Is Tesla the next Apple?

Electric cars are far away from being mainstream but I think it may change soon. The number of (full!) electric car is increasing dynamically.  The diagram bellow shows the sales of EVs in 2011

 through 2012. The number is very very low but even through that short period there is a exponential increase (In the first quarter of 2013 almost 5000 TeslaS were sold - which is roughly equal of the first quarter 2012 sales of all EV cars.).
(I found this chart on http://www.evsroll.com/Electric_Vehicle_Sales.html .)

The bottleneck of electric cars is the battery.  

 

However after a very long period of stagnation battery capacity  started to increase. (The picture is From the Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/10789409, from 2008).  This prediction is quite old but the actual battery capacity is more or less in line with it. Some researcher expect a 10 fold increase of battery capacity till the end of the decade. That could mean e.g. Tesla S driving distance without recharge of at least 2000 miles...








In fact even todays capacity is acceptable (at least for luxury sedans) what is not so easily is to accept is the price (especially the price of batteries).

Price

Battery prices slowly but steadily decreases (see: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1083392_cheaper-electric-car-batteries-slow-steady-wins-the-race) and a faster decrease is ahead (see: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/energy_resources_materials/battery_technology_charges_ahead)

Conclusion

So we have increasing number of electric cars, increasing battery capacity and increasing battery price efficiency. This factors are almost marginal yet but the time is near when they add up and it will lead to an explosion in EV penetration.

Who wins?

Several vendors are experimenting with hybrid and electric devices some of them have EVs in production. However there aren't many who build they whole business on electric cars and have the power of focus on it. This is a big advantage and frees thinking for a new concept which not only includes car production, battery technology, but special infrastructure, intelligent software solutions, quality, user interfaces - all things which make EV cars a fashion. People will fill the commitment and will want to be part of it. 

In may view Tesla is the only one who is doing this now, just think of the TeslaS, its user/driver interface, the Supercharger network, battery swap...

The same determination, and commitment I have seen with Apple when the Mac was first introduced.