[hacktothefuture]

100% agree but they have to be careful with the idea that "It's smart to invest in what sells right now... "!

The story is so reminiscent of Kodak. Huge 'titanic' of a ship that saw the writing on the wall, actually released digital cameras but the bulk of their infrastructure, employees and expenditures were in traditional film cameras. Once the industry fully shifted they still couldn't change course and died a slow agonizing death as taking pictures became a commodity that came 'free' with your cellphone.

[rootusrootus]

Aside from market share, it doesn't seem like much of a risk to go with what works now and save the big EV push for later. GM still came out with the Bolt, which is an excellent competitor for the Model 3. Not too pretty, but the numbers are all very good. So they know how to do it, and when the sales are there they can scale up production of whatever they're marking 10 or 20 years from now. I'd bet on GM in a battle with Tesla, to be honest, though Musk has a lot of chutzpah.

[ghaff]

It's a little different though. Kodak was invested in a huge consumables business and neither they (nor really anyone else) figured out a way to translate that sort of pay per use model to the digital world.

GM doesn't get money from gas (though their dealers do get money from maintenance which is hypothetically(?) lower with electric vehicles. Different anyway.)

[jrockway]

Kodak was a chemical company that was expected to start making semiconductors or consumer electronics. It's all "photography" but the film and digital industries are very different.