At this point "Tesla says it will do..." is virtually without meaning. Historically this means either they will never do it, or they are catching up to the industry, or it's something their supplier already does for everyone.
I just don't understand the hate around this company. It's not enough to criticize, people need to deploy stuff like "virtually without meaning", or "will never do it". I mean, can't they just be like any other company that spins a bit with their product announcements?
In this specific case, though, the criticism is just silly. Tesla already deploys induction motors on half the drive train that meet this requirement. The question is whether they can get rid of the (higher power/weight) permanent magnet motors in the back.
[0] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1380316949087854595?s=20
The letter's "a," "b,", "i," and "t" are doing enough heavy lifting to threaten SpaceX's business model.
But the specific form of this announcement is industry catch-up. Other makes already ship zero-rare-earth motors to the mass market, and Tesla did itself in the past.
Again, I just don't understand the discourse. By the same standards you are using one should never trust criticism of Tesla because it's likely to be phrased as ridiculous cherry-picked hyperbole (e.g. "some other company the guy owns is a moonshot brain thing ergo century-old motor technology will never happen" -- also in this subthread).
> But the specific form of this announcement is industry catch-up.
FWIW, this is just factually incorrect. Tesla has been shipping induction motors since the original Model S. They quite clearly led the EV industry in this particular technology. It wasn't until the Model 3 launched that they shipped their first permanent magnet drive train.