Home / Blog / The Electric Car – No Longer a Pipe Dream for the Common Man

The Electric Car – No Longer a Pipe Dream for the Common Man

April 7, 2016 By Tim No Comments

Two companies are neck in neck on releasing the first mid-range electric vehicle with an affordable price-point. One company, General Motors, is an old and trusted name in the automobile industry. The other, Tesla, is a sexy and futuristic giant run by an innovative and brilliant billionaire, Elon Musk, who was also the first to put electric cars on the road.

Tesla unveiled its Model 3 EV (electric vehicle) to the masses this past week, creating an incredible amount of buzz since it will be the first Tesla car to come with and affordable price tag. The company has already dominated the EV market, but General Motors has an ace up their sleeve that could shift the market in their favor.

The iconic car manufacturer is preparing to release the Chevy Bolt, and it has the potential to take a huge slice of the affordable EV market.

Model 3

The Tesla Model 3 Vs the Chevrolet Bolt

First, let’s look at what each car has to offer:

	Model 3	Chevy Bolt
Price	$35,000	$37,000
Range	215 miles per charge	200 miles per charge
Availability	Late 2017	Late 2016

As you can see from the table, the one thing that Chevy has over Tesla is availability. The Bolt will be ready for purchase by the end of this year, the “Late 2017” availability of the Model 3 is a fluid date, and Tesla has had its fair share of production delays in the past, so industry experts are telling people to prepare to wait for their shiny new car.

The reason that consumers are going to have to wait such a long time for their own Model 3 has to do with Tesla’s production capacity, something that Elon Musk has addressed. The current amount of EV’s produced by the company is 30,000 per year. Considering over 300,000 people have reserved the car, it could be an excruciating wait for those eager to get behind the wheel of an affordable Tesla vehicle.

Chevy Bolt

You could put the $1,000 deposit down on a Model 3, lease a Chevy Bolt and by the time your lease is winding down, you may possibly have you shiny new Tesla in your driveway…maybe.

The United States government offers incentives of up to $7,500 for the purchase of electric vehicles. That makes the price range much more affordable, and will drive demand up even higher. Unfortunately, it could already be too late for individuals who’ve reserved a Model 3 since the threshold limit is 200,000 cars per manufacturer and Tesla is expected to sell that many cars by 2018.

This doesn’t mean the incentives disappear, the amount consumers get back will drop from $7,500 to $3,750 for the six months after the threshold limit is met and then $1,875 for the following six months after that.

GM already has an EV available, the 2016 Spark and Nissan has entered the fray with the 2016 Nissan LEAF. However, the Model 3 and the Bolt offer nearly double the range at a much better price point.

In the End, the Environment is the Real Winner

It’s too early to tell who’s going to win the battle of the affordable EV. This could very well turn into the Apple Vs Android version of cars. While it might be unfair to compare Chevy to Tesla, there’s no denying that General Motors may have a head start in this race.

TESLA INTERIOR

Elon Musk isn’t too concerned with competition. He has talked in the past about wanting the electric car to succeed regardless of who’s making them. Mr. Musk has even offered Tesla’s patents to other car manufacturers to use in good faith, an unexpected and refreshing attitude from a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.

Whoever wins is beside the point, people are actually excited to own and drive electric cars. A recent study in the UK showed that 81% of 14 year-olds wants an electric vehicle as their first car (this number decreased as respondents got older but never dropped below 50%).

The future is bright and the eco-friendly car movement is exactly what the environments needs, now it’s just a matter of manufacturing them and getting them to the eager masses.