Say what you will about Tesla – and I’m sure many of you will in the comments section – but the American brand was unquestionably the catalyst for the current electric car boom in the car industry.
And it’s responsible for the dramatic shift in the way these cars are viewed, not merely as environmentally-friendly alternatives but as desirable cars in their own right. Don’t take my word for it either, it’s a view shared by Darren Palmer, vice president of electric vehicle programs for Ford’s all-electric Model e division.
“I think Tesla did kick-start the market,” Mr Palmer admits. “They did kick-start the whole global market because they showed how compelling they can be.”
The reason is simple. Before the Tesla Model S arrived as a high-performance, luxury sedan electric cars were compact, offered modest performance and were very expensive compared to similar-sized petrol-models.
By positioning the Model S as a larger luxury car, Tesla was able to hide much of the cost of batteries and motors in the overall cost of the vehicle. That may sound counter-intuitive – after all, how does making the car much more expensive make it more appealing? – but Tesla simply made a desirable car that happened to have the added bonus of being electric.
Or as Mr Palmer puts it: “Yeah, way more. What do people like more – being told to do stuff or doing it because they want to? Were you told to buy your iPhone? Or did they legislate that you buy an iPhone? Would you spend $1000 on your phone if you were made to, or would you find the cheapest way to get around it?”
It sounds crazy but it’s true – how many people are still walking around with a $150 Nokia phone compared to those of us with a $500+ Apple iPhone or similar?
It really is hard to argue the logic behind this and it explains why Ford has chosen the path it has for its electric vehicles. It didn’t start with an all-new, clean-sheet design but instead picked its two most popular nameplates – Mustang and F-Series – and electrified them.
The Mustang Mach-E is a high-performance SUV and the F-150 Lightning is a full-size pick-up truck with loads of clever features its petrol-powered variants miss out on. What they both have in common is they’re in huge demand, with Ford unable to keep up with the customers lining up to buy them.
Mr Palmer makes it clear that for any electric car to be successful it must have an emotional appeal as much as a logical one. And it’s very hard to disagree when you look at the success Tesla is enjoying, as well as Ford, Porsche and others, by building electric cars that are either very quick or very luxurious – or, even better, both.
For Mr Palmer and his team at Ford the goal for electric vehicles is simple, they must be “insanely great” in order to reach production.
He explains: “My boss[es] says to me, both [Ford CEO] Jim Farley and Doug Fields [head of Model e], ‘if it’s like today but a bit better, it’s cancelled.’ We use that all the time in meetings, ‘if it’s like today but a bit better, cancel it.’ We’re not going to make that, it’s not the winning formula.
“The winning formula for Ford is picking the segments our customers love and then figuring out how to make them insanely great, to do things they’re never done before. I could argue the first three did that, especially the Lightning. And, we believe, that’s the route to success – make people want them. There are other reasons for people to have them that are logical, but the most important thing is ‘you’ve got to have it.’”
Just look around the current electric vehicle market – Porsche Taycan, Audi e-tron, Mercedes-Benz EQS, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6 and so on, are all exciting, emotionally-appealing vehicles to own as much as they are appealing from a ‘green’ perspective.
Perhaps the best example of this scenario I can point to is Ford’s arch-rivals at General Motors. It tried to jump into the EV market using the same formula as Nissan (Leaf) and Mitsubishi (i-MiEV) by creating the compact Chevrolet Bolt hatchback. Not unsurprisingly, a tiny hatchback with limited driving range held little appeal to American customers who love pickup trucks and big SUVs.
Realising the error of its ways GM has switched tactics and its latest electric models are nothing like the Bolt – the GMC Hummer and Chevrolet Silverado. The irony is, Chevrolet itself has all-but-admitted the Hummer has questionable ‘green credentials’ when it comes to its whole-of-life cycle, even when compared to a large, petrol-powered sedan.
In some sense that goes without saying, as I’ve written before, the idea that a pickup or SUV that uses nearly 5000kg of steel, aluminium, lithium and other materials can be good for the environment is hard to swallow. But what cars like the Hummer, F-150 Lightning, Taycan and e-tron do is get people excited about electric cars.
Which is the bottom line, whether it’s good for the environment or not is ultimately not the key goal for these car companies – selling cars is. Government regulations are forcing them down an electric path but now they’re on it they must find a way to make their products appealing to consumers. In this instance that means performance, luxury, space and design, which is ultimately the key selling point for any vehicle if you really drill down on it.
Internal combustion is here to stay for a while yet, but if car companies continue to make ‘insanely great’ electric cars we may all make the leap sooner than we think…
Keyword: It's not easy being green: Why electric cars must be exciting like the Ford Mustang Mach E, Tesla Model Y and Kia EV6 | Opinion