I'm sad to say this, but I think GM is going to crush Tesla in the long run. GM knows about building cars, tech becomes cheaper and available over time. It will take Tesla longer to learn how to build and mass produce at a cheap price than for GM to have all the tech they need to match up with Tesla. Initially I was worried that Honda would be the one, but they don't seem to be taking the electric and self driving car serious. GM has their volt/bolt with decent range, I happen to work at a company that shares a lot with some of the auto manufacturing suppliers for American car companies, and I see them testing their self driving cars sometimes. Oh and they have a bunch of Teslas for inspiration I suppose. :)
Why do you say so? That's 2793 Chevys vs 1650 Teslas.
There are more people who can afford Chevy than Tesla.
Tesla hasn't demonstrated that they can manufacture cheaply, they have promised and we are still waiting. GM might not have a luxury electric package, but they know how from their experience in building Cadillac. Tesla not in the dealerships is a problem. GM manufactures outside of the country and has about 30 factories. They can build and sell electric car outside. Tesla doesn't, building, shipping & custom fees increases price of car a lot.
I'm not convinced that Tesla will win this battle if all variables remain the same. They need to move faster to have a chance.
Animats is saying you don't have to wait to see GM beat Tesla, not that they won't beat them in the long run.
Of course, comparing sales of Chevy's and Toyota's mostly low-end lineup to Tesla's luxury offerings is pretty odd anyway. At the moment it seems pretty TBD.
(I also maintain that including cars like the Volt and Prius in the same category as the Bolt and Model S doesn't make much sense. You may as well compare the Bolt and Model S to all gas-powered cars if you're going to include those gas-powered cars in the mix — it's equally unenlightening.)
Allegedly some large fraction of driving takes place within 20 miles of home. In light of that, including vehicles with 20-40 miles of EV only range makes perfect sense.
Sure, a lot of driving is done near home. But if trips outside that range were really negligible, gas tanks wouldn't be a standard feature in those cars. They're not including them just for funsies.
As an aside, I think you're slightly misunderstanding that statistic. If I do a 60-mile round trip directly away from my house and back, 66% of those miles are within 20 miles of home even though the trip isn't anywhere near 20 miles in total. If I drive 15 miles away from my house and then drive a a semi-circle for 80 miles, all of those are within 20 miles of home.
To be fair, the Model 3 is not available yet, so I'm not surprised to see cars like the Volt, Prius and Bolt selling better than 70k+ cars like the Model S and X.
