And how are Lucid, Polestar, and Rivian making Tesla clones?
Solely because they all are electric cars?
As for body styling, take a look around the next time you drive - most sedans on the road today don't look drastically different from each other. They're all mostly designed to be as aerodynamic as possible, which kinda results in very similar appearances.
As alluded to in my post, I don’t drive anymore, I live in a place where it’s less of a hassle to use (mostly underground) public transportation. And the point is largely moot anyway, since I’m still mostly work from home. So I actually don’t see a wide variety of vehicles on a regular basis, and I couldn’t tell you about differences in styling.
And you seem to have missed my bigger point about trying to copy the success of Tesla with luxury EVs. Living where I do (well, not exactly where I do, but maybe a little further out), I could really see the value of an EV city car. I’m not really as keen on the idea of a full sized sedan EV personally (luxury or not). And I’d prefer to see a) some proper economy EVs that b) retain their value over time and c) still make sense in a world of higher electric prices. Basically, I’d like to see an EV that makes sense on its own terms and not just with current technology/social priorities. (IE: Personal cars don’t contribute to greenhouse gases nearly as much as planes, boats, or trucks, but, if every car were to be on the grid, there would need to be substantial increases in energy generation. So electric cars really need to prove their worth over gasoline in the long run or fuel cell designs that are on the horizon. But electric is nice to have if it’s cheaper to fuel than gas, or if you can take advantage of HOV lanes or tax credits for driving electric.) So I’m not sure if EVs are really the solution in the long run.
I’d honestly prefer the idea of a plug in hybrid full sized sedan anyway (like the Chevy Volt was), if just because I know that, if I owned a car in my current arrangements, I’d probably want to drive it out of the city and would be worried about charging, yet I could still take advantage of electric incentive programs. I don’t think current DC Fast charging is the answer, either, because fast charging reduces range by 20% (relative to full charge) and still takes 3 times as long as gas fueling. Not really an issue on most trips, sure, but, growing up in the Midwest, 4 hour car trips tended to be a thing we did multiple times a year. And if you can only afford one or two cars, I’m not sure how practical a luxury EV sedan is if it doesn’t meet all your driving needs. If you’re only getting about an hour’s drive on each charge (because you’re fast charging, running the radio, and running the AC or heater) and it takes 15 minutes to charge up, you’ve added a full hour to a 4 hour car trip. The same trip in gas would maybe take 4 hours and 10 minutes or 4 hours and 15 minutes (depending on how many times you need to stop for fuel, but you probably only need to stop every 100 miles driven or every hour and a half or so). Even my old gas guzzler could do about a 200 mile trip while only needing refueling once.
I’d totally be open to an EV if I were doing city driving or strictly suburban driving, so I’m not opposed to the idea. But the electric luxury market seems to be saturated to me, and that’s what I’m pointing out. Besides, I’d like to see start ups trying to go beyond the EV or create an electric concept that meets more people’s needs, instead of trying the same general idea as Tesla because “there’s gold in them thar hills”.
) are owned by independent franchised dealers.
