How fast can Tesla meet demand for affordable, convenient alternative to traditional gas guzzlers? We'll soon find out. Tesla is rapidly ramping up its production with financial wizards abuzz with the analysis that
we are on the verge of an electric battery breakthrough; a breakthrough that would make electric vehicles cost competitive and affordable.
[...] investment pundits think that Tesla Motors is on the verge of achieving something big: A battery cheap enough to make electric vehicles cost-competitive with conventional cars. Daniel Sparks at Motley Fool is reporting that the company is on the right track towards developing a battery that costs only $100 per kilowatt-hour — a cost widely believed to be the threshold where electric vehicles can finally be cost-competitive.
There are a few reasons for this, Sparks writes. The central one is that the company plans to build something called the “Gigafactory,”a giant $5 billion battery manufacturing plant with 6,500 workers. The second is CEO Elon Musk’s own admission that he would be “disappointed” if it took his company 10 years to make a $100 per kilowatt battery pack, and suggested it might happen before 2020.
In conjunction with its
manufacturing explosion, Tesla has been building the 'gas stations' of tomorrow; supercharging electrical stations, with no charge for use, all over
Europe and the US.
Tesla Supercharging Station
But, Tesla's genius has also been in anticipating our everyday driving needs by creating the 'neighborhood gas stations' of the future as
they quietly have been building accessible charging networks right where they will be needed for ultimate convenience.
"[W]ith little or no fanfare, Tesla also has been installing high-power wall chargers at restaurants, hotels, beach parking and other locations that can send 80 amps of electricity into the Model S and add 58 miles of range in an hour," reports the Wall Street Journal.
It's a brilliant idea: You put more expensive Supercharger stations in strategic spots to facilitate long-distance travel between big population centers, but why not also sprinkle slower but less expensive chargers around the places where people park to further reduce any chances of running out of juice.
The EV revolution is here.