Ford European CEO Mark Armstrong mocked Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk as he stated that they were managing to make 7000 cars a week. He pointed out that Ford makes about 7000 cars every four hours.
Well this may be very impressive to build so many, it should be pointed out that Ford, a company that is over a century old, had to be pushed into starting to make electric cars by companies such as Tesla (less than a decade old), and will not start releasing their electric models until the early 2020s.
Giving how slow they have been to meet the challenge of global warming, and the fact that they have given Tesla such a start in the electric car movement, it is a foolish thing to tease. Were it not for companies such as Ford’s lack of forward thinking there would have been no space in the market for a company such as Tesla.
Ford, as many of the other old car companies, have given Tesla a large amount of time with which to gain a huge market lead in the electric car arena. Given that they don’t intend to challenge them for another 4 or 5 years it is entirely possible that by the time they catch up Tesla are selling tens of times more cars than they currently are. Whether Tesla becomes a car company that throws out millions of cars a year is irrelevant, it is only through the dinosaur slow behaviour of the old car companies that they ever got a chance.