Car Throttle

It’s no secret the two heavyweights in the alternative fuel realm are Chevrolet’s Volt and Tesla’s Model S. They’re both practical vehicles with a (relatively) attainable price, seeking to be the car of the future. I love both of them and think each has merit for different demographics. Big surprise: Elon Musk doesn’t.

There was some talk last year of a Tesla range-extended electric vehicle but then the company quickly abandoned any thought of the idea and committed itself to all-electric vehicles. I think it was an important help in determining who the company is; they have the goal of being the first independent, full-line volume electric manufacturer.

The site GM-Volt.com had a chance to ask Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk about the whole situation. Here is their question:

“What is your feelings about the range-extender concept of the Chevy Volt and why have you not considered it it any of your products?”

Elon Musk: “We looked closely at a range extender architecture for Model S. It ends up costing about the same in vehicle unit cost, a lot more in R&D and a lot more in servicing…essentially, a REV is neither fish nor fowl and ends up being worse (in our opinion) than either a gasoline or pure electric vehicle.”

He goes on to comment about lower-density battery pack chemistry, the larger pack that plug-ins require and other issues that separate the two approaches. Notice he didn’t mention the Chevrolet Volt by name. Interesting.

Fisker has opted for the Volt approach with it’s Karma S. I think when Tesla looked at the upsides and downsides on a range-extended electric vehicle, it decided that the added cost for the gasoline infrastructure, dependence on another manufacturer for the engine, etc wasn’t worth the benefits.

It remains to see which will become the definitive way for the future. I have no doubt there is enough room in the market for both to succeed; I just wonder what customers will respond.

Until we can get either a prolific high-power charging station infrastructure or battery swap stations, buyers in large volumes (I mean hundreds of thousands) will be more likely to opt for the REV option due to range-anxiety.