The Model 3 is a comparable car starting at $35,000 but is planned to sell at an average of $45,000 with an independently estimated profit percentage of around 25%. That means that the cost of production is somewhere around $34,000.
If costs continue looking like that, as both companies scale electric car production up, which manufacturer would you prefer to be?
Also I called them comparable, but they really aren't. After looking at safety in accidents, the driving assist and so on, my family doesn't consider them equivalent. We put a deposit on a Model 3 which we hope to buy next year. Traditional manufacturers are well behind Tesla on key amenities like that.
Tesla expects to produce and sell 80,000 units of the Model 3 in 2017.
We'll see if they hit that target, but come on ... in what reality can this be described as having "completely missed the ball"?
With an already outdated charging system! In terms of styling and execution, I'd accept a position that GM is more competent than Tesla -- especially for the conventional vehicle-as-appliance crowd. But in terms of knowing where to go in the future, I think GM has a considerable disadvantage.
GM released the Bolt several months ago, which has a longer range than the Model 3, and you can drive one off of a dealer lot right now. I test drove one and it's an awesome, fast, and affordable electric car. An average person, without any kind of pre-order, will not be able to drive off a lot with a 3 for at least another 2 years. Tesla has completely missed the ball. GM will be on their 3rd revision of the mass-market electric car by then. That's not even counting Toyota who are several revisions into the Leaf and many more into the Prius which eats Tesla's entire product line for lunch.