> by making a desirable electric car, the technology they have within the car is nothing exclusive to Tesla. Other companies can build electric cars, but Tesla made the first truly desirable electric car.
This is exactly my point. Tesla didn't happen because of Musk's intelligence, or talent, or ingenuity, or genius. It happened because of Musk's drive. Before Tesla/Musk, electric cars weren't even part of the public consciousness (even though they were completely technically feasible, as you agree). It was a revolutionary idea.
First of all there were Chevy EV1s then. In fact it was Chevy cancelling the EV1 in 2003 that was part of the inspiration for Tesla's founders to found Tesla. (Musk was not yet involved).
Second there was AC Propulsion's tzero. The Tesla founders had a test drive in one before they founded Tesla and urged AC Propulsion to start manufacturing them, but AC Propulsion wanted to be a designer and licensor of electric car technology for others rather than a car maker. The Tesla founders than founded Tesla.
Musk came into the picture when he test drove a tzero, and also urged AC Propulsion to go into manufacturing. Instead AC Propulsion directed him to to Tesla where he became an investor and then chairman.
What Tesla did was become the first modern car company to go all in on electric cars that were intended for ordinary car buyers (although it first it was just luxury sports car buyers). I think they were also the first to go with lithium batteries.
> When assessing Musk's success, note that Tesla has singlehandedly pushed the entire auto industry towards electric vehicles.
No, it hasn't. First, because the long-term arc was in that direction anyway, and second because the whole industry hasn't adopted that as the short-term arc.
Tesla has single-handedly raised the near-term prominence of battery-powered all-electric vehicles, sure.
> Personally, I hope Tesla fail, and think they will.
Maybe, but you need to realize that the electric car is an obvious and timely technological development, and someone will produce a successful mass-market electric car. Why not Tesla? It's not as though they're making a lot of mistakes.
> I would consider it Tesla’s and Musk’s ultimate success if/when the whole auto industry moved away from internal combustion engine. iirc this is how musk defines his own success as well.
That sounds like a pretext to call victory when faced with an unavoidable defeat, similar to the fox and the grapes fable. The auto industry was already moving to electric cars prior to Musk.
For example, the Toyota Prius was released to the general public in 1997, having won Car of the Year in 1998. Tesla was founded in 2003.
Arguably Musk's contribution was dispelling the notion that electric vehicles were just glorified golf carts made for flimsy Europeans, and in the process marketed a Veblen good that just so happened to be an electric car.
I agree with this. But IMO Tesla and the like are different because they're tapping into something more. People are actually excited about electric cars now, and they're willing to put money toward the goal and let Musk steer his company, taking them along for the ride.
>build really good electric cars, that people choose to buy over cheaper alternatives.
From the perspective of an employee at another OEM, I’d say they already do that. They have several moats outside of autonomous gimmicks:
1) Charging network. Nobody comes close.
2) Infotainment software (combined with underlying architecture and in-house silicon). They have the best experience in the industry. Their architecture is streamlined unlike disjoint legacy OEM 15 ECU hell. The broad market doesn’t really understand how far ahead they are in terms of architecture. Any new OEM has a huge advantage of starting fresh.
3)Packaging and battery density. They have the best range. They have the best packaging (tons of trunk and frunk space), where as many other manufacturers end up with weird raised trunk floors and no frunks in their competitor products that also somehow get worse range.
So yeah, I think Musk definitely undersells their lead in these areas. With no redesigns of the main models yet, they really could have focused a lot of effort on improving quality, interior materials, etc, but they instead poured money into the quagmire of autonomy.
> Tesla has done an amazing thing by showing that electric cars can match ICE ones and even be better than them in several regards.
What? I've been following the market and Tesla has not brought no new innovation in any aspect of the car (engine, battery technology etc). They've just hired some great designers and invested a lot in marketing. You can't even say that their cars are competitively priced. I've seen way more innovation from Chinese electric car builders.
Also, wrt to software, Teslas are basically hacked together, according to multiple reports and analyses, teardowns.
This is a pretty absurd idea. The Tesla Model S, the Nissan Leaf, and the Renault Z-E platform (initially with a pretty unsuccessful car built on it; the successful Renault Zoe came the year after) all came out within a year of each other. The VW e-Golf came out the year after. You can thank progress in lithium ion batteries hitting a tipping point, not Musk, coupled with government incentives (California, the EU, and China were all pretty much saying to manufacturers "make this, and we will subsidise it").
I can see why people might think this, particularly Americans, because the Tesla Model 3 was arguably the first mainstream/affordable electric car _in America_ (the Leaf and similar vehicles never really caught on there; they're too far outside market preferences), but the idea that Tesla in some way made electric cars possible is simply nonsense.
> The Tesla broke usual electric car strategy by making something hot not utterly lame and stodgy[1]. Which is what all electric cars were until then. The economics of that actually worked.
Tesla did a great job at making EV cool, there's no question about it.
BUT, economics of that are still TBD. They still fail to achieve any sustainable profit as a business, few years after their mass market vehicle debuted, and have to keep on raising money, on very unfavorable terms.
> Tesla dragged the rest of the auto industry, kicking and screaming, into the EV business.
I would say that the advance in battery technology, the laws introduced by state of California and north european countries did more than Tesla ever did.
