Audi E-Tron GT he is finally here and will start a friendly rivalry with his distant colleague, Porsche Taycan. But I can’t help but think that the real winner in all this is not the Volkswagen Group. It is Tesla.
And less about the S suddenly becoming a less formidable competitor – even against carmakers whose job it is to build incredibly fast cars – and more about the relative affordability of the Tesla Model 3.
Because the Model is the EV that most American drivers can buy.
We are full charge before on electric vehicles, but so far the EVs that make waves are halo electric vehicles like Taycan, E-Tron and until recently, the S model. These three cars start at about $ 80,000 and easily go into six digits.
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Meanwhile, the entry-level Model 3 starts at about $ 38,000, less than the average transaction price with the new cars in 2020, according to KBB. It’s still quite a lot of money, but not so much as to get BEV out of operation for many buyers. It doesn’t matter that there are electric vehicles at similar prices, such as Bolt, Leaf or Mach-E. They don’t have the kind of pursuit or exposure to the mass market that Teslas has, for better or worse.
The ubiquitous Tesla is not always good; the carmaker and his eccentric driver can sometimes be the bottom line, but joke or not, drivers know about Tesla. Its Model 3 didn’t deliver much promise of the vehicle at affordable prices, but Tesla is able to develop that car so that its quality can reach its price.
Tesla may even be in a position to deliver a really affordable EV that would start at $ 25,000, maybe. Not many other companies can say that. The big carmakers may be able to fight Tesla using federal tax credits – let’s see how things turn out in the near future on this front.
But for now, Tesla is in an enviable place as a manufacturer of electric cars. Meanwhile, Porsche and Audi are fighting back because they are the producers of what could be just as electric Super cars.