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> Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established. Yes, but it is all built around selling the ICE as the

by jsight 9y ago

> Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established. Yes, but it is all built around selling the ICE as the ultimate driving machine. To compete with Tesla, the entire marketing machine will have to be reworked in such a way as to imply that their previous flagships are now legacy. That is a bitter pill and will face much internal political resistance, regardless of the technical issues involved.

CPLX 9y ago
> Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established. >> Yes, but it is all built around selling the ICE as the ultimate driving machine. That... doesn't really make any sense. A Tesla and a Mercedes are literally indistiguishable from each other on the basis of their powertrain. They both look the same and have the same function and work the same. If I modified a Tesla to ICE and it was your next Uber ride you would not really be able to tell the difference unless you were closely paying attention, and vice versa. Yes there are some performance differences and sound differences, sort of, but from a functional perspective they're both just luxury cars, outside of refueling the user experience is exactly the same. Sure, it's an engineering challenge, but the idea that the dealer network and marketing don't apply equally well to electric cars is totally unsupported. In fact, the luxury car marketing experience is so similar across the board that you just used the BMW slogan to describe Mercedes Benz.
- jsight 9y ago
  My use of the BMW slogan was intentional, because that is absolutely true that the marketing messaging between most luxury brands is incredibly similar (though differences exist that are relevant in ways that are interesting to some). If you modified a P100D to use a Mercedes drivetrain, the car would feel slower and would launch like an ICE car. The feeling of initial acceleration in an all-electric performance car like the P100D is vastly different. Maybe you wouldn't notice from the backseat of a taxi, but that isn't really the point in selling a performance car. :) But even that doesn't really matter as much as you might think. I think the fundamental issue is that you appear to be using engineer thinking and are thinking about the situation from a purely logical framework. Buyers in the real world don't behave that way and the romance copy and image that a company sells really does matter in the marketplace.

by jsight 9y ago

CPLX 9y ago

> Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established. >> Yes, but it is all built around selling the ICE as the ultimate driving machine. That... doesn't really make any sense. A Tesla and a Mercedes are literally indistiguishable from each other on the basis of their powertrain. They both look the same and have the same function and work the same. If I modified a Tesla to ICE and it was your next Uber ride you would not really be able to tell the difference unless you were closely paying attention, and vice versa. Yes there are some performance differences and sound differences, sort of, but from a functional perspective they're both just luxury cars, outside of refueling the user experience is exactly the same. Sure, it's an engineering challenge, but the idea that the dealer network and marketing don't apply equally well to electric cars is totally unsupported. In fact, the luxury car marketing experience is so similar across the board that you just used the BMW slogan to describe Mercedes Benz.

jsight 9y ago
My use of the BMW slogan was intentional, because that is absolutely true that the marketing messaging between most luxury brands is incredibly similar (though differences exist that are relevant in ways that are interesting to some). If you modified a P100D to use a Mercedes drivetrain, the car would feel slower and would launch like an ICE car. The feeling of initial acceleration in an all-electric performance car like the P100D is vastly different. Maybe you wouldn't notice from the backseat of a taxi, but that isn't really the point in selling a performance car. :) But even that doesn't really matter as much as you might think. I think the fundamental issue is that you appear to be using engineer thinking and are thinking about the situation from a purely logical framework. Buyers in the real world don't behave that way and the romance copy and image that a company sells really does matter in the marketplace.