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I don't claim in the blogpost that technical and practical concerns are less important, on the contrary. I even write that in the article, but maybe it isn't cl
by mixmax 14y ago
I don't claim in the blogpost that technical and practical concerns are less important, on the contrary. I even write that in the article, but maybe it isn't clear enough.
My argument is, condensed, that in order to build a mass produced car you need a brand and a factory that will churn out cheap working cars. Since you can't realistically go from 0 to fully working mass production you need to take it in steps. So you start on a small scale with the roadster, step it up with the model S. and so on. Of course the first models were hand assembled, but that's the first step on the long road to mass production.
Also, I think you severely underestimate brand value. There's noway Joe average would choose a car he's never heard of instead of a brand he knows. If you look at the statistics it's amazing how many people stick to one brand in cars, without even considering the viable alternatives.
- nickff 14y agoIf you haven't read "The Innovator's Dilemma" and "The Innovator's Solution", you really should, because the Tesla strategy is straight out of those books.
- gizmo 14y agoYou certainly do seem to claim that. You say "the point [...] is to create a brand", and a few sentences later you say "also [technical reasons]". That to me looks like a clear distinction between primary and secondary reasons. Secondly, you say that focusing on the brand like this is part of Tesla's "ingenious strategy". However, as I pointed out in the previous post, all of the strategy you covered follows directly from constraints Tesla had. So Tesla's strategy of building a Roadster first is completely straightforward. Tesla does have an ingenious strategy, though. For instance they are working on Free Charging Stations, they have unique showrooms and they are willing to license their technology to some of their competitors. I don't think any of those things are straightforward. So there is a lot to say about Tesla's ingenious strategy, but their expensive-cars-first strategy is not the ingenious part.