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I can't imagine what the iPhone has to do with an electric car. The post just refers to a software interface (which all cars now have), a network conncetion, a

by lvs 11y ago

I can't imagine what the iPhone has to do with an electric car. The post just refers to a software interface (which all cars now have), a network conncetion, and automatic updates. None of these relies on the powertrain of the car.

rosser 11y ago
TFA is drawing a parallel between the way smartphones, as heralded by the iPhone, transformed the mobile phone market, and the way electric cars, as heralded by the Model S, will do to the car market. That's what the one has to do with the other.
- rhino369 11y ago
  But it's a really poor parallel. People wanted a smartphone because it was a total game changer. Electric cars are not. I'm an electrical engineer and I only sort of give a shit what kind of powertrain by car has. My mom? Doesn't know or care how her car works. My dad? Probably against electrical out of old man-back in my dad behavior. Cost will be the big change. Once an electric car is cheaper than gas, the public will switch. But that is not why people switched to smartphones. Also part of the reason for the smartphone revolution is the market psychology behind carriers subsidizing very expensive phones. People think their iPhone 6 costs 200 bucks. Finally, the short upgrade cycle for phones is totally different than cars which last for like 15 years on average.
  - snogglethorpe 11y ago
    Smartphones weren't a "total game changer", they were a jump in CPU power and interface smoothness, but the trends were already there (maybe not in the U.S., I dunno).
usrusr 11y ago
Both are desperately waiting for the messiah battery to happen. People like the original author seem to face immense difficulty at wrapping their head around the fact that battery technology does not follow Moore's Law (while even chips have mostly stopped to do so). State of the art battery technology has not improved much this side of the millennium, it has just seen a really big price drop from specialist niche technology to commodity. This makes the battery of a Tesla S a lot more affordable today than it would have been back when Musk started the project (and when he correctly predicted a price drop, and just a price drop, instead of waiting for the miracle battery to happen), but the range would not have been much worse if you built a Tesla around a battery made of crazy expensive y2k cells.

by lvs 11y ago

rosser 11y ago

TFA is drawing a parallel between the way smartphones, as heralded by the iPhone, transformed the mobile phone market, and the way electric cars, as heralded by the Model S, will do to the car market. That's what the one has to do with the other.

rhino369 11y ago
But it's a really poor parallel. People wanted a smartphone because it was a total game changer. Electric cars are not. I'm an electrical engineer and I only sort of give a shit what kind of powertrain by car has. My mom? Doesn't know or care how her car works. My dad? Probably against electrical out of old man-back in my dad behavior. Cost will be the big change. Once an electric car is cheaper than gas, the public will switch. But that is not why people switched to smartphones. Also part of the reason for the smartphone revolution is the market psychology behind carriers subsidizing very expensive phones. People think their iPhone 6 costs 200 bucks. Finally, the short upgrade cycle for phones is totally different than cars which last for like 15 years on average.
- snogglethorpe 11y ago
  Smartphones weren't a "total game changer", they were a jump in CPU power and interface smoothness, but the trends were already there (maybe not in the U.S., I dunno).

usrusr 11y ago

Both are desperately waiting for the messiah battery to happen. People like the original author seem to face immense difficulty at wrapping their head around the fact that battery technology does not follow Moore's Law (while even chips have mostly stopped to do so). State of the art battery technology has not improved much this side of the millennium, it has just seen a really big price drop from specialist niche technology to commodity. This makes the battery of a Tesla S a lot more affordable today than it would have been back when Musk started the project (and when he correctly predicted a price drop, and just a price drop, instead of waiting for the miracle battery to happen), but the range would not have been much worse if you built a Tesla around a battery made of crazy expensive y2k cells.