It’s tough being on top, as they say. When one thinks of electric vehicles, eight out of ten individuals would respond with a Tesla product. As a result, Sir Richard Branson, head honcho of the Virgin empire, has hinted to Bloomberg on his intentions to take on the California-based EV manufacturer at their own game.
Branson already has one foot set in the field of electric vehicles (specifically, electric race cars) with his team, Virgin Racing, that is currently competing in the 2014-2015 season of the Formula E championship. Prior to that, the Virgin Group has had its brand stamped onto Formula One cars during the 2010 and 2011 season.
It was there and then at the most recent round on the Formula E calendar in Miami that Branson had hinted to reporters on Virgin’s possible future automotive venture. “We have teams of people working on electric cars,” he said. “So you never know — you may find Virgin competing with Tesla in the car business as we do in the space business. We will see what happens.”
Do note that Branson states multiple number of teams working on electric cars. Whether or not the bulk of the attention is directed at a possible road car or an evolution of the team’s Formula E car, remains to be seen. For the 2015-2016 season, teams are allowed to develop and build their own electric motor, transmission and cooling system for their race cars.
Apart from the Virgin Group, tech giant Apple also has Tesla within its scope as the firm has been, reportedly, working hard at developing an electric vehicle (codenamed “Titan”) that’s slated for a 2020 debut. Elsewhere, Google is hard at work refining its autonomous, electric vehicle.
One interesting fact to note is that one of Branson’s protégé, our very own Tony Fernandez, owns Caterham Group as one of its subsidiaries under his Tune Group corporation. Knowing how Fernandez tends to emulate every move Branson makes, can we expect something similar from Caterham? Only time will tell.
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Richard Branson make something new so people would be benefited.
Cronies make new Proton junk (latest Iriz) so their people would get the S class.
See the difference?
If Iriz is junk than MyVi worse than that but people buying out of Propaganda that it good and poor of understand on CAR
Tesla made their patents available to give rise to many more EV manufacturer , with increased demand and supply, it will significantly drives down cost for all parties…
I’ll take the first from the left. No, not Branson’s left!
is virgin going to use tesla motors’ open patent to develop the EVs. hope its a healthy rivalry. im a long tsla
I know it’s fashionable right now to insinuate you’re going to ‘enter the EV market’, but one hand-built EV race car doing laps in Florida on Sundays does not make Branson an EV mass-market pioneer. He is just trying to get tech press for his non-tech company.
Please notice the writer’s post about himself. “He appreciates the simple things in life – a simple car with nothing but back-to-basics mechanical engineering and minimal electronics on board”.
This article is about the most advanced fully electric cars ever created with minimal mechanical engineering. Just saying!
yeah…it’s kind a ironic
He is talking about the awesome Toyota Vios J. Best car that money can buy in malaysia.