6 ms·

My assumption is, that Tesla gets a lot of "free" marketing because they're the only "real" electric car company for now. I'm really happy for them, but i beli

by axx 13y ago

My assumption is, that Tesla gets a lot of "free" marketing because they're the only "real" electric car company for now. I'm really happy for them, but i believe that as soon as Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi etc. can affort to make "cheap" but great electirc cars, nobody will talk about Tesla anymore. In germany, for example, it's really expensive to own a car (insurance etc.) but it's even more expensive to drive one. You need to pay between 1,36 and 1,85 Euro per Liter (Cars have between 40-70 Liter tanks) and people _still_ don't buy electric cars. My guess is, that many people trust those big companies and don't want to buy a expensive car from a company they never heard of. As soon as all those german companies have a good mass-product solution for electric motors, they can scale them from an Audi A1 to an Audi A7 and people will buy them instantly.

jgreen10 13y ago
Tesla's technology is so far ahead of other manufacturers that people will probably have heard of Tesla long before BMW et al. catch up.
hef19898 13y ago
That's the point I'm not sure. COnsidering the fact that the biggest innovation the big german manufacturers had in last couple of years were new assisstant systems, I highly doubt they are in any position to actually built usable electric cars. The notable exception being BMW. And even they are far behind Tesla for now and had to fight considerable internal resistance to get the i3 project running. I highly assume they are ready for some tough times if they don't prepare for a changed market. Exports to the US and Asia won't save them forever. And once the infrastructure for EVs is in place it will become practical to drive EVs. I only hope for the German economy that car manufacturers learned the lessons from former German camera and TV set manufacturers.
- blktiger 13y ago
  I wonder how much company size impacts the ability for auto manufacturers to innovate. Seems like (in general) the larger a company is, the more slowly they innovate. Tesla has ~3,000 employees while BMW has ~100,000 according to wikipedia. Perhaps that means that Tesla can move much faster and will be able to out-pace the larger auto manufacturers?
njharman 13y ago
I'm old enough I remember how crappy American cars were (due to non-innovation/cheap gas) and how Asian manufactures ate them alive with cheap, efficient (for the time), dependable cars. Detroit is now bankrupt and it took 20years (70's to 90's) for the American manufactures to recover. Many similarities today. Incumbent manufactures mostly ignored (or produced paltry efforts) electric. Only now after the threat is getting established are they responding. All cars will be electric someday and all manufactures will have electric cars (or be out of business). But until then, there is room for a new player to emerge. Honda, Toyota, Nissan weren't known before the last automotive disruption either.
r00fus 13y ago
> I'm really happy for them, but i believe that as soon as Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi etc. can affort to make "cheap" but great electirc cars, nobody will talk about Tesla anymore. People said the same thing about Google providing the first usable web search, and their dominance (and the Microsoft would eat their lunch when Redmond finally got around to it). I feel the same way about Tesla - the Model S is merely a product that embodies the company's vision and skilled workforce. Tesla may not yet have a patent thicket, but they probably have key battery-specific patents as well. They are busy disrupting the way cars are sold as well (mainly because, in order to succeed, they have to)… an area that sorely needs disruption. All of this means that by the time the other manufacturers get around to building a Model S equivalent, Tesla will have both moved on to better product as well as entrenched their brand as the leader in the space (not to mention whatever lock-in that Supercharger stations produce). Perhaps this will be diminished in Germany which prides itself on it's car manufacturers, but even Japan gave into the iPhone eventually.
- Gravityloss 13y ago
  It may not be that Tesla is extremely good, but that the others are inconceivably fumbling in creating decent premium electric cars. And may do that for many years to come. Just look at non-apple laptops' trackpads...
  - r00fus 13y ago
    You may look at the competition as completely incompetent, or you can look at the winning team as having a great defensive play. You would think by now that Tesla would have been body-slammed by some regulatory agency or paid media shill (though that John Broder hit piece came pretty close)… maybe Tesla just has good defense in that space.

by axx 13y ago

jgreen10 13y ago

Tesla's technology is so far ahead of other manufacturers that people will probably have heard of Tesla long before BMW et al. catch up.

hef19898 13y ago

That's the point I'm not sure. COnsidering the fact that the biggest innovation the big german manufacturers had in last couple of years were new assisstant systems, I highly doubt they are in any position to actually built usable electric cars. The notable exception being BMW. And even they are far behind Tesla for now and had to fight considerable internal resistance to get the i3 project running. I highly assume they are ready for some tough times if they don't prepare for a changed market. Exports to the US and Asia won't save them forever. And once the infrastructure for EVs is in place it will become practical to drive EVs. I only hope for the German economy that car manufacturers learned the lessons from former German camera and TV set manufacturers.

blktiger 13y ago
I wonder how much company size impacts the ability for auto manufacturers to innovate. Seems like (in general) the larger a company is, the more slowly they innovate. Tesla has ~3,000 employees while BMW has ~100,000 according to wikipedia. Perhaps that means that Tesla can move much faster and will be able to out-pace the larger auto manufacturers?

njharman 13y ago

I'm old enough I remember how crappy American cars were (due to non-innovation/cheap gas) and how Asian manufactures ate them alive with cheap, efficient (for the time), dependable cars. Detroit is now bankrupt and it took 20years (70's to 90's) for the American manufactures to recover. Many similarities today. Incumbent manufactures mostly ignored (or produced paltry efforts) electric. Only now after the threat is getting established are they responding. All cars will be electric someday and all manufactures will have electric cars (or be out of business). But until then, there is room for a new player to emerge. Honda, Toyota, Nissan weren't known before the last automotive disruption either.

r00fus 13y ago

> I'm really happy for them, but i believe that as soon as Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi etc. can affort to make "cheap" but great electirc cars, nobody will talk about Tesla anymore. People said the same thing about Google providing the first usable web search, and their dominance (and the Microsoft would eat their lunch when Redmond finally got around to it). I feel the same way about Tesla - the Model S is merely a product that embodies the company's vision and skilled workforce. Tesla may not yet have a patent thicket, but they probably have key battery-specific patents as well. They are busy disrupting the way cars are sold as well (mainly because, in order to succeed, they have to)… an area that sorely needs disruption. All of this means that by the time the other manufacturers get around to building a Model S equivalent, Tesla will have both moved on to better product as well as entrenched their brand as the leader in the space (not to mention whatever lock-in that Supercharger stations produce). Perhaps this will be diminished in Germany which prides itself on it's car manufacturers, but even Japan gave into the iPhone eventually.

Gravityloss 13y ago
It may not be that Tesla is extremely good, but that the others are inconceivably fumbling in creating decent premium electric cars. And may do that for many years to come. Just look at non-apple laptops' trackpads...
- r00fus 13y ago
  You may look at the competition as completely incompetent, or you can look at the winning team as having a great defensive play. You would think by now that Tesla would have been body-slammed by some regulatory agency or paid media shill (though that John Broder hit piece came pretty close)… maybe Tesla just has good defense in that space.