Also the Renault Zoe, still top selling EV cars in europe, had her first concept car showed in 2005 and was on sale only 5 months after the Model S in 2012. The Leaf also predates the Model S.The 1st generation Tesla Roadster sold poorly like most other contemporary EVs and most of the sales happened in her last year in 2012. It was as niche as all other EVs in the market in its first 3 years of commercial life. The Mitsubishi i-Miev and its Citroën and Peugeot variant outsold the Tesla Roadster by more than a factor of 10. Almost 30000 cars between 2008 and 2014.
What Tesla achieved was showing the wealthy people they could greenwash their way to the same energy wasting life by going EV. A good publicity stunt.
> The American automotive industry moved ridiculously slowly towards electric and alternative fuel vehicles
Tesla is American; this perhaps isn't the best choice of words.
> ultimately is only doing so to sell units on what they perceive as a new niche.
I don't think I'm cynical to believe that every corporation (including Tesla, etc.) that intends on making profits is trying to sell units in a popular niche.
> it's going to be the one committing to the broad goals of bettering humanity, not just capitalizing on someone else proving the existence of a market.
Fair enough, but for me it comes down to supporting the product that best fits my needs and desires, which I think on a societal level can do a better job of solving the most immediate problems. I would strongly consider any vehicle that fits what I'm looking for when I next shop for a car.
>Tesla is not a car company. It is much much more than that.
What are they doing that makes them so much more? Are they really that different than Toyota,GM,Ford,VW? I'm sure they have some differences but at the end of the day there is no wide moat that any of these other manufacturers can't cross.
They all make vehicles and Tesla certainly got a jump on the others with EV's. With that said, I hope they keep innovating and are super successful and drag the rest of the Industry forward.
> 4. other car makers trail behind Tesla more and more in terms of technology. Remember, all these car makers had DECADES of head start developing EVs before Tesla was even born. Tesla was supposed to trail them in tech, not the other way around.
> It's easy to assume that because a company is bigger, and have more resources and manufacturing experience, that they can move fast in developing tech. It's easy to judge a book by it's cover. Incumbents move slow ALWAYS. If moving fast was so easy, they would of done it before Tesla was born.
This isn't silicon valley. There is years of design and manufacturing experience that Tesla simply does not have. This isn't a software project where someone in a garage can make it and scale it. Tesla can build luxury cars because budget constraints are significantly less. Now they're struggling with the constraints like everyone else.
Other car makers are just as competitive now. The reality is the Chevy Bolt is a great start and will only be improved upon. Elon Musk has no monopoly on technology. There are competitors in almost every sector. Many great engineers are elsewhere.
And the reality is - most people don't care about EV right now. Sedans are struggling mightily. Americans are buying SUVs and crossovers right now. General car manufacturers are able to easily switch production when the market shifts. Tesla can't even make a budget friendly car. Their model 3 will be out of most of the market's price range. Meanwhile GM can still make a Sonic and Cruze or a pickup truck.
> Right now, solar panels are considered a "toy". It's not even on any of the car makers' radar. It's like how Tesla's first Roadster cars were not on any of the car maker's radars 5 years ago. It's a "toy" until one day, it becomes a reality, and you tout your ability to "catch up" with your "vast experience" 5 years from now, folks like you will write another article, about how GM will be able to produce solar panels to "catch up to Tesla in just one or 2 years"
Gee why didn't GM buy FirstEnergy or Duke Energy! They're so behind in the energy industry...This argument isn't even worth debating. GM is not a power company. They do not want to be.
That is solely and utterly because of Tesla. The reason for the demand was to build electric cars which Tesla and only Tesla, building butt load of BEVs required. Everybody else before Tesla showed up was either making hybrids with minuscule capacity requirement or low range BEVs in low volumes.
> There are also a lot of small-time car manufacturers, with quite a few specializing on electric vehicles even.
Again, all because or Tesla. They are all riding on Tesla’s success. Why do you think Rivian IPO was greater than century old car makers marker cap making multi million number of vehicles a year where Rivian made none?!! Tesla.
> there would most likely be another company filling this space right now
That is a pointless statement you can say about anyone at any time in history which is to say nothing. You can’t go back in time and let this play out by someone else. Elon is the one who did all this and we’re stuck with this history.
> There was not real innovation for ages, as auto companies only did minimum to keep their profits.
I wouldn't say that. ICE has improved a lot in the last 50 years and so have other elements of a car, from structural integrity to braking systems. The ICE car we have today is an amazing machine compared to the ones we drove in the 50s or 60s.
It is true that traditional car companies have not done enough to push the electric car forward but a lot of innovation has happened, and some of it will benefit electric cars directly (regenerative braking, for example).
I'm with you, though. I hope Tesla comes out of this as a powerful car company because they deserve to be an example for the rest of the industry.
What real innovations has Tesla brought to the market? And I mean real innovations which benefit the consumer, not stuff like electrification that is something that needs to be done for the sake of ìstopping climate change'.
Driving a Tesla is essentially the same experience as driving a 1996 Mercedes, actually the Mercedes interior are higher quality.
This is exactly my point. Tesla didn't happen because of Musk's intelligence, or talent, or ingenuity, or genius. It happened because of Musk's drive. Before Tesla/Musk, electric cars weren't even part of the public consciousness (even though they were completely technically feasible, as you agree). It was a revolutionary idea.
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