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“The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

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Re: “The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

#151
post #37
post #8

There's something that's been bothering me about this whole thing. Not the Tesla, but the rest of the market. Is that it? Is it that easy? A guy who made his money selling a phonebook and then an online payment processor can read a few books, hire a few people out of the same industry he's disrupting and build a goddamn amazing car (electric or not)? Why can't the existing industry do this? Why all the mediocre produ…

It's pretty dumb that upstarts have such large advantages against incumbents merely because incumbents choose not to disrupt their legacies. You see the same thing in airlines. You'd think there'd be little harder than starting an airline and yet southwest, JetBlue and virgin come in and have great success.

Virgin America is certainly not having great success.

Re: “The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

#152
post #146

I can attest to this. Initially, I was extremely skeptical that the Tesla was anything great (electric cars haven't been the highlight of the automotive industry despite repeated attempts by established manufacturers). A few weeks ago, however, I had the chance to drive a family friend's Tesla and I was stunned. The Model S seems like a car from the future. Forget the fact that it's completely electric and charges vi…

> Moreover, it's every geek's dream. You can remotely control the car with a smartphone app, monitor the car's efficiency and performance via beautiful graphs, and even have presets for charging cycles. Yuck. If that's a geek dream, I'll take the nightmare. Smartphone app? Beautiful graphs? I want raw data over RS-232, csv, text/plain, not opaque layers of App Stores and flashy (unreusable) charts.

I believe the raw data can be exported as well - the graphs are just nice to be able to glance through and quickly digest

Re: “The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

#153
post #119

I just drove a Tesla Model S last weekend. Here are my perceptions, as I was SUPER curious about the car before I drove it: Pros: 1) The drive is AMAZING. The car is quiet, it accelerates amazingly, and the regenerative braking is really cool. 2) It feels like the future. The huge computer screen is cool (but distracting, you can go on the internet at anytime). 3) The ability to get software updates all the time is c…

Pretty much exactly what I was thinking. The points about charging apply to any electric vehicle, though, and that's where I have trouble seeing electric cars really taking off. The Tesla approach seems great if your only use case is up to 100 mile drives from home to somewhere else and back again the same day to a home where you can easily plug the car in (essentially the typical car commuter). That's got to be a re…

>That's got to be a reasonable market now

According to NHTS data, the mean Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) per day for Americans is 33 miles. The median is 22 miles. With numbers this low, and steadily decreasing, electric vehicles are viable for nearly all drivers. When small electric cars are comparable priced (taking into account lower cost of ownership) to their gas-burning competitors, things will really start to change.

Re: “The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

#154
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, no doubt I'm confused. But what market isn't being served that the Model S can waltz in on? It's an M5 with a linear torque curve that you can't take on long trips.

>>But what market isn't being served that the Model S can waltz in on? It's an M5 with a linear torque curve that you can't take on long trips. Yeah, except unlike an M5, it is a high-tech and environmentally friendly vehicle.

I think you might be underestimating the technological sophistication of a twin-turbo V8 that develops 550bhp at 7000rpm, in a cabin so quiet that they have to pipe artificial engine noise in -- but set that aside. The Model S doesn't do anything that an M5 can't, save charge from the mains. That's not insignificant, by any stretch, but it also seems to me less like a different class of thing than a serious, big-time but incremental improvement.

Re: “The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

#155
post #113
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few reasons come to mind. Either they are planning to do something cool, though it's not public yet, or people who have the cool / life changing ideas will go off on their own to do them. The way you keep people like Musk in companies performing is giving them a large portion of ownership of their particular endeavor, so they benefit based on how successful they are - however then they're really just becoming inves…

GM already had this, with the Chevy Volt (a very interesting concept in its own right). But the problem is, despite a highly sensible transition approach from gasoline to electric, it's still a CHEVY. It's built to Chevy construction standards, Chevy aesthetics.

It's built to Chevy construction standards, Chevy aesthetics.

Which vary greatly, I might add. The Corvette and Camaro are very nice cars. The HHR was a nice looking, if somewhat derivative car, and the SSR was pretty unique and a pretty cool ride in it's own right.

OTOH, you have the modern Malibu, which is an insult to the Malibu legacy, and all the other crappy/generic low-end stuff they are pushing out.

GM has really suffered from "brand confusion" the past few years. And even killing off a few brands (Oldsmobile, Saturn, Pontiac) didn't really help, because there's still little clear connection between any of the remaining brands and any specific positioning. Well, OK, I guess Cadillac is still the "luxury" brand. What what does Chevy represent? Performance cars (Corvette, Camaro), electric cars (Volt), entry level cars for first-time buyers (??? I don't even know what their model for that is these days), or something else?

