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This is assuming BMW et all stop any innovation. But they won't. They will offer an electric vehicle the moment it becomes feasible (and I am sorry but 200 mile

This is assuming BMW et all stop any innovation. But they won't. They will offer an electric vehicle the moment it becomes feasible (and I am sorry but 200 miles range is still an exciting and expensive toy).

w1ntermute 14y ago
The range on the top-of-the-line Model S is 300, not 200, miles. And with Superchargers, it's no longer just a toy.
- omni 14y ago
  In the very limited areas where there is currently Supercharger coverage. Also, 30 minutes for a charge isn't exactly fast.
  - calinet6 14y ago
    Patience, patience.
  - sukuriant 14y ago
    It's fast enough for most needs. If you're traveling across country, a 30 minute break every 5 hours might be just what the doctor ordered. If you break apart your eating times just right, you can have it coincide with eating times. If charge time were reduced to 30 minutes in the general case for electric cars, I'd be much, much more likely to consider them a viable alternative to my current car. We just need the infrastructure. Honestly, I believe that the car that's going to win the transition race is going to be the one that acquires the infrastructure the most quickly, be it electric fast-charging stations, hydrogen refineries/pumping stations, electrically-charged gel stations, or whatever thing we end up thinking up.
    - Tuna-Fish 14y ago
      How about the car that can use the infrastructure that already exists? All this talk about new transportation fuels imho always sidesteps the fact that gasoline will never run out. Petroleum will, but producing gasoline out of other sources is something that we already know how to do, and have done in industrial scale in the past. Fischer-Tropsch is cost-effective from coal at some point below $150 oil price. If you want to be carbon neutral, you just have to use a carbon feedstock that fills from the atmosphere, and a carbon neutral heat source. A hydrogen economy is a complete hoax. If you want to make your fuel synthetically, hydrogen has practically no advantages over synthetic gasoline.
      - sukuriant 14y ago
        From what I understand, alternative gasolines tend to come from plants that we would otherwise be eating. I believe a more sustainable system would be one that doesn't use something we're already using for an area as vital as our food. Hydrogen, as an example, isn't something we ingest; and the output, so they claim, is water. Also, coal is probably the most bad-for-the-environment, dangerous and radioactive thing we as a human population work with on a regular basis; and I personally would rather we reduce our use of coal than encourage it as a fuel source.
        clarky07 14y ago
        That's true for ethanol (which was a terrible idea), but you can also get gas from coal gasification[1] as your parent noted [2] [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gasification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gasification [2] - Fischer-Tropsch - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process
        sukuriant 14y ago
        And the radioactive coal?
        Tuna-Fish 14y ago
    - sterna 14y ago
      This kind of user behavior will be very expensive in terms of capacity requirement at the super chargers. If everybody comes in at lunch time and dinner time there will be at least 30 minutes of queue to get to a charger.
      - sukuriant 14y ago
        I figured someone would say this; and you're right, if everyone goes to lunch at the same time, then you've got a problem; but, ideally people will think of this ahead of time, and adapt their eating times by 10 or 15 minutes so people are eating not at noon, but instead between 11 and 2pm.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    Musk has said he plans to blanket the country with Superchargers in the next few years, so that is just a matter of time. Remember that it took decades before we had gas stations all across the country.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Considering 300 miles will take 4+ hours, 30 minutes for a refuel/bathroom/coffee break is hardly a deal-breaker. If you are not making a long trip, then keeping the car topped off in your garage should take care of most charging needs.
dave1619 14y ago
BMW will surely innovate in some regards, no question. But the real issue is if they can keep up with Tesla and disrupt their own 3 Series market. BMW is likely not to release or innovate on a new product that will cannibalize their main source of income (3 series sales). They're probably incrementally try to improve the 3 Series. And they'll release sub-par electric cars like the i3 and i8 (http://www.bmw-i-usa.com/en_us/bmw-i3/ http://www.bmw-i-usa.com/en_us/bmw-i3/) that won't hurt 3 Series sales. What BMW doesn't see is that Tesla is gunning for the 3 Series market with the GenIII car. Tesla is confident they can make a substantially better car than the 3 series (or Lexus IS, Audi A4, etc) in most regards and make it priced competitively. I don't think BMW is taking Tesla seriously... they're more focused on existing competitors. If Tesla succeeds in making a substantially better car than the 3 Series that's priced competitively, then everybody in that market (BMW 3 Series, Mercedes C, Lexus IS, Audi4, etc.) will be in catch up mode. And that will the story of the decade in the car industry... how a scrappy Silicon Valley startup did the impossible to the auto industry.
- fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
