THIS. "Extremely powerful & fast, fun to drive, and the company making 'em is run by an alpha macho guy who also builds space rockets"...yeah, that has huge emotional appeal to a large number of well-to-do males - who would not want to be seen in a Nissan Leaf, Toyota Prius, etc.
Sounds more like cargo-culting boys rather than adult males... I've personally know noone who decides car buys based on this, and this counts also 2 tesla owners. Car sale tax discounts, free charging, plenty of charging spots were the actual reasons for those 2 (myself I am still happily on petrol for next decade at least, thank you)
That's interesting. I don't own a car and I'm not looking for one, but I still had the impression Tesla was leading on range. However, they're beaten at both price levels, potentially with a significant price discount.
Mercedes EQS 450+, 640km, €106,307
Tesla Model S Plaid, 540km, €140,995
Mercedes EQE 350+, 525km, € 79,850
Tesla Model 3 LR DM, 485km, € 60,995
BMW i4 eDrive40, 470km, € 60,630
VW ID.3 Pro S 5Seats 450km, € 43,720
There's a third issue besides price and range in the EV market right now. Wait time. e.g. that VW ID.3 has a wait time of over a year for delivery. That crosses it off my shopping list, unfortunately.
In Europe where I live - VW, BMW and Mercedes do not have a reliable system of recharging for longer trips. Why they are not working to create that is beyond me.
You don't seem to be across what's happening in Europe. All of the companies you mentioned are invested in Ionity which provides 350 kW chargers at over 400 locations:
Europe has standardized on CCS Type 2 Combo for charging. Any CCS EV can charge on any CCS charging network. Teslas can charge on Ionity, BMWs can charge on Tesla chargers, charging networks like FastNed, BP, GridServe, EnBW, Circle K and friends can charge all brands, etc.:
It is still not that great in the USA. In the Pacific Northwest, if I want to goto Spokane, I have to hope the the Electrify America charging stations in Ellensburg aren't down again. One point of failure doesn't make me feel very comfortable, especially since EA is so flaky (if Tesla opens up there supercharger network, I'll be the first to buy an adapter).
If I want to go down to John Day national monument in eastern Oregon, things are even worse. Things will get better (oh, and we want to do a trip to Anchorage someday...).
That is one of the best tests out there, IMO. I do wish they'd add their charge curve details to it somehow. Something like the estimated time to completely a 600 mile trip would be an interesting detail, as range isn't the only thing that matters.
Aren't all EV ranges measured based on the latest EU measurement standard? Which means cars are incredibly prepped for those tests, but the results are not made up and they are more or less comparable between models and brands.
make sure to researched tested vs claimed range, Teslas have good range but fall short from claimed range by large %, there are cars that end up having the same or better range like the Taycan even though the claimed range from Porsche is less! do your own research, correlation is not your coin, etc
