A lot has been written about how the competition is overtaking Tesla, however, a recent incident including a Rivian R1S and a Tesla Cybertruck shows why Tesla is still the leader when it comes to electric vehicles.
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For years, Tesla vehicles were considered to be the only electric vehicles worth considering. There are several reasons why Tesla dominated the EV market.
Some of the main reasons include the fact that Tesla vehicles were purpose-designed from the ground up to be an EV, they came with unrivaled tech, had amazing performance, beautiful styling, and so on.
Over the years, other automakers have started to close the gap on Tesla's advantage in styling, performance, and tech. There are several automotive magazines and channels that say the best electric vehicles currently on sale are the Rivian R1T/R1S and the Lucid Air.
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Personally, I still think Tesla vehicles are the best electric vehicles on the market. This is especially true if you take into consideration the value of the vehicle you get for the money you spend. After the recent Tesla price cuts, it's hard to justify buying any other EV other than a Tesla.
However, given the Rivian and Lucid’s performance and styling, I also understand where the people who pronounce those vehicles as the best EVs are coming from.
Since there is emerging competition, you might be thinking that Tesla has been relegated to being just another EV maker in the sea of startups and legacy automakers, however, a recent incident between a Rivian R1S and a Tesla Cybertruck shows why Tesla is still the king when it comes to EVs.
The details of what exactly happened are still not clear, however, what we know so far is that a Rivian R1S owner was on a road trip with his family, and according to a LinkedIn post by Kitty Adams Hoksbergen, the Rivian R1S owner received an emergency charge from a Tesla Cybertruck using the Cybertruck’s onboard 240-volt outlet.
The situation doesn’t look good for the Rivian, however, it gets even worse when you examine the associated picture.
The picture shows the Cybertruck charging the Rivian while both vehicles are parked next to a supercharger. The Tesla having access to the vast supercharger network is able to charge the Rivian which has to rely mostly on unreliable third-party chargers.
This incident highlights that in addition to designing a great vehicle, it takes a lot more infrastructure to produce and sell a truly exceptional EV experience.
Tesla started on its proprietary supercharger network early in the company’s history and now Tesla’s superchargers span 4 continents and contain more than 50,000 chargers worldwide.
On top of that, Tesla superchargers have an uptime of 99.96%. This is compared to the industry average for other fast-charging networks which average around 80% uptime.
80% versus 99.96% might not seem too big of a difference however, in reality, this means you’re 50 times more likely to travel to a third-party charging station and find it not working as opposed to the same situation happening to you at a Tesla supercharger.
As I have already mentioned, the details of what happened with the Rivian R1S to necessitate charging help from the Cybertruck is not clear, however, given the notoriously unreliable third-party charging networks, what happened was that the Rivian likely traveled to a charger but the charger was not working.
Currently, this makes driving any other EV other than a Tesla on long trips a hustle, however, Tesla is planning to provide an adapter that enables other EVs to access the supercharger network. Tesla is expected to begin doing so early next year which should eliminate these kinds of issues.
And we’ll be sure to keep you posted as non-Tesla EVs receive supercharger access in the US. Until then, make sure to visit our site torquenews.com/Tesla regularly for the latest updates.
So what do you think? Surprised to see a Tesla Cybertruck charging a Rivain R1S? Given the importance of the supercharger network do you think Tesla should’ve kept the network closed to the company’s EVs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Image: Kitty Adams Hoksbergen on LinkedIn
For more information check out: Gloss Black Tesla Cybertruck Wrap Keeps the Stainless Steel’s Shiny Surface but in Black – Early Buyers Are Foregoing Iconic Stainless Steel Look for Novelty
Tinsae Aregay has been following Tesla and The evolution of the EV space on a daily basis for several years. He covers everything about Tesla from the cars to Elon Musk, the energy business, and autonomy. Follow Tinsae on Twitter at @TinsaeAregay for daily Tesla news.
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