Car companies aren't finding making an electric car hard at all.
Taycan is by most reviews the best EV car out there. And we have EVs from BMW, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes, Volvo, VW etc already being sold today in pretty sizeable numbers.
The problem is (a) getting enough battery supply, (b) convincing consumers to buy them, (c) getting the costs down and (d) the somewhat lacklustre growth in EV demand.
Good question, and I don't know that easy/hard is the correct dimension here.
They do seem to be been caught off guard by some combination of how quickly the electric car market has taken off, and what is possible to build.
There seems to have been a reliance on the argument that people need a range of X and because that isn't achievable the market will be small.
I think that complacency and/or conservatism may be the real issues here.
It's not entirely dissimilar to the slow response of the American car industry to the rise in quality of Japanese cars. But that also provides a model for how they might (albeit slowly) rise to the challenge
My view of the economics is that most recently Tesla knows how to make a car. The battery pack is still more expensive than an ICE drivetrain, but that is a matter of time.
My view of that is based on the rapid construction of the China gigafactory, and the sooner-than-expected Model Y deliveries.
The only company with proper prioritization of EV development outside of Tesla is VW. GM would be next, but they still are going too slow and clearly don't have full C-level executive buyin
> The only company with proper prioritization of EV development outside of Tesla is VW
That is simply not true.
All of the manufacturers apart from say Toyota have made EV the number one priority for their companies. Mainly because of the impending EU regulations on emissions.
Porsche has the best EV car on the market. BMW sacked their CEO because of a lack of EV progress, Mercedes has most of their innovation going into the EQC series. There are stories everywhere on how the companies are rapidly shifting to EV.
I keep seeing people in these comments saying that the Taycan is better than the Model S, but I'm not sure what they're seeing. It has a razor-thin acceleration advantage and can manage that more than once on a charge, but it does that at the cost of being a very expensive and cramped sports car design. If you're optimizing for track performance, sure, but that's not a very common use case, as opposed to the usefulness of a longer range, more spacious, cheaper sedan.
It’s just the one commenter repeating themselves, not “people”. And they are just making things up. The Taycan is not better reviewed than the Model S or the Model 3.
Traditional car companies are finding that making an electric car is hard (emphasis on electric)
Tesla is finding that making an electric car is hard (emphasis on car)