Tesla in the driving seat
TOBY SHAPSHAK: The Tesla revolution
With its affordable, mass-market Model 3, Elon Musk’s company is changing the automotive industry
Tesla’s Model 3 is about to do to the traditional petrol-engine motor industry what the Model T Ford did to horse-drawn carriages in 1908.
Last week an epoch was reached in the automobile industry when the first 50 of Tesla’s mass-market electric cars, the Model 3, were delivered to happy customers. Unlike the luxury models that Tesla has been making, the Model 3 is its play for a much broader market. It will come in two versions, but it’s the entry-level US$35,000 (R462,000) model that is the most exciting. Its cost is about that of a midsized luxury car, yet it still does 354km on a "tank" of charge. It has a clever supercharger feature that gives you a range of 210km with just a 30-minute charge. It will do 0-100km in 5.1 seconds and has a top speed of 210km/h.It’s a revolution — so much so that Tesla, which is not yet 15 years old and has never made a profit, was valued in April at more than motor industry behemoth Ford, which has produced 350m cars in its 114-year history. A share price surge took Tesla to $49bn, overtaking Ford at $46bn. But Tesla’s Model 3 is about to do to the traditional petrol-engine motor in...
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