Next Three Major Generations of Electric Cars in the 2020s

There have been three important eras for electric cars which are characterized by Tesla as the dominant EV maker. I will review the three main eras that have already occurred in electric cars and the next three major generations for EV vehicles.

Generation 1 : Roadster Era

There was the first generation Tesla Roadster period, which was the first electric vehicle to surpass gasoline vehicles on important features of performance. It cost about $110,000 and had a range of 244 miles. It was the main Tesla car from 2008 to 2011. About 1000 of them were sold before the Model S and ultimately about 2500 have been sold.

Generation 2 : Model S and Model X Era

From 2012Q3 to 2018Q1, the Model S and Model X were the top-selling Tesla vehicles. They cost in the range of $80,000 to 120,000. There were 300,000 cumulative Model S and Model X sales until Model 3 production surpassed Model S and Model X. Another 200,000 have been sold while Model 3 and Model Y has been the main car. The Model S and Model X are mainly 260 miles to 400-mile range vehicles.

Most of the sales of Model S and Model X have been in the $80,000 to $110,000 price range (after counting for the EV credits). The sales in the pre-Model 3 days had $5000-7000 in US government subsidies to consumers. These were able to dominate the higher end luxury car market and outsold the equivalent BMW, Mercedes and Porsche.

China emerged with volume EV sales in 2014. China passed the US and Europe for global EV sale market share in 2015 in unit volumes.

Generation 3: Model 3 and Model Y Era

From 2018Q1 to 2022, the Model 3 and Model Y will be the top-selling Tesla Vehicles. Cybertruck and a new $25,000 Model 2 vehicle will likely become the top sellers starting in 2023-2024. There will likely be about 4-6 million cumulative sales of Model 3 and Model Y. These were able to dominate the mainstream luxury car market and outsold the equivalent BMW, Mercedes and Lexus.

Most of Model S and Model X sales have been in the $42,000 to $60,000 price range.

Generation 4: Cybertruck and $25K Model 2 Era

At Tesla Battery day, they announced that a $25,000 would be introduced in 2024. There has been discussion about compact models specifically designed for Europe at Giga Berlin and China for Giga Shanghai. The Cybertruck will be introduced in 2021 but the lower cost and high volume $40,000 model will not appear until 2022. The $25,000 models will likely not appear until 2024 and will not ramp up until 2025. The Cybertruck pricing will be more competitive than the pricing of comparable regular trucks. The $25,000 vehicles would actually end up selling for $30,000 to 40,000. This would be 30% less than the price range of the Model S and Model X.

Generation 5: CyberSUVs, Small Cybertrucks, Small SUVs and $17K Compact EV Era

The next 30% drop in price and improvement in batteries will lead to 200+ mile range starting at $17,000 models will likely appear and ramp in 2026-2027. There are 100-mile range cars in the $10k price range now. Tesla and other makers will fill all of the car segments with EV models.

The actual pricing of most of the $17,000 Tesla models would be $20,000-30,000.

70% of US cars are SUVs and Trucks. Tesla will use the Cybertruck platform to create CyberSUVs and CyberVan models. They will be half the current prices of the Model X and the Model Y.

China and the Asian car markets are moving toward SUVs and higher prices.

Generation 6: High Volume Motorcycles, Triwheels for India, Vietnam and New EV Replacement of Used ICE Cars

The US has 41 million used car sales each year versus 17 million new car sales. The average price of used cars in the US in 2019 was $21,000 versus $37,000 for new vehicles. Globally there were about 102 million used car sales in 2019.

The next 30% drop in pricing around 2029-2030 would have cars that would start at $12,000 but would mostly sell in the $15,000-20,000 range. The pricing for $2000-4000 EV motorcycles would have two to three times the range of 80 mile EV motorcycles today.

There are about 60 million global annual motorcycles sales.

The combined sales of new cars, used cars and motorcycles is currently about 250 million each year and will be about 350 million in 2030. Reaching a predominantly EV fleet of cars, trucks and buses will involve replacing the over 3 billion ICE vehicles in 2030. Even if most of the annual new vehicles are EVs by 2030, there needs be a further double or triple of volumes to rapidly replace the whole global fleet of transportation vehicles.

