[Shivetya]

The Leaf had been in development over the same period of time as the S, if not before. The difference is that Nissan was trying to hit a harder goal, selling to the everyday driver, selling a car most buyers could afford. Similar to the requirements of the Volt and other electrics.

The i3 is a special vehicle which has too many compromises to meet stupid laws in place by various governments, the worst being a requirement to qualify as an EV its range extender cannot provide more range than its batteries. The real eye opener from BMW is the i8. The i3 is more mass market than the S, its in the range of affordability of most car drivers.

The key difference in the markets between the S and the rest is, the S targeted consumers whose income levels usually results in large amounts of disposable income. Levels where having an extra car or two isn't unusual.

So, until they deliver on their 35k 200 mile range car, I am not going to go as far as you did in claims they are changing the game, they simply went for a more sure market.

[dkrich]

Agreed. I think most of Tesla's appeal comes from branding and the Elon Musk appeal and not merely from the fact that it is an electric vehicle.

As an example: had Ford released the Model S and sold the exact same volume with the same revenue and profit/loss, would they have added $3 billion of market cap with yesterday's earnings report? I for one doubt it.

So as much as people like to compare the Model S to the iPhone, I don't think the analogy fits. The Model S is not really a revolutionary vehicle in the way the iPhone was a revolutionary phone. Six years after its launch, every phone on the market looks like an iPhone. Even though the auto market has much longer sales cycles (several years for most cars) so one shouldn't expect to see an immediate market saturation, I don't think Tesla has a real sustainable advantage over other auto manufacturers the way Apple had over Dell/Samsung/Motorola because plenty of car companies in Tesla's price range already have the cool factor and the product is not different enough today to take over the market.

All that said, I love what Elon Musk is doing and plenty of companies have been built on brand alone so I'm certainly not writing off Tesla. I'm just arguing that people should check their expectations. I think the company is severely overvalued at current stock prices.

[rtpg]

>had Ford released the Model S and sold the exact same volume with the same revenue and profit/loss, would they have added $3 billion of market cap with yesterday's earnings report? I for one doubt it.

With all due respect Ford has been around a lot longer, and could produce a lot more , so could (potentially) sell a lot more. Tesla's selling those numbers because they're starting from scratch, and thus don't have the capacity to sell more.