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Tesla vs The Big Three – An uneven contest
Elon Musk has said many times that his ultimate goal is to increase the adoption of electric vehicles, a goal that’s advanced with every EV that rolls off a dealer’s lot, even if it’s not a Tesla. “The biggest impact that Tesla will have is not the cars that we make ourselves, but the fact that we show that you can make compelling electric cars that people want to buy,” he said in Revenge of the Electric Car.
When it comes to making compelling electric cars, the company has succeeded spectacularly. But when it comes to inspiring the industry leaders to sell their own EVs in substantial numbers, that isn’t happening. Spokesmen for the major automakers (especially when speaking to the EV media) say things like, “the future is electric,” and “we intend to stay at the forefront of technology,” but when it comes to action, the playbook is: sell just enough EVs to satisfy government regulators, while keeping the focus on profitable trucks and SUVs.
A recent article in CleanTechnica takes a look at the lineup of plug-in models offered by the Big Three (Ford, GM, and Fiat Chrysler). The current roster consists of 3 pure electric vehicles (EVs) and 5 plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). Of the 3 EVs, only one, the Chevy Bolt, is truly an attractive option. The Fiat 500e is a compliance car that’s only available in two states, and Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has asked the public not to buy it. The Ford Focus EV was introduced in 2011, and not updated until 2015 – it sold a grand total of 901 units in 2016.
However, the handwriting is on the garage wall. Plug-in vehicle sales have increased every month for the last 20 months, Tesla’s Model 3 has accumulated somewhere around 400,000 advance orders sight unseen, and battery prices are falling rapidly – several industry observers have predicted that EVs will reach cost parity with legacy vehicles in about 5 years. So, is Detroit raising its game, and preparing to expand its portfolio of electric models?
Fiat 500e [Credit: Car and Driver]
Well, sort of. In January, Ford announced that it plans to introduce 13 new electrified vehicles over the next five years. However, it offered specifics for only 7, and only one of these is an electric vehicle for the US market: “an all-new fully electric small SUV, coming by 2020, engineered to deliver an estimated range of at least 300 miles.” The other 6 include hybrids and an electric commercial van to be sold in Europe.
Ford representatives have made it clear that the company will be taking a gradual, go-slow approach to electrification. CleanTechnica’s Loren McDonald spoke with Brett Hinds, Ford’s Chief Engineer of Electrified Powertrain Systems, in early January, and was left with the impression that the automaker feels little urgency about upgrading its electric vehicles. When McDonald mentioned that industry experts expect EV ranges to increase to 300 miles in 5-7 years, and that battery charging rates are also expected to improve, he was told that “Ford just doesn’t see it that way.” (Yes, this directly contradicts Ford’s official announcement quoted above – the major automakers often make contradictory statements about their electrification plans.)
More recently, Ford replaced CEO Mark Fields with Jim Hackett, the head of its Smart Mobility division, a move that is believed to signal more emphasis on electric and autonomous vehicles. Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford confirmed this, telling Bloomberg in an interview that the CEO switch “is about EVs, and it’s about AVs [autonomous vehicles].” However, he seemed to acknowledge that the focus would remain on short-term profits (read: trucks). “Wherever we go, we have to make sure that the returns are great for our shareholders,” said Ford. When asked if he could foresee a future in which EVs would generate the kind of margins the company makes on the F-150 pickup, he thought silently for a moment, then changed the subject.
The voltage level is much higher over at GM, where the new Chevy Bolt has been earning rave reviews, and making respectable sales – it moved 1,566 units in May, #5 in the US plug-in ranking. However, the rollout has been slow – the Bolt went on sale in December 2016, but it still isn’t available in all 50 states.
“I wouldn’t necessarily call it a slow rollout; it was a phased rollout,” Chevrolet spokesman Jim Cain told Bloomberg. “In terms of sales, I think we’re right on plan.” And that’s kind of the point. As Elon Musk and others have pointed out, GM doesn’t seem to have any desire to sell the Bolt in mass-market quantities – it’s likely to limit production to 25,000 or so per year.
Ironically, the considerable media buzz around the Bolt seemed to disappear as soon as it actually went on the market. “The little car hasn’t captured any of Tesla’s Silicon Valley street cred, and it hasn’t whipped up any of the cultish following that still benefits the Toyota Prius,” writes Bloomberg’s Kyle Stock.
GM’s future electrification plans are vague. In February, GM CEO Mary Barra told CNET’s RoadShow that the Bolt platform will be the basis for a range of future EVs, but no details have been forthcoming.
