The Tesla Model S Electric Car

Richard Branson’s Conglomerate Virgin Group may take on Tesla Motors Inc and other companies in developing electric cars.

Branson’s empire spans airlines, spaceships, music stores, mobile phones and they may next target electric cars.

At the all electric Forumla E in Miami where his Virgin Racing Team competed Branson told Bloomberg:

“We have teams of people working on electric cars,” “you never know, you may find Virgin competing with the Tesla in the car business as we do in the space business. We will see what happens.”

Branson’s Virgin Galactic already competes with SpaceX which was founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. In addition to Tesla, the majority of the world’s automakers are developing electric cars. It is believed Apple Inc may be working on an electric car whilst Google Inc is developing a self driving car.

The Virgin Racing Team is already working on a new engine and car for next years racing season and he believes that may ultimately be used for the broader car market in the future.

Tesla currently sells a sedan with prices starting at $70,000 and has plans to introduce a crossover SUV. The company expects to sell 55,0000 vehicles this year and has attracted other car manufacturers to look into the technology. There are other electric cars available on the market that cost as little as $30,000 and some ess such as the Chevrolet Spark EV and Daimler Smart Electric Drive.

At the moment the broader acceptance of electric cars hasn’t been adopted due to the premium consumers must pay for the technology and the range limitations of an all-electric vehicle.

Branson is certainly very passionate about clean energy saying he hopes “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.”