I was alive in 2003. There were no mass market electrics on the road. The RAV4 nickel-metal hydride plug-in hybrid from 97-03 sold a grand total of 1400 units. Nickel MH batteries were notorious for losing range quickly, having a memory if recharged frequently from only partial discharge, losing 20-50% of their charge per month on self-discharge alone, having far less energy density than lithium, only lasting for 500-1000 cycles etc. Electric vehicles only became viable with the advent of cheap lithium ion batteries due to mass market laptop and cell phone production of said batteries in the late-00s.
They succeeded where others failed because they are fun to drive.
There were no fun EVs prior to the Roadster. And the Roadster was a small production precursor to Model S, which transitioned from boutique-ish to mass production, and which led to the Model 3, and then the Model Y, the number one selling car in the world.
Until the past five years or so almost every other EV was still an oddball whose design language seemed aimed at screaming "EV" over anything else. Look at the i3 or the Nissan Leaf. Until Cybertruck all Teslas retained a fairly conventional appearance.
No they succeeded because of carbon credits. To this day, 42% of Tesla's revenue is just carbon credits.
That means that everyone who is buying a gas guzzler is helping fund Tesla. Tesla was one of the first to have an EV-only lineup which means they could sell 100% of their carbon credits. Every company that wants to sell a gas guzzler has to pay Tesla for carbon credits in order to do so
The roadster was a conversion of a Lotus Elise, they were still trying to figure out powertrain and battery back then. Still, reusing an existing chassis was a good strategy till they had more experience.
Tesla succeeded because it focused on the luxury market first by building the Roadster (and then later the model S). It succeeded because they showed that electric cars can be cool and not associated with lame-looking and performing Priuses and Leafs. It succeeded because people bought billions of laptops and cell phones powered by lithium ion batteries, which finally produced the economies of scale and had the right properties that made electric vehicles viable in the first place. Subsidies came later, and Tesla would have done fine without subsidies. Its the trad automakers that are attempting electrics that need the subsidies.
It succeeded because it was the only company to only sell EVs. That means everyone who wants to buy a gas guzzler is funding Tesla. In the past decade, over 40% of all of Tesla's revenue is carbon credits
> The RAV4 nickel-metal hydride plug-in hybrid from 97-03 sold a grand total of 1400 units.
FYI, it wasn't a hybrid.
And your statement is a bit misleading. 1400 sales sounds pathetic, until you realize that means they completely sold out. 1400 was all they ever made.
It was a plug-in hybrid. Which is why they later consulted with Tesla on an all-electric RAV4 in 2010.
1400 sales over 6 years is worse than pathetic. They didn't run out of materials to produce them. Good lord, this is Toyota we're talking about, they've manufactured hundreds of millions of vehicles. It was an utter flop.
They only made less than 400 available for purchase by the general public, which all sold out, and there was a waiting list for more.
You keep criticizing the sales, yet it was the supply that was the limiting factor. You can't sell more than you make, so of course tiny production runs are going to be "worse than pathetic" for sales!
Almost like they didn't really want it to succeed...
