Electric vehicles have quicker acceleration than gas cars, and the fastest ones can now reach the highest top speeds in the world. That helped make Tesla one of the strongest brands in the automotive world, and prove EVs were more than golf carts. But sales data and insiders — and even fans — say it isn’t enough to sell them to Americans anymore.
For a long time, performance was essential to legitimizing EVs to car buyers. It was essential to Tesla’s pitch.
“This kind of started when Tesla launched the original Roadster back in 2008,” said Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of market research at Telemetry Insights. “At that time people had this impression of EVs: kind of golf carts, you know, not very quick, not very exciting. Tesla decided to use performance to really make the case for electric vehicles, to show, we can build an EV that goes 250 miles on a charge and goes 0 to 60 in four seconds, which by today’s standards is kind of slow, but still.”
“It’s gotta be clear,” Musk said at the 2021 delivery event for the high-performance Tesla Model S Plaid, “sustainable energy cars can be the fastest cars, can be the safest cars, can be the most kick-ass cars in every way.”
Other automakers have followed suit: trucks that can accelerate in under 3 seconds. Audi’s RS e-Tron GT is its quickest production model ever. Even more attainable EVs like the Kia EV6 GT-line can hit 60 miles per hour in 4.5 seconds – something that once only sports cars can do.
EVs have won the battle for acceleration, speed and superior performance, but they aren’t cracking 10% of new car sales in the US – about half of the global sales rate. And now that incentives have disappeared and automakers are pulling back on production, insiders say the next battles remain – bring down prices, improve charging and range.