And then there is Fiat Chrysler, the only automaker that has always been honest about its lack of interest in EVs. CEO Sergio Marchionne has said that the company loses about $14,000 on each unit of its Fiat 500e, and famously asked consumers not to buy it. The little electric runabout has garnered excellent reviews, can be leased for as little as $100 a month, and has been selling a surprising 600 or 700 per month, despite being available only in California and Oregon. Chrysler recently launched a plug-in hybrid version of its extremely popular Pacifica minivan, but it’s too early to tell how it will do.
One glaring problem is that the Big Three continue to put out lackluster designs for their electric cars. Diarmuid O’Connell, Tesla’s vice president of business development had said, “In essence, they’ve delivered little more than appliances. Now, appliances are useful. But… they tend to be unemotional.” Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, goes one step further, pointing out that an electric car shouldn’t “feel like a weird-mobile.”
On the other hand, the issue with the majors’ plug-in models has never been quality – almost all who’ve driven them, including this writer, agree that they are excellent automobiles. What remains puzzling is the companies’ willingness to market them. The automakers do almost no advertising for them, and most (not all) of their dealers do their utmost to steer customers away from them. Meanwhile, the companies continue to lobby to have fuel economy and emissions standards watered down.
A recent article in Plug-in Future, “How the Major Global Automobile Manufacturers Fell Asleep at the Wheel” notes a cling-to-the-past cultural dynamic. “Part of it comes down to mentality and culture. Senior executives in automobile companies tend to be [oftentimes] male mechanical engineers who… [enjoy] tinkering around with old cars and tractors. It’s what they do; it’s what they love and their careers have been about perfecting the highly complex internal combustion engine. And now you are telling them to get rid of that engine and replace it with a simple electric drive and a battery to power it. No wonder they are resistant… Changing such a culture is very difficult.”
So what gives? Is it short-sightedness? Fear of the future? Plain old stupidity? Not likely. Sure, they might be stuck in their ways but we’re talking about highly informed veterans of the auto business, who have access to all the same articles, statistics and reports that you and I do (much more, actually).
What’s really happening here is a phenomenon called The Innovator’s Dilemma (the title of a 1997 book by Clayton Christensen, and yes, I believe most auto industry execs have read it). Incumbent corporations can’t keep up with disruptive technological changes, because their shareholders demand quarterly profits. They can experiment with new technologies, but they can’t pursue them whole-heartedly, because that would mean cannibalizing their proven profit centers (to sell an electric car, you have to explain why it’s better than a gas car). Once a new technology improves to the point that it can offer similar capabilities (range, charging time) to the old at a similar price, the incumbents’ market can disappear surprisingly quickly – remember Kodak, Blockbuster, and Blackberry.
by Charles Morris
This story was originally published on EVANNEX
Investor's Corner
NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope heads to orbit this August aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy with massive scientific ambitions.
SpaceX is set to play a central role in one of NASA’s most anticipated science missions in years. The company’s Falcon Heavy rocket, currently the most powerful operational launch vehicle in the world, will carry the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into orbit on August 30 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Roman is now in final preparations inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where on June 26 technicians used a crane to lift the observatory into a specialized stand for fueling and pre-launch testing.
Roman is named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief of astronomy, whose career helped shape how the agency approaches space science.
NASA chose SpaceX Falcon Heavy because of Roman’s needs to reach a specific orbit far from Earth, well beyond where a standard Falcon 9 can deliver it. The Falcon Heavy, which first flew in 2018, has since become NASA’s go-to option for missions that need serious muscle without the cost and complexity of older launch systems.
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Roman will carry a field of view at least 100 times wider than the Hubble Space Telescope, meaning it can photograph enormous swaths of the universe in a single shot rather than the narrow slices Hubble captures. That difference in scale is significant. While Hubble reshaped our understanding of the cosmos over 30 years, Roman is built to work faster and wider, surveying hundreds of millions of galaxies at once.
One of Roman’s most compelling capabilities is its potential to discover and photograph planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, and with enough precision to directly image planets that would otherwise be lost. That means scientists could study the atmosphere and surface characteristics of distant worlds rather than simply confirming they exist. Combined with Roman’s sweeping field of view, the telescope could detect thousands of exoplanets, and some of those planets may be in habitable zones where liquid water could exist. No telescope currently in operation has this level of power and capability. That capability alone could change what we know about other worlds, and perhaps finally answer the question: are we the only intelligent lifeforms in existence?
What Roman actually finds once it reaches orbit is an open question, and that is exactly what makes this launch worth watching.