  The fact that most of the time market leaders resist cannibalizing the main source of their income is well known. The reasons are complex and connected to the nature of large human organizations. And it is also why most truly disruptive innovation is driven by smaller companies.
  - ryanhuff 14y ago
    Automobile manufacturers already offer petrol and diesel engine vehicles. How is this any different from a cannibalization perspective?
    - jessaustin 14y ago
      This cannibalization argument is the same reason that Henry Ford only sold black cars. Car companies didn't (actually, if you go back long enough ago, they did, but they're over it now) have to transform their company and manufacturing processes in radical ways when they began offering both types of fuel, any more than had to when they began offering multiple cylinder displacement options (2.0L, 454cc, etc.) Diesel and gas engines both require fuel systems, radiators, alternators, air intakes, exhaust pipes with mufflers, transmissions, etc. It is actually possible (although not always easy) to just replace one type of engine with the other in a user-owned car, so much more in the factory. It is quite another thing to rip out everything involved in the motive function, except the axles, wheels, and tires. If BMW wait too long to start the process, they won't get the results to a BMW quality level for many years. They'll have to decide whether they want to saddle the brand image with crappy electrical cars or if they'd prefer to sell their crappy electrical cars with a low-prestige marque.
toddmorey 14y ago
Totally disagree. While not at gasoline car levels, Tesla has certainly passed the 'toy' mark in range. What's the range on a 5 series tank? 500 miles or so? 300 miles is more than enough to cover my daily needs at least. I imagine it is for most people, unless you fill up more than once every two days.
- el_cuadrado 14y ago
  Yes, if you do not travel, it is a perfect car. I would not take Tesla on my camping trip, or my ski trip, or my ~700 miles road trip. And I honestly do not want a car I cannot use outside of my commute.
  - sophacles 14y ago
    There is an entire, large, class of people for whom 300 miles range is more than adequate to cover a regional trip, if there is a place to charge the car overnight (e.g. at the hotel parking). Anything further is a plane ride + car rental anyway, so it's not a big deal. Your use case differs. To think this matters to a statistically significant group of people is merely logical fallacy.
  - ghaff 14y ago
    For most people today, an all-electric car is a pricey second car that you can't use on longer trips. Nothing inherently wrong with that. Lots of families have a couple vehicles, one of which is an SUV/minivan and the other a car. It's not even exactly unheard of for one person to own a couple of vehicles (I do). The main issue today is price which does indeed tend to put Teslas in the same category as owning a BMW as a second vehicle.
  - Lewisham 14y ago
    But that makes you the outlier in most American households. Lots of American families have a car for a specific purpose: minivan for the kids or a pickup for going to Tahoe. There is no reason that the Tesla has to make a value proposition which assumes it wont be paired with a more utilitarian vehicle by buyers. And with the superchargers, you really can drive the SF-LA corridor, which in CA at least, is very very good.
calinet6 14y ago
This is like saying that Sony can make an mp3 player, so the iPod isn't competitive in that market. Or that a 5GB iPod won't hold enough music, so it's just an expensive toy. Within 5-10 years the battery problem will improve, especially if there is demand. This is technology, not automotive development. We're not in Detroit anymore. They're in a different class. Tesla is set up to do it right from the start at a much faster pace. Tesla will be the Apple of anything that moves, trust me. It was clear to me when I saw the Roadster design and the roadmap, but I digress...
- el_cuadrado 14y ago
  Main function of a car is to move a group of people from point A to point B. Tesla is getting good at it, provided point A and point B are not too far apart, and pint B has an electric charger available. And that is a pretty critical limitation so far. Jumping on your slightly irrelevant analogies, it is like iPod 5 with a batter that can only hold charge for 30 minutes, and can only charged at Apple store.
  - muhfuhkuh 14y ago
    No. It would be an iPod 5 that would work on your commute to and from work, quite a few places in between for groceries and errands, then pick up dinner, then back home where you would naturally charge things. You don't have to charge your Tesla at the Tesla dealership. And, seriously, if you make dozens of unpredictable stops in your day, I'll grant you, an electric car might not be for you. But, I don't think I've ever made impromptu out-of-city trips with my gas combustion car. That's more a planning thing.
    - calinet6 14y ago
      Lifestyle changes might be necessary. But it might be worth it.
- ryanhuff 14y ago
  Its a bit presumptuous to say that Tesla is so different. Sure, they are attractive at the moment because of unique niche they are filling. If BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, Acura, etc all sold an all-electric vehicle with similar range, Tesla's differentiation becomes much less unique, and normal competitive factors come into play (scale, marketing, etc).
stcredzero 14y ago
Aside from long trips to the next town, I've not had a day with more than 200 miles driven in years. And the most frequent long trip was about 180 miles.

