The Stupid Concept of the Tesla "Killer"...

It's 2020 and I'm a Tesla owner and Fan, suddenly.

If you haven't taken the time to drive one or to ask a friend that has one for a ride, I'm here to tell you that nothing can describe what Tesla has done. This, coming from a fan of the sound of a well-tuned engine, an automotive freak and a Mechanical Engineer. Elon Musk has done what Detroit and for that matter, no one else in the world, thought possible.

He's created a successor to the combustion engine automobile, all the while changing damn near every rule of the automotive market along the way.

Dealerships? Forget dealerships, price haggling and all the lame bullshit that you put up with attempting to buy a car. It's gone. In its place, you walk in and sign the paperwork at a Tesla store before you drive off in a new car. Gas? Gas stations? Oil Changes? Transmission fluid changes? Exhaust system problems? Hell, most regular maintenance. Juice the car up at home and go. Model changes just to get people interested in a new car? Nah, we don't need that, we just continue to make the beautiful cars we've made but with better batteries and software upgrades. This is a new game for ... everyone in the automotive business.

This Wasn't Supposed to Happen

A few years ago a friend of mine let me drive his 2010 Tesla roaster, and I thought it was cool but it wasn't going to change the world anytime soon. I thought "Maybe someday I'll buy an electric Mustang, that'd be cool -- and a novelty". The automotive press spit on Mr Musk and his stupid, fancy idea of making an electric car affordable and popular. They pointed at the 2nd electric car he made, the Model S, and basically said it proved their point. The Model S was expensive. It was fast, sure, but again, a rich man's novelty. I checked one out a few years ago. I'd own one right now but the price was off the charts. I could have afforded one, sure, but I would have had to give up a couple Mustangs and just didn't see the thing fitting in my life.

Then the model 3 rolled into view and again the automotive press made fun of Tesla. The car was less expensive but they wouldn't sell (said the press). Musk wouldn't be able to make enough of them to catch up with pre-orders. All along the way they joked, not noticing that a metric ton of buyers had signed up to own one. It's kind of an interesting journalistic oxymoron: Deriding a company for not being able to catch up with demand when at the same time being hell bent on deriding that same company by saying it won't ever make any money.

And then Mr Musk made expansions to his assembly line and surprised everyone. Suddenly he was caught up. Suddenly there was a lot less laughter in the automotive press. All the people short selling Tesla stock got tight sphincters as not only did he catch up with demand, but continued to sell Model 3s like hotcakes. Musk built a couple more battery factories. I mean, what the hell was he doing with Panasonic there making all those batteries, they had joked. Now that started to look like a brilliant move.

Then in the short space of a year or so, Tesla started making Model 3's in China.

And Ford, Toyota, VW, BMW and Porsche continued to work on crap electric cars whilst whistling in the dark. Actually, that's not totally accurate. See, they were working on stuff but it was probably not at the highest priority. Ford has a ton of lame, bland SUVs (and some exciting trucks) to sell you. Why bother making sedans? Thanks to Ford's stupidity, the rest of the American market started singing the same tune. No one is buying sedans, let's just exit the market!

Except Tesla sold over 300,000 model 3's (did you notice -- it's a sedan?) in 2019 alone. Ford sold about half that number of Fusions in 2018. This hit home for me. When it came time to end the lease on my wife's 2016 Fusion, we looked around the market and decided it was high time to do something different. My wife and I loved that sedan. Ford -- a company that makes my favorite brand car since the beginning of time, continues to make stupid brand decisions. Great move Ford! Just throw away an entire market. You think Toyota is going to quit making the Camry or Honda is going to stop making the Accord? Or in our case, that no one else makes an attractive, exciting Sedan? You think sedan buyers aren't going to forget what you did or how they felt when you stopped making a car they loved?

Well, it's been a few months. I can't speak enough good things about that Model 3. Everyone that rides in the thing emerges changed. The future is electric and anyone saying different is whistling in the dark. Suddenly the automotive press is realizing that the word is getting out.

Wall Street Has Started to Notice

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Now everyone is wondering what's going to be left of the traditional automotive market in a couple of years. And still, every so often on my news feed some moron writes a piece about an upcoming "Tesla killer". Maybe they haven't noticed, but there has been a fundamental shift in the marketplace. Suddenly, everything is going a different direction and if a company is lucky, they're going to be able to be mentioned in the same sentence along with a Tesla product.

Case in point, the Porsche Taycan "Turbo" S or whatever the hell confusing name they've given the thing. They're hoping to be mentioned in the same sentence with the Tesla Model S. Try and find an article that doesn't mention the Model S at the same time for that matter. There are a few notable differences between the two cars. One is range. Before you go all technical on me, bear in mind I've been driving an electric car a lot these days. 100 miles (or more) of range -- that's a pretty big difference. Sure, supposedly you can track the Porsche but not the Model S. While I'm not totally sure if the new Model S is going to be as good or better on the track, I'm here to tell you one thing for sure, most people are going to want another 100 miles of range while they drive to the grocery store and around town. They're likely not going to spend damn near double the money for something that's a wannabe instead of the real thing.

Unless you're Bill Gates. Then you're going to buy the Porsche and have range anxiety. In public.

