As Singapore redoubles its efforts to focus on adopting electric vehicles (EVs) announcing its ambitions install 60,000 bottling plants nationwide by 2030 – more than double the original target of 28,000 – EV manufacturers are expected to increase their presence here.
In Singapore, there are already a handful of EV car manufacturers competing for the car market. Tesla is now one of them, because he recently won green light to start selling EV in Singapore.
Tesla, the global leader in EV by market capitalization, should dominate the industry in the years to come.
While some expect their market share to decline when traditional carmakers switch to electric propulsion, Tesla has several advantages that will make it difficult to pursue. Here are a few reasons why.
Vertical integration
The shift towards the production of electric vehicles will mean the need to renew completely new production capacities, which is not easy to achieve overnight.
Some car manufacturers like it Volkswagen i Jaguar they have already announced plans for full electricity in this decade, but it will take a lot of resources, time and relationships with external suppliers.
The production of EV is different from the production of vehicles with internal combustion engine (ICE) – you will need both hardware and software expertise on top of a complex understanding of battery technology.
As this expertise is only acquired with the dawn of the EV industry, these carmakers are lagging behind in having their own breakthrough capabilities in EV technology – whether in battery innovation, artificial intelligence and autonomous driving or energy storage; or all these components together.
To save on costs, most of these “inherited” car manufacturers will have to entrust at least one of these three key factors that will take place in the race. However, they can be at the mercy of suppliers and rely on the performance of independent products.
Tesla, which began its journey as an EV company much earlier than its ICE competitors, vertically integrated their design, engineering, software development, research and production from the very beginning.
At almost every stage of production, Tesla’s teams are structured in such a way that the design of each component goes hand in hand with the design of the machines that produce those components.
For example, to improve efficiency in the production phase, Tesla’s design, engineering and production teams came together to develop a new casting method to make the battery a structural part of the car.
Not only does it save space, but it packs more batteries, strengthening the structural integrity of each car and ultimately saving installation time. So, it is much more efficient than what other car manufacturers can do.
Data and autonomous driving
To succeed in these three categories – battery innovation, artificial intelligence and autonomous driving, and energy storage – you need a lot of data to continually improve, learn and upgrade.
As far as artificial intelligence and autonomous driving are concerned, no other player is approaching the amount of data that Tesla has collected, given that all Tesla 3 and Y on the road today have the autopilot function delivered.
This means that Tesla has more data than its competitors for learning and improvement.
As he mentioned Cathie Wood of ARK Invest on CNBC, the company with the most and highest quality actual driving data will win the race in autonomous driving vehicles.
According to her, Tesla is far ahead of everyone with actual driving figures of 30 billion miles. The next company to approach is Google at 30 million kilometers.
It also has implications in the future when self-driving taxis become commonplace.
Once the legal hurdles of fully autonomous vehicles are enacted, Tesla’s field start means more accurate and reliable data, making his autonomous driving software a more likely candidate for widespread adoption.
Battery technology
Another reason why Tesla will emerge as the leader of the category for EV space is its commitment to the revolution in the way batteries are produced.
EV cars use lithium-ion batteries – this is the same type of batteries used in our smartphones and laptops, but in much larger quantities.
The technology used to manufacture and manufacture these batteries has largely remained unchanged since the early 90s. This is a process that needs to change in order to meet the growing demand for electric vehicles in the coming years.
The milestone for a widely accepted market largely depends on the price of the vehicle, which can decrease significantly when average battery prices fall above what is achievable only on a scale.
Tesla is not waiting for the electronics company to realize that.
The company has already started recreation and revolution, not only in terms of how to make batteries, but also how to procure them and how each individual mineral significantly reduces the cost per battery.
During Tesla’s battery day, CEO Elon Musk spoke about how Tesla ‘s modus operandi is to never accept the current material manufacturing processes and thus re – imagine new ways to achieve efficiency and lower material costs.
As an example, Tesla has developed new methods of extracting lithium from the country that reduce costs and increase efficiency, while reducing waste in a way that no one has thought of before.
