Tesla under Elon Musk made the first best electric car. But will it make the next?
We make the best cars,” proclaimed a defiant Elon Musk at a business event last November. "Whether you hate me, like me, or are indifferent: do you want the best car, or do you not want the best car?”
Budget permitting, it’s a question that tens of millions of people weigh up as they shop for a new vehicle. But as competition heats up in the electric vehicle (EV) market, there is increasing reason to doubt that the best electric car will be made by Tesla.
“I can’t tell you how many people who, without question, without any consideration of an alternative, bought a Tesla a year ago – or five years ago in my case – who are [now] quite open the next time around to consider other brands,” Len Sherman, a former auto industry consultant who is now a professor at Columbia Business School, tells The Independent.
Once unchallenged for the EV crown, Tesla now faces growing rivalry not only from specialist EV firms such as Rivian and Lucid Motors but traditional household names by the Chinese electric giant BYD.