w1ntermute 14y ago

The range on the top-of-the-line Model S is 300, not 200, miles. And with Superchargers, it's no longer just a toy.

omni 14y ago
In the very limited areas where there is currently Supercharger coverage. Also, 30 minutes for a charge isn't exactly fast.
- calinet6 14y ago
  Patience, patience.
- sukuriant 14y ago
  It's fast enough for most needs. If you're traveling across country, a 30 minute break every 5 hours might be just what the doctor ordered. If you break apart your eating times just right, you can have it coincide with eating times. If charge time were reduced to 30 minutes in the general case for electric cars, I'd be much, much more likely to consider them a viable alternative to my current car. We just need the infrastructure. Honestly, I believe that the car that's going to win the transition race is going to be the one that acquires the infrastructure the most quickly, be it electric fast-charging stations, hydrogen refineries/pumping stations, electrically-charged gel stations, or whatever thing we end up thinking up.
  - Tuna-Fish 14y ago
    How about the car that can use the infrastructure that already exists? All this talk about new transportation fuels imho always sidesteps the fact that gasoline will never run out. Petroleum will, but producing gasoline out of other sources is something that we already know how to do, and have done in industrial scale in the past. Fischer-Tropsch is cost-effective from coal at some point below $150 oil price. If you want to be carbon neutral, you just have to use a carbon feedstock that fills from the atmosphere, and a carbon neutral heat source. A hydrogen economy is a complete hoax. If you want to make your fuel synthetically, hydrogen has practically no advantages over synthetic gasoline.
    - sukuriant 14y ago
      From what I understand, alternative gasolines tend to come from plants that we would otherwise be eating. I believe a more sustainable system would be one that doesn't use something we're already using for an area as vital as our food. Hydrogen, as an example, isn't something we ingest; and the output, so they claim, is water. Also, coal is probably the most bad-for-the-environment, dangerous and radioactive thing we as a human population work with on a regular basis; and I personally would rather we reduce our use of coal than encourage it as a fuel source.
      - clarky07 14y ago
        That's true for ethanol (which was a terrible idea), but you can also get gas from coal gasification[1] as your parent noted [2] [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gasification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gasification [2] - Fischer-Tropsch - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process
        sukuriant 14y ago
        And the radioactive coal?
        Tuna-Fish 14y ago
  - sterna 14y ago
    This kind of user behavior will be very expensive in terms of capacity requirement at the super chargers. If everybody comes in at lunch time and dinner time there will be at least 30 minutes of queue to get to a charger.
    - sukuriant 14y ago
      I figured someone would say this; and you're right, if everyone goes to lunch at the same time, then you've got a problem; but, ideally people will think of this ahead of time, and adapt their eating times by 10 or 15 minutes so people are eating not at noon, but instead between 11 and 2pm.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  Musk has said he plans to blanket the country with Superchargers in the next few years, so that is just a matter of time. Remember that it took decades before we had gas stations all across the country.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Considering 300 miles will take 4+ hours, 30 minutes for a refuel/bathroom/coffee break is hardly a deal-breaker. If you are not making a long trip, then keeping the car topped off in your garage should take care of most charging needs.

dave1619 14y ago

BMW will surely innovate in some regards, no question. But the real issue is if they can keep up with Tesla and disrupt their own 3 Series market. BMW is likely not to release or innovate on a new product that will cannibalize their main source of income (3 series sales). They're probably incrementally try to improve the 3 Series. And they'll release sub-par electric cars like the i3 and i8 (http://www.bmw-i-usa.com/en_us/bmw-i3/ http://www.bmw-i-usa.com/en_us/bmw-i3/) that won't hurt 3 Series sales. What BMW doesn't see is that Tesla is gunning for the 3 Series market with the GenIII car. Tesla is confident they can make a substantially better car than the 3 series (or Lexus IS, Audi A4, etc) in most regards and make it priced competitively. I don't think BMW is taking Tesla seriously... they're more focused on existing competitors. If Tesla succeeds in making a substantially better car than the 3 Series that's priced competitively, then everybody in that market (BMW 3 Series, Mercedes C, Lexus IS, Audi4, etc.) will be in catch up mode. And that will the story of the decade in the car industry... how a scrappy Silicon Valley startup did the impossible to the auto industry.

fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
The fact that most of the time market leaders resist cannibalizing the main source of their income is well known. The reasons are complex and connected to the nature of large human organizations. And it is also why most truly disruptive innovation is driven by smaller companies.
- ryanhuff 14y ago
  Automobile manufacturers already offer petrol and diesel engine vehicles. How is this any different from a cannibalization perspective?
  - jessaustin 14y ago
    This cannibalization argument is the same reason that Henry Ford only sold black cars. Car companies didn't (actually, if you go back long enough ago, they did, but they're over it now) have to transform their company and manufacturing processes in radical ways when they began offering both types of fuel, any more than had to when they began offering multiple cylinder displacement options (2.0L, 454cc, etc.) Diesel and gas engines both require fuel systems, radiators, alternators, air intakes, exhaust pipes with mufflers, transmissions, etc. It is actually possible (although not always easy) to just replace one type of engine with the other in a user-owned car, so much more in the factory. It is quite another thing to rip out everything involved in the motive function, except the axles, wheels, and tires. If BMW wait too long to start the process, they won't get the results to a BMW quality level for many years. They'll have to decide whether they want to saddle the brand image with crappy electrical cars or if they'd prefer to sell their crappy electrical cars with a low-prestige marque.

toddmorey 14y ago

Totally disagree. While not at gasoline car levels, Tesla has certainly passed the 'toy' mark in range. What's the range on a 5 series tank? 500 miles or so? 300 miles is more than enough to cover my daily needs at least. I imagine it is for most people, unless you fill up more than once every two days.

el_cuadrado 14y ago
Yes, if you do not travel, it is a perfect car. I would not take Tesla on my camping trip, or my ski trip, or my ~700 miles road trip. And I honestly do not want a car I cannot use outside of my commute.
- sophacles 14y ago
  There is an entire, large, class of people for whom 300 miles range is more than adequate to cover a regional trip, if there is a place to charge the car overnight (e.g. at the hotel parking). Anything further is a plane ride + car rental anyway, so it's not a big deal. Your use case differs. To think this matters to a statistically significant group of people is merely logical fallacy.
- ghaff 14y ago
  For most people today, an all-electric car is a pricey second car that you can't use on longer trips. Nothing inherently wrong with that. Lots of families have a couple vehicles, one of which is an SUV/minivan and the other a car. It's not even exactly unheard of for one person to own a couple of vehicles (I do). The main issue today is price which does indeed tend to put Teslas in the same category as owning a BMW as a second vehicle.
- Lewisham 14y ago
  But that makes you the outlier in most American households. Lots of American families have a car for a specific purpose: minivan for the kids or a pickup for going to Tahoe. There is no reason that the Tesla has to make a value proposition which assumes it wont be paired with a more utilitarian vehicle by buyers. And with the superchargers, you really can drive the SF-LA corridor, which in CA at least, is very very good.

calinet6 14y ago

This is like saying that Sony can make an mp3 player, so the iPod isn't competitive in that market. Or that a 5GB iPod won't hold enough music, so it's just an expensive toy. Within 5-10 years the battery problem will improve, especially if there is demand. This is technology, not automotive development. We're not in Detroit anymore. They're in a different class. Tesla is set up to do it right from the start at a much faster pace. Tesla will be the Apple of anything that moves, trust me. It was clear to me when I saw the Roadster design and the roadmap, but I digress...

el_cuadrado 14y ago
Main function of a car is to move a group of people from point A to point B. Tesla is getting good at it, provided point A and point B are not too far apart, and pint B has an electric charger available. And that is a pretty critical limitation so far. Jumping on your slightly irrelevant analogies, it is like iPod 5 with a batter that can only hold charge for 30 minutes, and can only charged at Apple store.
- muhfuhkuh 14y ago
  No. It would be an iPod 5 that would work on your commute to and from work, quite a few places in between for groceries and errands, then pick up dinner, then back home where you would naturally charge things. You don't have to charge your Tesla at the Tesla dealership. And, seriously, if you make dozens of unpredictable stops in your day, I'll grant you, an electric car might not be for you. But, I don't think I've ever made impromptu out-of-city trips with my gas combustion car. That's more a planning thing.
  - calinet6 14y ago
    Lifestyle changes might be necessary. But it might be worth it.
ryanhuff 14y ago
Its a bit presumptuous to say that Tesla is so different. Sure, they are attractive at the moment because of unique niche they are filling. If BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, Acura, etc all sold an all-electric vehicle with similar range, Tesla's differentiation becomes much less unique, and normal competitive factors come into play (scale, marketing, etc).

stcredzero 14y ago

Aside from long trips to the next town, I've not had a day with more than 200 miles driven in years. And the most frequent long trip was about 180 miles.