This is all about the vision of the new s-curve industry, that is to focus on the big goals.  Tesla wants to build electric vehicles because they believe that electric vehicles will be the future. However, Tesla was not the first brand to build electric car because there are many companies that has made them ages ago even the cost curve of the battery was not down and the technology is not yet mature.

Tesla waited until the cost of batteries dropped. The company started building a high-end electric vehicle model because it can deliver high torque and have an  acceleration at a level of racing cars and thus can be sold with a high price. However, people don’t see it as necessary since it’s not the only type of car in the market, as well as it doesn’t have enough reliability in case that the car couldn’t be use.  All in all, Tesla did intend to build electric vehicles.

In China, the electric vehicle industry has emerged from the fact that batteries are safer and more reliable. Because in the past, when the battery was not considered safe enough, it couldn’t be used in the car. The industry had to wait until  the scientists who has got Nobel prizes had figured out the ways to make batteries become safer. Apart from being safe, batteries also have more capacity and are cheaper, therefore, the development of various materials for battery has initiated the electric vehicles industry.

The first 10 years (1992-2002) after I graduated, the battery employed lithium cobalt oxide (LCO), which was the only cathode material that could release high energy. However, since this material was very dangerous, it was then used at a small level.  Later, there were various materials, such as lithium iron phosphate (LFP), lithium-ion manganese oxide (LMO), and lithium nickel manganese oxide (LNMO), all of which were safer and people have been assured to put them in cars.

For example, BYD (BYD Auto Co., Ltd.), one of the first company in China that manufacture electric cars, first started producing electric buses and then began to produce an electric taxi, which we used at Suvarnabhumi Airport. The company started its production using LFP and was at first being an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) for other companies.  However, in the end, the company decided to switch from battery company to car manufacturing company. That is, the company had started in different ways compared to Tesla. Tesla saw itself as an automotive  maker and then bought the battery, and later started to design a battery pack to put in the car.  On the other hand, BYD had started from producing the battery first and then transformed itself to be a car manufacturer.

To stress this point, Tesla itself said that its competitors are not car companies, but Apple and Google.  The creation of a new industry from automotive industry.  In the future, the important things will be digitization, the management of the entire network, as well as the energy issue, all these will change very quickly in the automotive industry.