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Tesla Motors May Be Having an iPhone Moment
pacopico writes "Telsa Motors has started churning out 500 of its all electric Model S sedans per week. Bloomberg Businessweek just did a cover story about the company, suggesting that Tesla is becoming more than just a fad of rich folks in California. According to the story, 75 percent of Tesla's sales now come from outside of California, and the company appears poised to raise its sales forecasts for the year. There's a lot of talk about Tesla's history and why it survived when Fisker and Better Place failed too."
For all the whining and moaning about rich people, that seems to be how society advances often. A rich person's fad then becomes a commodity.
Yeah ... but I mean to call the Model S no longer a rich person's fad is stretching it. Their MSRPs for a 60 kWh car is $62,400. $72,400 for an 85 kWh and $87,400 for the 85 kWh with upgraded features. Is this really affordable? I thought I was living a pretty average lifestyle but I spent $6,600 on my current car ... Of course, if you're calling it the iPhone in that everyone else is buying it and I'm laughing at how much money they're spending on phones then, yes, it could be called the iPhone. Still very much a rich person's car though.
My work here is dung.
Just about every morning on my way to work, I see two of the Tesla Model S on the road. I commute between Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter, Florida. That's less than a 20-minute commute.
If you're looking for a conversation starter at the country club or marina, a BMW, Mercedes or even a Bentley isn't going to work nearly as well as a Tesla.
While $65,000 to $75,000 seems like a lot for a car (I cringe at paying half that), there are just as many cars in that price range rolling in Palm Beach County that aren't nearly as exotic or as head-turning as the Tesla. I pass dozens of $65k+ cars on the way to work and it isn't unusual to see $100k+ cars either. Those are mostly background noise because they are so common.
Cheers,
Matt
I'm sorry, I just don't care for battery cars, just like I don't care for iDevices -- perhaps the (dumb) analogy is more accurate than the author intended.
I've actually sat in a Tesla Model S at a electric vehicle show. I defy anyone to actually test drive one and claim that they "don't like battery cars". The Model S is obviously too pricey for most folks but it is an awesome car almost any way you care to measure it. It's fast, handles great, has range comparable to gas cars, looks nice, doesn't need gasoline, has a terrific interior and can even be recharged relatively quickly given the state of the art in recharge technology. Given it's range the recharge time problem is significantly mitigated. I'd buy one in a heartbeat if I had the money.
If the technology can be developed to get recharge times down to 5-10 minutes you had better start learning to like "battery cars" because that is really the only serious problem holding them back. Until we get to that point I think we're going to see a slow but steady migration through plug in hybrids. I've driven the Volt and the Ford Fusion Energi and I'm seriously considering buying one or the other. They're both genuinely good cars for reasonable prices (not cheap but competitive) and I can do much of my daily driving without needing to use gas.
"...Franz von Holzhausen, can barely contain himself as he talks about the design of the Model S. “It’s like the leap of faith Apple (AAPL) took with the iPhone,” he says, explaining why the car has a touchscreen instead of the usual physical buttons."
This is monumentally wrong. Touch screens succeed on a phone because a phone is a portable device and the touch screen is lighter and smaller. Physical controls are preferable for humans because they model the physical world to which we've adapted. In a car, you need to use the controls without taking your eyes off the road. This means location by feel is important. A touch screen can't provide that.
It seems the entire design world has this backwards, include appliance manufacturers. I hate the buttons on my oven.
I got the impression "iPhone" was used deliberately. He's making a comparison to another product where others already existed in the space, but where some company managed to package it in a way that somehow caught the imagination of non-technical users and became wildly popular.
It's as if that New York Times hit-job on the Tesla had read:
"No instant refueling. Less range than a Ford Focus. Lame."