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Do customers care about who is the best innovator? They want cars, which are electric, and BMW et. al. will give them tons of those and that's it. The other '

by jariel 6y ago

Do customers care about who is the best innovator? They want cars, which are electric, and BMW et. al. will give them tons of those and that's it. The other 'nice things' Telsa has are niche feature offers; nice, but not going to change the world. Elon is betting that he can automate manufacturing better than other companies, that remains to be seen. ===== EDIT: There's a broad belief in the US that "Tesla has change the world" ... which really isn't true. If we wanted to attribute it to a car, it's probably the Nissan Leaf though that wouldn't be right either. I think the 'Tesla Myth' is borne out of pop culture instinct, not really industry reality or data. Here are the facts [1] (EV sales historical) Tesla has never been an important EV maker - in terms of volume. The major manufacturers have always been innovating, tweaking, and out-selling Tesla on EV's by a wide margin. If Tesla were not on that chart, it wouldn't have changed a thing. Tesla is a niche player and boldly entered into a locked up market, and helped some pop culture trends and some points of innovation - all of that is meaningful and they deserve credit - they are a great company. But they didn't move the needle that much and we'd be in roughly the same position otherwise. [1] https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10567 https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10567

qeternity 6y ago
The Cult of Elon is alive and well. He is a pop culture icon now, and that's marketing that money can't buy.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  I don't think it's about Elon, though in the very early days he certainly helped. They're an upper middle class status symbol now. It's likely gonna take a solid decade of something being better for that to change. As long as the product is at least arguably competitive they'll be fine.
  - jariel 6y ago
    Yes, but they are not more of a status symbol that BMW, at least broadly. Their brand power is not going to be enough for them to live in a very well established industry of premium and regular brands. Tesla will do fine, I think they will be a legit new car company, but that's just it: 'another' auto player.
    - sergiosgc 6y ago
      > Yes, but they are not more of a status symbol that BMW, at least broadly. Forget BMW. They had a lead with the i3, which they squandered. Their latest EV is the Mini One Electric, which is a rebranded i3. BMW dropped the ball. No decent future lineup of EVs. More importantly, no planned investment in battery factories. BMW is dead in the water, with a lag behind Tesla of 5-10 years. VW is the first brand I see with a less than five year lag behind Tesla. Battery production capacity is a good metric for how much of a competition each manufacturer is. VW should catch up to Tesla a bit before 2025, assuming no delays and assuming no ramp-up of Tesla Gigafactory investment.
      - jariel 6y ago
        In the short term - yes. But it's a massive, massive industry. Maybe the biggest. 5 years is a blip. The 'brand value' of BMW is going nowhere, same can be said for 'all the other brands'. The industry will catch up, brand by brand, at which point it remains to be seen what Tesla will look like in the mix. My prediction is that it's a 2cnd tier player, but they are growing fast, they could put themselves in the position of being a major player no doubt. But I don't see the other brands changing that much in terms of status.
atonse 6y ago
Tesla’s already changed the world. The fact that traditional car companies like VW can even make a bet to go all electric is because Tesla has showed it’s a viable and highly successful strategy.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  This is likely ahistorical. VW was a bit later, but other market leaders Nissan and Renault released their platforms before the Tesla Model S came out.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    I think if you drew a graph of electric car adoption and compared it to one from a hypothetical world where Tesla didn't exist, the zoomed in view of the last ten years would be a little higher with Tesla. By the time 2050 rolls around it'll be real hard to tell the difference.
- jariel 6y ago
  The shift was inevitable and always in progress with or without Tesla. They have been selling and experimenting with electric cars for a very long time. Nobody has 'copied' anything that Tesla has done, they've done it on their own terms and sales have been picking up especially in Europe for a long time. Tesla added some enthusiasm and pop culture flavour to the moment, but they didn't change anything. At most, they accelerated the timeline by a few years.
  - mpweiher 6y ago
    Other companies have experiment with EVs for a long time and repeatedly, invariably failed miserably at it. One crucial mistake they all made was focusing on the low-end, where the technology just wasn't viable/practical and couldn't be made viable/practical in one step. Tesla's genius was focusing on the high end first and letting that trickle down. Starting with a car that didn't have to be practical to be viable.
    - 6y ago
MrRiddle 6y ago
Not sure why you’re downvoted considering Corolla is the best seller. If any EV takes largest share in the future, it will be Corolla EV/Golf EV/Focus EV.

by jariel 6y ago

qeternity 6y ago

The Cult of Elon is alive and well. He is a pop culture icon now, and that's marketing that money can't buy.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
I don't think it's about Elon, though in the very early days he certainly helped. They're an upper middle class status symbol now. It's likely gonna take a solid decade of something being better for that to change. As long as the product is at least arguably competitive they'll be fine.
- jariel 6y ago
  Yes, but they are not more of a status symbol that BMW, at least broadly. Their brand power is not going to be enough for them to live in a very well established industry of premium and regular brands. Tesla will do fine, I think they will be a legit new car company, but that's just it: 'another' auto player.
  - sergiosgc 6y ago
    > Yes, but they are not more of a status symbol that BMW, at least broadly. Forget BMW. They had a lead with the i3, which they squandered. Their latest EV is the Mini One Electric, which is a rebranded i3. BMW dropped the ball. No decent future lineup of EVs. More importantly, no planned investment in battery factories. BMW is dead in the water, with a lag behind Tesla of 5-10 years. VW is the first brand I see with a less than five year lag behind Tesla. Battery production capacity is a good metric for how much of a competition each manufacturer is. VW should catch up to Tesla a bit before 2025, assuming no delays and assuming no ramp-up of Tesla Gigafactory investment.
    - jariel 6y ago
      In the short term - yes. But it's a massive, massive industry. Maybe the biggest. 5 years is a blip. The 'brand value' of BMW is going nowhere, same can be said for 'all the other brands'. The industry will catch up, brand by brand, at which point it remains to be seen what Tesla will look like in the mix. My prediction is that it's a 2cnd tier player, but they are growing fast, they could put themselves in the position of being a major player no doubt. But I don't see the other brands changing that much in terms of status.

atonse 6y ago

Tesla’s already changed the world. The fact that traditional car companies like VW can even make a bet to go all electric is because Tesla has showed it’s a viable and highly successful strategy.

rsynnott 6y ago
This is likely ahistorical. VW was a bit later, but other market leaders Nissan and Renault released their platforms before the Tesla Model S came out.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  I think if you drew a graph of electric car adoption and compared it to one from a hypothetical world where Tesla didn't exist, the zoomed in view of the last ten years would be a little higher with Tesla. By the time 2050 rolls around it'll be real hard to tell the difference.
jariel 6y ago
The shift was inevitable and always in progress with or without Tesla. They have been selling and experimenting with electric cars for a very long time. Nobody has 'copied' anything that Tesla has done, they've done it on their own terms and sales have been picking up especially in Europe for a long time. Tesla added some enthusiasm and pop culture flavour to the moment, but they didn't change anything. At most, they accelerated the timeline by a few years.
- mpweiher 6y ago
  Other companies have experiment with EVs for a long time and repeatedly, invariably failed miserably at it. One crucial mistake they all made was focusing on the low-end, where the technology just wasn't viable/practical and couldn't be made viable/practical in one step. Tesla's genius was focusing on the high end first and letting that trickle down. Starting with a car that didn't have to be practical to be viable.
  - 6y ago

MrRiddle 6y ago

Not sure why you’re downvoted considering Corolla is the best seller. If any EV takes largest share in the future, it will be Corolla EV/Golf EV/Focus EV.