Tesla Motors could Face Richard Branson as Competitor

Sir Richard Branson said that you might as well find Virgin compete with Tesla as Virgin does in the Space business this week at an Formula E racing event in Miami.

New competitors of Tesla Motors are lining up. Apple is rumored to work on an electric car and now Sir Richard Branson said that his Virgin brand could compete with Tesla as they do with Elon Musk in the space business. Branson said: “You /4/find Virgin competing with the Tesla in the car business as we do in the space business. We will see what happens.”

He made these comments in an interview with Bloomberg at an Formula E race in Miami.

Sir Richard Branson owns one of the racing teams in the new all-electric Formula One spin-off Formula E. He is a big believer in Formula E and how it will help accelerate the development of electric cars.

He said: “We spend a lot of time these days looking to a world that is carbon neutral by 2050 and unless you have sports like Formula E we will never get there. It’s a tremendously exciting aim and Formula E will pioneer technology which will be used on normal road cars. I hope 10 years from now the smell of exhausts from cars will be a thing of the past as much as the smell of cigarettes in restaurants.”

Every Formula E team next year will be developing their own cars. In the first season all 10 teams drive the same electric race car. The Formula E season started in September last year and will end in June. Tesla Motors is not part of the Formula E. Other big car brands like Renault and Audi have a team. If Formula E will one day replace Formula One remains to be seen. One big downside is that there is no car noise. Listen to the high-pitch noises the 160mph electric race cars make. Watching a Formula E race is true torture for ears.