SOURCES- Tesla, Wikipedia
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

36 thoughts on “Next Three Major Generations of Electric Cars in the 2020s”

  1. Money, not government, will resolve the dichotomy. Gas stations will install rechargers. And utilities will wire them up.

  2. Assuming you're not just trolling, would you care to explain what relevant and useful impact you feel that would have?

  3. Tesla has had their annual admitting of their failure of FSD,this happens every year for the last 4 at this time of year.
    GM and Waymo will have robotaxis, Tesla will always have drivers to take the blame.

  4. Elon predicted Tesla stock would be crushed ,he asked for employees to save $.50 a car when his bonus cost $40K a car.

  5. this is why the goal is ride shar , self driving cars,, the one reason i dont have an electric car right now is charging at home… i cant … take that hindrance away and im ready to go

  6. Full hybrids typically have around 1.5 – 1.7 kWhr of battery vs about 20-50x that for an EV, and battery supply seems to be a big limiter on EV/hybrid production growth.

    If Biden wants an effective way to spend a few billion $ on green projects, how about fronting the cost for Tesla to quickly build a big battery plant for its new low-cobalt batteries, with 1/2 of production to supply other manufacturers to make about 40x as many hybrids as Tesla can make EVs with their share? Sell hybrid-size battery packs at cost to any in-US car manufacturers until all production is absorbed.

    Even if a hybrids' gas consumption reduction were only 25%, 40x hybrids as EVs would avoid 10x as much CO2 for the same quantity of batteries.

  7. Body detach may be the right idea to meet the personalization/privacy desires of users, but implementing it seems troublesome, as it requires lifting high enough to clear the fenders if the body ends up between the front/rear wheels as well. If you have the body only above the fender line, that allows an easy slip off/on with nearly fixed length jacks, but you need small wheels and a step for boarding

  8. In context, he's talking more about controlling costs than maximizing profits. Tesla's share price would be hurt far worse if growth suffered for the sake of short-term profits. It seems like a similar story as Amazon.

    Tesla has been doing a very good job on gross margin.

  9. What are you quoting?

    Musk never said anything about Tesla focusing on profits. He is focused on growth.

  10. 80% in 3 minutes is a pipe dream. 80 kWh in 3 minutes is 1.6MW of power to be delivered on average. Even if the battery could take the charge, that is a hell of a connector required for that. People who say we need to be able to charge 80% in 3 minutes before EVs take off are going to be astonished when doing same in 20 minutes turns out to be enough for the market. I mean, how long are you going to buy a car that costs 3-10x to fuel because you can't be arsed to let your car charge while you're peeing and getting a coffee on a roadtrip, or doing your weekly grocery shop and not being delayed at all.

  11. You only need ~30% grid capacity increase (in kWh terms) to fully electrify road transport (including heavy trucks). And because a lot of that charging can be discretionary/overnight, a lot of it can be accomplished by increasing utilization of existing assets.

  12. More likely you could pay to have a taxi removed from service and wait for you with your pet/groceries if you are out doing errands.

  13. 30-60 second ICE fillups? On what planet?

    Here's the secret: moderate capacity chargers (~75-100kW) at malls, gyms, grocery stores, etc. Any place where people spend 30-60 minutes. Arrive, park, plug in, go about your business, unplug and go. You don't even need to pull out your credit card.

  14. "Elon Musk wants Tesla to focus on profits or warns that TSLA will fall like 'soufflé under a sledgehammer'"

    They need to start selling millions of units a year, all the magical thinking will evaporate if they continue to perform in the 100s of thousands.

  15. Instead of having a detachable trunk, have the entire body detachable. They just sit on top of the skateboard style chassis/battery/motors/suspension platform that is all the expensive bit of an EV anyway.

    That way you get to keep the personalised colour, interior, seating, ICE, smell and all the personal effects that people want in their own, personal vehicle.

  16. Based on your timeline assumptions and the past 50 years of state policies, do you expect California (for example) to make the investment in their power grid to support this in the time available?
    While I would say it's a prerequisite for a successful transition to EVs, I would also say that in California, the political leaders find it easier to mandate EVs than to make the politically unpopular decisions to improve forest management and power generation policies.
    If governments don't make those policy changes and appropriate investments, how do you think the dichotomy will be resolved?

