Tesla eyes off the mass car market

Elon Musk with the new Tesla Model X.

The eye-catching falcon-wing doors that adorn Tesla's Model X set it apart from other big and expensive SUVs. But like the firm's Model S, a stylish and speedy saloon, the biggest difference lies under the bodywork: it is powered by a battery.

Tesla has accelerated into the automotive fast-lane by making electric cars that appeal to rich folk keen to burnish their credentials as environmentally aware techies. But at the end of March, it is launching the Model 3, a cheaper vehicle aimed at the upper end of the mass market. It will be a far harder sell.

Tesla has hitherto thrived in a niche. Other carmakers crammed bulky and expensive batteries into petite "city" cars. Tesla put a bigger power-pack into large and expensive ones (prices start at $70,000), more readily absorbing the cost of the battery. This also gives the cars a decent range of more than 250 miles (400km) between charges, and lightning acceleration.

Read the Australian Financial Review story in its Weekend section - “Backed by low costs Tesla aims for the mass car market.”

(Most everything about the concept that has driven Elon Musk is to be admired except that the firm is created in and aimed, without apology, at the private market.

Privately owned cars and privatization of what is now public are contrary to the direction the world needs to take if it is to mitigate and avoid the worst implications of climate change.

The innovative thinking and human energy behind the Tesla concept urgently need to be applied to understanding how the best attributes of modernity can be preserved, while humanity, even if it grows to nine or ten billion in number can continue to live in a contented manner.

Privately owned transport and the privatization of the public realm (both in space and  infrastructure) is contrary to what we need – Robert McLean.)