Mythbusting the world of EVs: will people buy them if there's not much choice?

MYTH: PEOPLE WON’T BUY EVs UNLESS THEY HAVE LOTS OF CHOICE

It’s entirely likely that by the end of this year, Tesla will be manufacturing cars at a rate equivalent to two million per year, spewing out of plants in California, Shanghai, and by then Texas and Berlin. All that with just four models, with no new ones at that point. Actually, almost all Tesla’s sales are just two very closely related cars. In the last three months of 2021, deliveries of the 3 and Y combined outnumbered the S and X combined by a staggering 25 to one. Tesla buyers don’t want choice, it seems.

But other older carmakers see choice very differently. They’re used to having big ranges. Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi recently made a big fanfare about their plan to use two electric platforms – the midsize one that’s underneath the Megane and Arya, and the smaller one that will be under the new R5 – to build more than 20 models by 2030. That’s Renaults, Nissans, Mitsubishis, Dacias, Alpines and Infinitis.

And yet, they still plan on that lot totalling fewer than two million cars a year by 2030. Which is a significantly smaller number than Tesla will do in 2023 with just the 3 and Y.

So, will electric buyers demand the wide choice that they’ve enjoyed in the past with combustion cars?

If that turns out to be the case, those buyers will soon get bored with Tesla’s narrow offering. Or are the old carmakers wasting their money building overcomplicated ranges of too many shapes and badges? Dunno. We’ll see.