But I gotta hand it to Porsche -- everyone is now mentioning the Taycan in the same sentence as a Tesla Model S. Good job! Not sure they're going to be selling a lot of them but it's definitely got the automotive press all worked up about who's electrical number is longer. Always fun reading. Let's do it again: "The Porsche Taycan, for almost twice the cash, is someday hoping to be as good as the Tesla Model S." This crap makes great headlines.

But again, is it a Tesla "killer"? Yeah, not gonna happen.

What is going to happen? Let's talk Daimler Chrysler Fiat or whatever the heck that's left there. Before you go off on how Daimler no longer owns Chrysler or some other nonsense, keep in mind that the 300, Charger and Challenger are still running on old German running gear (The chassis my Mopar friends, as good as it is, it's still based on Mercedes tech even as I write this). I point this out because almost everything Dodge and Chrysler branded is extremely long in the tooth. Very little of it is hybrid and nothing remotely electric. My view, this entire thing is running on fumes and probably going to merge with something before it goes down the toilet. They tried last year for that matter and failed to do so. All the Hellcats and Hemi's in the world aren't going to save this ship, it's only going to get worse before it gets worse. I don't see them having the cash to pull off anything electric. If they have plans or are working on anything fired by electrons, it's not apparent.

Nissan, while not as lame as Chrysler, suffers from similar lack of innovation. I'm going to mention Mazda in the same sentence : Mazda and Nissan. There. Not totally accurate, but in a few years it's not going to make much difference.

Toyota has been making electric cars for a really long time and might pull off a few really great quarters as they transition to full electric. Yeah, I know what a hybrid is, and though it's not a full electric, the Prius is pretty much a combustion engine car with an electric car superimposed upon it. The fact that they pulled this off and made one of the most reliable cars at the same time is a serious feat of engineering. This is going to save them as they continue to make even more Prius models and other great hybrid cars along the way. Prediction: they're going to own the inexpensive, boring electric market like no one else. Sure, they'll have some exciting models here or there, but the electric Corolla of future is going to sell like hotcakes. And it'll be dependable as the sunrise. It'll also be boring as paint, but no one will care. Toyota will succeed at doing something the rest of the automotive world failed to do: make an electric car that sells and isn't mentioned in the same sentence with a similar Tesla product.

Ford. Ford's been working on electric and hybrid vehicles for almost as long as Toyota. They just suck at making dependable stuff that people know much about. They're going to launch their Tesla Model Y competitor, er Mustang Mach E to great fanfare and people are going to buy them -- I'm 100% certain of it. They're going to survive. Too bad their marketing people are such idiots. Look for a Mustang F-150 minivan or station wagon model in the near future at a dealership near you. Confused buyers will pick up a few, even. It'll probably be electric and Ford will confuse all the buyers of the new vehicle when it gets canceled a couple of years after launch. The Mustang will eventually emerge as a terrific electric model. People will yawn by then, sadly. Ford will still be in business. The Whatever they're going to call the Mach E by then will compete nicely with the Tesla Model Y. Maybe they'll even make a sedan again and put the number three in the name so that the market doesn't get confused. Don't bank on it though.

Chevy/GM. What can you say about a company that proved that electric cars were practical and fun? Yeah, that's GM. Then as usual, they tossed it all in the trash and spent all their R&D dollars trying to do what ever everyone else was doing. Only for some stupid reason they hired styling people that had the best set of tilted rear-view mirrors on the planet. Oh, and for whatever reason, these people made pretty sad looking imitations of what they had seen while they were at it. GM's present answer to every question? What market, when we pull out of it, will make us more profitable (appearing, to Wall Street)? Let's pull out of Europe! Then Australia. Let's do what Ford is doing and pull out of the sedan marketplace! Maybe soon they're pull their heads out of their asses, but that would surprise me. They are making the Bolt -- I've ridden in one -- it's not bad at all. I can't mention it in the same sentence as a Tesla product though. Wait, I just did that. It didn't make sense though, which is why nothing exciting is going to happen. The Bolt is not bad but it's not selling at all. Look for them to discontinue it for not selling as much as they thought it would. Elon Musk burped more about electric cars after drinking his beer last year than has been written about the Bolt EV. Maybe they're going to make a great electric vehicle like Tesla's just after they pull out of the US car market.

Honda. Not sure what's going on with them. I know they're putting some R&D dollars into making fuel cell vehicles. I saw one last year driving down the road and had to do a double-take. I even captured a blurry picture of it on my cell phone, which makes it a rare sighting. BTW, there were more pictures of Bigfoot taken last year, because there's more of them on the road than Honda fuel cell cars. I have my worries but Honda will likely find a way to correct their ship before it sinks.

There Will Be Killing

If you're paying attention this long I think you can notice a trend -- no one is going to be "killing" Tesla anytime soon. Sure, you can point out that there's not a lot of electric cars on the road and that the wife and I are in a massive minority while we silently buzz by everything else around us.

For now.

But Detroit, Japan and the European car makers know the real score. They're all (well, most of them anyway) running scared. They're working furiously at making as many models as they can muster to match Tesla's lineup.
They're hoping to do this before the lights begin to go out for their futures. You see, they know, for real, that there is some killing on the way.

It's just not Tesla that's the vulnerable one here. But mark my words -- there's killing on the way for sure.