Electric Car Showcase

When I turned on my laptop this morning, a piece of news caught my eyes “Tesla’s share price drops below initial sales price”. Never a big car fan myself, it has been a while since the last time the name Tesla came to my mind. It reminds me of 2 years ago when I first listened to the ECO Elon Musk’s inspirational speech at Silicon Valley TiE conference. At that time, like hundreds of audience, I was filled with respects for this brave entrepreneur and dreamer. Two years later, I was surprised to know that the former multi-millionaire Musk is now broke after pouring all his savings and loans into his 3 “crazy companies” – SpaceX, Solarcity, and Tesla. Then I did a quick patent search and realized that Tesla had filed 49 patents in 4 years. I’d say just the patent applications alones will cost millions.

 

Why did Tesla’ share price drop? First, it seems the market isn’t so optimistic about the demand for electric vehicles (EV) in the coming years. Second, Tesla is priced too high compared to other brands. Well, to be fair, its gorgeous design, longer mileage range and bigger space does make a difference. Exactly what are the differences? Out of curiosity, I did some comparison of the three most talked EVs in the market, highlighting the key measurements that a layman like me would be interested. For full information, I have added links to their official websites below.

Here we go.

No.1 Tesla Model – S

Price:  $49,900

Range pack: 160 miles. (230-mile range pack and a 300-mile range pack will also be available but more expensive)

Charging time: 4 hours for full charge and 45 minutes for a quick charge

Space: 5 adults and 2 kids

Technology portfolio: 49 related patents

 

Tesla is the earliest and most passionate advocate of electric cars. Model-S is the first mass-produced highway-capable electric car. Great vision, beautiful dream and a serial-entrepreneur CEO Elon Musk who started Paypal. But the company hasn’t been on luck recently. Looking at the fall to 7% below its initial offer price, Josef Schuster, founder of IPOX Capital Management LLC commented "The company is a great concept with relatively weak fundamentals."

For more details, check out the official website

 

NO.2 Mitsubishi – iMiEV

Price:  around $40,000

Range pack: 100 miles.

Charging time: 6 hours for full charge and 30 minutes for a quick charge to 80% of capacity

Space: 5 adults

Technology portfolio: 494 patents

The first mainstream manufacturer to offer an electric car. It’s said that the car maker’s research effort started more than 15 years ago. It is not on the market yet but the demand seems to be very promising. Mitsubishi plans to make 5,000 cars in year 2010, 150% increase from the initial estimate of 2000.

For more details, check out the official website

 

No.3 Nissan Leaf

Price: $25280

Range pack: 100 miles

Charge time: 8 hours for a full charge

Space: 5 adults

Technology Portfolio: 489 patents

Nissan has been something of a laggard in publicly promoting an alternative fuel strategy. But this slim and smooth looking Nissan Leaf certainly changed its conventional image towards the better. Smart looking, truly spacious and competitively priced. However, it is said that this car will only be available to US consumers towards the end of 2010 and mass production will not start till 2012.      

Check out more specs on official site.

 

Source:Patsnap