Tesla has confirmed a crucial detail of its Miami Robotaxi launch, stating that the fleet is operating on an Unsupervised basis, joining a few other cities where company employees do not watch over the vehicles from inside.
Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, confirmed the detail on X, answering a highly speculated question about the Robotaxi Service in Miami, which was launched on June 3:
Unsupervised
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 3, 2026
The first launch of Robotaxi in Florida, Miami presents a unique opportunity for Tesla as it is operating the Unsupervised Robotaxi ride-hailing service in a major tourist hotspot in the Sunshine State. It also signals the suite will expand to other cities soon; many have requested Orlando, a heavy tourist spot with Disney and other resorts nearby, get access to the program soon as well.
Miami is getting a conservative rollout as well, just as Tesla has done with other cities. The initial geofence covers a compact 10–14 square mile zone in western Miami-Dade County, primarily West Miami extending toward Doral and Sweetwater. It is bounded roughly by SR-826 (Palmetto Expressway) to the north and US-41 (Tamiami Trail) to the south, excluding downtown Miami, Miami Beach, the airport, and most of Coral Gables.
Tesla has also been pretty slim on other details. For example, Tesla has not disclosed the exact fleet size, but field reports and license plate tracking indicate just two unsupervised Model Y vehicles were active on launch day, increasing to three within 48 hours.
According to The Road to Autonomy, a nearby staging lot near Miami International Airport holds dozens of Cybercabs alongside additional Model Y units, suggesting capacity for rapid scaling as demand and data collection grow.
The confirmation of Robotaxi being Unsupervised carries immense weight. It establishes that Tesla’s Miami Robotaxi operations run without human safety drivers or remote supervision, relying entirely on the company’s Full Self-Driving technology. Miami becomes the second major U.S. city after Austin to offer unsupervised Robotaxi rides from day one.
The move reflects rapid progress in Tesla’s AI efforts. Neural networks trained on vast real-world data now handle complex urban environments, including South Florida’s heavy traffic, pedestrians, and rainy conditions. Industry observers see it as validation of Tesla’s vision-centric, data-driven approach versus traditional rule-based systems; a truly unorthodox approach in this day and age.
Challenges remain, including regulatory oversight, public trust, and scaling the fleet to match geofence ambitions. Miami’s small initial footprint and limited vehicles highlight a deliberate, measured expansion strategy focused on safety and data gathering.
Nevertheless, the unsupervised confirmation marks a pivotal milestone. It showcases technical readiness and advances Tesla’s vision of transforming vehicles into autonomous revenue generators while reshaping urban mobility. For Miami users, driverless transportation has moved from concept to reality.
A California radiologist who drove his Tesla Model Y off a 250-foot cliff in an attempt to kill his family has had his charges dismissed after doctors say he is “doing well” in a mental health program.
Dharmesh Patel was charged with three counts of attempted murder in connection with a January 2023 crash where he drove his Tesla off a cliff, injuring his wife and two children, aged 7 and 4 at the time.
Patel drove the Tesla off Devil’s Slide in California, an area that is extremely rough to the point that investigators and rescuers expected the worst when arriving at the scene for the first time. Patel supposedly had schizoaffective disorder, according to Deputy District Attorney Dominique Davis.
Shockingly, Patel’s wife, who was in the vehicle, testified that she did not want her husband to be prosecuted, noting that their children missed their father and they wanted him to come back home. Patel’s attorney argued, “not everyone who commits a crime is a criminal.”
Doctor who took Tesla off cliff gets support from unlikely person
A three-day trial in Mental Health Diversion Court ruled in Patel’s favor, which kept him out of jail and instead on house arrest. He was admitted to a Mental Health Diversion Program, which he successfully completed, the Associated Press reported. San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said the judge was “required by law” to dismiss the charges:
“If the person who’s given mental health diversion follows the treatment plan, there’s nothing that can be done, and at the end of the two years he gets it wiped out of his record.”
Wagstaffe said he has argued, along with other DAs in California, to have attempted murder removed from the list of charges eligible to be dismissed due to mental health diversion programs.
Patel had the charges officially dismissed on Monday; his wife waited for him as he left court and they departed the building together, according to Mercury News. Patel surrendered his California medical license in December.
The crash has been one of the best examples of Tesla’s incredible engineering, which has saved four lives in this particular instance. The car was totalled but kept the four human beings alive and safe, which is something that many referred to as “an absolute miracle.”
NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds
Tesla confirms crucial detail of Miami Robotaxi launch
