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Virgin Could Take On Tesla With Electric Car
According to a story at Ars Technica, Virgin empire founder Richard Branson says 'teams of people' are working on electric cars. Says the article:
Virgin is working on electric cars and could one day take on Tesla, according to company founder Richard Branson. Speaking at a racing event in Miami, Branson said Virgin had "teams of people" working on electric cars but refused to be drawn on specific details. The company's Virgin Racing team already competes in the all-electric Formula E championship, a high-speed, battery-powered spinoff of Formula 1. Branson has now hinted that Virgin's involvement could lead to the company selling its own electric cars. ... Branson's business has continued to expand in recent years. As well as trains and planes, Virgin now has a fledgling space operation and is soon to launch its own cruise ships.
He's not just spending money, but using it to build businesses that are thus far rather successful in markets considered to be hard to break into, hard to make money in, and/or hard to beat the incumbents. And he's intent on not just making a buck in those markets by being a little bit better than everyone else, he wants to turn things on their heads, and he is succeeding at that as well.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I've been incredibly impressed with what Tesla has done in getting an American public who flat out did not want to give up its gas guzzlers interested in the concept of an electric car. I'll be even more impressed when the Tesla competitors come around, and the question shifts from "Do I want an electric car?" to "Which electric car should I buy?"
And Branson will lose any such competition.
The vast majority of Branson's business ventures have been failures. The places where he does well are in monopolies, such as international airline travel and running monopolized train services in the UK (Branson tried to run a regional airline in the UK called Little Red, but failed). Even then these are on shaky ground; Virgin Atlantic has only just begun to return to profitability, probably something to do with Delta taking a 49% stake in the airline over from Singapore Airlines, and he nearly lost his rail franchise, until his lobbying efforts revealed that the UK government had made mistakes in the allocation of the contracts.
The only reason why Virgin Galactic even exists is because the state of New Mexico ponied up massive subsidies (thanks to Bill Richardson) to build the thing there. Branson never risks his own capital on long shots. He's only involved because this is a way to create publicity for his brand. Likewise his Formula 1 efforts, and likewise this nonsensical idea that he has people building an electric car.
Branson is all showmanship and no substance. He wants people to think he is some sort of environmental activist as he believes it will benefit him and his company. You'll see - we'll never see or hear of any Virgin-manufactured electric car ever again.
Hats off to the guy - he's made himself a lot of money (nobody knows how much, though) - but excepting his long-past days in the recording business, he guy has never delivered a manufactured product in his life, and never will.