Tesla is the world leader in Electric vehicles. It not only did EV but before it started selling EVs, they actually built charging stations across the US and the world. How did that strategy help Tesla ?
Now other EV manufacturers are trying⁰ to partner with conventional gas stations asking them to put up their chargers. In US there are 1,60,000 of these conventional fuel charging stations while only 4000 EV charging stations.
By 2022, global EV manufacturers plan to roll out 500 EV models, do all of them have the needed charging stations ?
When a customer buys an EV, the first thought that passes through his/her mind is does the co. have enough charging stations across US or the world ? It is called Range Anxiety.
For EV manufacturers it is a chicken and egg story, customers do not buy EVs unless there are enough charging stations across the country and companies do not want to build charging stations across the country unless there are enough EVs moving around.
With each EV having it's own charging instrumentation and protocols, the race ahead for the EV manufacturers is going to be pretty dim, unless they come up with common charging protocols and instrumentation that would benefit the industry as a whole. Will the leader Tesla, agree to a common charging protocol and infrastructure for the sake of the sector or will it try to dominate the market. At present the second largest player in the US EV market has only one tenth the number of charging stations as Tesla.
Can all other EV manufacturers gang up against Tesla and start their accepted standardised charging platforms?
Hemant Bhargava et al , Jan 21 HBR (click here) mentions of the strategic advantage Tesla has over EV manufacturers of the world in terms of the charging infrastructure.
Will this advantage take Tesla to great heights, we need to wait and watch. Will the other competitors gang up and force Tesla to a cornet in terms of coming up with a standard charging infrastructure and battery sizes and capacities.
george.
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