You Have No Idea How Far Behind Tesla Is
The leapfrog moment has just happened.
Tesla had the biggest head start in the EV market. The Model S launched in 2012, and it took six years for legacy automakers to offer anything that could even try to compete with it. Even then, Tesla’s charging network was light-years ahead of what anyone else was offering. Likewise, when the Model 3 launched in 2017, it had no genuine competition for over three years. At the turn of the decade, it looked like Tesla would extend this lead with new models and the ‘revolutionary’ 4680 battery. But that simply hasn’t happened, and now Tesla’s sales are crashing as every single one of their competitors now offers comparable or slightly better EV options. But the leapfrog moment has just happened. BYD have just annouced their 1,500 kW-capable Blade Battery 2.0 and the stupidly affordable EV it is going into. Now it is Tesla who is playing catch-up. So, what about this puts Tesla on the back foot? And why did Musk fumble the bag?
Let’s start with this new EV from BYD, and what makes it so damn special. In China, it is called the Seal 07 and will be equipped with BYD’s second-generation LFP Blade Battery, specifically the “short blade” variant. This new battery retains the same stupidly high safety standards and long lifespan of the previous version, but it charges WAY faster! The 69 kWh pack in the Seal 07 has a peak charging rate of 1,500 kW, enabling it to charge from 10% to 70% in just 5 minutes, and from 10% to 97% in just 10 minutes.
In other words, this car can do a normal rapid charge in the same time it takes to fill the tank on a combustion vehicle. This is the kind of tech we thought would be more than a decade away just a few years ago.
But BYD hasn’t put this in some silly, expensive flagship halo car. No, the Seal 07 is a mass-market Model 3 competitor. I have compared the two in the table below:
*Estimated from the price difference between the current BYD seal in China and the UK
**Estimate based on the ratio of the Model 3 CLTC to WLTP
So, the BYD Seal 07 is RMB 90,500 (£9,700 / $13,000) cheaper than the equivalent Model 3 in China, whilst charging more than five times faster! Yes, the Model 3 has a slightly longer range and accelerates slightly faster, but is that enough to justify being 54% more expensive?! It’s not like this version of the Model 3 is better spec’d either, as the Seal 07 will have BYD’s “God’s Eye” system, which has been touted as more advanced and safer than Tesla’s FSD.
