Tesla under Elon Musk made the first best electric car

Posted July 16, 2024

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We make the best cars,” proclaimed a defiant Elon Musk at a business event last November. “Whether you hate me, like me, or are indifferent: do you want the best car, or do you not want the best car?”

Budget permitting, it’s a question that tens of millions of people weigh up as they shop for a new vehicle. But as competition heats up in the electric vehicle (EV) market, there is increasing reason to doubt that the best electric car will be made by Tesla.

“I can’t tell you how many people who, without question, without any consideration of an alternative, bought a Tesla a year ago – or five years ago in my case – who are [now] quite open the next time around to consider other brands,” Len Sherman, a former auto industry consultant who is now a professor at Columbia Business School, tells The Independent.

Once unchallenged for the EV crown, Tesla now faces growing rivalry not only from specialist EV firms such as Rivian and Lucid Motors but traditional household names such as Toyota, General Motors, BMW, and Volkswagen. In 2024, for the first time ever, Tesla was overtaken in EV sales numbers by the Chinese electric giant BYD.

At the same time, global demand for EVs has hit a speed bump as mainstream buyers remain sceptical of the technology and leery of high prices, leading many big auto companies to slash their investments.

All of which raises the stakes for Tesla’s ongoing issues with the quality of its cars. Having rapidly built its own manufacturing and dealership system in the space of two decades, it remains dogged by reports of scratched bodywork, ill-fitting components and broken control systems.

Nor are all these problems mere aesthetic niggles. The company, which did not respond to an interview request from The Independent, is under investigation by US regulators for a host of issues including alleged steering failures and “phantom braking”.

Last June, a Washington Post investigation found that Tesla’s vaunted “autopilot” technology has been linked to 736 of the 807 US crashes involving driver assistance technologies since 2019.

Article Source: Tesla under Elon Musk made the first best electric vehicle. But will it make the next? | The Independent

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