In doing so, we will probably see more Tesla cars at affordable prices that do not compromise performance, which is another key selling point of Tesla.
Superchargers and a network of superchargers
Anxiety due to range is a real problem and a barrier to entry for many car buyers.
Knowing that you need to sit at the filling station for a long time is a big change in lifestyle compared to just five or ten minutes at a gas station.
Therefore, to be a successful EV company or brand, you will have to solve the problem of a long charging time.
Although there is a growing amount of EV chargers around the world, very few charge a car as fast as a Telsa Supercharger with a Tesla car.
For Tesla, this is the third version of the charger he can give you 250 km in 15 minutes.
With a factory in Shanghai pumping them out, there will be close to 10,000 new chargers a year, adding to the 20,000 units already available worldwide.
Since these chargers are exclusive to Tesla cars, there will be a big advantage of owning a Tesla over any other EV.
However, as many traditional power and oil and gas companies invest heavily in charging technology, this is likely to be where competitors can gain a partnership the fastest.
Tesla Model 2: Still the cheapest model
Another huge factor that will contribute to Tesla’s growing dominance in the electrical industry is the introduction of its cheapest model to date: the currently unnamed Tesla with $ 25,000.
Industry commentators called the Model 2, the car will be Tesla’s most affordable to date. It is $ 10,000 cheaper than the base Model 3, which is currently the best-selling electric vehicle in the world.
It is too comparable to other electric-level alternatives, such as the Nissan Leaf ($ 32,000), Hyundai Ioniq ($ 33,000) and Mini Cooper SE ($ 30,000).
Most rumors point to the design of the hatchback for the Model 2, which will be produced at Tesla’s factory in Shanghai.
Although it was initially said it would launch in 2023, Chinese rumors have industry commentators optimistic about the announcement from the end of 2021 2022. presentation for the new EV.
Although prices have not yet been announced in Singapore, we can expect the Model’s price to be around $ 90,000 to $ 100,000 before COE.
At the launch of the Model 2, there will probably be an explosion of Tesla’s vehicles around the world, considering its price.
Instead of traditional car manufacturers, the source of competition is likely to come in the near future from other electric companies, most of which come from China.
For example, the state-owned SAIC Motor recently announced a $ 4,500 EV called the Hong Guang Mini, which is far cheaper than anything Tesla can currently offer.
The car is made in partnership with General Motors (GM) and may be a model that other ICE manufacturers will take over Tesla.
A look at what has happened in other industries
Some believe Volkswagen, Toyota, GM, Ford and Hyundai are too big for Tesla to be a leader in the EV market for long.
However, if we look at the smartphone industry, the market in 2010 looked different from 2000. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Siemens, HTC, O2, Blackberry did not survive the smartphone revolution.
Although they had proprietary technologies and software, R&D devices, long-term contracts with suppliers and the like, many of these companies have either lost mass market share or are no longer in the business of consumer phones.
Of course, Apple and Samsung were already big companies back then. However, Apple was not the leader in the computer market when they launched the iPhone, and Samsung did not release its first smartphone until 2008.
They had to learn a lot of new things and develop new ways to build all of their current products, in the same way that Tesla does now.
In the end, with all the competitive and technological advantages that Tesla now has, they will be the leader in the category, far ahead of any inherited car manufacturers.
The Tesla Fandom is real
In addition to comparing Apple, I think what Tesla enjoys is a fandom that is comparable only to Apple.
There is a growing group of people who worship Tesla and Elon Musk in the same way that Apple fans look at Apple and Steve Jobs.
Not everyone will become avid fans, and buying behavior is primarily every 15 years, not buying a new iPhone every two years, but it’s the same time gap that competitors will face.
Fans or not, I believe that a significant group of people who buy Tesla will buy one not because they were in the market for EV, but because they were in the market for Tesla – it is by chance EV. This is something that the competition does not have.
Considering the Nissan Leaf would be like asking the iPhone to switch to Android, and as an iPhone user I can’t stand the thought of it.
Shown image: Tesla
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