I had an interesting discussion with a former colleague on Friday.  He had just bought a new Tesla Model 3 electric car.  Advertised as the affordable electric car for everyone.

I was a bit puzzled when he shared the fact that after rebates the out of the pocket cost of this affordable car was around $52,000.   Seems a little steep and you can still get a new combustion engine car with many safety features including bells and whistles for under $30,000. (or an Econo car for under $20,000)

Save the Planet

If the prime motivation to move away from internal combustion engines is reducing the footprint of carbon waste products it is going to be a hard sell.

Moving to an electric vehicle because of performance, cost savings, design, styling and functionality are all strong reasons.  Focusing the marketing on saving the planet, being noble regardless of performance, function and cost might not cut it.

Badge of Honor

Tesla electric cars intend to capture the market by producing a high-quality low-cost vehicle, giving greater value than the existing suite of combustion engine vehicles.

Based on the current out of the pocket cost of their low-end offering I don’t think they have the upfront capital cost solved yet although they do argue over the vehicle life the fuel cost savings are significant.

My former colleague advised the Tesla store in Calgary Alberta were delivering 200 cars a month.  Sounds pretty good but combustion engine production needs to stop, the price point needs to drop and the range needs to enable long trips to out of the way places before electric cars take over.

We are still a long way from those things happening but in 20 to 40 years I firmly believe automotive combustion engines will have had their day.