DETROIT – The epic fight over who controls the future of the car industry is about to get a whole lot more interesting.
Tesla Inc., the pioneer and pacesetter, has dominated the early rounds of the new-energy age, capturing investors’ imaginations with a vision for what the next generation of vehicles looks like and seizing the nascent market for fully electric cars.
In the other corner are giants of scale: Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp. The world’s two biggest automakers — each sold roughly 10 or 11 cars for every one Elon Musk did last year — realize the age of the battery-powered vehicle is here and are gaming out how to stay on top.
Within five days of one another last month, these masters of mass production laid out plans to splurge $170 billion over the coming years to preserve their claim on an industry they’ve dominated for decades.
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