Ann: 2020 Annual General Meeting Presentation, page-66

Makes a lot of sense that these two will go head to head in the immediate future. This showdown has been suggested by pundits for a long time and its why there is so much emphasis in the German car manufacturing industry to convert to electric right now, along with all the associated infrastructure required, including battery factories, charging points and the European Union itself creating organisations such as the battery alliance to secure supply of raw materials for its manufacturing sectors.

Volkswagen have created an ambitious but achievable goal of electric car sales and even Elon Musk who drove a Volkswagen ID.3 recently said "it was pretty good".

The Germans know they are in for a fight for survival and that their car manufacturing industry is not only a massive employer of German workers but a substantial point of National pride. I think with all their industrial might (and the banking and financial resources behind them) they actually have a decent chance at closing much of the gap on Tesla in the next 5 years to 10 years and the speed at which they are converting their factories, the enormous amount of money they are throwing at research and development into electric battery technology shows that they know the clock is ticking and they are not mucking around.

Other companies like Mercedes are going hard into the premium electric vehicle market (if you want to see an electric car better classified as pornography check out the Mercedes EQS which is designed to go toe to toe with the Tesla Model S in the luxury/executive car market and I suspect, be an eventual replacement for Mercedes legendary S series). and hybrids such as the new Ferrari SF 90 Stradale is proof that even boutique super car makers are taking the issue increasingly seriously as even their performance off the line gets beaten by the likes of Tesla's Model S Plaid.

The biggest question on my mind however isn't where the rest of the American automotives are (I think GM and Ford are insolvents waiting to happen) but rather, where are the Japanese and specifically, Toyota is.

Toyota pioneered a huge amount of this technology during the 90's and 2000's when everyone else laughed at it and called it a gimmick or simply technology demonstrators for publicity on shows like 'Beyond 2000' but I have the feeling that behind the curtain, they might have a lot more than they are currently eluding to.

My pick is that 5 years from now, even with Tesla's significant "first mover" advantage on battery tech, vertical integration and manufacturing scaling that they might be fending off some decent competition.