Two of the best-selling electrical cars today either came out before Tesla had a mass-market car (Nissan Leaf, launched around the same time as an electric car) or are based on a platform that did (Renault Zoe; came out about the same time as the Model S, but its less successful sibling came out before the Model S).
Why is Nissan supposed to get credit for something GM did first?
edit: cute downvotes, but the fact is GM was the modern pioneer on electric vehicles.
"The General Motors EV1 was an electric car produced and leased by General Motors from 1996 to 1999. It was the first mass-produced and purpose-designed electric vehicle of the modern era from a major automaker"
The title is a bit misleading. Nissan just hopes it will be the first. Mitsubishi is planning to have their iMiev out at about that time or sooner as well. Actually, just about every car company is saying they'll have an electric out by 2011 these days.
With the exception of the Leaf, all those fully electric cars seem more like tests or prototypes than serious attempts to win the market. Nissan is anything but passive when it comes to fully electric cars, but all the other major car makers are being, in my opinion, overly cautious.
I wish other car companies would create more compelling and somewhat affordable electric cars.
At least in the US, the only two cars I can think of (besides the Model 3, which is hard to come by) that move the needle at all are the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt, both of which look... not great.
Why don't any other car companies offer a 'standard' mid size or compact sedan that's fully electric? Just take an existing decent car like a Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, etc. and redesign it electric? I know it's a different drivetrain/architecture, but why not a standard looking body instead of some weird buggy space-age thing?
I wouldn't count Nissan as a loser, they are very closely linked to Renault who do have more current EV models. Both typically rebadge each other's vehicles for different markets.
The Tesla broke usual electric car strategy by making something hot not utterly lame and stodgy[1]. Which is what all electric cars were until then. The economics of that actually worked.
The Prius at least fit into Toyota's market segment.
[1] This is not totally true. There were some once off electric cars in the 1990's that were sporty. Friend dated a women that owned one. It only had a range of about 40-50 miles but it was FAST.
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