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I don't know if Tesla will kill incumbents... but I do believe the ICE vehicle setup will kill them. When Apple dethroned incumbents, hardware-wise there was n

I don't know if Tesla will kill incumbents... but I do believe the ICE vehicle setup will kill them. When Apple dethroned incumbents, hardware-wise there was negligible difference between the devices; sure some supply chains got miffed but it was nothing the incumbents couldn't accommodate. Software and Product philosophy is what killed them, and that's a discussion for another day. But will ICC vehicles, the hardware (and associated employee and supply chain setups) is SO dramatically different that if they attempt to switch to EV and actually compete, the dead-weight would sink them, so they just can't compete. So they try to half-ass at both segments, and still barely float. Meanwhile Tesla and other pure EV companies have no legacy burdens, and as long as they can achieve the core task of being an actual functional company, they can succeed regardless of the competitors' own situations, purely due to their lacking the deadweight.

_8j50 3y ago
Few people actually want pure EV cars. It's decades before anyone who doesn't have a house or hours of free time to spend at charging stations can reasonably use full EVs. Hybrid make the most sense now. Brand also means a lot. I don't care what tesla does, I get too nauseated at the thought of giving elon money. Even before EVs, domestic vs foreign brand name made a huge difference, especially for non-city folks. In some states, you see a ton of huge pickups that are the opposite of enviornmental friendly. Ford and the like, with the brandname and EV/hybrids that look and feel like gas equivalents will dominate those consumers and in the city good luck making EVs apartment friendly. You have entire generations of people who can't buy a house despite decent salary. Spending money on inconvenient pure EVs makes no sense to them. For most, they would want to opportunistically use the EV component of hybrids. Having ridden in plenty of Teslas (thanks Uber! Lol) their build quality feels cheap, they look terrible after using them 5+yrs, to me at least they are less comfortable than jeep or nissan even, the whole touch screen thing is too unintuitive. They seem to be the car for "i like the idea of cool tech" people. I am sure they will continue to do well but I am willing to bet everything I own that they will not "kill" legacy car companies. They are just not too disruptive enough, and at least a quarter of the population would reject the cars purely because the owner is a massive ahole.
_hypx 3y ago
Battery powered cars pre-date ICE cars. Every car company can make one with no difficulty at all. The real challenge is moving past just putting a giant battery into every car, which is a huge waste of money and resources. It is Tesla that faces the biggest challenge because they have the weakest engineering grasp of car production among all manufacturers.

_8j50 3y ago

Few people actually want pure EV cars. It's decades before anyone who doesn't have a house or hours of free time to spend at charging stations can reasonably use full EVs. Hybrid make the most sense now. Brand also means a lot. I don't care what tesla does, I get too nauseated at the thought of giving elon money. Even before EVs, domestic vs foreign brand name made a huge difference, especially for non-city folks. In some states, you see a ton of huge pickups that are the opposite of enviornmental friendly. Ford and the like, with the brandname and EV/hybrids that look and feel like gas equivalents will dominate those consumers and in the city good luck making EVs apartment friendly. You have entire generations of people who can't buy a house despite decent salary. Spending money on inconvenient pure EVs makes no sense to them. For most, they would want to opportunistically use the EV component of hybrids. Having ridden in plenty of Teslas (thanks Uber! Lol) their build quality feels cheap, they look terrible after using them 5+yrs, to me at least they are less comfortable than jeep or nissan even, the whole touch screen thing is too unintuitive. They seem to be the car for "i like the idea of cool tech" people. I am sure they will continue to do well but I am willing to bet everything I own that they will not "kill" legacy car companies. They are just not too disruptive enough, and at least a quarter of the population would reject the cars purely because the owner is a massive ahole.

_hypx 3y ago

Battery powered cars pre-date ICE cars. Every car company can make one with no difficulty at all. The real challenge is moving past just putting a giant battery into every car, which is a huge waste of money and resources. It is Tesla that faces the biggest challenge because they have the weakest engineering grasp of car production among all manufacturers.