  17. Gotta think that the biggest limiting factor will be that many (most?) people don't have garages or places to plug in. Will every street parking spot get a charging station? I guess if that comes to pass then things should be ok, or if that 80% charge in 3 minutes comes true. As long as I don't have a garage to park in, I'm probably not going to get an electric.

  18. OK, but what kind of battery cell supply will VW have? If VW will only have, say, 20 GWh in 2021, then they cannot produce (at most) more than ~250 k cars, regardless of the demand. And if this is the case, I don't see them displacing Tesla in any way, because they will have very little (in terms of volume) to displace Tesla with…

  19. Yes, it could happen. Tesla could change from mainly being a car manufacturing company to mainly being a mobility company. It will not be easy but the rewards should be huge. GM is looking like it intends to change from mainly being a car manufacturing company to mainly being a mobility company.

  20. Elon Musk is now personally worth more than that $73B investment. And he's rising fast. Bezos will be the next to take a back seat.

  21. I think ICE vehicles will drop out before that. As things shift and infrastructure builds out, EV's make more sense and ICE makes less. My Sams Club just installed a couple rows of EV chargers. That will entice people to buy.

    I believe we've all but seen the end of any technological innovation for the ICE market. Why invent the latest buggy whip? Any real innovation will go into EV's.

    Tech changeover often happens very fast. One minute you're renting VHS tapes at Blockbuster and the next you're streaming a movie on Hulu. If Blockbuster makes one false move at that pace they're out of business.

  22. Most Teslas will be used as full-self-driving robotaxis at some point, much less expensive for the customer than buying a car. At that point, Tesla will become a taxi company, building cars for their own use. Tesla sales will drop dramatically, not increase. People who own ice cars will just stop driving and trash their cars.

  23. eventually robo cars will be a thing. The designers will need to supply to a user a trunk that is removable and lockable at storefronts/parks/wherever, and then pickupable by a different robo car. The trunk being owned by the user, at least for a defined period. The trunk should have HVAC to store pets or groceries.

  24. By 2030, ICEs will no longer be made. By 2050, EVs will totally replace ICEs. EVs are simpler than ICEs and will be cheaper to make. EVs will also be cheaper to maintain and to run.

  25. There's the underlying assumption that charging must be done at home though. If the vehicle is not in use, what's preventing it from traveling autonomously to a better equipped charging facility at night, to return in the morning before your morning departure? Plus, at what point is that functionaly any different than scheduled pickup via robotaxi?

    One could posit that having a vehicle at home, with the appropriate charging equipment, could become a luxury for those more well off, the underlying assumption there is that private vehicles, or semi-permanently leased robotaxis allowing zero-wait usage, is a feature of premium car ownership. Most car users are primarily interested in reliable transportation (partially on demand, partially for commuting) that could be much more reliably be served by a managed robotaxi fleet with sufficient density.

    In areas without the robotaxi density to make that reasonable, including wait times for the entry rank of robotaxi users, then one could posit that that region has a cost of living that requires "premium" EV ownership.

  26. agreed. also the lower price-point EVs that would appeal to apartment dwellers and multi-family developments may not have overnight access to 'home' charging facilities as many of these places barely keep up heating and hot-water (or fear of EV charger jumping). Further, if there is ongoing ICE fabrication and selling 'bans' starting in the 2030s, there is going to be a 'squash' of limited vehicles to those who cannot get to regular charging facilities in any kind of convenient way – even if we get to 80% charge in less than 3 minutes by then. I just don't think there is the same level of convenient real estate to charge everyone to the same level of convenience as ICE fill-up in 30-60 seconds – even if every parking meter/ space/ lot had 25%+ charge-as-you-park.
    It would be an interesting city charging capacity simulation if we assume 300miles+ per mid-2020s vehicle at 5-minute @ 60% charge for 10-20% public parking spaces…
    (and how does/will Tesla even 'certify' mechanics/ parts distributors to meet demand)

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