currents.
The eccentric and sometimes “mad scientist” Nikola Tesla was the kind of rare visionary that comes along once a century. Tesla envisioned a future of limitless free energy transmitted wirelessly across the globe by the Earth’s natural conductivity. This was Nikola Tesla’s life’s work and it is fitting that an electric car company, led by another visionary CEO Elon Musk, should take on the spirit of Tesla and his vision.
Tesla the Company
Tesla Motors (renamed Tesla in 2017) was founded in July 2003 by a couple of automobile engineers with a passion for electric vehicles. Tesla has a step-up business model. The high-end sports car, Tesla Roadster, was phase one, designed to attract interest in electric cars by showing the world EVs could be reliable, fast, safe, and more importantly, sexy.
The long term vision of the company has always been to accelerate the mainstream adoption of electric cars, rendering the combustion engine for automobiles a thing of the past, and completely changing the face of transportation forever.
The company’s model 3 entered the EV market in 2017 with the promise of the highest quality electric car at a price the average consumer could afford. The Tesla Model 3 is currently the best selling EV in America with an estimated 38,314 sales for the first half of 2020.
Electric Cars Before Tesla
The electric car is by no means a recent revolutionary concept. The first electric cars started to emerge on early city roads in the late 1800s. At the turn of the 20th-century, electric cars outnumbered gasoline cars in the United States.
The electric car lost steam in the 1920s and the cheaper yet inferior gasoline engine won the battle for the roads. Those first electric car companies fizzled out and died. Many startup car companies have come and gone over the years, but no company ever came close to threatening the dominance of the gasoline engine until Tesla.
Tesla Electric Cars 2020
Is Tesla on track to sway the momentum toward making electric cars more common on the roads than gasoline cars? Let’s take a look at how Tesla measures up with comparable gasoline cars on the market and see if the best value is on Tesla’s side.
Gas Engines vs Electric Motors
Electric motors have a couple of big advantages over gasoline engines. For one, electric engines run clean and don’t need oil. The burning of fossil fuel for energy is a messy business that wears on engine components. Electric motors last longer and need little to no maintenance.
Another big difference is performance. Electric motors are faster and more powerful than combustion engines with the full horsepower and torque of the motor available instantly instead of needing time to reach the engine’s full power as in the case of the gasoline engine.
Charge Range vs Miles Per Gallon
Electric motors are more efficient than gasoline engines with 90% of the electric energy being converted to motion. The gasoline engine is only 20% efficient. However, gasoline is much more energy-dense than the battery and electric charge of the EV.
The limited range of EVs used to be the biggest argument for gasoline cars. Advances in EV battery technology work to close the gap. Now the range of an EV is not far off the range of a gasoline car.
The average mile per gallon rating for a gasoline car is 25mpg. This means that with a 15-gallon gas tank the average gasoline car has a range of 375 miles. To compare, the Tesla Model S has a 402 miles per charge range.
Fast vs Quick
Thanks to the instant torque of the high-performance electric motor, the Model S is the quickest production vehicle in the world. The Tesla Model S goes form 0-60 in a neck-breaking 2.3 seconds and has a top speed of 163 mph.
The top speed of the fastest gasoline production vehicles is well over 200 mph. While electric vehicles are by far the quickest, gasoline still rules the top speed category.
For most consumers, having the ability to drive at speeds reaching three times the legal speed limit is largely inconsequential in their decision to buy a Tesla. Although it has a wow factor appeal, wide acceptance and adoption of EVs won’t be decided on their race worthiness, but rather their practicality.
Safety Features
The Tesla Model s and Model X boost a 5-star rating in safety with NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). Tesla blows away the competition when it comes to safety. The Tesla Model S tested to be 9 times safer than the Volvo S 60 which was previously thought to be one of the safest cars on the market.
Tesla’s are packed with impact protection with reinforced steel front and side high-impact protection designs. Along with all the industry-standard safety features, Tesla has the unique advantage of a low heavy center of gravity making the car extremely roll-over resistant.
A common misconception about electric cars is the risk of battery fires making them less safe than gasoline cars. This simply is not true. Electrical fires burn hot and are difficult to extinguish, but a Tesla is statistically 11 times less likely to catch fire.
If fate should bring you and your Tesla an accident resulting in a complete loss of the vehicle, the good news is that even demolished the electric car’s value is still considerable. Bestpriceforcars.com pays the most in the salvage industry for damaged Teslas. We pay top cash for your junk car.
Autonomous Driving
Are men, women, or computers the best drivers? The jury is still out on the first two, but computers definitely can be better drivers than humans. The engineering and AI challenges of programming a car to drive itself is well, immense, and we still have a long way to go before fully autonomous cars are possible.
Elon Musk has made bold predictions that by 2030 cars will be completely autonomous. He has even gone on to say cars will not have steering wheels and laws passed against driving a car yourself on city roads.
The race is on to make driving hands-off, effectively making every car a personal chauffeur. Fast-forwarding to a future with 100% autonomous transportation and ask yourself if you envision these cars to be electric or gasoline.
The electric car’s value is clear and its advantages over the combustion engine are becoming more and more apparent as time goes on. Considering all the above advantages and the greater attention to the pollution issues of burning fossil fuels, the electric car has the potential to take over the car market, but whether or not Tesla will keep the lead remains to be seen.
Tesla’s Bright Vision for the Future
At the core of the company’s values is the same vision for a sustainable energy future for the world as Nikola Tesla dreamed of. With powerful arguments to consider, the electric car certainly has the characteristics of a clear contender for the king of the road. It is easy to get behind the possibilities.
The battle to be among the best electric cars of the future will be a long and exciting fight with every major car manufacturer in the world throwing in their hat. Being first to the race and having a culture of pushing technological innovation, Tesla appears to be making history and forming the future of transportation and electric energy use.
For more fascinating information on the ever-changing automobile market read more articles on our blog.