Tesla has had a pretty successful year by most standards. The company was struggling for some time to convince investors and customers that it could deliver on its production goals and make money, but it seems to have managed to do both.
In fact, Tesla is ending its year with a positive note from Baird analyst Ben Kallo, whose 12-month price target predicts that the company stock will jump more than 12% in the coming year.
But basking in the glow of success doesn’t mean Elon Musk and company are able to rest on their laurels. That’s because the global electric vehicle (EV) market is heating up big time, and competitors are investing heavily in order to best Tesla on the technology front.
Bloomberg is reporting that a consortium, which includes both BMW and Porsche, has announced a new electric vehicle charger that basically blows away anything commercially available from Tesla at the moment. The prototype charger will help quell some of the fears that seem to deter people from purchasing EVs — specifically, that the runtimes aren’t long enough, and that charging is slow and inconvenient.
Well, not anymore. The new charger offers a capacity of 450 kilowatts — triple the 145 that Tesla’s Supercharger offers — and it’s said to be capable of adding 62 miles of battery capacity in only 3 minutes.
Unfortunately, in a chicken-and-egg kind of situation, the charger is actually offering more capacity than BMW’s existing models can use — the biggest of which, the BMW iX3, tops out at 150 kilowatts, though the system will automatically adjust to the capacity.
Also, the speedy jolt of power is being controlled using a new cooling system, which Motor Authority says will “ensure even, gentle temperature control in the battery cells, which is necessary to ensure their longevity.”
Speaking of longevity, you can bet that Elon Musk is planning on a long, happy life as an EV leader — we’d expect no less. So don’t be surprised if the company has something up their sleeves that rivals Tesla's European counterparts.