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by jnurmine
2817 days ago
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Is it really so? They are not the only one, nor were they the first either, really. Yes, in some areas they were first on the market. Many of the major ("old, boring") car manufacturers are growing on the EV segment and will overtake Tesla soon if not already there. For example, BMW i3 has sold around 100k units now, about a third of Teslas. Overall the market is dominated by the Chinese manufacturers. Tesla got where they are because of the media skills and connections of Mr. Musk and the media amplification that follows. With Mr. Musk gone I see rather dire times for Tesla as a company, regardless of whether the company is sold to someone or not. Full disclosure: have never driven a Tesla but have seen it zoom to a tiny dot in the horizon in a really short time when the traffic lights turned green. |
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Reminds me of the "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." wrap-up the Slashdot editors gave[1] to iPod upon release.[2]
Any Tesla model is an exciting car, due to performance and handling, the sheen of EV greenness, and the otherness of experience[3], while still being a no-compromise daily driver. Even the range anxiety on longer trips is a strong emotion, count it as a long-term advantage, and yet another spark for endless discussions mentioning the brand. Contrast that with the i3 being mid-to-lower-end model among BMW offerings, and excites close to nobody.
There's no trick in bringing a boring, incremental car to the market; any large company can do it. Nor is it a springboard from rags to riches; it can only work in a slow-moving, low-innovation market, which new car market used to be for decades, but apparently got hot again.
The trick is to bring something that has appearance of new&fresh, that will set an industry-wide trend, will appear to push the envelope, and will make customers into excited fanboys queueing up for the goods, or preordering a year in advance. This is much harder for an established player, due to Innovator's Dilemma, and the inertia of any large organization.
BMW i3 is "yeah, I save a bunch of $$$ on gas, and I can usually fit the groceries in the trunk"; Tesla is, "I GOT 10k LIKES ON MY LUDICROUS MODE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE AND MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER WAS SCREAMING ALL THE WAY ALSO SUNROOF <3 AND I CAN LET GO OF THE WHEEL". Emotions.
Tesla is like the (early) fast and exciting X.com/PayPal among boring old banks with their wire transfers, rather than like umpteenth "also-ran" online payment processor we get every few months.
> Many of the major car manufacturers (...) will overtake Tesla soon if not already there
The IBM overtook Apple for several decades, in no small part thanks to the duopoly with Microsoft and their EEE tactics. And yet here we are, Apple > IBM. However IBM PC was effectively an open platform, while the modern passenger car is at best half-way such. In this race of Tesla against the proverbial Detroit, I bet on Tesla; and I put Elon's antics in the assets column rather than liabilities, with a "any PR is good PR" note.
[1] https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...
[2] and then there's the response Dropbox got early on on HN
[3] granted it's not for everybody. Just like Mercedes and BMW fans deride each others' ergonomic&stylistic choices.