This is probably going a bit off-topic, but when GM did the big brand re-org, I think they screwed the pooch. If they were going to kill what was supposed to be their "performance" brand (Pontiac), they should have repositioned Chevy into that role, and focused on the Corvette, Camaro and similar models. Saturn could have picked up all of the low-end, entry level stuff, and Buick would have made a fine home for generic mid-level sedans and family cars. Where electric cars fit into this is subject to debate, I suppose. I would think you could position one as either "luxury" and put in under the Cadillac brand, or "performance" and put it under the Chevy brand (in my re-imagined GM).

Anyway... sorry for rambling. I grew up a fan of GM products, Chevy in particular, and still own a 1968 Camaro, so I have some sentimental attachment to them. But GM management never seen to quit finding new and innovative ways to disappoint their loyal fans.

Re: “The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

#156
post #8

There's something that's been bothering me about this whole thing. Not the Tesla, but the rest of the market. Is that it? Is it that easy? A guy who made his money selling a phonebook and then an online payment processor can read a few books, hire a few people out of the same industry he's disrupting and build a goddamn amazing car (electric or not)? Why can't the existing industry do this? Why all the mediocre produ…

> There's a few Model S's in my area, and they're beautiful. They're also luxury (the base Model S is twice an Audi S4) and on limited runs (the yearly production of Tesla is the same as AMG . Not Mercedes, the subsidiary which takes standard Mercedes cars and refits them with custom hand-built engines ) I mean I could make the same complaint wondering why the rest of the industry can't be Ferrari (7000 cars/year[0])…

As it happens, a Tesla/Mercedes partnership for a small electric MB is in the works for limited availability in 2014:

http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/27/autos/mercedes-tesla-b-class...

Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a new electric car developed in partnership with California-based Tesla Motors (TSLA). The car is a version of Mercedes' B-class hatchback which has not, until now, been available in the United States.

This car, the 2014 Mercedes B-class Electric Drive, will be available first in the states before reaching other markets, according to Mercedes-Benz. It will go on sale early next year, first in just a few states, but will become more widely available later on.

Re: “The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question to me is why are [Apple] not doing anything half as cool as what Musk has done in the past 10 years. I don't understand: what hasn't Apple done that isn't "half as cool"? Clearly, the iPad alone is a significant product that has literally changed the computing industry.

"Cool," perhaps, but not even vaguely innovative. It doesn't change any business models, it doesn't bypass anything or make any real changes , it's just a big iPhone (or, really, an iPod Touch). It hasn't "changed the computing industry." It's introduced a new line of the same products we had before. "Let's make a bigger one" was a really great idea, but it's not really in the same league.

Last 10 years for Apple: iPhone, iPad

I would say the iPhone changed the industry. The iPad also changed the industry. A toddler might not be able to use and iPhone but they sure can use an iPad. That is a game changer not just a bigger iPhone.

If I described Tesla the way you described and iPad, I would say "another electric car with better styling".

Re: “The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

#158
post #96
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But electric cars aren't a disruptive technology. The only thing that might qualify as disruptive about Tesla is their direct to customer sales model, and I have a hard time seeing how they'll get around the entrenched interests there. The Model S is by all accounts an excellent car, and I want one, but I am bearish on Tesla the company.

Considering that electric cars were held up in Christensen's books as an example of a disruptive technology that would disrupt a major market in coming decades, they qualify. The definition of a disruptive technology is one that starts off objectively inferior but which, on projected technology trends, will meet the market need at some future date. The existing market can recognize these facts well in advance, but wh…

This is well put. People have rightly complained about imprecise use of the term "disruptive" -- this term does not mean "any company that has novel products compared to incumbents". You've used the more precise meaning of the term.

Re: “The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question to me is why are [Apple] not doing anything half as cool as what Musk has done in the past 10 years. I don't understand: what hasn't Apple done that isn't "half as cool"? Clearly, the iPad alone is a significant product that has literally changed the computing industry.

"Cool," perhaps, but not even vaguely innovative. It doesn't change any business models, it doesn't bypass anything or make any real changes , it's just a big iPhone (or, really, an iPod Touch). It hasn't "changed the computing industry." It's introduced a new line of the same products we had before. "Let's make a bigger one" was a really great idea, but it's not really in the same league.

What do you mean "hasn't changed any business models"? It has thrown Microsoft for a complete loop. Microsoft has restructured their product development to combat this erosion. Windows 8, Metro, the App Store, etc. are all direct responses to the iPad shifting people away from Redmond's desktop platform.

Re: “The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car”

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question to me is why are [Apple] not doing anything half as cool as what Musk has done in the past 10 years. I don't understand: what hasn't Apple done that isn't "half as cool"? Clearly, the iPad alone is a significant product that has literally changed the computing industry.

"Cool," perhaps, but not even vaguely innovative. It doesn't change any business models, it doesn't bypass anything or make any real changes , it's just a big iPhone (or, really, an iPod Touch). It hasn't "changed the computing industry." It's introduced a new line of the same products we had before. "Let's make a bigger one" was a really great idea, but it's not really in the same league.

> It doesn't change any business models

Tell that to all of the small businesses that have replaced their cash registers with iPads equipped with Square Register.

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